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Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

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Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#641

Post by bombcar »

blokey wrote: post #598
swores wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in the UK this is the default behaviour from Deliveroo, standard delivery does cost money but might get your driver/biker go to multiple other houses on their way to you, or pay extra to get it direct. It made me stop using them, as there's no way to guess whether the normal option will bring the food fresh or not, and paying the premium each time made it feel too expensive.

Also paying the extra premium (whether Deliveroo, Just Eat or Uber Eats) for first delivery is kinda pointless (at least here in the South West) as the drivers seem to be delivering for all the apps at the same time, so your delivery takes 35 mins for the 10 min premium delivery and sometimes they even turn off GPS after they've picked it up if they're delivering for another app first. So expensive for a frustrating…

I think that's the real difference under all this - Dominos employs drivers (and they get paid by tips, sure there are issues) but it's all one thing. If they deliver a cold pizza it's on them.

All the delivery app companies are NOT making the food so the blame game starts AND they are not employees so a bunch of gaming is going on.

I know my one experience with Uber eats is such that I'll never use it again, and instead travel myself.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#642

Post by h0l0cube »

skhunted wrote: post #621
h0l0cube wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, really? I was certain that the aftermath of WWII was responsible for establishing a form of global governance (by consensus) via the UN, and then there’s the benefits of free trade agreements that drove economic globalization.

The free trade agreements came after the environmental movements. Claiming environmental movements caused this is too strong a claim. But it is not entirely a coincidence that one followed the other.

Specifically what movements and when? It’s a strange claim that globalization was caused (or even accelerated) by environmental movements. Certainly the UN came before the environmental movements of the 60s/70s. The World Bank and IMF were also established soon after the conclusion of WWII. The wiki article for globalization makes just a couple of off hand mentions of environmental issues. I’ve only ever heard of globalization in an economic context, and I think by convention this is the lens most people view it by

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#643

Post by CharlieDigital »

ssl-3 wrote: post #287
CharlieDigital wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have the same at my local Wegman's but there's really no incentive to use it. I'm not any faster than the cashier so there's no time savings. And it has several problems as well with respect to loss (e.g. adding more items to the bag). To deal with that, you'd have to weigh it or count again to verify.

The advantage comes during shopping trips when one is not planning to use a cashier to check out, wherein: You're going to have the weigh the produce yourself, anyway, so you might as well get that done in advance.

    > so you might as well get that done in advance
There's really no time savings to be had for the individual is there? Both interfaces require you to punch in a product code and weigh the produce.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#644

Post by astura »

hoveringhen wrote: post #632
astura wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a tl;dw? That's an hour long video.

Due to heavy regulations on the shipbreaking industry in Western countries, > 50% of ships worldwide are (or were, when the documentary was made) dismantled in Alang, India. The industry is extremely polluting (to the environment and the workers) and the working conditions (incl. safety) are dire to put it nicely.

Thank you, appreciate it.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#645

Post by margalabargala »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #590
margalabargala wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that speed is not the only thing necessary. You need speed, and trust. A cashier-less, grab and go store that works as advertised would be hugely convenient and valuable. But where we are now, people don't think it works, so they double check and get nervous. And that goes doubly for Amazon. Amazon doesn't care about doing things right. They've shown that over and over via their (lack of) protections aga…

> But where we are now, people don't think it works, so they double check and get nervous. Who does this? This wasn't in the article, do you mean yourself or did you read that somewhere else? I wouldn't get nervous about it. > Ask anyone in the eastern US, would you trust getting your eclipse glasses on Amazon? That's a real issue but it's an entirely different concept. I expect them to handle charging for the eclips…

> Who does this? This wasn't in the article, do you mean yourself or did you read that somewhere else? I wouldn't get nervous about it.

Sorry, I thought this was more common knowledge; I guess not.

It was sufficiently widespread that SNL did a skit/ad based on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS9U3Gc832Y

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#646

Post by yourusername »

cammikebrown wrote: post #528
WalterBright wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The local Starbucks over the years has had many turnovers in the staff. It usually takes about 3 days for a new worker to learn the job. That makes it unskilled labor. Skilled labor is something like welding, where it can take a year to get good at it. Or things that require calculus, which take 4 years of specialized training to even get an entry job at it. Or flying an airplane - you can't just flip through the ins…

How could you possibly know that it takes “3 days” to get good at being a barista? You should try it out sometime, with a 50 person line. I’m sure it’ll be a cake walk and your labor will be fairly compensated. I’ll even give you a 3 day head start just to be fair!

You can do the basic job after 3 days and after a month rush hour won't be a problem either. I've done similar jobs, the skill cap is not that high. My labour won't be fairly compensated which is why i don't do jobs like that anymore, but they're not hard to learn.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#648

Post by tivert »

mrangle wrote: post #439
Johnny555 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of services would be phenomenal when you can offload much of the cost to run them to cheap offshore labor. Remember how great Uber and Doordash were when much of the cost of operating was offset by underpaid workers and VC funds? Now that they don't have unlimited piles of money and cities/states are making them pay more fair wages, the cost-benefit of those services has diminished. I was ok paying $5 for $20 of…

"Underpaid" and "fair" is a modern political myth, except in the instances when there is a concerted effort to undermine the semi-natural labor market. Pay will never be enough, as a point of fact. It will always be "underpaid" and "unfair" in discussion. As this is an immortal pressure and negotiating tactic. It is incentivized, and therefore we will get more of it. That works both ways, but at some point there has…

> "Underpaid" and "fair" is a modern political myth, except in the instances when there is a concerted effort to undermine the semi-natural labor market.

No, and I'm guessing you're just under the spell of market fundamentalism. An unfair wage is something like when the worker either

1. can't achieve a socially-acceptable living standard with the job,

2. when there's too-great of a mismatch between the labor-theory-of-value price and the market-theory-of-value price for their labor, or

3. or when the wage is below the actual the market price.

I made those up on the spot, so there may be some holes, bit it gets the gist.

> Pay will never be enough, as a point of fact.

Being underpaid is different than "wants more money."

> It will always be "underpaid" and "unfair" in discussion.

No. I'd never talk about a fortune 500 CEO or a FAANG engineer as being underpaid.

> Yet the same people who demand that everyone earn a living wage, sometimes punctuating their points with riots, tend to be the same crowd who wants to import unskilled workers by the millions.

I see what you're saying, but the real world is a lot more morally complicated that the single-axis world where your comment here makes sense.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#649

Post by red-iron-pine »

jfoster wrote: post #474
ryukoposting wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my point of view, Uber and DD were always going to head in that direction because by any objective measure, they are worse than the solution that already existed. The introduction of a middleman created new costs for drivers, customers, and restaurants alike, yet it's actually worse at delivering food than the conventional "drivers work for the restaurant" model. Sure, you get one website where you can see all t…

It's true that delivery services add a middle-man, but you don't seem to be considering that they add a lot of value in some important ways: 1. The single website/app is not just useful for discovery, but also to provide a consistent ordering experience. An individual restaurant might take orders over the phone, via their website, or via their own app. Those options will vary from one restaurant to the next. Not grea…

> 1. The single website/app is not just useful for discovery, but also to provide a consistent ordering experience. An individual restaurant might take orders over the phone, via their website, or via their own app. Those options will vary from one restaurant to the next. Not great for customers.

Aye. Arguably this is why old-school streaming Netflix won so well -- all of your options in one place. Likewise, there is one app for all food choices nearby.

Also agree on the second point, though presumably larger chains in built up areas could play the same game; e.g. Domino's in a borough of NYC has an "all-drivers-in-Queens" pool.

Re: Amazon ditches 'just walk out' checkouts at its grocery stores

#650

Post by chrash »

LudwigNagasena wrote: post #624
chrash wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right, that's how it starts. but the improvements in methodology simply aren't there as the ML sector has been laser focused on generality in modeling (GenAI as it's affectionately known). "at scale" doesn't just mean more stores; it means more products and thus more annotation. how many UPCs do you figure there are in a given Target or Whole Foods? i assure you it's in the millions. one advantages of the Amazon Go i…

GenAI means Generative AI, not General AI.

right i was kinda being cheeky about how large models are all called GenAI by product/business types heh
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