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Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

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Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#811

Post by taway_1212 »

wand3r wrote: post #636
m-j-fox wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding, right? Programmers are decently paid but should strike for a 40-hour work week.

The 40 hour work week is arbitrary. It was made for railroad workers who had high workplace accident rates and worked 6-7 days a week. Many died because pre-implementation they worked at night w/o sufficient electric lighting as it was not widespread yet. After the war; WWI iirc, the framework was applied to other industries. So if you don't want to work 40 hours, don't. I have much less sympathy for a software engin…

Well I don't work 40 hours a week, however sadly that's how long I'm expected to be in the office.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#812

Post by ranman »

tuna-piano wrote: post #222
cercatrova wrote: post #202

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA2-iMz479o I watched this video a while ago about what Amazon Go is a precursor for. In summary, if AWS is renting out server infrastructure for people, then you can imagine that Amazon can make the infrastructure to lease out Amazon Go to other stores. They first integrate it with Whole Foods, then as customers expect no more checkout areas, they will only go to Whole Foods because i…

Counterpoint... is Amazon Go really that difficult to build? If given three years, do you not think a different software company can build a similar system as well? Is this type of system really a winner-take-all market?

I work for AWS but no relation to the go store, opinions are my own: but I'd argue it's non trivial to build this system. I don't think you could automate an entire store without a few million in funding and a couple of people. It's not a solo project and it's not a cheap one. Like self driving you can get to 95% really fast with relatively little effort. To go from 95% to 99.99%? That's where you spend your 3 years.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#813

Post by martinald »

rmoriz wrote: post #804
rubidium wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for the majority of middle class people like somewhere in between. They can't afford premium, but want a little more assistance than ALDI. Basically, there's three market segments, not two.

I doubt there will be a segment in between in the future. In Germany even millionaire households shop at Lidl or ALDI because nobody needs 50 types of ketchup or milk. People don't like wasting lifetime when shopping and don't like to select one type of milk out of 20 different types in a wide price range that almost taste like the same. There is no USP for many different products except for their label/branding/imag…

Yes, I agree. In the UK they had a bad reputation at first for being low end. Now a lot of the middle classes shop at the stores, the parking lot is often full of Audi's and other high end cars.

The quality of the food in general is very good, often better than the competitors, plus it's cheaper.

Keep in mind Aldi/Lidl have went from 0% marketshare in the UK to >12% in about 20 years - very impressive growth.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#814

Post by delazeur »

npunt wrote: post #621
naravara wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prussia was also a highly militaristic state, so it had the side benefit of keeping the young men fit and hearty enough to get conscripted for the next time they needed to bloody France's nose. It would also have the young women fit enough to bear many much young men that they could conscript into future wars. The logic of trench warfare era militarism is even more depressing than the normal logic of war. It's mind-b…

Very good points. To be a bit pedantic (this is HN after all), trench warfare didn't start until after Bismarck. Truly depressing logic though.

No, trench warfare predated Bismarck, although it didn't peak until after he died. Vicksburg and Petersburg are good examples from the U.S. Civil War.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#815

Post by delazeur »

Retra wrote: post #762
sqeaky wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It wouldn't scale up" is common conservative response to progressive or liberal comparisons that involve suggestions of doing it (anything) some other way. So while the EU plugs away making incremental improvements each year we keep jumping around in fits and spurts forward and backward. There is still a strong belief of American Exceptionalism even in fields where we are clearly inferior. Look at Healthcare Europe…

Well, there could be legitimate reason that it couldn't scale up, but... "necessity is the mother of invention" and I don't feel it should be left at that. (Particularly on HN, where people seem to take inordinate pride in their ability to find ways of scaling things up.)

Right. If someone is going to make that argument, they should be expected to at least explain why something won't scale up.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#816

Post by dilemma »

panarky wrote: post #567
rmc wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the 1880s Bismarck increased the modern welfare state (it was called State Socialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Socialism_(Germany) ). The idea was that, if the poor people can get some form of social welfare from the existing state, they're less likely to support a proper socialist/communist revolution. Sounds like that. People won't unionise when they don't think they need to.

This is a great discussion of company culture, treatment of employees, worker cooperatives, etc., but I hoped HN would go deeper into the business and technology implications. What is the strategic logic behind this move? NYT, WaPo, WSJ, Bloomberg all take the same line: this is about Amazon's expansion into brick-and-mortar retail. They need a physical footprint, knock out Instacart for delivery, accelerate Amazon G…

I don't think anyone thought that Amazon would rebrand the stores. I think what you wrote is the obvious thing to most observers.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#817

Post by delazeur »

fivestar wrote: post #406
irfanka wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly the reason why there aren't any Software Developer Unions these days.

Intelligent people capable of negotiating their pay in a market such as that for software development would only be encumbered by unions. Are there warts? Sure there are. Nothing is perfect.

Oh, come on. It has not been that long since we found out that major tech companies were colluding to suppress SWE salaries. Have you already forgotten?

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#818

Post by delazeur »

wooter wrote: post #401
m-j-fox wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're kidding, right? Programmers are decently paid but should strike for a 40-hour work week.

no thanks. look at what collective/forced/politicized bickering over hours has done to the job market everywhere its been tried. look at the corruption. i enjoy my freedom to negotiate my terms as I, as an individual, and my employer see fit.

You are never going to be able to negotiate for yourself on an equal footing with a corporation, but unions can achieve a close approximation.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#819

Post by taway_1212 »

jacobsenscott wrote: post #520
deong wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived and worked in Iceland for five years, and they have a virtually 100% unionization rate. It's handled at the industry level rather than individual companies, but when you start a job, you are pretty much automatically enrolled in the union relevant for your work. A little money comes out of your paycheck, and the union is there in case you have problems. The unions also provide other benefits. For example, mos…

The population of the US is 100x more than Iceland. There are a lot of well run small cities in the US. Iceland's policies would never scale up.

> The population of the US is 100x more than Iceland.

Actually, it's 1000x.

Re: Amazon to Acquire Whole Foods for $13.7B

#820

Post by HillaryBriss »

trophycase wrote: post #748
Robotbeat wrote: post #395

I'm from the Twin Cities in Minnesota which has tons of co-op grocery stores. They're successful and growing with cheaper prices than Whole Foods and much more progressive values (as well as giving regular folk an ownership stake in a crucial community institution). Whole Foods seemed to me to be just a poor copy of cooperative grocers. I'm surprised no one else has mentioned that in the comments here. I'm not sheddi…

Seward Co-op is literally my standard for grocery store. I always laugh at stuff like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's because, like you said, they are sham-progressive in every sense IMO.

interesting. i never thought of Trader Joes as progressive. do they try to market themselves that way?
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