Amazon Go • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon Go

#821

Post by throwaway98238 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

throwaway98237 wrote: post #768

crazypyro wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trying to save jobs that are no longer the most efficient way of solving a problem is not the way to promote the value of humanity, in my opinion. People want groceries as cheap and fast as possible. They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction and forcing the majority of people to pay extra for something that only the minority get value out of is not a competitive strategy. If humanity were to take your…

"They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction..." False. Sometime I go to the grocery store for social interaction. You know, to get out. I generally go to a particular wine shop cause I like chatting with the guy at the counter. The idea that we do all this "stuff" ("processes") to get "stuff" done, and then separately we go somewhere for the express and sole purpose of socializing, is just clearly wron…

Since you're posting anecdotal evidence, let me post my own:

> We socialize at the grocery store.

I never go to the grocery store for socializing. When I was still in England, I constantly ordered online. Now it's a chore and I miss england.

> We socialize while at the barber shop.

I shave my head to avoid having to go to the barber shop.

> We socialize at work.

I work remotely to avoid having to deal with that.

> At church.

Not religious. Probably because I'd have to go to church if I were.

> At football or soccer games.

I play tennis just so I don't have to deal with a team.

I can't wait for this technology to make its way here. The grocery lines on saturdays are insane. Also maybe that means the shops will be open longer hours and I can go in the middle of the night so I can avoid meeting people even more.

Re: Amazon Go

#822

Post by politician » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:02 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #741

dkarapetyan wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your view is unpopular. Plenty of people here would agree with you but it's an overly romantic view of the world. The problem isn't that Amazon is doing this and that this will drive out those mom&pop shops. The problem is that people will choose to go to Amazon and willingly destroy the mom&pop shops. The consumers are more culpable for the destruction of those mom&pop shops than Amazon. By placing the…

No, economic forces are not completely in our control, not in any meaningful sense of control. The whole human agency thing is IMO mostly bullshit; faced with a modern economy, we have very little agency. Free will is a cool concept, but drop the prices in your store by 10% and everyone will come to you instead of your competitor - that's how trivial people as a group are to control. And companies are all about explo…

Advertising is amazing to behold. You slap together some low quality ad unit, dial in your target audience on Facebook, throw a couple hundred K into the coffers... and then watch the machine crank out LPVs and conversions.

The upfront effort needed to steer consumer behavior is shockingly minimal.

Re: Amazon Go

#823

Post by stcredzero » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #674

stcredzero wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Barcelona and I have at least 5 medium-sized supermarkets within 5 minutes walking distance from my home. Plus there are several smaller shops that sell fruits and vegetables. I know all the people who work in these supermarkets. The significant bit is that the walk-ability indicated in the 1st sentence enables the community indicated in the last sentence. I know there was one neighborhood in Cincinnati in…

I don't think this has anything to do with cars. I live in Seattle. Many neighborhoods are very walkable. I can and do walk to grocery stores all the time. No, I don't know the cashiers personally. I also have to wait in long lines quite often. When I lived in New York, one of the most walkable cities on Earth, it was even worse: long lines and anonymous, interchangeable cashiers. I grew up in a small town where ever…

I grew up in a small town where everyone drove to the grocery store, and that's the only time in my life where people knew their cashiers and genuinely cared about their lives.

Effectively, you still lived in a village. One neighborhood in Cincinnati functioned like a village for me in the early 2000's.Many neighborhoods in Barcelona function that way.

When I lived in New York, one of the most walkable cities on Earth, it was even worse: long lines and anonymous, interchangeable cashiers.

I'm not, as you imagine, touting walk-ability as a panacea. My point is that it's the societal structure that gives the humanity perceived by the Barcelonan commenter, not the checkout jobs per se.

Re: Amazon Go

#824

Post by btilly » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:03 PM UTC

gniv wrote: post #638

btilly wrote: post #597

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When supermarkets came into existence a century ago, people were used to neighborhood grocers. You'd walk in, tell the grocer what items you wanted, the grocer would go back, get your bread, eggs, whatever, bring it up, and then ring you up. These people had worked hard, were well known in their towns, and were generally respected. There was therefore a lot of resistance to self-supermarkets. Where people had to go a…

And yet we are willing to pay 2x for food from farmers markets, artisans etc. That food was made with processes that go against technological progress. Why not apply the same thinking to selling the food in stores? The cashiers can provide added value (socializing, helping with selection, etc) that we are willing to pay for.

Who is "we"?

SOME of us are willing to pay 2x. Some aren't. We all get to choose what it is that we want.

Choice is good. :-)

Re: Amazon Go

#825

Post by spuz » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

patrickg wrote: post #809

spuz wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the privacy implications for a shopper at Amazon Go are the same as a shopper who shops at Tesco with a credit card. The company can use your credit card to track exactly what you buy already and many people seem to be happy with that (even going so far as to sign up for loyalty cards).

But it should be possible to a) use a prepaid credit card or b) pay with good old cash. That way it is still possible to buy without getting tracked (while all the others that don't care use the loyalty card).

I agree it should be possible but unfortunately the technology doesn't allow it. In this case I would give the analogy of online vs offline shopping. Ideally we would be able to buy goods on amazon.com with cash (or perhaps bitcoin) but the technology doesn't make this feasible.

Re: Amazon Go

#826

Post by zanny » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

dap wrote: post #515

Ph0X wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't that we save 2 minutes, it's that there's now 10 less job we need. And that may seem as a negative at first, but the idea is that as more and more job get automated, prices should go down until the point where people will not have to work full weeks anymore, or rather, focus on learning and reaching higher education, rather than doing dummy work all day (aka just scanning items non stop for 8 hours).

The claim that increased automation will enable people not to work is often cited as a defense of putting people out of work in favor of automation. This relies heavily on a number of assumptions that I think are empirically completely untested: - that automating all jobs will cause all prices to go down. (It seems just as plausible that if everything were automated, then the relatively small class of people who work…

It does enable people not to work in an agnostic view of wealth distribution. Automation means both less labor and more production, which means a net increase in total wealth.

The problem is assuming that total wealth means anything for anyone but the capitalist class that owns said wealth.

Re: Amazon Go

#827

Post by rtkwe » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

hackermailman wrote: post #540

excalibur wrote: post #91

What happens when you don't have enough money available to Amazon to cover all the things you grabbed? Do they give you a window to return items before banning you from the store and/or notifying police?

What happens if somebody compromises Amazon accounts by the hundreds and hires a shoplifting crew to clean out that store everyday, selling the goods for 1/2 price on the black market. Retail organized theft is already a major problem here and this is with stores that have F/T security. There is no shortage of drug addicts willing to jack items for $0.10 per $1 retail value, the goods are then exported and sold in Ch…

There's a couple things to prevent this, some really simple and effective. If you've visited the store before they'll have a lot of pictures of your face to compare anyone checking in with your account with. An additional security check when a new phone is added to Amazon Go. Also when an amazon account is used with Go it'll also include a lot of information about the phone it's being used with so our hypothetical group would have to be able to get a large number of anonymous phones or any half decent fraud detection setup would recognize those phones since most other phones will be associated with a single account ever.

Re: Amazon Go

#828

Post by anonbanker » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:05 PM UTC

LyndsySimon wrote: post #787

anonbanker wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Added evidence to the link you scrutinized, but don't let that get in the way of a good rant. Here's the evidence, because I'm sure you'll have difficulty scrolling up: https://ilsr.org/walmart-charged-predatory-pricing/ I look forward to the creative way you will dismiss this as well.

The comment chain is too deep, so I'll reply here. > You claim it's a personal attack, and then you do exactly what I said you would; take the evidence, and do your best to dismiss it. I claimed your specific statements were personal attacks, because they were. > My favorite part of your post is how you acknowledge that you knew about court cases related to predatory pricing (Arkansas Supreme Court), while simultaneo…

So, now you divulge that your spouse's family has ties of dependency to Wal-Mart (what kind of retirement plan does Wal-Mart give after 30 years?).

And you admit that Wal-mart as a topic is something that held your interest for years, so you're not exactly unbiased when you're asking for evidence, which explains why you were so quick to discount all evidence provided with such hand-wavey statements as "it was settled out of court without admission of fault", as if that meant something.

And despite your own personal injuries caused by their policies, you like the company enough to not bother with financial recompensation you are entitled to.

Keep pretending that your "debunking" posts didn't lead to the burning of my karma, and people downvoting my posting history. I'm now curious about how far it can go!

Re: Amazon Go

#829

Post by throwaway98237 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

throwaway98238 wrote: post #821

throwaway98237 wrote: post #768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They don't go to the grocery store for social interaction..." False. Sometime I go to the grocery store for social interaction. You know, to get out. I generally go to a particular wine shop cause I like chatting with the guy at the counter. The idea that we do all this "stuff" ("processes") to get "stuff" done, and then separately we go somewhere for the express and sole purpose of socializing, is just clearly wron…

Since you're posting anecdotal evidence, let me post my own: > We socialize at the grocery store. I never go to the grocery store for socializing. When I was still in England, I constantly ordered online. Now it's a chore and I miss england. > We socialize while at the barber shop. I shave my head to avoid having to go to the barber shop. > We socialize at work. I work remotely to avoid having to deal with that. > At…

But you come to HN and read the comments because... I mean, the comments are the social portion. Not pure facts. They're other peoples views. So, I mean, you kinda socialize when get your news here and post pleasant comments interacting with other readers. So, I take it, you totally get what I'm saying.

Re: Amazon Go

#830

Post by VLM » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 8:07 PM UTC

viktorelofsson wrote: post #8

acomar wrote: post #4

I wonder how they plan to deal with fraud... some kind of check-in process instead?

> With our Just Walk Out Shopping experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go! No lines, no checkout. (No, seriously.) Yes, seems like you check-in with an app.

It should be easy to MITM victims of powned phones unless they pay extremely close care to ping times or RTT in general.

All I have to do is pown someone's phone and use an app on my phone to make my phone look like its their phone, regardless of where they actually are. I can't imagine the facial recognition would be that good.

Its a simple extension of physically stealing phones or cloning like people did in the 80s/90s on analog AMPS. cloning is interesting to think about, steal their amazon auth info, remotely brick their phone for good luck, walk in with a burner phone claiming to be their new phone, its all good.