Solutions always breed more problems. The trick is to have a solution that, on balance, solves a more costly problem than it creates. These doors do not feel like they solve any customer problems (I have never needed an electronic UI to see through glass) and instead give birth to a huge maintenance burden that the retailer will not be willing to meet.
Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
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Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#92A boring dystopia indeed. One day someone will be hunched over on a sidewalk, dying of thirst, and a patrolling Nestle®-branded drone senses (using state-of-the-art machine learning "customer needs" technology) his predicament. The drone hovers there projecting a holo-ad about Nestles hot product "Nectar of Life" which is just water from the region's last remaining aquifer cut with brackish water from the coast. The…
Misplaced ad spend, he’s not the target market. Needs more ML to tune the model, which it’ll get by A/B testing further destitute cohorts.
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Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#93I thought the idea was that these would allow more insulation in the doors than glass, and that the energy use from the screen was less than the energy saved from cooling losses (but what is the payback from the manufacturing, shipping, install, recycling, repair etc?). I'm skeptical, but it is conceivably possible that it works out if the screens are very efficient, using off the shelf parts. Maybe.
Energy losses will be through the roof! To see what's actually behind half those doors, you have to open each one up instead of keeping the door closed and looking through it. Even when it's in "display the products" mode, are you really going to trust that it has the correct inventory configured when you're looking for your favorite beverage and can't find it? No, you're going to go down the aisle opening every single door to check for yourself.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Edit: What bothers me the most about this, is that it will actually work. Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad. Until someone finds out every screen has the same default password. And a few supermarkets are forced to shut them down because what was displayed was way, way worse than ads...
Not looking forward to goatse when I get a hankering for microwave pizza.
Now, everyone suddenly knowing what the hell is goatse... I think this sounds comparable to how everyone (less) suddenly learned what the hell is Uber.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#95They have these in my local Walgreens and I hate them. I think the drink coolers were stocked for maybe a week after they were installed. Since then it’s been 50/50 if the product the screen is showing is actually behind the door. I don’t think the store employees are able to keep on top of stocking without being able to see what’s in the case.
You've got to put on your homo economicus hat and think outside the box of social norms and common decency. The solution is to find something that's the right size to prop the doors open. Then prop the door of each section that you're comparing, so that you can see products and ponder each one. After you pick something out, pay it forward by leaving the doors propped so the next person has an easier time. For full credit, make sure to wear a mask to defeat the facial recognition cameras.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a rough estimate, what percent of US economic activity is large piles of money being tossed into a flaming dumpster for the sake of someone's ego? Because every year it seems higher.
Well you can take the entire cosmetics and fashion industry for the total for one. Serving human agency includes shallow and bad ones too.
At least those are selling to actual customers. Many big corporate projects seem to be pointless pyramid building for some middle manager’s ego.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#97I do not blame cooler screen for selling this technology to anyone. But I want everyone to consider how much it takes to bring about a technology like this to a grocery store. If this is any of the big chain groceries, the manager doesn't even have the authority to put a sticker on the glass door. This was vetted by hundreds of people and none of them thought... glass? Business class tickets were purchased, hotels we…
It's an ad platform plain and simple; that's the whole value proposition. So I imagine every pitch, every meeting was about that. And every store that uses it will be doing it to get a cut of the ad revenue. It's true that it's lousy at being glass, but that's like saying smallpox blankets were a lousy way to make friends with Native Americans. The shittiness of it, in other words, was the goal all along, and any res…
Except that moving inventory, and to a lesser extent generating repeat business, is more critical than ancillary ad revenue. If The screens don’t work or the ads aren’t effective, and I don’t open the door to get those high-margin also-bought drinks than they definitely do not achieve the store’s goal.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#98They have these in my local Walgreens and I hate them. I think the drink coolers were stocked for maybe a week after they were installed. Since then it’s been 50/50 if the product the screen is showing is actually behind the door. I don’t think the store employees are able to keep on top of stocking without being able to see what’s in the case.
There's an angle that the company making these didn't think of. That's exactly the kind of critical use case you miss when you don't do enough testing.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#99How is this any better than looking at the real product on the shelves? I mean, why did the shop want to pay for it?
Maybe it saves electricity for the refrigerator because people open the door more infrequently?
From one of the tweets:
> Turns out that Monster energy drinks are found in the "no content" door.
So how did he find it? Obviously he went down the line of doors opening each one until he found it. If the doors were glass, he could have looked through each door instead of opening each.
Re: Sorry, we replaced that old technology, “see-through glass”
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Large panels like this emit heat. Any wins from better insulation are going to be offset by needing to keep the panel’s heat well away from the refrigerated contents. Triple-paned glass insulates pretty well and for a fraction of the cost…
Triple pane glass with an e of .24 is still worse than 1.5" of polyiso foam. Glass is just not very good, even energy efficient glass is quite a bit worse than even basic insulation.
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