First they killed Bookstores, then they killed books, then they killed other brick and mortar stores, then they eliminated the need to leave your home for food. Now they are coming out with a Grocery Chain.
Amazon is starting to test a new service that eliminates the checkout line in Grocery stores. You come in with a smart phone, tap the scanner to tell when you enter the store, you pick up your prepackaged groceries, it adds the items to your virtual cart, then when you leave the store it charges you for the items that you didn't put back. All without a cashier.
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But if they never heard of it then it is brand new!
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
We are not talking about self checkouts, we are talking about zero checkouts.
walk in, grab it, walk out.
Now a lot of people have spend a great deal of mental effort into finding reasons why this will not work but almost all of it assumes Amazon is the only company that has access to camera technology. The reality is, any company can do what Amazon is doing.
So the ground breaking aspect is not so much Amazon specifically but rather the underlining technology and cost effectiveness of that technology that many other companies (like Walmart) can replicate.
the largest take away for me on this news story as well as the first drone delivery that was made a few months ago, driverless cars and somethign that is called 'lights out manufacturing' is that society really needs to start thinking now how its going to run itself in a situation where there a huge amount of wealth but not a lot that needs to be physically done by humans. That day is coming fast and in the meantime what is happening instead is debates about where to put 'manufacturing jobs' as if such jobs will exist ANYWHERE in the future, let alone a specific country.
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This means they only need to meet warehouse code compliance requirements instead of retail code compliance and fewer code compliance fines. That means a lower property tax rate, a smaller property footprint by the elimination of parking spaces per square feet, less strict fire code/fire exit requirements, significantly lower power usage due to little/no climate control, more efficient storage per square feet, less shoplifting and related security.
It also means no on-site bakery or butchery, no fresh food self selection, no impulse or 'Oh, I forgot...' buying, no pharmacy or related consultation, changing retail zoning to warehouse zoning in neighborhoods, and probably cheaper contract labor that will never see the end client or receive any benefits.
Good bye customer service.
The utopian vision of a world in which we as humans dont have to work as much because robots can do most of the work for us is becoming a reality. Our economic models however are not prepared for it but the wealth is there
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me