the unstoppable local-biz-swallowing pseudo-monopoly that is AMAZON

PICKS FROM OUR ALGORITHM

the store in the NYT piece is a grocery store, and I can see it taking off for sure, definitely more likely to succeed than a bookstore.

The disturbing/alarming part here is very little different from what I find disturbing/alarming about online Amazon and phone apps in general, which is the degree to which they track you and compile data about you. These days I wouldn't be surprised if customer photos got appended to their files, too, since both mobile phones and many computers are equipped with cameras capable of doing that and app developers have zero scruples about your privacy. Every corporation you deal with is thirsty for data on you. Amazon is more sinister than the rest only because they are so powerful and control so many data streams.

not to mention the fact that so many things run on Amazon servers.

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2018/01/whole_foods_food_shortages_empty_shelves.html

fwiw there are claims that this is due to use of an ordering system that was implemented before Amazon took over, but it seems a little too coincidental that problems with it only came after Amazon took over.

They've opened some brick-and-mortar bookstores already. I've heard that they're totally uninviting, like airport bookstores.

Just to get back to it, the hook of the story I posted is that the Seattle grocery store is fully automated and virtually *staffless*.

Eventually, the remaining skeleton staff at retail stores will live in the bowels of the building, below ground level, only emerging at night, like ghosts to shuffle the aisles, restocking shelves under the eerie glow of dim fluorescent bulbs.

retail work is one of the most mind numbing, alienating, life-killing roles you can find yourself in so it's hard for me to see the downside in it being automated. no more jerk customers ruining your day, no more bosses telling you you aren't doing enough to push the super size cola. just program the robots to do that, let the teenagers stay at home and vape.

The disturbing/alarming part here is very little different from what I find disturbing/alarming about online Amazon and phone apps in general, which is the degree to which they track you and compile data about you. These days I wouldn't be surprised if customer photos got appended to their files, too, since both mobile phones and many computers are equipped with cameras capable of doing that and app developers have zero scruples about your privacy.

If I'm reading the NYT piece right, the only way this technology can work is if the cameras in the store use facial recognition to match customers with their apps/database while they grab stuff off the shelves. Since the article states there isn't a chip on each item, it has to be the cameras that track what you, individually, pick up. Maybe I'm missing something and I'm not an expert, but I don't see how else cameras + software but no product IDs could work

not quite sure I buy that for this case, because one of Amazon's "innovations" has been not eliminating menial jobs but moving them out of eyesight of its customers.

"just program the robots to do that, let the teenagers stay at home and vape do menial piecework on mechanical turks."

Automating drudgery is good! Proceeds flowing exclusively to the capitalist class is bad! Fully automated luxury communism is the solution.

I bet there must be some way that identical twins, dressed identically, could mess that system up.

If I'm reading the NYT piece right, the only way this technology can work is if the cameras in the store use facial recognition to match customers with their apps/database while they grab stuff off the shelves. Since the article states there isn't a chip on each item, it has to be the cameras that track what you, individually, pick up. Maybe I'm missing something and I'm not an expert, but I don't see how else cameras + software but no product IDs could work

I mentor at a startup accelerator and a couple of years ago we had a startup proposing exactly this. Tracking people through the store (not usin facial recognition in this case) seeing when people rallied over certain items, working out whether people did or didn’t purchase and then throwing up pictures of items people didn’t purchase on digital ads as the people walked past screens.

Their safety and security appplications were less creepy and they eventually went down that route with the tech but is only a matter of time before yesterday you walk out of a clothing store and have the pants you didnt buy follow you den the street.

Haven't twins tried (unsuccessfully?) to fool Apple's face recognition?

They've tried successfully too, though only a small fraction of them, and only it they try to look just like each other. (google "twins fool iphone x")

why can't they detect your phone? i can jump on a bus and watch myself be driven down a road on GPS. if im playing Pokemon Go at a stoplight and the car starts, the app immediately warns me about playing while driving. people even pay for stuff these days using their phone. they don't need to be super creepy, they can just detect phones.

not buying the "no product IDs" line. if that were true you could just steal all that shit and they would have no way of knowing

they do detect your phone--I don't think you can get in the store without waving it at something. And sure maybe they're lying about the product IDs but then why else would they have hundreds of cameras watching everything? The push to make your face your most important form of ID has already started with the new iphone, unlocking yr Facebook account with a selfie, etc.

i don't think you should be able to unlock your phone until you've made a competent photogravure of a body part (doesn't matter whose)

Q: has there been a Black Mirror episode about this yet, and if so can anyone tell me how this particular innovation is predicted to destroy humanity in the near future, thx.

There was section in the article I linked to with the guy wrapping a product in a bag then trying to carry it out under his arm without getting billed, but he was billed. So it's got to be more than just cameras.

Q: has there been a Black Mirror episode about this yet, and if so can anyone tell me how this particular innovation is predicted to destroy humanity in the near future, thx.

Clearly a scenario where the computers won't let you leave until you've bought something, and those too poor to buy their way out get stuck in some warehouse doing menial indentured servant work until they can amass enough to get out. But they never can!

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― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive), Sunday, January 21, 2018 6:32 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Legit lols, it can't take long for actual bookstores to come up with this

xp
I'm not sure I get why this is so hard to believe. The camera registers you picking up the item and not putting it back, so you get charged. I mean just imagine a person followed you around the store and observed everything you did--concealing the product in a bag wouldn't do anything. Machine vision is pretty advanced

ALEXA HAS DETERMINED THAT YOU WILL ENJOY
*boop bleep bloop blop*

"The World Market for Rubber Sheath Contraceptives (Condoms): A 2007 Global Trade Perspective"

I've noticed lately that Amazon has adopted Google's obnoxious 'we'll just go ahead and assume that you were actually searching for this other thing because the explicit search string you entered couldn't possibly be correct' thing. No, I can actually spell, thanks.

You scan your phone on the way in. So they know who's there shopping, and presumably the system follows you and observes your shopping behavior. You pick something up. The cameras detect that it has left the shelf. If it goes back onto the shelf, it assumes you were just looking at it. If it goes into your bag, it's yours now.

What is interesting about that is that the cameras aren't there just to make sure you don't steal things (that would be much easier to do with RFID). They're there to observe and analyze people's shopping behavior - information that is pretty much golden in retail-world. And because Amazon ALSO knows what records, books, and sexual lubricants you like, they can cross-reference to get ever-more granular market segmentation information.

I know many people find that creepy, but it's much less about embarrassing/exposing YOU particularly (haha, as if they give a shit about you specifically). More about detecting ways to make people in general spend money.

Did more suburban white female knitting enthusiasts aged 35-54 look at the carrots that were at waist height? Or the carrots that were at eye level? Do they have different carrot preferences if they are also into Christian dating sites?

And what about the frozen lasagna? Are 90s grunge fans more likely to buy frozen lasagna that is on an end cap, or on a longer aisle? Do people who buy organic toothpaste buy fair-trade coffee? Do people who like gluten-free beer also buy unscented fabric softener?

What's the optimal number of paper-towel rolls for a 42-year-old man whose last record purchase was Chicago XII and who plays golf?

One thing I find fascinating about this is that, like everything in capitalism, it has to eventually reach a point of diminishing returns -- like at some point marketing will be so perfectly granular that you will only receive ads that are for products you will wind up wanting to buy, but you will still not have more money to spend.

a friend likes to joke about starting a marketing consultancy offering pico-targeting (this prob already exists)

man alive otm. The Wanamaker principle still applies (half of the money you spend on advertising is wasted, but you don't know which half).

We probably haven't reached that point yet. I think saturation is under-studied - in fact I'm sure of it, because of how many ads I see for things I already have, or for things that are functionally identical to something I just bought. Someone somewhere is working on that, but they're not there yet.

also the idea is to move your advertising dollars out of places that can't offer fine-grained data, as in the move from advertising with publishers to advertising with Facebook and Google

My one experience of pico-targeting was almost 20 years ago in pharma-world. Someone in my professional orbit got hold of DMV height/weight data and sent direct mail about a diabetes clinical trial to specific people based on their BMI. Intrusive? Yes. Possibly beneficial, even life-saving? Maybe, it's impossible to know at this remove.

Personally I don't give a shit if somebody at Amazon knows that I like carrots. Is that information going to influence me to buy more or fewer carrots, or different carrots? Maybe, but it's so inconsequential that I just can't get up in arms about.

We're not far off from a robot scanning the urine stream from my household sewer pipe. Let's say it determines that someone here has moderately high blood sugar, and someone else really likes weed? Not so comforting.

A middle case: Google notices that I'm shopping for a coffeemaker and starts aiming ads for different coffeemakers at me. Now, at some point in this process, I will have made my choice and executed it. At that point it's a waste of time to keep showing me different coffeemakers. I'm not going to buy another one for a few years. At that point, it should be showing me ads for coffee, filters, cups, etc. But we're not there yet.

ok ive got an idea.

we automate retail, but rather than robots or AI, we use cam-driven drones.

we make youtube stars, celebrities, and tv personality perform live cams for 8 hours a day, serving people food, entertaining them, etc. this is their job after all.

it is part of an internet nationalization act that also grants free public wifi in every major city.

a massive federal info infrastructure project makes this possible, funded in large part by the media personalities that benefit from the coverage these systems have provided in the past. also by having Facebook/Twitter/Google/etc all heavily taxed.

really hoping they don't go with Boston/Somerville but it feels like one of the most likely outcomes rn

http://www.grubstreet.com/2018/01/shoplifting-amazon-go-grocery-store.html

final image is v depressing

You can't get in without the app on your phone

Between this and MoviePass, I'm psyched to see myself already barred from IRL retail activity bcz I refuse to getr a cellphone. I know I'll live to see restrictions on my life as a citizen as well. #TryAndMakeMe

did anybody link to this yet? i just listened today. it MUST have come from this thread right?? well.. anyway

https://www.wnyc.org/story/amazon-antitrust-monopoly/

kind of mindblowing that amazon can crunch the traffic data from AWS to see which startups are doing good business, and then Amazon's venture capital arm invests in them or buys them outright

fucking hell

time to break up and/or nationalise amazon obv

Missed this from a couple weeks back: Jeff Bezos is the richest person in history

Like, I knew he was the richest person in the world but I hadn't quite made the cognitive leap that this likely meant the richest in the world ever.

yeah that is stupefying tbrr

pretty impressive for the owner of a company that has yet to actually make any significant profit iirc

time to start sharpening the guillotines

did this ever get posted here? (too large to embed, sorry): http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/56abe654c08a80431d8bb4ef-1200-900/20160129_amazon_bi.png

too big to fail

what if amazon crashing is what does in the economy

amazon subprime morelike amirite

trademark that now imo

I was talking to my FIL recently about that, how Amazon's business model is very deliberately to not make a profit but rather to spend everything on eating the entire market for everything. Not sure if that means that there's some hypothetical point 20 years in the future where they actually do have monopoly power and start earning profits?

they will distribute 1/3 of america's food, clothing and leisure goods and employ a fifth of the workforce, leading to a semi-hostile government takeover
#illuminatiisreal

union vote not going so hot for the union, for some reason

extremely dispiriting, especially in light of how much awful shit has come out recently, and Amazon’s creepy and bungled social media response. I honestly thought this would be a corner turned, but nope.

And I’ve been mostly unplugged but has Amazon’s grossness been covered anywhere except Twitter/ Ken Klippenstein?

was disappointed in how Nomadland skated past the awfulness of Amazon's treatment of RV-dwelling seniors, but then again it wasn't really what the movie was about per se (the book definitely focuses on this more)

Yeah, I also sort of hoped this might be some sort of turning point, perhaps naively.

Has anyone gone back to replace all of the B'n'L logos in Wall-E with the Amazon logo yet?

the shitposting was far from their only form of fuckery

https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-pushed-usps-to-install-mailboxes-outside-warehouse-report-2021-4

I've ordered a couple things from eBay recently that showed up in Amazon bags.. such a bummer.

not to dunk on Nomadland (film) but it does seem odd how two of the primary cUlTuRaL mArXiSt bogeyman of conservative fever dreams (Hollywood & “”the media””) have been suspiciously silent on class and labor issues in the last few decades. examples are out there obv, but they are very much the exception.

I suppose Hollywood doesn’t really have an obligation per se, but The Media has been exceedingly negligent

I've ordered a couple things from eBay recently that showed up in Amazon bags.. such a bummer.

me too! they even have amazon fulfilment packing slips inside. i’m like ... wha

union vote not going so hot for the union, for some reason

i'm thinking this might have some connection to the facility being in Alabama

xpost yeah merchants sell stuff on both sites but have amazon logistics handle the storage & shipping

was disappointed in how Nomadland skated past the awfulness of Amazon's treatment of RV-dwelling seniors, but then again it wasn't really what the movie was about per se (the book definitely focuses on this more)

― mark e. smith-moon (f. hazel), Friday, April 9, 2021 1:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Would Amazon have let Zhao film in the fulfillment center if the script had made more of that? I'm assuming not.

I await what happens when Nomadland finishes its theatrical run and the awards season--will it ever stream on Amazon Prime? And just what does it mean for the film industry that Amazon is both a content provider AND a major outlet for its own and other producers' titles. The Paramount Decree has been overturned, but this looks to me like a remake of the vertical integration the original antitrust case wanted to abolish.

will it ever stream on Amazon Prime?

It's on Hulu. Once that window expires (if it ever does), they might pick it up as a paid rental, though.

good time to remind everyone that Jeff Bezos sexts like a computer that's pretending to have a human body https://t.co/D2lDQmWQkk pic.twitter.com/Nta156WfkD

— Cari Hernandez (@eatinginmycar) May 11, 2021

bring me death pic.twitter.com/IwKkNPNl3P

— Luke Bailey (@imbadatlife) June 2, 2021

jesus christ I'm sure doing social for Amazon pays a lot better than the warehouse but imagine the stress of managing twenty different accounts "talking" to each other like that

yeesh

How authentically english to brew a cuppa when you're expecting big news

companies are starting to cut out the risky, unreliable part of social media, people, and instead are talking to themselves.

why are they doing this? because asking yourself questions and then answering them is a classic political move. you have to remember to imply that you're asking the questions the audience wants to hear, even though you're not.

^otm

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7begd/amazon-furniture-assembly-service-adds-new-chaos-to-delivery-workers-lives

the unstoppable DaVinci-swallowing pseudo-dictator that is BEZOS
https://www.change.org/p/reddit-we-want-jeff-bezos-to-buy-and-eat-the-mona-lisa

would rather see the mona lisa eat jeff bezos tbrr

Bleak

🤮 pic.twitter.com/gHSVSsR03k

— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) November 10, 2021

They're opening a big giant new warehouse in Oakland, as soon as this month... ggrrrrrreatt

comically bleak

Jeff Bezos’ new superyacht is so tall that it can’t fit under a landmark Dutch bridge.

So the bridge is going to be dismantled. https://t.co/oa8stnlMyA

— Jodi Kantor (@jodikantor) February 3, 2022

amazing or are we in boring dystopia territory

Amazon dropping its telehealth service Amazon Care.

jokes that write themselves