Amazon Ditches 'Just Walk Out' Checkouts at Its Grocery Stores
gizmodo.com
Amazon Fresh is moving away from a feature of its grocery stores where customers could skip checkout altogether.

(via https://hachyderm.io/@jbcrawford/112202942593125987, archive: https://archive.is/VnqRZ)

surprise, Amazon’s godawful surveillance grocery stores were just exploiting hidden labor and calling it innovation, and even that was too expensive

even worse, the few times I’ve seen one of these fucking things in the wild, it still had 1-2 employees hovering near the entrance to make sure nobody did the utterly obvious (fuck with the payment system and get free shit), a job that’s also known as a fucking cashier, but with much worse pay, much harder labor (physically stopping shoplifters), and no counter to lean on or opportunity to even sit down

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.eeEnglish
    81·
    8 months ago

    the only “self-check-out” system I have ever liked is:

    1. I have the store app on my phone.
    2. I scan the items with my phone app as I grab them off the shelves.
    3. I then tell the app, “ok, i’m ready to pay for these”
    4. it runs the charge digitally.

    no waiting in a queue,
    no ‘place the item back in the bagging area’,
    no stuffing bills into slots,
    no ‘follow the instructions on the pin pad’.
    I’m already done!

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsMEnglish
      8·
      8 months ago

      Self-checkouts in the UK have a vital use case much in demand from the populace: they save the British from ever having to talk to another person. Probably for the best for everyone really.