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Not only that but you also raise the requirements for grocery / department store shopping. In principle all you need to shop at most stores is cash and being ab
by InclinedPlane 8y ago
Not only that but you also raise the requirements for grocery / department store shopping. In principle all you need to shop at most stores is cash and being able to get to the physical location of the store. With Amazon Go you need a smartphone with a data plan, an amazon account, and a bank account. Even in America not everyone has all of those, or even any one of those. I personally spent a few years as an adult without a bank account. These requirements amount to a "you must be this rich to use this store" sign, and there are easily tens of millions of Americans who are not rich enough to use these stores even if they do have the money to buy some of the goods inside.
- Nasrudith 8y agoWhile fiscal underserving remains a problem there are $20 burner phones which are smartphones. Gift cards and prepaids can be used as well by those without. An extra obstacle certainly but one that can be overcome surprisingly easily.
- jowsie 8y agoHow do you purchase the cheap smart phone and activate the gift card when you can't get in the shop in the first place?
- scarejunba 8y agoDude, Amazon owns Whole Foods. The "you have to have money to use this store" market already exists.
- Broken_Hippo 8y agoThere is a difference between "you have to have money to use this store" to "you have to have money plus these bells and whistles to use this store". You can be poor and use whole foods once in a while. You can use cash at whole foods. You don't need a modern cell phone, a data plan, and a credit card on file to use whole foods. I'm pretty sure you can use food stamps at whole foods. You don't need a proper bank account. And so on. Weirdly, you don't really need these things to shop at amazon either. All you need is a pre-paid card, a gift card, and a bit of internet access (at the library). You an use someone else's address to ship things to if necessary.
- InclinedPlane 8y agoA homeless person could walk into Whole Foods and buy something with cash. And there are many items at Whole Foods which are not outrageously expensive. There's a very distinct difference between a store which has expensive items and a store which has a minimum level of affluence to even use. A poor person could conceivably "splurge" on an expensive item at an expensive store, but that is only possible if they have access.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoThe world is already like that, has been and always will be. Different stores, hotels, bars, and restaurants have different price points depending on the target clientele. People in society want that price discrimination, from the school districts they buy their houses in, to the restaurants they eat at, to the places they go for vacation. The newness comes from how good we can get at stratifying society, based on databases that never forget and precise calculations about worth and future potential. Also, with a widening income/wealth gap and trend towards urban living, you need something more than physical space to separate the classes.
- salvar 8y agoThis looks like a strawman. I didn't see anyone claim that all shopping experiences everywhere should be replaced with this. Amazon Go definitely requires you to have a bunch of things many people don't have access to, and can amount to a "you must be rich to use this store" sign. But that doesn't change any of what the article described.