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A supermarket has an app and offers in-store discounts on food, your data subsidizes the cost of what you purchase. This isn't new to smartphones. Grocery stor

by ip26 6y ago

A supermarket has an app and offers in-store discounts on food, your data subsidizes the cost of what you purchase. This isn't new to smartphones. Grocery stores have had discount cards for ages. You might even have one in your wallet.

aboringusername 6y ago
A smartphone is much more valuable, it offers richer data and capabilities than a discount card. An app can access tonnes of 'free' information provided by the OS (model, make, package list), as well as logging each and every tap/interaction and accessing personal information (contacts lists, location data, device identifiers you can trace across datasets) You can see which offers people engage with most, how often they open your app, well timed push notifications and a reliance on that app. They can also purchase data from that smartphone and have huge data silos to perform studies on. An App provides access to a human being constantly, whereas a discount card is a stateless entity in a wallet that never gets used; it's unlikely someone loses their smartphone, it's a prized possession. Quite honestly, discount cards are probably quite worthless vs smartphone data and the richness of what you can get. I am surprised they are even still used/offered these days (I know of supermarkets that just have apps now).
noja 6y ago
Those discount cards didn't track you round the store.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  I've found that very often the cashier will swipe their own discount card if you tell them you don't have one of your own. You can also, in practice at Safeway at least, ask for a new one each time. I used to collect them just for shits and giggles, I had dozens before I got bored of it. As a tracking mechanism, they rely on the customer cooperating and using the card as intended.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  There are ceiling-mounted facial recognition cameras for that now. Have a Customer who brought in some cameras for "people counting" from Xovis. Their's gear purported capabilities are down right scary. [1] https://www.xovis.com https://www.xovis.com

by ip26 6y ago

aboringusername 6y ago

A smartphone is much more valuable, it offers richer data and capabilities than a discount card. An app can access tonnes of 'free' information provided by the OS (model, make, package list), as well as logging each and every tap/interaction and accessing personal information (contacts lists, location data, device identifiers you can trace across datasets) You can see which offers people engage with most, how often they open your app, well timed push notifications and a reliance on that app. They can also purchase data from that smartphone and have huge data silos to perform studies on. An App provides access to a human being constantly, whereas a discount card is a stateless entity in a wallet that never gets used; it's unlikely someone loses their smartphone, it's a prized possession. Quite honestly, discount cards are probably quite worthless vs smartphone data and the richness of what you can get. I am surprised they are even still used/offered these days (I know of supermarkets that just have apps now).

noja 6y ago

Those discount cards didn't track you round the store.

bigbubba 6y ago
I've found that very often the cashier will swipe their own discount card if you tell them you don't have one of your own. You can also, in practice at Safeway at least, ask for a new one each time. I used to collect them just for shits and giggles, I had dozens before I got bored of it. As a tracking mechanism, they rely on the customer cooperating and using the card as intended.
EvanAnderson 6y ago
There are ceiling-mounted facial recognition cameras for that now. Have a Customer who brought in some cameras for "people counting" from Xovis. Their's gear purported capabilities are down right scary. [1] https://www.xovis.com https://www.xovis.com