2 ms·

We may need this, but the stakeholders holding the purse strings don't. And they are the ones who will decide what gets built. It's how we end up with shit lik

by vkou 4y ago

We may need this, but the stakeholders holding the purse strings don't. And they are the ones who will decide what gets built. It's how we end up with shit like grocery self-checkout machines and robots answering customer support calls. Nobody likes being yelled at by a robot who doesn't understand the situation, except the decision-makers buying the machines. This isn't peak tech, not by a longshot. This is just Intel's competitors eating it's lunch.

bee_rider 4y ago
Grocery self-checkout machines are great. There's even a system now where you can bring a little scanner with you and scan as you pick them out, that way you can bag them directly in your cart, saving the time of the final scan and the bagging (it was great during the peak of the pandemic, skip the cashier and waiting in the high-population line area). Robots answering support calls are annoying, but self-service websites are pretty good for 99% of things.
- pcai 4y ago
  the scan as you shop technology is actually being phased out in many chains because the theft rates are unsustainable some wholesale clubs apparently counter this by randomly auditing every cart as you leave, but that seems to leave the whole thing only marginally more efficient than traditional checkout
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    Well, whichever places hang on to them will always at least have this one customer.
  - datavirtue 4y ago
    Yes, apathetic, emasculated, underpaid employees are being used to examine your cart/checkout. I have lost count of how many items I forgot to pay for at Home Depot.
- vkou 4y ago
  No, they aren't. There's not a single point in time when I have ever scanned my own groceries faster than the guy who does it 8 hours a day. They scream at me when they think I'm stealing (Any human being doing that would instantly be reprimanded by a manager), they have tiny platforms where I can't even fit my groceries and heaven forbid if I do something the machine doesn't like, an attendant needs to come unfuck it for me. The best thing about them is that I can do some work for the store for free as part of my shopping. I can't wait for the next grocery innovation of having the customers stock the shelves from the backroom before they can fill a sack with onions.
  - bee_rider 4y ago
    They work for some people not others I guess. I was a cashier for a couple summers. There were a couple members of staff that were really experienced experts who could really fly through the checkout, but there were plenty of us that were just kids working over the summer... Supermarkets have always looked to save cost, it is a price sensitive business after all. At some point you'd give a list to the clerk and they'd put your order together. I'm sure people were annoyed when they had to start doing that clerk's job.
  - MikePlacid 4y ago
    > I can't wait for the next grocery innovation of having the customers stock the shelves from the backroom before they can fill a sack with onions. Think bolder. As a software engineer in the Soviet Union I had to spend about three weeks each year in the collective farm fields planting, tending and harvesting potatoes and cabbages. Since some of my American friends are very fond of socialism these days - these types of “improvement” look definitely a possibility.
    - vkou 4y ago
      You were a professional software engineer in the Soviet Union while still being a high school student? Or do you mean to say that you were one in the 1940s, when people were packed into train cars to bring in the harvest, among other things? Something about this doesn't seem to entirely add up, given that workers in government and defense-critical industries weren't exactly rounded up a la carte to work the fields. Not when there was a dedicated class of kolhozniks that were paid next to nothing, and couldn't really leave the countryside for better jobs in the cities. But now that you mention it, I would pay good money to see the likes of Peter Thiel spend a few weeks a year picking strawberries, or filling grocery bags, or piloting a shitbarge up the Hudson river along with the rest of us. I do keep hearing from that half of the political spectrum that hard, poorly paid work, and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps builds character...
jmeister 4y ago
>We may need this, but the stakeholders holding the purse strings don't. And they are the ones who will decide what gets built. It has never been easier to build a business(software). Labor is abundant, and the tech boom has created a million Medicis willing to throw money at wild things. Look at FTX fund for example.

by vkou 4y ago

bee_rider 4y ago

Grocery self-checkout machines are great. There's even a system now where you can bring a little scanner with you and scan as you pick them out, that way you can bag them directly in your cart, saving the time of the final scan and the bagging (it was great during the peak of the pandemic, skip the cashier and waiting in the high-population line area). Robots answering support calls are annoying, but self-service websites are pretty good for 99% of things.

pcai 4y ago
the scan as you shop technology is actually being phased out in many chains because the theft rates are unsustainable some wholesale clubs apparently counter this by randomly auditing every cart as you leave, but that seems to leave the whole thing only marginally more efficient than traditional checkout
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Well, whichever places hang on to them will always at least have this one customer.
- datavirtue 4y ago
  Yes, apathetic, emasculated, underpaid employees are being used to examine your cart/checkout. I have lost count of how many items I forgot to pay for at Home Depot.
vkou 4y ago
No, they aren't. There's not a single point in time when I have ever scanned my own groceries faster than the guy who does it 8 hours a day. They scream at me when they think I'm stealing (Any human being doing that would instantly be reprimanded by a manager), they have tiny platforms where I can't even fit my groceries and heaven forbid if I do something the machine doesn't like, an attendant needs to come unfuck it for me. The best thing about them is that I can do some work for the store for free as part of my shopping. I can't wait for the next grocery innovation of having the customers stock the shelves from the backroom before they can fill a sack with onions.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  They work for some people not others I guess. I was a cashier for a couple summers. There were a couple members of staff that were really experienced experts who could really fly through the checkout, but there were plenty of us that were just kids working over the summer... Supermarkets have always looked to save cost, it is a price sensitive business after all. At some point you'd give a list to the clerk and they'd put your order together. I'm sure people were annoyed when they had to start doing that clerk's job.
- MikePlacid 4y ago
  > I can't wait for the next grocery innovation of having the customers stock the shelves from the backroom before they can fill a sack with onions. Think bolder. As a software engineer in the Soviet Union I had to spend about three weeks each year in the collective farm fields planting, tending and harvesting potatoes and cabbages. Since some of my American friends are very fond of socialism these days - these types of “improvement” look definitely a possibility.
  - vkou 4y ago
    You were a professional software engineer in the Soviet Union while still being a high school student? Or do you mean to say that you were one in the 1940s, when people were packed into train cars to bring in the harvest, among other things? Something about this doesn't seem to entirely add up, given that workers in government and defense-critical industries weren't exactly rounded up a la carte to work the fields. Not when there was a dedicated class of kolhozniks that were paid next to nothing, and couldn't really leave the countryside for better jobs in the cities. But now that you mention it, I would pay good money to see the likes of Peter Thiel spend a few weeks a year picking strawberries, or filling grocery bags, or piloting a shitbarge up the Hudson river along with the rest of us. I do keep hearing from that half of the political spectrum that hard, poorly paid work, and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps builds character...

jmeister 4y ago

>We may need this, but the stakeholders holding the purse strings don't. And they are the ones who will decide what gets built. It has never been easier to build a business(software). Labor is abundant, and the tech boom has created a million Medicis willing to throw money at wild things. Look at FTX fund for example.