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I had a wonderful retro futuristic dream about an automated Costco warehouse a few weeks ago. It was one of the less weird dreams so I still remember it clearly
by markus_zhang 11mo ago
I had a wonderful retro futuristic dream about an automated Costco warehouse a few weeks ago. It was one of the less weird dreams so I still remember it clearly.
Basically, each section is like a closed areas with some windows. Customers order at the computers by the windows and flash their membership cards. Robots glide left and right to move 10 samples to the customer, in an arm with rotating clips. Customers can press a button to rotate the samples, observe them, and place an order by pressing a button. Samples not chosen are temporarily stocked at the window as a “stack”.
In each closed section, there are humans who monitors and maintains the robots, and occasionally fetch samples when robots stop working (hopefully it too often, you know those 9s).
At the exit, a human worker assembles the packages and hand them to the customers with a smile. Customers have a last chance to return unwanted items.
Why was it a retro futuristic dream? Because the customers have the option to go into a bakery to enjoy a cup of coffee/tea, some cake and socialize with fellow customers. All of them looked like the men and women from advertisement from Fallout 4.
I’d like to shop or even help build one of these.
- CPLX 11mo agoYou’ve just described B&H in New York City.
- aerostable_slug 11mo agoNow I'm picturing Hasidic robots.
- defrost 11mo agoBeing pushed about on trolleys and puppeteered by gentiles every Shabbat?
- whynotmaybe 11mo agoSomething like this? https://www.untappedcities.com/automats-cafeterias-nyc/ https://www.untappedcities.com/automats-cafeterias-nyc/
- markus_zhang 11mo agoYeah, something like this. The only exception in warehouse was the cafeteria. I guess my brain wanted to make something retro futuristic so it made the cafeteria “retro” — manned by humans and cooked by humans too. There were even balloons inside now that I recall…
- cmckn 11mo agoSounds like a lot of waiting around, versus just browsing the aisles. Maybe today’s consumers need to rediscover cash-and-carry, though.
- markus_zhang 11mo agoIn the dream customers just walk around and make orders. It’s actually old style I think, but with robots. Yeah it’s a bit like cash and carry, but customers didn’t move into the sections. They just get to browse the samples robots carried to them. TBH, now that I think about it, the dream was way more vague than what I described in the reply. My brain probably reasoned about the idea subconsciously.
- ch4s3 11mo agoYou'll obviously buy fewer things that way, and I can't see that making business sense.
- markus_zhang 11mo agoYeah, that could be true. I'm not sure how many people are similar to me, who are allergic to "window shopping" and just want to buy, pay and exit. My Costco session is less than 30 minutes (from parking to back to car) in average. I do research price, though, so if they show a big DISCOUNT sign and is more or less honest with it, I'll probably grab some, too.
- seanmcdirmid 11mo agoSounds like the old general store model, you didn’t browse yourself, the shop keep would bring out what you wanted, it was always behind the counter. I experienced this in China when I started visiting in 1999/early 2000s, it’s mostly not like that anymore though. You still have department stores where you need to buy things first before touching them, though.
- Scoundreller 11mo agoHad a large-format (for its time) chain store in Canada like that until 1996: https://www.tvo.org/article/what-happened-to-consumers-distributing https://www.tvo.org/article/what-happened-to-consumers-distr... Basically a catalogue store without shipping to your door.
- seanmcdirmid 11mo agoOh Service Merchandise was a thing in the USA also, where I was living at in Mississippi at least. It was basically catalog focused store with a showroom. IKEA is kind of like that also, but you have to get everything yourself after picking it out upstairs. And Sears might have been like this at some point before I was born.
- markus_zhang 11mo agoReading the history of Consumers (thanks, I never knew this existed): >In the 1990s, Consumers Distributing struggled to compete with Zellers and then Walmart Canada. Consumers Distributing sought bankruptcy protection in 1996. And Zellers went under just a few years ago...
- wild_egg 11mo agoSorry to say but 2013 was more than a few years ago...
- markus_zhang 11mo agoOh I must have some bad memory unit…
- vkou 11mo agoYou've reinvented the Soviet grocery store, but with robots instead of people and with a $7 cup of coffee.
- markus_zhang 11mo agoI remember those stores as I came from a similar background. One vital difference is that they all have workers who have a straight face and don’t give it a fuck about customer service. Then in the 90s they were all washed away by the new ones.
- Animats 11mo agoWhat you've re-invented is Keydoozle, from 1937.[1] This was the first automated grocery store. Three stores were opened, but there were enough mechanical problems that it didn't work well. [1] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/keedoozle-automated-store-pictures1949/ https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/keedoozle-automated-store-p...
- system2 11mo agoIncredible, they were 75 years ahead of their time.
- Terr_ 11mo agoThat kinda stuff is why I'm an incrementalist, as opposed to "Great Man" theories of civilization. A big impressive product or leap-forward is mostly luck and thousands of cascading preconditions on small improvements everywhere else, and often not even the first person to try. It's not hard to imagine that if a fundamentally similar store today that took the world by storm, there would be a profusion of news stories asserting that the founder is a genius visionary, with nary a peep for Clarence Saunders et al.
- Gud 11mo agoBut if the technology is not ready to be implemented yet, was it really a genius level idea? Here’s my idea: instant teleportation. I expect to be credited
- wongarsu 11mo agoI think that's kind of the point: there are no "genius ideas", at least not at the level and frequency popularly portrayed. If teleportation isn't feasible then the idea isn't genius. If teleportation is feasible, then using it for transporting humans isn't genius, it's incredibly obvious. Or to give a real-world example: The Wright brothers did some great work on making aircraft steerable and doing wind-tunnel tests, but working planes were mostly a product of ICE engines finally reaching sufficient power-to-weight ratios, not of the Wright brothers being unique geniuses. In a long line of people trying to build heavier-than-air aircraft they were simply the first to have access to the necessary technology to make it work
- pirate787 11mo agoThat was Best store in the 1980s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Products
- klooney 11mo agoIn my home town, they tore the Best down and replaced it with a Best Buy, which was very confusing.
- tdeck 11mo agoIf you wish to experience more futuristic fever dreams, I present the Dahir Insaat YouTube channel: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc_6wfDYuFU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc_6wfDYuFU
- rimbo789 11mo agoThat sounds truly terrible.