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Amazon Go

(amazon.com)
1247 points mangoman | 3 comments | 05 Dec 16 14:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.736s | source
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CodeSheikh ◴[05 Dec 16 16:16 UTC] No.13106428[source]▶
Guys this is not good. As much as I love the convenience of pick-and-go, this eventually will prove out to be drastic for a variety of bad socioeconomic reasons, that most of us are already aware of. Small businesses were already suffering at the hands of Amazon Prime. Now Amazon Go wants to not only kick out those businesses out of the block but it also wants to take away jobs of small retail salesperson. Unacceptable. This can perhaps work at Amazon headquarters but I hope, I really hope it does not make its way to major metro cities like NYC and if it does then Amazon should promise to create certain number of jobs and revenue that it intends to displace. Just because an average reader of HN does not do such jobs or had held such jobs for only a brief period in his/her life, this does not mean that lot of people don't rely on such small time jobs for their livelihood.

Places I can see this working are with low footprints such as cafes at hospitals etc.

Amazon Go, please Go away.

Updated: Grammar correction.

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1. JPKab ◴[05 Dec 16 16:21 UTC] No.13106474[source]▶
I'm not thrilled with the socio-economic impact this will have, but it's inevitable. A big hope I have is that, similar to the automation and efficiency boost of agriculture (once upon a time most humans worked in farming), this will unlock huge sums of money that can be diverted to other hard to automate services that will employ these folks.
replies(1): >>13107026 #
2. CodeSheikh ◴[05 Dec 16 17:16 UTC] No.13107026[source]▶
"this will unlock huge sums of money that can be diverted". Agree. But what guarantee do we have that Amazon or similar large companies such as Apple had ever re-invested their profits back into economies? So far none. Yes Amazon can hire more people for warehouses, but is it fair for a displaced retail person to go and work at warehouses (trust me I have worked at warehouses and it is not a FUN place to work at!)?
replies(1): >>13109196 #
3. zaargy ◴[05 Dec 16 20:32 UTC] No.13109196[source]▶
Well those warehouse jobs won't exist either...