Originally by [unknown] on September 23, 2017
A new grocery store with a new shopping experience with no lines and no checkout. People walk into the store with their smartphones and Amazon Go App. Sensors detect and track what is picked from the shelves. Customers are charged on their Amazon card when they leave the store.
I think it’s also important to consider how we manage privacy when one company like Amazon becomes able to track and manage and catalog such a wide assortment of purchases. Some will see this as an opportunity to be supported with insight into their lives (making healthy food choices), some will be very concerned by the amount of power this puts in a particular corporation (even beyond trusting Amazon, what if their data security practices are lacking and there is a leak in this data).
I think this also highlights two areas I currently see as a focus in mobile culture, or perhaps two areas which are amplified by mobile culture: convenience (and efficiency), and a focus on the individual (I get what I need, when I want, how I want).
When you think about it, Amazon Go is incredibly mobile-dependent — it requires an app, a smartphone to run it, and an Amazon account (mobile citizenship?).
It represents what the future might look like, but as of now the shift might be a little too radical. Prices are still high, and selection is quite limited. It also brings to the forefront an area of controversy within the future of grocery shopping — jobs! Self-serve checkouts have been debated, but what about a store where the tech does mostly everything?