TBH I don't feel particularly happy about programmers removing retail jobs. Yeah for sure technology advances always remove some people from their jobs, but there are consequences.
Not sure about data on time saved, but I average 2-5 minutes on each trip to the Go store in Seattle.
As for removing retail jobs, Amazon does hire a ton of people for every store to restock, answer questions, prepare deli foods, etc. So the jobs are likely moving to different parts of the store.
Also, I’m not sure what the official goals of Go are, but I always thought it was to remove friction during checkout. Not to save costs on cashier jobs.
Is it fair to say that you are making the claim that there is no net decrease in labor hours when compared to a similar store that does staff cashiers?
> I’m not sure what the official goals of Go are but I always thought it was to remove friction during checkout.
I visited the Seattle store one evening in April while in town for an Amazon onsite. It was completely empty from customers but there was a dude sitting at the entrance to the alcohol isle asking for ids and a girl trying to fit some products into some curly thing.
Friction is (re)moved from point a to point b.
Classic 2010s tech play.
Is this any different than Caterpillar removing ditch diggers’ jobs, or internet remove postal carrier and television channels’ jobs?
If you sit around expecting the rest of the world to take care of your best interests, you’re going to have a bad time.