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Comment by jw_cook | Hacker News Reader

In an internet full of low-effort outrage hot takes, I have to say I love (and miss) this kind of writing style that's polemical but witty and restrained. One of my favorite quotes:

> "Age-old advertising technology would use the context that you are in front of the ice cream door as a trigger to display the ice cream through the door. In the era of the Cooler Screen, though, the ice cream itself is hidden safely out of view while the screen contacts a cloud service to obtain an advertisement that is contextually related to it."

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Love the acerbic humor style as well.

Lots of great lines. Enjoyed the highlight of the cognitive dissonance in citing the benefits of "transparency.

>"The retail experience consumers want and deserve," Cooler Screens says on their website. I would admire this turn of phrase if it was intended as a contemptful one. Cooler Screens promise to bring the experience of shopping online, "ease, relevance, and transparency." "Transparency" seems like a poor choice of language when promoting a product that infamously compares poorly to the transparent door it replaces.

I was put off when I first scrolled the page and saw how long the article is, but it's really well-written with engaging storytelling.

Another great line:

> Cooler Screens promise to bring the experience of shopping online, "ease, relevance, and transparency." "Transparency" seems like a poor choice of language when promoting a product that infamously compares poorly to the transparent door it replaces.

> Cooler Screens' CRO, in the same interview, describes the devices as "a six-foot canvas with a 4K resolution where brands can share their message with a captive audience."

> I'm not sure that we're really captive in Walgreens, although the constant need to track down a Walgreens correction officer to unlock the cell in which they have placed the hand lotion does create that vibe.

It was at that point that I realized that the whole thing is just training us for a future in which we are displayed the item of our choice - a tea, piping hot Darjeeling or Lapsang Souchong - as just out of reach until we interact with the machine and are then blessed by it cautiously, tentatively and maybe even lovingly dispensing to us a tasteless brown liquid that is guaranteed to be almost but not quite entirely unlike tea.

(Can we claim Hitchhiker's Guide as Prior Art for all this nonsense?)

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