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Comment by DudeOpotomus | Hacker News Reader

No, it's just stupidity and myopia. Like those screens that replaced glass beverage cases in liquor stores a few years ago. Not one customer liked them. Not one customer wanted them and the results were beyond terrible. People literally stopped buying. But people actually invested millions into that company and other people actually bought their products and thought "gee this is great". Imagine how disconnected you have to be from your customers to make such an investment and/or installation for a few bucks? Stupid is as stupid does...

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For what it's worth, when I run into trash like that, I just open the door(s) and eave/prop them open while I browse. The entire point of having glass was so that people could browse without having to open the door, but apparently that doesn't matter to them any more.

I seem to recall hearing that there was a person high up in the management of at least one of the store chains that did this who had a ton of financial interest in the company that made those door-screens.

Whenever some decision doesn't make sense, you can count on corruption (self-dealing, nepotism, kick-backs, or plain old embezzlement).

Never attribute to stupidity that which is adequately explained by grift.

Maybe I don't go to liquor stores often enough but I can't imagine what you are talking about.

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freeze...

LOL. Screens as in video. I was imagining wire mesh. I guess that shows my age.

But no, I have not seen the coolers with video screens for doors anywhere around here either.

LOL! I'd never seen those, either. Must not be a priority in my region, or I haven't been to a Walgreens recently. But, here's the reason:

> front-facing sensors used to anonymously track shoppers interacting with the platform

From my (albeit limited) experience with tech platforms like this, it probably is anonymous - but they're scary good at identifying your age and gender, and what you look at before you buy. That's the data they're immediately after.

Of course, they've probably already built a "shadow" profile of you based on your mobile phone identity, so they could cross-reference that if they cared to, and then a loyalty profile they could connect to that. So, yeah... The fridge data is technically anonymous, but, you know, data can be connected together in all sorts of ways. Privacy is dead.

> Like those screens that replaced glass beverage cases in liquor stores a few years ago.

The what now?

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