I was eluding to the behavioral/biometric data moreso than simple credit card useage.Amazon is the one processing it all. I’m sure they’d be willing to hand over all of those email addresses and credit card information…
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“Just Walk Out”
- Thread starter JayAgostino
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From what I gather, it’s not being “recorded” per se. I’m not even sure if behavioral data is being collected or if they’re even able to collect it with the hardware in those stores.
You kind of killed your own thread with this comment.
All of the posts that are about your comment have diluted the actual content you wanted to discuss. You introduced a good topic, then tried to moderate the responses. It didn't go over well.
I didn’t try to moderate anything. In fact, I actually tried to steer the discussion back on track, but not everybody’s helping out with that.
I already did that.
When @mw360 posted two very valid opinions, prefacing each with a rhetorical question, you misinterpreted their words as asking non-rhetorical questions. To this you replied:
I read that to mean they shouldn't be asking those questions without first researching. I considered that to be your attempt to moderate the conversation. Maybe others did too. Honestly, to me your words read like a reprimand.
I walked into this thread to see what people’s thoughts were on the implication of Amazon’s tech - which I personally find very invasive - and based on the replies I’m going to turn around and “just walk out”
There was a lot of misinformation being spread. I had to make the recommendation that users should research the subject matter before sharing wild claims about it. I can’t “moderate” the discussion because I’m not a moderator here.
Just out of curiosity, could you elaborate as to why you find it invasive?
What's in it for the retailer? Less shrink, less human cost, more accurate inventory tracking, more reliable data gathering for customer behavior, I could go on.
What's in it for cutomers? Convenience. Just grab n go, without having to fumble around for payment.
In my country, I would be happy if grocery stores would simply implement self checkout system. Since most people are still paying in cash, the regular checkout lines can take a long time just for small purchases as people fumbling around trying to find exact change. It's highly inefficient, and it's annoying when you just got out off work and just wanted to checkout your dinner, and you had to wait behind a housewife who just bought a months' worth of grocery and fumbling around and arguing with the cashier because there's one item that is not on sale. Even a contactless card is inefficient as I have to give my card to the cashier since all the machines are not within customers' reach.
A system like "just walk out" would be a dream. But I will settle for a simple self checkout.
Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, the moment you decided to go cashless. Grocery stores have been tracking your purchases via their rewards cards, while credit card companies have been tracking your shopping behaviors through purchases. And all of these have been happening before anything Amazon is doing. So if I get at least some sort of convenience, better for me, as these companies are already tracking my purchases without it.
Thank you! You’re the savior of this thread!
If retailers aren’t going to implement self-checkout systems, they should just start using cashierless technology.
It’s a massive convenience, but some states have made cashless stores illegal.
On the flip side, there are ways to convert cash into prepaid cards through reverse ATMs.
ReverseATM’s Cash-2-Card® Kiosk Technology
ReverseATM’s patented Cash-2-Card self-service kiosks make it easy for your cash paying customers to convert their cash to a payment network branded Prepaid Debit Card. Go cashless and convert to card payments. Cash-2-Card. Reverse ATM. Cashless.
www.cash-2-card.com
Industries | Cash-to-Card Solutions | Ready Credit
From airports and sports venues to music festivals and zoos, Ready Credit helps businesses of nearly all industries go cashless with cash-to-card solutions.
readycreditcorp.com
I should start out by saying my only knowledge of the system is through a video Linus Tech Tips did a while back on it. For me it’s bad enough that stores track what I purchase, but now that they can track what I look at, what I pick up, what I put back down, where I put it back down, all of that, that just feels one stop short of getting directly into my mind.
For instance, if I’m considering purchasing something more intimate in nature, I’d much prefer not potentially ad targeted for it if I pick a product up and sit it back down. Or if I pick up something trying to figure out what it is, than can skew the algorithm in ways I’d not intended. I’ve already had it happen where I pause too long on a single post on Twitter or TikTok, and the apps think that is due to me having an interest in that content and thus begins showing more of that content, even though I was merely trying to process what I was looking at and had no interest in that content at all. Feasibly, the same thing could happen at a store; Amazon’s tracking of what you’re picking up and putting down could easily be misconstrued by the system as genuine interest.
What comes to mind is that time when Target let a girls father know she was pregnant before she even told him through the use of purchase history and thus the offered coupons. This would be that same system, but no longer just limited to items purchased, but also *items merely looked at.*
That’s why I find it invasive. Do other stores, and credit cards already track similiar data? (Although AFAIK credit cards only see bulk totals from purchases, not itemized lists.) Sure, but why keep digging ourselves even further down into this path where large tech companies have a stranglehold of every minute detail of our lives, know what we want or need even better than we do ourselves?
None of that information is being permanently recorded or used for targeted advertising. Third-party retailers also don’t have access to it.
And whose word are we trusting? Amazon? One of the largest data collectors out there? Forgive me if I don’t take their word for it.
They don’t need to share it to 3rd party retailers. Just them by themselves is bad enough.
Yes, I trust their word. If they blatantly lied about such a thing, I don’t think they’d be able to ever recover from the bad press, not to mention that it’s illegal.
Case in point...
www.cnn.com
Nobody likes self-checkout. Here's why it's everywhere
Why has this problematic, unloved technology taken over retail?
Case in point of what?Case in point...
Nobody likes self-checkout. Here's why it's everywhere
Why has this problematic, unloved technology taken over retail?
No. I read "case in point" and asked "point of what?" I watched part of one of your original videos, and thought "wow, no way until they can work out all sorts of issues".
You posted an article, why do I want to read it?
Going cashless is a scary thought. Here in Canada one of our major internet providers went down on Friday. This effected millions. Debit did not work anywhere, no internet, cell service, home phone, data, police, EMS, etc. The more reliant we are on the internet the simpler it will be for a country crumble with a bad discussion or wonky update (which is what Rogers is claiming was the issue for the outage). Thankfully Visa still worked, it would have been real chaos if that went down as well as few people keep cash anymore, you would not have been able to get cash out of an ATM with debit. Buying gas, groceries or anything would not be possible, and even if you had cash how much does one usually carry and how far will that get you with gas prices the way they are?Thank you! You’re the savior of this thread!
If retailers aren’t going to implement self-checkout systems, they should just start using cashierless technology.
It’s a massive convenience, but some states have made cashless stores illegal.
View attachment 2027175
On the flip side, there are ways to convert cash into prepaid cards through reverse ATMs.
ReverseATM’s Cash-2-Card® Kiosk Technology
ReverseATM’s patented Cash-2-Card self-service kiosks make it easy for your cash paying customers to convert their cash to a payment network branded Prepaid Debit Card. Go cashless and convert to card payments. Cash-2-Card. Reverse ATM. Cashless.Industries | Cash-to-Card Solutions | Ready Credit
From airports and sports venues to music festivals and zoos, Ready Credit helps businesses of nearly all industries go cashless with cash-to-card solutions.
Why are you participating in this thread then?
You might as well be scared of credit cards then. Start bringing bags of cash with you to the store!
1. I'm a glutton for punishment. I saw your title, but couldn't figure out what it meant. After watching part of one video, my thought was "uh, no". You keep asking for opinions, but I can't tell about what.
2. No, I much prefer credit to debit, and don't want to bother with cash.
I don't believe you understand how any of this works. In real life. The cashless system you referenced in post 1 still relies on the Visa/Mastercard/Discover/Amex system, but adds a layer of complexity that I don't believe these folks have really figured out.
What is it you hope to gain with this "discussion"?
Huh? The point of my post was to not be completely dependant on one system. We just had this in Canada with one major company going down and debit cards unusable across the country, along with cell phones, data and internet for those who use one of the, if not largest, provider in the country. Credit cards worked fine. I hope this does not happen again but what if it does, or happens in the US with a much larger population and everything is down, debit and credit. In a world where you can't use physical cash I would expect all the gun nuts to start coming out and buying their food and gas with lead.