Amazon plans to open dozens of grocery stores

[Honeycombe8]

Amazon plans to open dozens of grocery stores in U.S. cities, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed sources, a move that would expand the retail and technology giant’s grocery footprint beyond its Whole Foods Market chain.

The first of these stores will open in Los Angeles as early as the end of 2019, and Amazon is in talks to open locations in shopping centers in San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, according to people familiar with the matter cited in the Journal report. The company is also exploring the idea of purchasing regional grocery stores, the paper said.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-plans-to-open-dozens-of-grocery-stores-wsj-reports/

This is scary. I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to feel that I may see us all living in AmazonWorld before too long. Even worse, I remember feeling sort of this way, when WalMart was expanding in my area. Is everyone going to end up working for either Amazon or WalMart, except at Fortune 500 companies owned by oligarchs?

Oligarchs are taking over everything. This is scary. Just how big does a company need to get? Should the government intervene? If so, on what grounds?

[Sherman A1]

1. The only ones that will be working in these stores

are the robots & AI with about 2-5 people per store. Everything will be automated. The displays will come in on driverless trucks preloaded, rolled in dropped, they replaced as they are sold down after being automatically reordered based upon sales as calculated by the data.

This is why I support Andrew Yang for 2020 as he is discussing the coming avalanche of AI and the jobs it will be placing in jeopardy.

[Honeycombe8]

2. As far as AI goes, you can't stop progress.

It's not possible. It's in the human DNA. That's why humans have survived (and other animals). We innovate, become more efficient, we progress. That's part of being human.

I think the AI will open a world of new jobs. I'm old enough to have seen progress in action, and I've seen enough documentaries & movies to have seen prior progressions. Whenever it comes around, it seems like the world is ending. The world does not end.

Think about the advent of the automobile. It put all the buggy makers and whip makers out of business. Do you think we should still be getting around like the Amish? Can you imagine how different the country would be w/o vehicles, or airplanes?

The industrial revolution made making motors for vehicles, airplanes, and a lot of other things for mass use possible. The industrial revolution put a lot of people out of work. People who had hand crafted things at a much slower pace, and for far fewer people at greater cost.

I witnessed the computer revolution. I saw one of the first computers used by a business in my home town. It was a huge computer that was the size of half of a semi-large room. You fed punched cards into it. I then witnessed personal computers come into being.

Computers put a lot of office workers of different types out of work. There used to be large rooms filled with accounting clerks and typists, each of them doing work on typewriters with carbon paper for multiple copies. They were replaced with a couple of gals with computers, and some punchcard sorters in the back.

AI is coming and can't be stopped. The types of jobs will change. AI will open up new kinds of jobs.

Part of the problem, really, is that we have too many people. That's the way I see it. The world is filling up with people. We're killing off the animals and having trouble finding work and food for everyone.

[Sherman A1]

3. No you cannot stop progress

And I do not believe we need to return to the age of the horse & buggy. Please do not make that assumption.

AI is here and will be increasing it's influence as to how to how we work & live. I do not see a means by which it will create more jobs as it progresses on it's march.

I do believe that we need to move from the buggy whip methodology of how we measure success in our economy and our lives by moving beyond the long out of date GDP style of evaluation and put humanity first.

[C_U_L8R]

4. Because they're doing such a good job with Whole Foods? Not.

It's so sad to see the WF offering deteriorate week by week. I hope some upstarts take on Amazon. There's definitely a market need.

[bitterross]

5. And we thought WalMart was the biggest problem.

I don't see this ending well. Amazon has become/is becoming more of a threat than WalMart. Way too much power in the hands of one corporation.

Amazon is every bit a petty, anti-union, and anti-worker as WalMart when you get right down to it. I have no doubt the fight against unions in NY was more of a factor in pulling out of there than people believe.

[moondust]

6. Everybody eventually works for Amazon!

Interestingly, one of the main drivers against communism was opposition to the idea that everybody has to work for "big government." Back during the Cold War lots of people wanted to "be their own boss" and run their own business; it was called "freedom"! Sadly, since the collapse of the USSR it has only gotten harder to "be your own boss" and succeed at small business as corporations have swallowed up more and more control of everything that has any profit potential. What happened to all the people--especially Republicans--who used to insist on "being their own boss"? I haven't heard from them for a long time. Did they all buy stocks in Amazon and forget about all that "freedom"?