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Two Ex-Googlers Want To Make Bodegas And Mom-And-Pop Corner Stores Obsolete (fastcompany.com)
Elizabeth Segran, writing for FastCompany: While it sometimes feels like we do all of our shopping on the internet, government data shows that actually less than 10% of all retail transactions happen online. In a world where we get our groceries delivered in just two hours through Instacart or Amazon Fresh, the humble corner store -- or bodega, as they are known in New York and Los Angeles -- still performs a valuable function. No matter how organized you are, you're bound to run out of milk or diapers in the middle of the night and need to make a quick visit to your neighborhood retailer. Paul McDonald, who spent 13 years as a product manager at Google, wants to make this corner store a thing of the past. Today, he is launching a new concept called Bodega with his cofounder Ashwath Rajan, another Google veteran. Bodega sets up five-foot-wide pantry boxes filled with non-perishable items you might pick up at a convenience store. An app will allow you to unlock the box and cameras powered with computer vision will register what you've picked up, automatically charging your credit card. The entire process happens without a person actually manning the "store." Bodega's logo is a cat, a nod to the popular bodega cat meme on social media -- although if the duo gets their way, real felines won't have brick-and-mortar shops to saunter around and take naps in much longer. "The vision here is much bigger than the box itself," McDonald says. "Eventually, centralized shopping locations won't be necessary, because there will be 100,000 Bodegas spread out, with one always 100 feet away from you."
They've invented the Vending Machine! Stop the presses! This will change the world!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
See, Google execs get to prance around all high and mighty about how much they 'care' about workers by pushing for a $15/hour (or make that $30/hour after they get their way with $15) minimum wage.
It's a great way to point guns at the heads of their competitors to make it easier to drive them out of business with their new "startup" ideas.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Meh. I couldn't care less if they piss off a pack of SJWs with the name, I'm just disgusted that they could get funding for such trivial shit.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
with the name
I did some digging after seeing the outrage. Bodega is Spanish.
1846, "wine shop," from Mexican Spanish, from Spanish bodega "a wine shop; wine-cellar," from Latin apotheca, from Greek apotheke "depot, store" (see apothecary). Since 1970s in American English it has come to mean "corner convenience store or grocery," especially in a Spanish-speaking community, but in New York City and some other places used generically. Also a doublet of boutique. Italian cognate bottega entered English c. 1900 as "artist's workshop or studio," especially in Italy.
When was the last time there was a Spaniard running one of these shops?
Where's the manufactured outrage that the Indians and Arabs culturally appropriated some Spanish?
I did some more digging into the twitter profiles of those offended and it made a lot more sense. Outrage for the sake of outrage.
"In a world where we get our groceries delivered in just two hours through Instacart or Amazon Fresh, ..."
What world is he speaking about? It doesn't sound like this one...
#DeleteChrome
So they can track your spending habits and sell it to Big Data. Mostly-cash businesses like bodegas are one of the last untracked businesses.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Have these people ever been in a convenience store, or do they have such horribly crippling social anxiety disorder that they never go outside where there might be (shocking!!!) PEOPLE they would have to interact with?
I'll fill in the gaps for them: There is an order of magnitude, at least more items available in the typical convenience store than their vending machine (and that's what it is, a vending machine!) can hold -- and all that includes refrigerated and frozen items. All they're doing is re-inventing the vending machine. This is not revolutionary, this is not ground-breaking, this is not innovative in any way, and this is one of the most clueless things I've heard of. There will always be a need for 'mom and pop' convenience stores, and 7-11, and what-have-you. Do they really think that they're going to put all of these out of business? Do they really think they're going to convince every gas station in the country (on the planet?) to dump their convenience store side of the business for an overblown vending machine? Clueless, clueless, clueless. And what's even worse: anything you bought from it would be tracked because you're essentially using plastic to buy it. More marketing data for them to sell on the back end! The hell with that, and the hell with these clueless idiots.
What I was getting at was that whatever company is offering this to the hotel and office market already has a lot of the issues figured out. Expanding their business to other "supervised" locations like health clubs or certain apartment buildings is a "one step away" kind of thing. The article specifically mentions this type of environment. Traditional vending machines and even these automated kiosks already have figured out billing, suppliers, stocking, inventory control, supply, contracts, legal, hiring, payroll and the umpteen other tiny details that actually make a thing like this work. Same for a company that runs vending machines -- maybe they haven't thought of this kind of thing but they can just as easily approach a property manager and ask to put up a vending machine with non-perishables instead of candy or chips, and given that modern vending machines can handle phone payments, they could put in higher priced items. I've seen airport vending machines selling pricey Bose headsets and iPods, so figuring out how to securely vend something more than $2 is already well figured out
Sure, existing solutions lacking that "OMG DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION" thing, but honestly, this space is largely figured out one way or another. Also, the FC article mentions that people use convenient stores for milk ... but this doesn't address that, while there are plenty of vending machines that allow not only cold drinks but also frozen things like ice cream. We have had ice cream in a vending machine onsite for a very long time
I do concur that this will not take the place of the "corner bodega", either. We don't have those where I live, but their moral equivalent is likely the corner drug store or gas station, both of which have far more selection and/or some other reason people stop by -- to get gas or pick up prescriptions. Those reasons to stop aren't going away anytime soon. EVs aren't that prevalent yet, and usually people want to get a prescription really quickly or combine it with other things, like grocery shopping
I'm a big opponent of racism. I am all for equal opportunities and reforming society.
This whole concept of "cultural appropriation" is just ridiculous though. Culture and ideas have always been passed from one culture to another throughout history and that's a good thing.
When one culture does something good that others want to copy, that's a good thing. Sure, something like wearing cornrows in your hair may not necessarily advance society, but there have been times when certain cultural aspects have. Whether it's more practical clothing passed from one culture to another, or Native Americans passing harvesting and agricultural ideas on to colonists, stirrups making their way down from the steppe, the list is endless.
If we strictly enforce the "cultural appropriation is bad" angle, immigrants shouldn't try to fit into their new country because that is appropriating the culture of their hosts. They should keep to their own kind, their own traditions, language, etc, and isolate themselves.
This is all ludicrous! If I like Indian food, I don't see why I shouldn't have a curry. If I like big hair, I would grow an afro. Heck, I may wear a mandarin collar, or walk around wearing tennis shoes with jeans like an American. I like and appreciate many things from many cultures, it shouldn't be frowned upon me showing appreciation for them.
This whole "cultural appropriation is bad" movement is really counter-productive and stupid.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Misappropriation? What, are they cheating on their taxes?
The SJW term they want is "cultural appropriation", as in, "STOP APPROPRIATING MY CULTURE!". Which is an entirely bullshit concept. Should the Germans raise hell about cultural appropriation every time a non German has a Christmas tree? Should Mexicans not serve/sell Mexican food to non Mexicans? Cultural appropriation is what this country of immigrants is all about. Do you want to ban all "X-Y-fusion" cuisine? Cut off the weebs from their anime? (Or cut off the Japanese from their anime because they "appropriated" US comics % Donald Duck to create it?)
Why do the SJWs love to remind us that we're ALL immigrants, but now seem to hate when anyone shares, adopts, or is influenced by other cultures? Do they want us all living in different enclaves, hating each other? (Yes, they do. Decades ago the official metaphor was a melting pot. Now it's a stew. Because in a melting pot, you lose the "identity" of individual ingredients as they blend.)
The earliest modern claim of "cultural appropriation" I can remember is people saying whites stole music (like jazz) from blacks to make their own (like rock and roll). WTF kind of sense does that make? At least save such criticisms for when it actually makes sense, like the 80s and 90s miasma of white suburbanites pretending to be urban blacks. But hey, I guess a bunch of MTV execs made tons of money off of it, so it gets a pass?
People are right to hate on this "Bodega" startup. Not because it poses a threat to small businesses. Not because it's appropriating culture. But because it'll be a shitty, manufactured, mockery of a small market.
Others have already pointed out: "they've invented the vending machine", and "how could they get funding for such trivial shit".
On a slightly more serious, but no less critical note, three criticisms:
- This is a business model with a huge logistics tail. Plus a lot of personnel: someone has to re-stock their little shops, someone has to clean them, etc.. This requires a lot of low-paid personnel, who will require supervision, and on up the chain. A Mom'n'pop business actually has the advantage here, because they mostly employee relatives and people they know.
- These microshops won't carry most of what people actually need and/or want at odd hours: perishables like bread and milk, or else high-margin items like alcohol and tobacco that actually keep lots of little shops in business.
- Nice neighborhoods aren't going to shop in little boxes. Put unattended boxes in not-nice neighborhoods, and they will get trashed, robbed, and vandalized
So it's hard to see who the customers are going to be, and harder to see how they're going to make any money. OTOH, this is all a social good: some VCs clearly have too much money. By throwing it at doomed-to-fail enterprises like Juicero and Bodega, they're putting their money back into circulation. That's really nice of them, don't you think?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This whole concept of "cultural appropriation" is just ridiculous though.
Of course it is. Culture isn't property; it can't be "appropriated".
The term is just the latest pretext for the Perpetually Offended to bitch at people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."