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Under Pressure, Amazon Plans To Accept Cash at Cashierless 'Go' Stores (cnn.com)
Bowing to growing pressure from opponents who say that cashless stores leave out low-income Americans, Amazon plans to take cash at its 10 cashierless "Go" stores. From a report: Amazon Go stores, located in San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle, use AI and cameras to check out customers. Amazon reportedly is considering opening up to to 3,000 by 2021. "We are working to accept cash," a spokesperson for Amazon said Wednesday. "Paying cash at Amazon Go will work as you would expect: you'll check out, pay with cash, and then get your change." Amazon did not say when Go stores will begin accepting cash. Amazon also said its bookstores will start taking cash, but did not share any details.
Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior vice president of physical stores, told employees last month that Go stores would add "additional payment mechanisms," CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday. Kessel was responding to a question about how Amazon plans to address "discrimination and elitism" at cashierless stores, according to the report. Further reading: As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic.
Steve Kessel, Amazon's senior vice president of physical stores, told employees last month that Go stores would add "additional payment mechanisms," CNBC reported earlier on Wednesday. Kessel was responding to a question about how Amazon plans to address "discrimination and elitism" at cashierless stores, according to the report. Further reading: As More Retailers Ban Paper Money, It's Making Things Awkward For Customers Without Plastic.
They are like the dumb kids in school. They ruin the pace for everyone else.
This is not about low-income, rather about keeping alternative to payment processors widely accepted and available.
Just consider the power VISA would have if there was no ready alternatives to paying with VISA. Without alternatives they would have an effective power to implement VAT-like tax on everyone worldwide. At least for now, ability to pay with cash keep them in check - if they get too greedy merchants would stop accepting plastic.
Not interested in an AI tracking store.
Thank you.
for all debt's public and private.
End of.
When a 16-year old with no more than a side gig cutting laws can obtain a free checking and savings account, to include the debit/credit card, can someone please explain this "low-income" excuse?
Perhaps instead of "low-income" you call it what it is; Citizens wanting to hide their legal status by being paid under every proverbial table.
Yeah, I like semi-anonymous transactions and privacy too, but they're not doing this for "high-privacy" Americans...
How is this any different than Costco requiring that you have a membership to shop at their stores? The membership keeps low income people from shopping there. Amazon shouldn't cave to SJW pressure like this.
It's $2500 a transaction if you want it. Mmm, that's a tasty -$2498 candy bar!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
From watching a documentary last night, it seemed like many homeless in Seattle shoplift with impunity (and immunity) already. So it seems like they were already fine as they would just walk out of the store with items like every other customer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Here in Canada my local Safeway grocery store has self-checkouts that accept cash.
Point of Sale is hard?
FUCK AMAZON.
You don't have to have much money to have a bank account.... hell, I was on the verge of becoming homeless some 25 or so years ago and I still had a bank account. Granted, not much money was in it most of the time, but it was still there... and when I got paid, the money went in, and I'd pay everything electronically up until the money ran out... wash, rinse, repeat, every pay cycle. I lived like this for years.
I might carry cash maybe only one or two times a year today... but even back then I still hardly ever handled cash. It was simply easier to pay for everything through e-transfer or direct payment... I also made sure to get an account with no extra fees for each such usage, so I wasn't getting dinged with unexpected user fees.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
it's fine for the 16 year old with no credit. Give that kid a few years. The car his mom & dad helped him buy will break down and his two $8/hr jobs won't be enough to get it fixed. He won't know how to fix it himself because we pay for schools with property taxes and Auto Shop was one of the first things cut when the property values in his neighborhood collapsed and his school district lost all it's funding. Kid now has a high interest loan over his head and very little money. So his credit's shot. One of these days he overdraws his account and the bank uses that opportunity to close it out and send him packing since he's all cost and no profit. The divorce he has in his 20s (along with child support) means no bank will touch him. Doesn't help that the mom cleaned out his account right before the divorce
Once the world kicks down you it doesn't stop. Unless some outside force steps in you're pretty much done with. As for the illegals, they've got their own little world that still takes cash that they keep to. Everyone knows they're there but turns a blind eye because the local businesses want to hire them and the locals themselves want their lawns maintained and their houses renovated on the cheap. This has nothing to do with illegal immigration. We could stop that any time we want with stricter employer guidelines and by ending the drug war so the refugees would stop streaming in. But if we did that the right wing in America would lose yet another boogeyman to scare us with.
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For All Debts, Public and Private.
You're doomed.
NJ Costco gas stations, pharmacy, alcohol (limited) states are buy law non member.
legal tender
noun
Denomination of a country's currency that, by law, must be accepted as a medium for commercial exchange and payment for a money debt.
Sounds to me like Amazon is making the right move. I don't see much room for interpretation for the definition of 'legal tender' here.
and with no cash shoplifting is hard to enforce under the law.
"PRIVACY"?!!
Yeah, like these stores aren't crammed with cameras.
Anyone dumb enough to enter and have the temerity to pay with cash is going on The List. But you already knew that.
Contrary to popular misconception, the use of cash is INCREASING, not decreasing.
https://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/global-cash-report-reveals-cash-payments-are-on-the-increase/
up 8.1% since 2011.
All your internets are belong to us!
CASH IS KING
People who think their phone is replacing cash are living in the dark ages.
Then it should be no problem for Amazon.
Yeah, there's a reason everything seems to be an endless battle - even when one party has total control and a concrete agenda, they blow it. An American politician can do too much and cause a disaster or do too little and say, "We'll get it right next time if you vote for me," thus it pays for them to be as ineffective as possible.
We will never solve any issue that we care about. Instead, our politicians will continue to fight a forever-war over meaningless bandaids and half-measures while promising it will solve everything and/or destroy us all.
If you vote politicians in on a platform, you start with a sternly worded letter. If they breach their mandate after the letter, you end their term and make sure whoever takes over their position takes the lesson taught by the example you made of the last politician.
Rinse and repeat until American is Great Again. With the free time you have as a result of the political upheaval, you can finally read its history and discover it never at any time was.
I propose to scan it and shred it
Cash spent at a store is a freedom of speech issue. Cashless stores could just offer a discount for cashless transactions just like gasoline stations charge less if you pay in cash than with a credit card.
Simply: When it's 99% more convenient for the business and 1% more convenient for the customer, the customer is getting less service from the business.
Yes, the customer should be able to pay by cash, card or check and be able to get paper receipts or statements if needed - for example cost basis on upgrades you paid for on a rental house or investment which are needed 10 or more years after the initial statement.
And yes, you don't need my cell phone to send me a paper receipt. Had this lameness after SquareSoft receipt was sent to me for credit card transaction of a Taxi in SF and months later a restaurant my home town took my credit card and asked 'do you want us to send the receipt to you phone number AAA-AAA-AAAA' without me even giving my phone number to the restaurant.
Kind of expect the SquareSoft folks to look up my credit header and then sell my first name and phone number and some A,B,C,D,F sales prospect status to a bunch of telemarketers.
My daughter dragged me into an Amazon Prime brick-and-mortar book store. I handed her a $20 bill for a book. She came back and told me, "They don't take cash here!" Seems like a strange way to run a store in a mall, but apparently they want a record of everything you buy there!
I presume Amazon will be using some sort of optical recognition technology to figure out what denomination you paid or if you paid bona fide USD or Russian rubles or some more exotic currency. So the question is, what's to prevent Amazon from tracking the serial numbers of the cash you paid. That's still far away into the future. But cash transactions don't guarantee anonymity, especially if you're paid by a business that withdraws it payroll money just in time for payday. The bank is more likely to issue freshly printed cash with consecutive serial numbers.
the problem isn't them blowing it, the problem is that a right wing, pro corporate and anti-worker regime has been in charge since Reagan. It's not about too much or too little, they've always done a lot, it's just mostly been bad. Tax cuts for the rich, attacks on Unions, deregulation (especially of banks who gamble with trillions knowing full well their losses will be covered by you and me) trickle down economics, austerity for the working class and opulence for the rich and endless war to support the military industrial complex.
We've been trying right wing politics for decades, whichever party was in charge. Folks have been trying to replace "The Establishment" without being able to understand who the establishment is.
Go look up opensecrets.org. That's a good place to start. Watch Secular Talk and Shaun. Read A People's History of the United States. Listen to what Bernie Sanders says about healthcare and what Liz Warren says about the banks. Do these things and it'll start to make sense. The problem is a wealthy elite who's greed and power hunger knows no bounds. You can't just look at parties or politician or who makes you feel good about yourself. What matters is policy and who does and doesn't take corporate PAC money. Oh, and watch out for guys like Beto O'Rouke, who seems to have gotten his money from the wealthy and hide that fact by having them bundle small donations.
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Low-income shoppers steal. It's called shrinkage. They will thrive in a no-cash environment.
Canadian Tire has supported cash-based self-checkout for... damn, feels like almost ten years now!
The whole point of the Go stores is you tap your phone on the way in (with the Go app installed and you logged into your Amazon account), you pick up the things you want, and you walk out.
If people don't have to swipe to get in, then on the way out that means everyone has to check-in with a clerk. You can't leave it up to the honor system or people will start stealing Amazon blind. And, if everyone has to check in with a clerk, then you defeat the whole point.
How is this gonna work?
Cash at a cashierless store? That is unpossible!
Like the meatball submarine sandwich, the laws of physics should prevent this!
banks will not give you an account in America. It is very common for men post divorce to be unable to get an account. Alimony and Child support payments show up on your record and can hurt you because they are a debt that must always be paid before anything else. Also divorces are really, really difficult and expensive and you'll often be left in a bad spot financially.
My understanding is large parts of Europe have "Postal Banking" where you can open a public bank account at a Post Office regardless of credit worthiness. Countries often do this specifically to address the problem of private banks not wanting to take on the poor and disadvantaged as clients. In America the banks have a _lot_ more power than they do even in Europe, so they've blocked any attempt at such a system.
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