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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union
 
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Inferior Third Season
Jan 15, 2005

Cicero posted:

Only semi-related to this discussion, but interesting enough to warrant a crosspost: Amazon just announced a checkout-less retail store - https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011

So not only is Amazon crushing existing big box stores via online shopping, now they're going to move in on their brick and mortar turf as well.
This sounds loving terrible. Now instead of a cashier going one-by-one through my things at a checkout register, I'll have to do it myself at my car when loading it up to make sure I didn't get charged for something I picked up but didn't set back in place just perfectly enough for the sensor.

* # ¿ Dec 5, 2016 16:51
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:11
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Inferior Third Season
Jan 15, 2005

BarbarianElephant posted:

"Now instead of giving your list to the grocer and chilling while he got your goods for you from the shelves behind him, you have to trail round this huge cavernous store with a wheeled trolley picking things up yourself, then having them scanned one by one at the door. Sounds like a nightmare!"
Making lists and having others fetch the things I want instead of getting them myself is the type of thing I'd do if I somehow became obscenely wealthy. So, yes, having to shop is a nightmare.

* # ¿ Dec 6, 2016 18:16
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Inferior Third Season
Jan 15, 2005

 Displaced rural workers of the past two centuries could move into the cities or factory towns, where industrialization was producing tons of lovely, poorly paid, dangerous jobs for the low-skilled laborer.

Where are displaced workers of today supposed to go and what are they to supposed to do when they get there? And how are they going to afford food and shelter while transitioning to whatever it is they're supposed to become?

* # ¿ Jun 26, 2017 13:23
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Inferior Third Season
Jan 15, 2005

TyroneGoldstein posted:

Holy poo poo!!! :

COMMERCIAL ITEM DESCRIPTION
BREAD, FRESH OR FROZEN
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has authorized
the use of this Commercial Item Description.
1. SCOPE.
1.1 This Commercial Item Description (CID) covers fresh or frozen bread, packed in
commercially acceptable containers, suitable for use by Federal, State, and local governments and
other interested parties.


I mean....They have a spec sheet for bread standardization!
You must have not been paying attention to Brexit, where a ban on bendy bananas featured prominently in the argument for EU overreach:

[url posted:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6481969.stm[/url]]As Commission Regulation (EC) 2257/94 puts it, bananas must be "free from malformation or abnormal curvature". In the case of "Extra class" bananas, there is no wiggle room, but Class 1 bananas can have "slight defects of shape", and Class 2 bananas can have full-on "defects of shape".

No attempt is made to define "abnormal curvature" in the case of bananas, which must lead to lots of arguments. Contrast the case of cucumbers (Commission Regulation (EEC) No 1677/88), where Class I and "Extra class" cucumbers are allowed a bend of 10mm per 10cm of length. Class II cucumbers can bend twice as much.
You'll be shocked to learn that a ban on sales of bendy bananas never actually existed. The regulation is only about the standards required to be allowed to sell bananas of a certain class, so that when a supermarket orders bananas from an importer, they have an objective way of determining whether they got the quality of banana they paid for. If a supermarket wanted to be in the defective-shape banana business, there was nothing stopping them.

* # ¿ Nov 14, 2017 15:21
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Inferior Third Season
Jan 15, 2005

learnincurve posted:

Confession: I have never been to an ikea because I have boycotted all self assemble furniture.

Because I’m a bit poor this has meant second hand but gently caress MDF for forever and a day. It’s terrible floor sweepings compressed and wrapped, and pretty much the worst thing you can think of for making furniture out of. Pretty much the only thing it’s good for is for levelling off floors before laminate is put down. Furniture is meant to last forever, not expand and blow if it gets wet, or simply start to fall apart after a few years. This is the evil of ikea, they know on the surface it looks cheap and good for the price but the reality is that they are the embodiment of the Sam Vine’s theory of economic injustice. https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Economic_Injustice

“At the time of Men at Arms, Samuel Vimes earned thirty-eight dollars a month as a Captain of the Watch, plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots, the sort that would last years and years, cost fifty dollars. This was beyond his pocket and the most he could hope for was an affordable pair of boots costing ten dollars, which might with luck last a year or so before he would need to resort to makeshift cardboard insoles so as to prolong the moment of shelling out another ten dollars.
Therefore over a period of ten years, he might have paid out a hundred dollars on boots, twice as much as the man who could afford fifty dollars up front ten years before. And he would still have wet feet.”
Why is your furniture getting wet so often that it's falling apart? Even poo poo quality bookshelves and end tables and whatever can last years or decades if you only use them for their intended purposes. It doesn't take tempered steel to bear the weight of a few paperbacks.

Boots are a terrible analogy, because boots are a heavily used wear-and-tear good that are designed to break down over time, so the quality of the materials is important for durability and lifetime, which is not really the case for most kinds of IKEA furniture.

* # ¿ Nov 22, 2017 17:35
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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 15:11
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Inferior Third Season
Jan 15, 2005

Monopthalmus posted:

It's made by a bot, guys.


cf. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/tldr/2017/7/10/15946296/amazon-bot-smartphone-cases
I unironically like the faucet filling the bath tub one.

* # ¿ Nov 28, 2017 12:45
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Retail Collapse 2019: Bezos realized that marriage is a form of union