How Amazon fooled us all

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👋 Hi all,

It’s been a while since my last letter to all of you. First and foremost, my newborn son is doing well, and I’m back in business (more about that next month 🤖). Without doing any outreach, I passed 1000 subscribers; thanks!

I will continue writing to you every week and tweaking the format and insights until I’m satisfied with the setup; expect some more AI-related things 🔮

Enjoy,

Bas

Amazon's Fresh grocery 🛒 stores in the United States made headlines in 2018 when they unveiled their high-tech self-checkout system, ‘Walk Out.’

This system was designed to offer customers a fully automated shopping experience, where they could automatically pick up items from the shelves, walk out of the store, and be charged for their purchases. However, it has recently come to light that the Just Walk Out system needed to be more fully automated than advertised. It relied on over 1,000 people in India 🇮🇳 who were scanning video feeds to ensure accurate checkouts.

While Walk Out was intriguing, the system had its fair share of issues. For one, it was expensive to install and maintain, which may have contributed to its limited rollout. Additionally, customers experienced delays in receiving receipts, and orders were sometimes mismanaged, leading to frustration.