People Are Making Bots To Snatch Whole Foods Delivery Order Time Slots (vice.com) 109
Social distancing and stay-home orders have led to booming demand for grocery delivery services. In some big cities, people report not being able to find an open delivery time slot for days or weeks at a time. And now Motherboard has found a series of bots that automatically give some people an upper hand when limited delivery time slots are available on Amazon Fresh or Wholefoods. From a report: A slew of developers have made bots and other tools that, in some cases, automatically hunt for a free delivery slot, grab it, and then complete the user's food order, making sure they have a much better chance of buying food before other people snatch up the slot. While some of the developers told Motherboard they designed their bots to help those in need, such as senior citizens who may need to stay inside as exposure to the coronavirus could be more serious for them, others are dealing with the ethical issue of releasing a tool that can clearly be abused, by allowing those who can figure out how to use a technical tool to buy food while others go without.
"Yes, it's an unfair advantage over others who aren't tech-savvy but may still need to purchase items urgently. However, I try my best to reduce the abused [sic] problem," Manfong, the developer behind a Chrome extension that notifies users when a delivery slot is available, told Motherboard in an email. Checkout bots, often reserved for buying things like limited edition sneakers or concert tickets, are in particularly high demand at the moment for other items. Last week Motherboard reported how one developer had created a bot dedicated to buying the Nintendo Switch, with resellers grabbing as many as they can to sell for a profit during the crisis. Now, that idea of getting a technical one-up over others has expanded to buying essential items such as food.
"Yes, it's an unfair advantage over others who aren't tech-savvy but may still need to purchase items urgently. However, I try my best to reduce the abused [sic] problem," Manfong, the developer behind a Chrome extension that notifies users when a delivery slot is available, told Motherboard in an email. Checkout bots, often reserved for buying things like limited edition sneakers or concert tickets, are in particularly high demand at the moment for other items. Last week Motherboard reported how one developer had created a bot dedicated to buying the Nintendo Switch, with resellers grabbing as many as they can to sell for a profit during the crisis. Now, that idea of getting a technical one-up over others has expanded to buying essential items such as food.
Well, yeah (Score:2)
The only people really pissed about this are the food stores, who are kicking themselves for not thinking of it first.
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Even when its not some big business thing, people make bots to scrape and click things.
My employer has a system that allows the employees to swap shifts, give away shifts, and so on. The system was essentially non-functional for several weeks because one or more of the part timers were slamming it with page refreshes trying to pick up extra shifts.
This isnt a tech-industry place either. Its a resort and casino property with several thousand employees with predominantly high schoo
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Captcha solving is available from various providers as a service and no longer stops bots if the demand is high enough.... you just make some API calls, and you pay approximately between $0.50 and $2 per 1000 Captcha solutions.
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All I can think is that the ticketmaster bot programmers are bored and looking for new markets
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This doesn't make stores any more money, because they can't sell more than they have. But it goes mean that people who don't use bots lose out, which will cause them to stop trying to use the online buying that's getting botted and go to another store. That's why the online auction sites try to block these sorts of bots - if the bots all win, then people get angry and leave. There are techniques for identifying and blocking bots that abuse the system, and I'd guess that if this keeps being an issue that the
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And deliveries apparently are based upon who tips the gig worker the most. So it's a rich person problem anyway, they pay the poor person to trudge to the store and get exposed instead of them. I have a friend who's unemployed and can't afford deliveries (he doesn't undstand budgets) but he says it's safer to say inside and when I ask if it's safer for the delivery person or if it reduces the spread of the virus he has no answer. Never mind that he bitches when they don't have the right type of chips.
I've
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Grocery delivery can seriously reduce exposure, by cutting the chain between the store workers and the outside public down to a bottleneck of the delivery driver/shoppers.
This is a good thing, public health wise. Deliveries can be done contact-free.
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Most deliveries are by a third part gig worker, not from the store itself. The same people go into the store to shop multiple times in a day. The store is not empty with only delivery people, the stores are still full of shoppers since most people can't afford to have others shop for them. So it's no different for a gig worker to go into the store and shop than it is for me, only I will only go into the store once every 10 days, whereas the gig worker is going into the store several times a day. Now it'
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I fail to see the issue, the store releases delivery slots, people wrote programs to find available slots - so what? It's maximizing the delivery persons time. If you feel the system is being abused, why not simply put a per week limit on the number of deliveries a given user or address can place? There really is a simple answer to the problem.
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It's a simple matter of human interaction speed vs machine speed. My father, not tech savvy and in his 80s is entitled to higher priority as a high risk age group, took him 2 weeks of trying to get a delivery slot on a big supermarket chain site, he was checking every 2 hours. My wife works from home due to health issues, it takes her about 2-3 days to get a slot, we're limited to max 80 items so she shares any slot she gets with my father to get him items. My friend at work, simply wrote a basic slot watch
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Seriously, how would this be different if they somehow eliminated the bots?
I suppose the argument could be that some people are using a disproportionate number of delivery time slots, say, per week.
If it was first-come, first served, your tech un-savy 80 year-old dad still would be shut out of time slots because there's always going to be other people more comitted to getting a delivery time slot than him.
You don't want a fair system, where everyone gets an equal chance to get a delivery time slot, you want
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The real answer is to approach the market, ask them to commit a certain percentage of delivery workers to a certain class of customers (elderly, infirm, home-bound, etc), and if it's possible, ask them to hire additional staff and offer to pay a service fee to cover the additional head count.
Of course, such an approach is incredibly unfair - why should your home-bound father take precedence over anyone else? If you take a close look, you might find almost everybody has a justifiable reason to get priority a
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Someone in their 80's is likely to die if they catch Covid 19; they should be granted some advantage. A healthy 30 yo can walk to the shops and buy what they need. Statistically, the 80 yo is far more likely to die if they caught the virus.
I hope this situation never repeats. But if if it does repeat in 50 years time, you'd hope the now 30 yo (then 80 yo) is extended the same compassion.
Does no one here surrender their seat to the elderly, pregnant or disabled on public transport? That's not a pleasant soci
Don't see the advantage in general (Score:3)
Okay, I can understand how Amazon-owned businesses (including Whole Foods) can get gamed like this.
But for the grocery stores most people use, from what I've seen - having a delivery or pickup slot doesn't guarantee you getting the groceries any more than an in-store shopper. They don't appear to be setting stuff aside for these programs ahead of time - typically they seem to just have an employee go through the store (or the stockroom) and grabbing your stuff shortly ahead of when your pickup/delivery is scheduled.
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having a delivery or pickup slot doesn't guarantee you getting the groceries any more than an in-store shopper.
However *not* having a delivery slot definitely means you're not getting anything unless you go to the store in person.
Given that online delivery is oversubscribed, I think it would make sense to limit it to people in high risk groups or who care for people in such groups.
Re:Don't see the advantage in general (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that online delivery is oversubscribed
This is not a given.
It is only oversubscribed because it is underpriced.
Charge more for delivery. Then use the money to hire more delivery people. Repeat until supply and demand meet.
Re:Don't see the advantage in general (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure. Market pricing is the most perfect form of rationing ever devised. It restricts the use of scarce resources without recourse to things like bureaucrats and lawyers.
But it's not necessarily *reasonable* unless you *define* reasonable in terms of markets. In market terms, any attempt to set aside a resource for vulnerable people would be unreasonable by definition.
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The best way to help vulnerable people is to give them money and let them decide for themselves what goods and services they need.
Having a bureaucrat or middle manager guess what the vulnerable need, and then subsidizing those particular goods and services, is far less efficient.
If vulnerable people had received cash assistance to buy market-priced delivery services, there would be no problem.
Instead, we chose the subsidy route and the vulnerable are competing with everyone else in long and unnecessary que
Re:Don't see the advantage in general (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually in most cases I would agree with you. However in this case I don't believe you can reasonably give the most vulnerable people enough money to outbid well-heeled but less vulnerable people. If the point is to allow vulnerable people to be able to avoid exposing themselves to COVID-19, it'd be cheaper simply to set aside delivery slots.
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enough money to outbid well-heeled but less vulnerable people.
Are you serious?
There are tens of millions of unemployed people. Many of them would jump at the chance to earn $15 an hour to deliver food. Let's say it takes 20 minutes to pick and deliver an order (assuming the orders are geographically batched by delivery neighborhood). So that is $5 per order.
Let's say there are a million people willing to be deliverers. Let's say they can each handle 20 orders per day (remember, they are batched), and work five days per week. So that is 100 orders per week per wor
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My back-of-the-envelope calculation was $5 per delivery.
InstaCart charges $6 per delivery for a 2-hour delivery window and is operationally profitable.
So the overhead costs and inefficiencies are not as high as you think.
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Nice how you snuck in healthcare costs for a gig economy worker.
You don't pay "double taxes" on 1099 workers, because you are both employer and worker you owe both the employer and worker portions of various fees and taxes. The government collects the same taxes and fees from W4 and 1099 workers, it's just a question of who pays it, thats all.
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Well, maybe I misunderstand you, but it seems to me that by your argument, the problem we are talking about can't exist in the first place. Since there is now a surplus of labor, Instacarts marginal costs should be going down.
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Wait, the issue is that these people, for whatever perfectly valid reason, can't personally go to the market themselves, so they are trying to use the stores delivery service? BUT the store is open to foot traffic???
Does your 80 year-old father not know a teenager in the neighborhood that could go to the market for him?
I assumed the issue was the market was delivery only.
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What would help everyone really a lot would be *geographical* batching.
I just saw a neighbor get an Amazon delivery, not sure if Whole Foods or Amazon Fresh or just plain Amazon.
They had a van show up yesterday too.
In both cases I would have been DELIGHTED to have piggybacked an order, my needs could be met with a very incremental increase in logistics -- the same shopper and driver could have handled my order, vs me hammering the site to get my own slot.
They already have some concept of "Prime Day", they
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We have seen how that works. Someone needs a drug to survive. Costs a few bucks to make but supply is limited so the market jacks the price to 10,000%. Suddenly you have to give people a few million a year so they can afford to live.
Re:Don't see the advantage in general (Score:4, Insightful)
the market jacks the price to 10,000%.
The "market" does not jack up the price.
A patent-holding monopolist jacks up the price.
Since food delivery is not patentable your analogy with drug pricing does not apply.
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Are you really that naive that you think actors in the market won't find some way to exploit it? Oh, you live where we are the only supermarket that delivers you that area, that's a shame, well now delivery went up 10,000%. We had to buy our driver a mask which now costs us $1000!
Capitalism works great in theory but always fails in practice and has to be heavily regulated. Since you don't regulate it enough it isn't a viable solution for your country.
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Are you really that naive that you think actors in the market won't find some way to exploit it?
Yes. I believe in "reality-based reasoning".
Your theory: If capitalists are allowed to charge whatever they want for grocery delivery, they will charge exorbitant prices.
REALITY: Capitalists CAN charge whatever they want for grocery delivery. Some are charging reasonable fees. Others, including Amazon, are providing grocery deliveries for free.
If exorbitant grocery delivery charges are actually occurring, please provide evidence.
If your theory doesn't match reality, it is not reality that is wrong.
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Clearly it depends on the market because in the UK Amazon doesn't deliver most groceries. The ones they do have been going up steadily since this kicked off, even on stuff like cat food.
We also have laws limiting gouging. Delivery costs in particular can't be jacked up too much because they were being used as a tax dodge or to avoid seller fees at places like Amazon and eBay. But those things are not part of the perfect capitalist paradise, libertarians oppose them.
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Only if there's no restrictions on supply. There are now.
Sometimes market efficiency is less important than distribution. For example, take the current market for masks. The US (federal and state) could band together to place a bulk order, which'd be just as incentivizing to producers as higher prices since a large order like that is guaranteed, reliable income. Instead we let the market rule,
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Only if there's no restrictions on supply. There are now.
The restricted supply is not of groceries but of pickers and delivery people.
There is no shortage of labor.
The problem is that Whole Foods provides delivery for free to Prime members, so they have no financial incentive to increase the supply.
Ah, ok, you're a fundamentalist.
Nope. I just read history books.
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There are people who need the delivery services, so increasing prices only punishes them.
Right now there are many people who have been given stay home notices in various countries. You're not allowed to leave the building in which you live except to seek medical treatment, if such a person cannot get food delivered then they'll eventually end up leaving the house to have medical treatment for malnutrition.
Then there are all those who are elderly or frail, who may find it difficult to go out during normal ti
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There are people who need the delivery services, so increasing prices only punishes them.
Given these choices:
1. Pay a small price for grocery delivery.
2. Add your name to a queue, and hope you eventually get some food.
I think many people will choose #1.
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Many affluent people will choose option 1, but they don't need the service.
Many people who are elderly and vulnerable won't be able to afford the higher prices, and will choose option 3: starvation.
Re: Don't see the advantage in general (Score:3)
There is a finite number of slots available due to the limited supply of the specialist refrigerated delivery vans available to the supermarkets (at least that's the situation in the UK). Sure they can order more vans, but they will have significant lead times and limited availability to ramp up production. Further the supermarkets will need to amortizise the capital cost of those specialist delivery vans over a number of years, longer than this current situation is likely to go on for. That would leave the
another moronic idea from an armchair pundit (Score:1)
You make the assumption it's underpriced quite handily... what if the issue is a lack of delivery people? Jacking up the price won't work so well then, this isn't an abstract nit-pick, delivery people risk their lives; the ones still at work are underpaid and remain at work for noneconomic factors such as altruism.
If it was up to you and your ilk we'd simply conquer the problems of starvation and overpopulation by killing half the world's population and feeding them to the other half...
You probably have al
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Okay, I can understand how Amazon-owned businesses (including Whole Foods) can get gamed like this.
But for the grocery stores most people use, from what I've seen - having a delivery or pickup slot doesn't guarantee you getting the groceries any more than an in-store shopper. They don't appear to be setting stuff aside for these programs ahead of time - typically they seem to just have an employee go through the store (or the stockroom) and grabbing your stuff shortly ahead of when your pickup/delivery is scheduled.
That's why you don't understand. For many, in store shopping simply isn't an option.
Who is it not an option for? (Score:1)
That's why you don't understand. For many, in store shopping simply isn't an option.
It seems pretty crazy to me to say for "many' people this is not an option.
For seniors, that is why they have senior specific shopping hours, so that it's practical for older people to go shopping with lower risk.
The grocery stores are intensely cleaning everything now, all the time.
For everyone else, so far I've been to grocery stores a few times a week a things are pretty safe. I've never really felt it was very risky at
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For seniors, that is why they have senior specific shopping hours, so that it's practical for older people to go shopping with lower risk.
But here, you're assuming the seniors can make it to the store.
For everyone else, so far I've been to grocery stores a few times a week a things are pretty safe. I've never really felt it was very risky at all, especially if you have a list ahead of time and shop quickly. You can keep potential exposure very minimal.
Where do you live? By that I mean, it might not be the same place everywhere. NYC for instance, giving its population density and how grocery stores are only letting in a small % of people means you're stuck waiting in line for who knows how long. For many this isn't an option, regardless of the fact that it keeps them outside for extended periods of time, which goes against the whole lockdown thing.
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But here, you're assuming the seniors can make it to the store.
No, I'm assuming MANY seniors can (remember the original post claimed "many" people did not have the option to go to the store) - and do. I've seen them there. My parents, aunts and uncles are all well into senior years and all go to the store to buy groceries (even now, despite my offers to go get things for them).
Where do you live? By that I mean, it might not be the same place everywhere. NYC for instance, giving its population density and
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TFA article refers to it being an issue in "some big cities", not literally everywhere. It's great things seem super easy for you personally in Denver, but there are 18 other U.S. cites larger than that [wikipedia.org] (87 larger if going by population density, 41 if going by land area).
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NYC for instance, giving its population density and how grocery stores are only letting in a small % of people means you're stuck waiting in line for who knows how long
As a friend used to say on a mail list to people whining about the lack of high speed internet in their neighborhood, apartment building, whatever:
Time to move!
If they are home bound, if they have no relatives nearby that can help them, if none of their neighbors come to their aid in their time of need, why live there? There are plenty of places in America that embrace and support their neighbors in need - hint, you fly over them when you shuttle between NY and CA.
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I’m admittedly limiting how often I go to the store, and I’m going very early because it’s not very busy then. But yeah - I can’t say I’ve felt as if (to quote The Onion) I was risking my life to buy frozen waffles. People are, all in all, being considerate and trying to give each other space.
https://local.theonion.com/lif... [theonion.com]
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The problem is that those who cannot shop in the store are getting pushed out of the delivery system by modern able-bodied yuppies using phone apps.
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are getting pushed out of the delivery system by modern able-bodied yuppies using phone apps.
Everyone is told to stay home if at all possible, to only go outside when absolutely necessary. Even "yuppies using phone apps"
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No, we are not told to stay home universally with no exceptions. We ARE allowed to go out and shop, and maybe people don't realize it yet but those deliveries are being done by human beings who have also been told to stay at home.
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For many, in store shopping simply isn't an option.
Don't they know anybody for whom in-store shopping IS an option? A child, sibling, parent, neighbor, someone from their church, synagogue, or mosque?
They can't offer someone the same $6.95 (or whatever) delivery fee to bring them their groceries?
Amazon should sting them with fees (Score:1)
Detect a customer ordering via a bot? Boom, account locked, $100 to unlock penalty for gaming the system during a pandemic.
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Detect a customer ordering via a bot? Boom, account locked, $100 to unlock penalty
During these times they would run afoul of the law, and the company trying to do that would likely be subject to fines and possible jail time. About all they would be able to block an IP address from which a bot was detected.
Adding on an extra $100 charge to "unlock an account" right now in order to do business is Illegal in much of the US, because of laws prohibiting predatory pricing / gouging during an emergency.
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B: "You can become a customer for $100"
C: "You arent charging other customers that"
B: "We claim that you were using a BOT"
C: "I wasnt"
B: "Yes you were"
The Business better have some damn good lawyers, which wouldnt be true because a damn good lawyer would definitely have vetoed such a policy before it became a policy.
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Then just ban them permanently, and take legal action for damages against the business.
Personally I'd involve a guillotine and public execution for that kind of behavior in a situation like this.
I've fucking had it with these "fuck ethics, make money" assholes.
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You can't block an ip address detected as being a bot, because a lot of providers are using cgn and there might be hundreds or thousands of customers behind the one address.
And if you're going to run a bot or other potentially malicious activity, doing so from a provider using cgn is an obvious choice because you stand less chance of getting blocked.
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Why?
Sure, I could write a bot to get the first delivery slot, but why? Even if it took me only 1/2 hour to write, that's a $50 opportunity cost at my current labor rate. For that amount, I could just pay someone to go shop for me.
But, a particularly enterprising business could let this go on for a while, and then, say change the page. Instead of NextAvailableDeliverySlot accompanied by the text "Choose next delivery time", it would now read, "I agree to $250 priority delivery surcharge" with the cor
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Why not just limit customers to one or two delivery orders per week?
we should all have them (Score:3)
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A lot of these services are not from the grocery stores, they're from wannabe startups paying nearly nothing to gig workers. And the gig workers are re-ordering the deliveries to suit whoever tips the most. Which is likely much less safe for spreading viruses this way.
Going in to shop not that bad (Score:2)
I've tried grocery store pickup options a few times.
It has a few problems though - in each of the orders there were a number of items that were not fulfilled, or replaced with items we didn't want...
Now given that right now, not everything is going to be in there. But we went in right after delivery and found some of the things they claimed there was nothing of - in some cases, because we had ordered one size but there was a larger version just sitting there as well, which I guess doesn't count. In other c
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I don't know what reality you're living in, but there have been entitled douchbags violating personal space, going the wrong way in one way aisles, and pushing into lines hoping no one will call them out every single fucking time I've been to the grocery since this started.
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The problem is that some of these delivery services are just overlays on top of traditional grocery stores, so they don't know at the point of ordering what stock is going to be available at delivery time as walk-in customers could finish it off by then.
A warehouse model is more efficient, where the ordering system is aware of stock levels as well as pending orders and deliveries.
You know what would be cool? (Score:1)
Maybe some kind of "playbook" [politico.com] could have been written. If only...
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I don't think a central government can react fast enough for that.
Her, in our town with ~10.000 people multiple volunteer groups for shopping and other help have sprung up, and the mayor has made some arrangement with local shop owners that those volunteer have some stamped authorization that they are shopping for multiple people, for example for "only one item per person" items, and after a few days everything worked pretty flawlessly. From what I see in the Facebook/WhatApp Co-Ordination groups there are
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Which level of government in the US would do that? I would not expect the federal government to be capable of staffing up to the size required to deliver food in every single community across the United States. The federal government doesn't manage people; the federal government manages borders and states. State governments manage the communities (counties, cities, towns) within the states, and the communities manage people.
A federal government program that seems highly desired by some would have sever
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You think the plan book you are waving around goes into specificity about ensuring home-bound citizens still get groceries delivered?
That is pure fantasy. That presumes we have a registry of everyone that needs assistance AND has the means to *instantly* hire/deploy hundreds and hundreds of workers to start making these deliveries?
That's like saying FEMA needs a plan to ensure every displaced natural disaster victim has a sufficient supply of their prescriptions...
Better use of time (Score:3)
instead of building bots to game the system of the too few (apparently) shops that offer delivery, offer to set up a delivery website for the nearest supermarket that doesn't have one.
Already Happened (Score:2)
It's a vastly more productive response to the problem than writing a bot to grab and block delivery time slots.
Response (Score:1)
If you don't use supply and demand to set price (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:If you don't use supply and demand to set price (Score:5, Insightful)
Price gouging just allows people with capital to exploit those who don't have it. It won't make sure everyone who needs one gets a mask, it will just make everyone pay more for them.
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Price gouging just allows people with capital to exploit those who don't have it. It won't make sure everyone who needs one gets a mask, it will just make everyone pay more for them.
Capitalism allows people with capital to exploit those who don't have it. Are you going to propose banning capitalism too?
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No, but maybe regulate the fuck out of it.
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Easy enough for OPEC, who can adjust the flow rates on their rigs. That doesn't translate to manufacturing, which may not have idle capacity to turn on.
For example: masks, toilet paper, and disinfectant products. These are not cyclical products, so factories were running close to capacity even before the crisis hit. You can't spin up a new factory from one day to the next, so despite the price pressure, supply remained way below demand for weeks, going on months. The pandemic will likely end before supply c
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Products like masks, toilet paper and disinfectant also don't spoil... So long as you have space to store such products you can bulk purchase them which is also generally cheaper.
Many people do this, I certainly did when i was staying in a larger house so entering the current situation i would have had a few months supply of toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Now for anything in short supply i would expect them to restrict the number of items each customer can buy.
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Products like masks
Medical-grade face masks expire [theday.com]
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You are *partially* correct.
Yes, we need price elasticity, but still need to maintain some control. Some markets achieve this by increasing the price of additional units.
So,
1 n95 mask = $1
2 n95 masks = $5
3 n95 masks = $10
and so on.
Instead of a bulk discount, they offer a bulk markup. If you really want to buy a lot, you need to visit multiple stores, or pay an additional fee. If you need one to survive you get the benefit of old prices.
Otherwise we run into situations where early people hoard everything tha
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I think it's a great idea.
I also think you'll get That Asshole complaining about fiduciary duty and how you're reducing marginal profit, because they won't sell as many, so the cost per unit will push up.
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Yes, a group of governments could have paid for the Ebola trials in 2005 but voters will never approve of preventative spending unless the specific disaster has just occurred to them.
That's the inherent flaw with the current systems of government... Nothing is done in advance incase it will be wasted resources, and then when a disaster happens there is a panic and price gouging so it ends up costing a lot more than it would have.
Occasionally someone does push through with preventative measures:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]
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Some how people think that if an item is urgently needed the free market shouldn't be used to determine who gets it.
That's absolutely correct. Ever hear of Pharma Bro?
Some how people also think we have a 'free market' which is anything but the case. We have a simulation of one, subject to pervasive regulation and negative costs associated with bad publicity.
If I sell n95 face masks at the 2018 prices I can't stock pile them for others.
Untrue. The conclusion does not follow from the premise.
They might be worth $200 a box for me personally but if I can't sell them for $200 a box then there is no financial incentive for me to stock pile them for an emergency.
You've obviously never heard of marginal utility. You'd have quite the incentive to stockpile anything with a $200 utility that costs between $2 and $20 as masks currently do. We're talking about masks here,
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The gripping hand is that the people using bots to snipe delivery slots are completely unable to increase the supply of delivery slots. The result is an artificial scarcity which destroys the information in the market making it less efficient. Why do you hate markets?
"it's an unfair advantage" (Score:2)
Blame cheap/free delivery. (Score:3)
If the delivery cost was a separate fee independent of the size of the order, people would wait as long as possible before placing their order in order to save themselves money, freeing up slots for other customers. These bots would be significantly less useful.
The delivery services are themselves to blame for this problem. But they want to be able to advertise "free delivery" so here we are.
Knowing stuff unfair? (Score:2)
I know how to get home and avoid teafiic, so I get home sooner. I know math and computers so I don’t have to get ripped off by a tax service. I have technical skills that allow me to wrk. Are any of these unfair. Is it unfair that I took advantages of education that other
Walmart, Publix (Score:2)
I just walk into Walmart or Publix and there's literally food to be bought right there on the spot. Crazy.
Apple figured it out (Score:2)
The simple solution: They changed it so you had a week time to order tickets, and then a lottery would decide who would actually get tickets and would have to pay for them. I'm sure they had some way to get your credit card to make sure you didn't refuse payment.
They should do the same thing: You order food all day, and
Nice article (Score:2)
Welcome to three weeks ago.
Cant believe the price of these things (Score:2)
Who is paying all this extra cash to have food delivered when they have more free time than ever to drive there? I mean, let the oldies and immuno-surpressed people use the service, they need it.
Re: (Score:2)
Time to move.
Seriously, you bought a house three miles from a grocery store and don't have a car?
Time to move.
You commute 90 miles (45 miles to and from work) 5 days a week?
Time to move.
Darn! I Imagined Food Stealing Warrior Bots! (Score:2)
At first glance at the title I though it was "People Are Making Bots To Snatch Whole Foods Delivery Orders" and imagined robber-warrior robots snatching away bags of groceries and dashing off with the goods.
Why bother with slots? (Score:2)
The whole purpose of delivery slots was so the delivery could be scheduled at a convenient time when someone is around to receive it... But it makes the overall delivery system less efficient - if i request a morning slot and my neighbour requests the afternoon the delivery driver has to make 2 trips to our street and probably travel elsewhere in between.
Now perhaps during normal times this added convenience outweighs the inefficiency, but right now this system is absolutely stupid and needs to be dropped a
Re: (Score:2)
You assume everyone in given neighborhood are all available at the same time - if that's the case, sure - but if your one neighbor works third shift, and the other works second shift and you work first shift, what is the grocer to do?
Re: (Score:2)
In many countries the vast majority of people are now at home all day under lockdown, either working from home or simply not working at all.
The only people still leaving their homes to work are those working in specific fields like medical and food. Even those few who are going out to work will have plenty of neighbours who aren't going anywhere all day and can hold deliveries for them.
Plus those who are actually still going out to work are less likely to require delivery... By contrast, some people are und
Re: (Score:1)
Why do I have a feeling you're one of those people who use tor for everything?
Re: (Score:1)
Don't forget the tinfoil underwear.