I have made harsh comments about Mr. Mudede's articles in the past. To be fair, I must compliment him on this one. It's interesting, well written and useful. Thank you.

The actual economics here are of the "just walk out" technology vs. self-checkout technology. As Charles notes, the latter replaces the paid labor of the checkout clerk with the unpaid labor of the shopper. The former was meant to replace the paid labor of the checkout clerk with the unpaid labor of AI. But the AI proved more expensive than self-checkout, and so was scrapped. Any additional value provided by "just walk out" over self-checkout simply wasn't large enough to justify the cost of the AI.

Although Charles' Marxism requires him to include the irrelevant boilerplate, "...capitalism still needs, and daily depends on, the lifeblood of low wages", the real reason he and other writers at the Stranger hate Amazon actually originates in Amazon's providing huge numbers of HIGH-wage jobs to Seattle, thus changing Seattle from a place where Stranger writers could live comfortably on their trust funds and/or (low) wages from the Stranger, to one where they are constantly being displaced by ever-larger numbers of persons who work at Amazon (and other tech' firms).

ez-peazy!
Answer for
Bezoz: simply
Chip Everything
and Everyone and
total it all Up as they
cruise rite thru The Door.

also:

have
MUX's
Satelittes
keep a Keen
Eye™ on Everyone
and on EVERY little Thing

and
don't
forget
to Listen
Siri! 'Lexa!

we'll be
Needing
those Recordings:

Blackmail
requires
a good
Ear!

@2 What a hilariously smarmy and short-sighted comment in its attempt to assume superiority in opinion. You simply must be a defensive tech bro if that's your only interpretation of why criticism of Amazon exists.

Thanks for the Sleep Dealer recommendation Charles.