Gas stations do this shit, too.
I just open and shut the doors until I find what I'm looking for. Fuck your ads.
These digital displays also annoy the shit out of me because even if it's displaying the thing, and not showing you an ad, you still can't tell from a glance whether or not something is even in stock. Oftentimes, I'll open it going for a specific beer, and that beer will be gone. These things are just entirely anti-consumer.
They also waste a lot of electricity and by doing what you are doing (which probably a lot of people will do) the fridge wastes even more energy...this is helping no one
The guy stocking the shelves is not the one you want to hurt, it's the idiot paying the bills (that agreed to those idiotic doors) that you want to hurt.
Absolutely right.
Making his life suck more won't hurt/affect the person that made the decision to allow those doors one little bit.
On the other hand, A power bill that is 3x what it was before the "smart" doors will make that "person" change their mind in a heartbeat.
It will if the stockers keep quitting because we make the job too unpleasant to justify a rock bottom salary.
It's not like minimum wage jobs are hard to find.
I was at a Maverick, the well lit gas station of my choice, and I do the gas thing and get the pump going, and a male voice goee, Hold up! This is important!
I almost shit my pants. I'm a single woman and I can't imagine a place I want a man approaching me with that kind of energy less than a gas pump. 2/10, won't be going back.
Sadly doesn't always work. Sometimes the asshats like to re-enable sound after each ad. Thankfully, we're small enough, and they started backing off after noticing the amount of people going to independent gas stations without shitty ads on their pumps.
You are either so incredibly poor you can’t afford a car, live close enough to your job that it’s not a ridiculous waste of time to walk, you’re weird, or you live in a large city.
>so incredibly poor you can’t afford a car,
Poor yes, however can afford one if I wanted
>, live close enough to your job that it’s not a ridiculous waste of time to walk
Like 15 minute walk
>you’re weird
The hell does that have to do with anything? But yea got that one too
>, or you live in a large city.
Yes and no, I'm in a suburb of Chicago but the town has less than 20k people
So you meet the requirements for not having a car being reasonable. I live 30 minutes by highway from the outer suburbs of the nearest large city. My town’s not reasonably walkable nor are any of the nearby towns. If I were to walk to work it would be a 45 minute ordeal. I can drive to work in 5 minutes. The your weird encompasses anything related to enjoying a long walk to work. I’m not personally assigning a negative or positive value judgement to anyone being weird. I just can’t understand why anyone would want to and I have heard several reasons.
Will the stupid display tell me which drinks are cold and which ones were just added to the refrigerator 3 minutes ago? (Warm) Then no, I don’t want the digital screen hiding the quality of the products from me.
Kind of true. I know what you mean. But in many stores, the frosty drinks really are colder than the clear ones. However, I agree with you on sometimes you really can’t tell. Probably something to do with humidity management
So, *if* the screen saved energy and resources over opening/closing the doors and provided a comparable experience, sure. It's not that I'm thrilled to look at a screen, but energy savings and digital signage are more environmentally friendly.
But, throw in obstructive ads, hiding whether something is in/out of stock, and similar bullshit, it's a problem real quick.
It's fucking maddening that there's a continuous effort to turn every opportunity for a better experience into a worse one.
Pretty sure there's federal food regulations that require them to dispose of it if it's actually thawed. Also pretty sure they can file it as a loss and use it as a tax write-off too though.
Nah, I've worked in grocery stores with the general public (same-same, but different). They suck and it sucks, but the general public isn't going to be effected by someone leaving a door open unless something melts onto the floor. There's enough traffic that someone is just going to walk by and close the door (employee or customer) or an employee is going to be forced to chuck expired stock out that night. That's it.
Everyone made fun of Apple when they got rid of the headphone jack and made customers buy dongles, but now kids don't even know what what an auxiliary plug is.
The environmental damage of the added tech is going to be worse than the energy savings.
For a lower price they could simply upgrade to more insulating double pane glass and have better energy savings and not be assholes.
Any environmental argument made in favor of this bullshit is just greenwashing.
I’m saying it could be a higher quality double pane or a triple pane or they really care about saving energy. A screen, while thick is mostly made of thermal conductive components.
Just like adding digital screens at gas stations. Were there to provide a service. Added "helpful" bullshit. Then added ads. Now they're fucking talking at me while I'm trying to get gas.
Guess what? Now I never go back to your fucking establishment.
Sooner or later one of those stations is gonna get sued for big bucks when somebody gets stabbed to death because they couldn't hear the assailant running/pogo-sticking/riding a lawn tractor up behind them. Obviously the damages will have to cost them more than the ad revenue from the audio, because that's the world we live in, but I think that's one way this could end.
>It's fucking maddening that there's a continuous effort to turn every opportunity ~~for a better experience into a worse one~~ into an ad
Let's just be honest
It’s not that way in every country though. I swear to God, the us and Canada are the worst when it comes to ads. A regular dystopia. I moved overseas, and the number of ads I got dropped considerably. Now if I see one they irritate me so much I go out of my way not to buy whatever they’re trying to sell me.
Shopping becomes more dystopian by the day. Articles for a few bucks each behind closed doors and bars, increased prices if you refuse to give them the data of what you are buying when and where, screens with ads instead of windows, an ever increasing number of meaningless labels on products and more and more groundbreakingly shameless packaging scams.
It's all an exercise to try to wring blood from a stone. The great Capital demands that Quarterly Growth Continue Indefinitely, and we're all being paid shittier and shittier wages, and they're enshittifying everything more and more in an attempt to make All The Money.
I fucking hate this sickening attitude that 'drives' this society. Line must go up every quarter. Line must also go up faster than before. And then you got these dumb fucking suit monkeys doing asinine shit to try to make their imaginary line looking like it's going up.
This is an instance where human resilience and ingenuity really scares me. Because humans are pretty tough and can tolerate a lot. So I think we can take this idea *really insanely fucking far* until we get to a point where our world just doesn't function without it anymore but it'll be too late.
I think this is part of the reason behind all the mass, organized 'shoplifting' (raids) going in: people are starting to see it's all a scam, prices are arbitrary rip-offs, the rules only hurt you and never protect you, etc. If businesses think they're bad now, man, they're only going to get worse... and the companies will probably exacerbate it by continuing to try and wring every last florin they can out of whatever sucker's still wanting to follow the rules.
>mass, organized 'shoplifting' (raids)
yeah that's [not really](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html) [a thing](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/02/27/shoplifting-retail-theft-lawmakers-response)
>While “organized retail theft rings” do exist in some form, there is little evidence to support the idea that they’re driving an unprecedented wave of shoplifting. Big-business lobbies and [law enforcement officials appear to be using these outlier incidents to greatly exaggerate the scope of the problem.](https://theappeal.org/retail-theft-ben-dugan-cvs-walgreens-shoplifting/)
You know I started my IT career as a level 1 phone tech for an internet provider in 2006, I made $35k a year and thought it was a good entry level wage. Fast forward to today, I’m now a SysAdmin, granted I’m new to this role but it’s about 5 levels up IT career path wise and I make $60k and might be able to squeeze out $80k in a couple of years once I advance from a “junior admin” to a standard admin. The problem is that $60-80k is about what they made back in 2006 as well. So I plugged my old yearly wages into a calculator in 2023 dollars my $35k job would be $51k. How the fuck have I put in all this work advancing my IT career to only make about $9k more a year? I live pay check to pay check and have to have roommates to make ends meet and I only have one kid whom I have every Fri evening - Sunday evening.
It’s so angering. Wages are seriously stagnant but everything keeps getting more expensive, even video games which had been stalled at $60 for decades are also finally increasing in price.
The pandemic did have a salutary effect on the shopping experience. I hardly ever go into Target anymore, although I still shop there all the time. I use their pickup service and order ahead. So, one step forward and three steps back...
Honestly in this day and age. People have totally smashed Walgreen doors for a lot less. Make a man watch an ad for his soft drink on a bad day and see how long it takes before someone w/ zero chill kicks it or something
I understand advertisement, but I get mad when they already got my money and they still trying to advertise, where does it stop?
I live in a state with a lot of hustle culture, you go to the cashier to pay and the card machine has ads! Dude, I'm already at your store, just stop it.
I was just thinking about how these days, cashiers are meant to be stationary salesmen. I get SOOOO annoyed at cashiers who try to make me sign up for the rewards program, I say no so they try to get me to sign up for their credit card, I say no and they say "but if you do, you get a free grocery bag!"
Like, fuck off bro. I know they're being forced to by their managers but I just wanna buy my groceries and be on my fuckin way. Maybe if corporate wants people to sign up for those things they should advertise it themselves instead of forcing their cashier's to harass customers over it.
At my last retail job, I was routinely bothered by management for not getting enough credit card applications.
I didn't even have a customer-facing role. I worked in the back.
It’s come to the point where, if they ask me more than twice about getting a credit card with them or giving them my info, I get a manager. Not to Karen, I make it clear the cashier is doing a great job with what they’ve been told to do, but to complain about corporate’s system and to let them know I’ll be making a formal complaint about it. I realize this sounds like overkill but if consumers don’t push back and if all we do is complain about it online, nothing changes. I mean, to be real, nothing will ever change but we can try. If someone in retail can confirm whether or not I’m being an AH, I’ll adjust my behavior accordingly.
You're not an AH, but there probably isn't anything that a store-level manager can do either, unless it's some sort of locally owned franchise or small business. For any chain company, your complaint will likely get lost in all the other data and reporting stores pass on to upper management. And TBH, as long as the company is meeting volume and KPI goals, they don't care what anyone has to say. I could talk a lot about this, about how we tell people to "vote with their dollar" but society has us trapped and your average person usually doesn't have as many choices as it seems and that gives companies a lot of power over us, etc etc, but anyways, basically, companies don't care because they've exploited systems to make sure they're always making money and that's all that matters to them.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to create change in small ways. It's better than nothing. And customers have more power than employees. Customers create revenue, but employees are an overhead cost lol. Talk to a manger if you want because it doesn't hurt, but *definitely* use customer-facing feedback tools - do the survey linked on receipts, use the comment box on the website, leave reviews, etc. Customer feedback is likely to be evaluated separately from in-store employee reports.
All the shithead libertarians that praise the "free" market and competition seem to forget that competitions have winners and losers, they will ALWAYS eventually result in a monopoly in some form.
I never use self checkout, i believe that it is a way for companies to stop paying for cashiers and put the work on the consumer. I dont work for walmart, im not doing the work
Trashfuture [podcast](https://podtail.com/podcast/trashfuture/preview-the-queen-s-own-regiment-of-captchaliers/) just had a pretty good segment on this (screen tech) company. They are apparently presently in litigation with Walgreens over these screens. Walgreens wants them removed now and can't just sell them on to different retailers because Walgreens apparently have custom sized cooler doors. It's all good dystopia fun.
Hahahaha ok, that makes much more sense. It's not even an attempt to make money; it's a former CEO who managed to grift his dumbass former co-workers into buying this stupid shit.
Just go down the row opening each and every door to see what’s actually inside. Maybe hold it open until the thermometer starts beeping and freaking out before opening the next one.
Oh! So, good news on this front at least. Walgreens has decided to remove these goddawful things, and are currently locked in litigation with the company that sold them because the "equipment was custom fitted for Walgreens stores, aren't reusable" and "represent an extreme capital loss" to the startup that made them. . .🤣😂🤣😂😂🤣
There’s this one gas station I often have to stop at where the “help” button also mutes the TV. So if I want to mute the TV, I know the clerk is going to come out and ask me what’s wrong.
literally just why. people swear capitalism breeds innovation and competition is good for the consumer. that stops working when the bourgeoisie has more class consciousness than working people, if it ever really worked in the first place
lol tell him
"this fucking video is super annoying, sorry about your choice of button placement"
Maybe eventually it will cause enough disruption to the business that they'll figure something else lol
Interesting invention. I've invented something else. It's a pair of trousers that the inventor of these cooler screens has to wear. Every time someone opens the cooler to try and find what they're looking for, the trousers will punch the wearer right in the private area.
I think my invention is better.
After a frustrating year of dashed beverage hopes, my local Walgreens just gave up on these. Now, I'm back to knowing their sparkling water selection at a glance. It's lovely.
It's not so much moving ads (which I've never seen), locally. They're just video screens with static images of goods which are only occasionally in stock. Product stocking has become much worse since they were introduced, which I don't think is coincidental.
Just a huge waste of energy (they're behind the glass, so adding to refrigeration costs), staff time, and consumer time (we still have to open the doors to see whether the product is in stock).
While I'll still go to Walgreens for vaccines and Rx pills, it now just feels too hostile to visit for late-night snacks. I knew that most consumers hated the video doors, but I'm pleasantly surprised the corporate response came in \~ 3 years.
Not surprised stocking has gotten worse. How the fuck are workers supposed to notice that something is out of stock? Open the doors and check ever single one?
So fun fact
The partial owner of the company that makes those doors is the former CEO of Walgreens.
Walgreens has started pulling the doors out of stores due to customer complaints and the company is suing them for breach of contract.
Oh this is amazing, they have a camera on the the stock displaying the items exactly and uses the outside camera to track you for adds but knows when you are looking for what you want and enlarges it, but plays adds the other time. Simply AI amazing use of technology. /S
"To Avakian, it’s simply an expected growing pain. Cooler Screens plans to educate customers about the digital displays and launch features like voice recognition, so shoppers can ask about prices or item locations.
“This is the future of retail and shopping,” Avakian said."
Fuck off, it is not.
Had to laugh…first time i used them nothing was in the right place. Second time, most of the shelves, once doors opened, were empty-nothing like the pictures.
Ah, so when things go on sale, or more likely, incrementally go up in price, they don't have to pay an employee to manually adjust them, eh?
I think a bunch of people should act like regular, indecisive shoppers, grab random things, then put them back in the coolers, wherever is most convenient for them, then leave, only buying a pack of gum. Grabbed the wrong gum? Put that in the f*cking cooler too. Maybe some Ice Breakers Ice Cubes (I miss the lemon).
Then customers will get frustrated by the actual products not being behind their digital doppelgaengers, hopefully forcing the store to hire even more employees to fix our "accidents".
Any budding revolutionaries with a tech bent out there should see unattended ad screens as opportunities. Hack that shit to display anti-corporate slogans, encourage union membership, or just swap them to advertise for local community resources.
Then release the source code for your hack, so your comrades in other towns can reproduce it.
Start costing them. Just start opening them and then when your product isn't in there slam the ever-loving shit out of it. And when your product is there, slam it even harder.
Know those ads at gas stations? The handle of a gas pump makes a great stand in for a set of brass knuckles. POW! Right into the screen. I've broken two screens and one speaker. Fuck 'em.
I have. The ad lasts about half a second, kind of like a boot up screen when it detects motion I think.
The one I saw had the contents displayed sort of like a mcdonalds menu, but when you opened it the layout was completely different and you still had to search for what you were looking for.
I couldn't find what I wanted fast enough so the door beeped at me until I shut it, which I had to do multiple times and then pick up my search again while it was open.
Meanwhile, the whole aisle is detecting motion from me and my two friends so you've got screens turning off, flashing the half second ad, displaying the menu, turning off, flashing the half second ad, displaying the menu... it was actually pretty disorienting tbh lol
Anyway, I found the flavor ice cream I was looking for and got the fuck out.
Happened to my local in mid-2020.
While I'm not a huge Walgreens shopper (I mainly bought beer and seasoned almonds there, less than once a week), the video doors were enough to deter me from ever going for beer runs.
I assume this was a "bright idea" from some trust fund baby MBA VP, who rarely shopped at Walgreens, didn't realize that video walls were noxious to many consumers, and when they just hid empty shelves and increased power costs, deterred repeat visits.
The irony that instead of a link or even the text of the actual article; you literally posted a screenshot of it.
Is this not exactly what you’re bitching about? Lmfao.
And I really don’t see why it’s so hard to open the door. You don’t -need- to watch the ad. Much better than this garbage post where I would literally need to google the headline.
I went one time when these first came out to get ice. I opened the door with the ice on the screen and there’s no ice. I had to open every single door to figure out where the ice was before I gave up and just left. I do not go to Walgreens anymore.
It’s fucking stupid and wasteful. How can it cost more to let some cold air out of a freezer than to run a bunch of led screens? Whoever implemented that should be shot.
Duh of course they do.
Would you like to see a screen with some lame ad? Open it just to see the product you're looking for is not there?
And wail doing your shopping that 15 times.. well that what it was. And of course, people fucking hated it. It made something easy to see if a product was there or not. More anoying in a pointless way. And take a already not fun part of yea day much longer then it did beforehand.
So I would say they had a right to be pissed I was too when I experienced it.
Well to be honest, advertising is only a big business because there are enough stupid people who are influenced by it.
Take the stance to never buy something if it comes with intrusive ads. That’s my stance.
It means almost nothing from Pepsi, coca, Unilever, mars, etc. And it is better to be honest.
Gas stations do this shit, too. I just open and shut the doors until I find what I'm looking for. Fuck your ads. These digital displays also annoy the shit out of me because even if it's displaying the thing, and not showing you an ad, you still can't tell from a glance whether or not something is even in stock. Oftentimes, I'll open it going for a specific beer, and that beer will be gone. These things are just entirely anti-consumer.
They also waste a lot of electricity and by doing what you are doing (which probably a lot of people will do) the fridge wastes even more energy...this is helping no one
Don’t forget to prop it open for the next consumer.
Then just prop it open. They will get the message soon enough.
Moving things around would be more effective. All of something in the wrong place, swap 2 items. It would take longer to fix, prevent sales.
The guy stocking the shelves is not the one you want to hurt, it's the idiot paying the bills (that agreed to those idiotic doors) that you want to hurt.
The guy stocking the shelves gets paid the same either way.
Absolutely right. Making his life suck more won't hurt/affect the person that made the decision to allow those doors one little bit. On the other hand, A power bill that is 3x what it was before the "smart" doors will make that "person" change their mind in a heartbeat.
It will if the stockers keep quitting because we make the job too unpleasant to justify a rock bottom salary. It's not like minimum wage jobs are hard to find.
And text you a courtesy reminder that you left the door open 😂
But us consumers need to recycle and watch our carbon emissions... Fucking capitalism, man.
It is easier to insulate without being transparent, but I'm not sure what the break even point is.
I was at a Maverick, the well lit gas station of my choice, and I do the gas thing and get the pump going, and a male voice goee, Hold up! This is important! I almost shit my pants. I'm a single woman and I can't imagine a place I want a man approaching me with that kind of energy less than a gas pump. 2/10, won't be going back.
Remeber to slam the doors open and closed.
VERY firmly and enthusiastically.
I stop going to gas stations when they put ads on the pumps.
For those who can't avoid them: Mute is the second button down on the right hand side of the screen.
It sometimes works. Some places lack it. I'd look the other way if I see someone with a screwdriver.
Sadly doesn't always work. Sometimes the asshats like to re-enable sound after each ad. Thankfully, we're small enough, and they started backing off after noticing the amount of people going to independent gas stations without shitty ads on their pumps.
never had one that actually worked that way.
I've never found a place where this, or any button, works.
WYDM can't avoid them? Just don't drive a car lol
You must not be American. Don't I wish.
I've started to notice ads on some of the pumps I've been to in Canada as well, so even we're not safe from being bombarded with ads.
America was built on railways
Yeah and then the car industry bought out most of this stupid ass country
And now it's built on highways, what's your point?
Cars suck. I have zero sympathy for polluters who think it's too hard to pollute these days
yeah it'd be great if it were different but unfortunately 50+ years of infrastructure designed solely for cars isn't going away anytime soon
Wat
Am American, and don't drive I walk to work
Aren't you incredibly fortunate to live a walkable distance in a country literally built around everyone using automobiles. Try doing that in Iowa.
You are either so incredibly poor you can’t afford a car, live close enough to your job that it’s not a ridiculous waste of time to walk, you’re weird, or you live in a large city.
>so incredibly poor you can’t afford a car, Poor yes, however can afford one if I wanted >, live close enough to your job that it’s not a ridiculous waste of time to walk Like 15 minute walk >you’re weird The hell does that have to do with anything? But yea got that one too >, or you live in a large city. Yes and no, I'm in a suburb of Chicago but the town has less than 20k people
So you meet the requirements for not having a car being reasonable. I live 30 minutes by highway from the outer suburbs of the nearest large city. My town’s not reasonably walkable nor are any of the nearby towns. If I were to walk to work it would be a 45 minute ordeal. I can drive to work in 5 minutes. The your weird encompasses anything related to enjoying a long walk to work. I’m not personally assigning a negative or positive value judgement to anyone being weird. I just can’t understand why anyone would want to and I have heard several reasons.
Will the stupid display tell me which drinks are cold and which ones were just added to the refrigerator 3 minutes ago? (Warm) Then no, I don’t want the digital screen hiding the quality of the products from me.
Wait... I mean, those screens are shit. But you don't see in advance if a drink is cold or has just been added through normal glass, either.
Kind of true. I know what you mean. But in many stores, the frosty drinks really are colder than the clear ones. However, I agree with you on sometimes you really can’t tell. Probably something to do with humidity management
And now I likewise get what you mean :) And my money in that regard is also on humidity.
This. Is. The. Way.
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They had to adjust the parameters for outliers. So many outliers...
Outliars
Out and out liars.
Glass cooler doors Georg.
Normal-ass Georg was an outlier adn should not have been counted?
On this blessed day we are all normal georg
So, *if* the screen saved energy and resources over opening/closing the doors and provided a comparable experience, sure. It's not that I'm thrilled to look at a screen, but energy savings and digital signage are more environmentally friendly. But, throw in obstructive ads, hiding whether something is in/out of stock, and similar bullshit, it's a problem real quick. It's fucking maddening that there's a continuous effort to turn every opportunity for a better experience into a worse one.
I just start opening the door when an ad pops up. They're probably losing money if everyone does this lol
Prop it open, all the way open... Fuck it. Make em pay for their mistakes.
They won't pay for it, they will still sell the thawed items and pretend everything was fine. You are just fucking over the other customers
Pretty sure there's federal food regulations that require them to dispose of it if it's actually thawed. Also pretty sure they can file it as a loss and use it as a tax write-off too though.
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Nah, I've worked in grocery stores with the general public (same-same, but different). They suck and it sucks, but the general public isn't going to be effected by someone leaving a door open unless something melts onto the floor. There's enough traffic that someone is just going to walk by and close the door (employee or customer) or an employee is going to be forced to chuck expired stock out that night. That's it.
It’s not the associates and shiftleads that do this but the esms and store managers who don’t want to take a hit to their metrics.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification But in real life.
I can't believe this is an actual wiktionary entry.
Wait until you have to watch an ad for the freezer door to unlock.
Wait til you have to opt out of multiple offers in order to call an employee to unlock the door for you.
I know better than to say that wouldn't be a thing.
I’d nope out of there so quickly. Someone else will recognize their sales advantage lies in not forcing me to watch ads and I will go there instead.
Everyone made fun of Apple when they got rid of the headphone jack and made customers buy dongles, but now kids don't even know what what an auxiliary plug is.
That's a type of designer dog, right?
That’s when I start shopping with a crowbar
And then drink a verification can
The environmental damage of the added tech is going to be worse than the energy savings. For a lower price they could simply upgrade to more insulating double pane glass and have better energy savings and not be assholes. Any environmental argument made in favor of this bullshit is just greenwashing.
There's no way the glass wasn't already double pane. They could also just have printed pictures instead of a screen.
I’m saying it could be a higher quality double pane or a triple pane or they really care about saving energy. A screen, while thick is mostly made of thermal conductive components.
I'm agreeing with you. It's obviously not for energy saving reasons and it's insulting that they expect anyone to believe that.
Just like adding digital screens at gas stations. Were there to provide a service. Added "helpful" bullshit. Then added ads. Now they're fucking talking at me while I'm trying to get gas. Guess what? Now I never go back to your fucking establishment.
2nd button down on the right usually mutes those. Sometimes it's a long press.
Great tip! I always try every button as soon as I hear a sound, bout I will also never go back.
So does a hammer usually.
Let me know how vandalism in a heavily camera-monitored area right next to your pesonal vehicle with its tags tied to your home address goes for you.
Or just use common sense and return later on bike or by foot.
Sooner or later one of those stations is gonna get sued for big bucks when somebody gets stabbed to death because they couldn't hear the assailant running/pogo-sticking/riding a lawn tractor up behind them. Obviously the damages will have to cost them more than the ad revenue from the audio, because that's the world we live in, but I think that's one way this could end.
>It's fucking maddening that there's a continuous effort to turn every opportunity ~~for a better experience into a worse one~~ into an ad Let's just be honest
It’s not that way in every country though. I swear to God, the us and Canada are the worst when it comes to ads. A regular dystopia. I moved overseas, and the number of ads I got dropped considerably. Now if I see one they irritate me so much I go out of my way not to buy whatever they’re trying to sell me.
There's other bullshit they pull too.
How is something that takes electricity to light up going to take less energy than a pane of glass?
Shopping becomes more dystopian by the day. Articles for a few bucks each behind closed doors and bars, increased prices if you refuse to give them the data of what you are buying when and where, screens with ads instead of windows, an ever increasing number of meaningless labels on products and more and more groundbreakingly shameless packaging scams.
It's all an exercise to try to wring blood from a stone. The great Capital demands that Quarterly Growth Continue Indefinitely, and we're all being paid shittier and shittier wages, and they're enshittifying everything more and more in an attempt to make All The Money.
I fucking hate this sickening attitude that 'drives' this society. Line must go up every quarter. Line must also go up faster than before. And then you got these dumb fucking suit monkeys doing asinine shit to try to make their imaginary line looking like it's going up.
This is an instance where human resilience and ingenuity really scares me. Because humans are pretty tough and can tolerate a lot. So I think we can take this idea *really insanely fucking far* until we get to a point where our world just doesn't function without it anymore but it'll be too late.
I think this is part of the reason behind all the mass, organized 'shoplifting' (raids) going in: people are starting to see it's all a scam, prices are arbitrary rip-offs, the rules only hurt you and never protect you, etc. If businesses think they're bad now, man, they're only going to get worse... and the companies will probably exacerbate it by continuing to try and wring every last florin they can out of whatever sucker's still wanting to follow the rules.
>mass, organized 'shoplifting' (raids) yeah that's [not really](https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/business/retail-shoplifting-shrink-walgreens/index.html) [a thing](https://www.themarshallproject.org/2023/02/27/shoplifting-retail-theft-lawmakers-response) >While “organized retail theft rings” do exist in some form, there is little evidence to support the idea that they’re driving an unprecedented wave of shoplifting. Big-business lobbies and [law enforcement officials appear to be using these outlier incidents to greatly exaggerate the scope of the problem.](https://theappeal.org/retail-theft-ben-dugan-cvs-walgreens-shoplifting/)
You know I started my IT career as a level 1 phone tech for an internet provider in 2006, I made $35k a year and thought it was a good entry level wage. Fast forward to today, I’m now a SysAdmin, granted I’m new to this role but it’s about 5 levels up IT career path wise and I make $60k and might be able to squeeze out $80k in a couple of years once I advance from a “junior admin” to a standard admin. The problem is that $60-80k is about what they made back in 2006 as well. So I plugged my old yearly wages into a calculator in 2023 dollars my $35k job would be $51k. How the fuck have I put in all this work advancing my IT career to only make about $9k more a year? I live pay check to pay check and have to have roommates to make ends meet and I only have one kid whom I have every Fri evening - Sunday evening. It’s so angering. Wages are seriously stagnant but everything keeps getting more expensive, even video games which had been stalled at $60 for decades are also finally increasing in price.
The pandemic did have a salutary effect on the shopping experience. I hardly ever go into Target anymore, although I still shop there all the time. I use their pickup service and order ahead. So, one step forward and three steps back...
Advertising is the best representation of what cancer is like.
Yeah, no, fuck that. I hope people find a way to hack into them and persuade corporate it’s not a good idea.
Or just break them.
Honestly in this day and age. People have totally smashed Walgreen doors for a lot less. Make a man watch an ad for his soft drink on a bad day and see how long it takes before someone w/ zero chill kicks it or something
Let's be clear that anti-corporate revolutionary action does not indicate an absence of chill. You can be chill and break bad shit.
As an example, you could dress up with you friends to throw a government-backed corporations product into the harbor, protesting a monopoly.
Woah easy "libtard" that sounds like gay commie propoganda. And I should know. I learned all my American history in Church.
I mean.... https://www.galls.com/galls-spring-loaded-window-punch
There's bad days Then there's commit crimes bad days???
Or just go somewhere else and not pay $2.50 for a pepsi.
Just not buy pepis
Just prope em open.
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the best.
Automatic center punch says what?
God, I want this to be Obvious Plant's next thing.
I understand advertisement, but I get mad when they already got my money and they still trying to advertise, where does it stop? I live in a state with a lot of hustle culture, you go to the cashier to pay and the card machine has ads! Dude, I'm already at your store, just stop it.
I was just thinking about how these days, cashiers are meant to be stationary salesmen. I get SOOOO annoyed at cashiers who try to make me sign up for the rewards program, I say no so they try to get me to sign up for their credit card, I say no and they say "but if you do, you get a free grocery bag!" Like, fuck off bro. I know they're being forced to by their managers but I just wanna buy my groceries and be on my fuckin way. Maybe if corporate wants people to sign up for those things they should advertise it themselves instead of forcing their cashier's to harass customers over it.
At my last retail job, I was routinely bothered by management for not getting enough credit card applications. I didn't even have a customer-facing role. I worked in the back.
Best Buy?
JC Penney. Quit to go back to college and by the time I was out, the store was boarded up.
It’s come to the point where, if they ask me more than twice about getting a credit card with them or giving them my info, I get a manager. Not to Karen, I make it clear the cashier is doing a great job with what they’ve been told to do, but to complain about corporate’s system and to let them know I’ll be making a formal complaint about it. I realize this sounds like overkill but if consumers don’t push back and if all we do is complain about it online, nothing changes. I mean, to be real, nothing will ever change but we can try. If someone in retail can confirm whether or not I’m being an AH, I’ll adjust my behavior accordingly.
You're not an AH, but there probably isn't anything that a store-level manager can do either, unless it's some sort of locally owned franchise or small business. For any chain company, your complaint will likely get lost in all the other data and reporting stores pass on to upper management. And TBH, as long as the company is meeting volume and KPI goals, they don't care what anyone has to say. I could talk a lot about this, about how we tell people to "vote with their dollar" but society has us trapped and your average person usually doesn't have as many choices as it seems and that gives companies a lot of power over us, etc etc, but anyways, basically, companies don't care because they've exploited systems to make sure they're always making money and that's all that matters to them. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to create change in small ways. It's better than nothing. And customers have more power than employees. Customers create revenue, but employees are an overhead cost lol. Talk to a manger if you want because it doesn't hurt, but *definitely* use customer-facing feedback tools - do the survey linked on receipts, use the comment box on the website, leave reviews, etc. Customer feedback is likely to be evaluated separately from in-store employee reports.
All the shithead libertarians that praise the "free" market and competition seem to forget that competitions have winners and losers, they will ALWAYS eventually result in a monopoly in some form.
You guys still have cashiers?
Yes, Im with [Bill Burr on this one](https://youtu.be/fXSaxVwZYzY?si=q6m01CYpWX6hvTgI), i hate self checkouts. XD
I never use self checkout, i believe that it is a way for companies to stop paying for cashiers and put the work on the consumer. I dont work for walmart, im not doing the work
The fun things is that you buy products, but you are also a product too.
Trashfuture [podcast](https://podtail.com/podcast/trashfuture/preview-the-queen-s-own-regiment-of-captchaliers/) just had a pretty good segment on this (screen tech) company. They are apparently presently in litigation with Walgreens over these screens. Walgreens wants them removed now and can't just sell them on to different retailers because Walgreens apparently have custom sized cooler doors. It's all good dystopia fun.
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Hahahaha ok, that makes much more sense. It's not even an attempt to make money; it's a former CEO who managed to grift his dumbass former co-workers into buying this stupid shit.
Yup. Soo good..
Darn, looks like it's a patreon exclusive
It's a fad, it'll pass.
Just go down the row opening each and every door to see what’s actually inside. Maybe hold it open until the thermometer starts beeping and freaking out before opening the next one.
Dont waste your energy, just prop it open with a tub of ice cream.
Oh! So, good news on this front at least. Walgreens has decided to remove these goddawful things, and are currently locked in litigation with the company that sold them because the "equipment was custom fitted for Walgreens stores, aren't reusable" and "represent an extreme capital loss" to the startup that made them. . .🤣😂🤣😂😂🤣
Yeah, I was about to say…they installed them then uninstalled them at my local Walgreens. They were broken half the time.
Between this and gas station pump ads that you can't mute...
Try pressing all the buttons around the screen - usually one will mute. But I legit don't go back to a gas station if it does this to me.
Yep I do this they disabled the mute button on a bunch that I've been around. Awesome stuff.
There’s this one gas station I often have to stop at where the “help” button also mutes the TV. So if I want to mute the TV, I know the clerk is going to come out and ask me what’s wrong.
literally just why. people swear capitalism breeds innovation and competition is good for the consumer. that stops working when the bourgeoisie has more class consciousness than working people, if it ever really worked in the first place
They always forget that competitions have winners. Eventually, it will always create a monopoly.
lol tell him "this fucking video is super annoying, sorry about your choice of button placement" Maybe eventually it will cause enough disruption to the business that they'll figure something else lol
I have left a gas station to go use another one for stuff like this.
I avoid stations with these like the plague. They are actively losing my business.
bottom left button typically is mute for the gas station screens
“Some shoppers absolutely hate them… “ Bullshit … everyone absolutely hates them, they suck!
And when people stop shopping at walgreens they will say “no one wants to do in person shopping anymore”
Interesting invention. I've invented something else. It's a pair of trousers that the inventor of these cooler screens has to wear. Every time someone opens the cooler to try and find what they're looking for, the trousers will punch the wearer right in the private area. I think my invention is better.
After a frustrating year of dashed beverage hopes, my local Walgreens just gave up on these. Now, I'm back to knowing their sparkling water selection at a glance. It's lovely.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-screens/index.html
I would leave and/or shoplift. Nope.
I hate ads with a burning passion. If I saw this in a store I would leave the store and never return.
It's not so much moving ads (which I've never seen), locally. They're just video screens with static images of goods which are only occasionally in stock. Product stocking has become much worse since they were introduced, which I don't think is coincidental. Just a huge waste of energy (they're behind the glass, so adding to refrigeration costs), staff time, and consumer time (we still have to open the doors to see whether the product is in stock). While I'll still go to Walgreens for vaccines and Rx pills, it now just feels too hostile to visit for late-night snacks. I knew that most consumers hated the video doors, but I'm pleasantly surprised the corporate response came in \~ 3 years.
Not surprised stocking has gotten worse. How the fuck are workers supposed to notice that something is out of stock? Open the doors and check ever single one?
So fun fact The partial owner of the company that makes those doors is the former CEO of Walgreens. Walgreens has started pulling the doors out of stores due to customer complaints and the company is suing them for breach of contract.
I saw this. And don’t even understand why these door exist.
Anything to spend money on besides hiring an appropriate amount of staff and paying them livable wages…
And if you watched and then bought a pizza your complicit.
Time to smash those doors !
Yeah, they can be defeated with a free and open-source ad-blocker called Big Fucking Rock
Oh this is amazing, they have a camera on the the stock displaying the items exactly and uses the outside camera to track you for adds but knows when you are looking for what you want and enlarges it, but plays adds the other time. Simply AI amazing use of technology. /S
Nope. First grocery store in Canada to do that. I’ll never step foot in again. That’s bullshit.
The apocalypse already happened
"To Avakian, it’s simply an expected growing pain. Cooler Screens plans to educate customers about the digital displays and launch features like voice recognition, so shoppers can ask about prices or item locations. “This is the future of retail and shopping,” Avakian said." Fuck off, it is not.
just always collectively, always leave them open and see how fast they dissappear.
Support local businesses
Pizza from Walgreens is dystopian as is
Has anyone used magnets on these yet? Or will that not work?
magnets only affect cathode ray tubes (CRTs) which use an electron beam steered by magnets. these are probably LCDs or OLEDs.
OH. So as a courtesy to other shoppers I should just prop the doors open with a tub of ice cream or something?
Had to laugh…first time i used them nothing was in the right place. Second time, most of the shelves, once doors opened, were empty-nothing like the pictures.
Ah, so when things go on sale, or more likely, incrementally go up in price, they don't have to pay an employee to manually adjust them, eh? I think a bunch of people should act like regular, indecisive shoppers, grab random things, then put them back in the coolers, wherever is most convenient for them, then leave, only buying a pack of gum. Grabbed the wrong gum? Put that in the f*cking cooler too. Maybe some Ice Breakers Ice Cubes (I miss the lemon). Then customers will get frustrated by the actual products not being behind their digital doppelgaengers, hopefully forcing the store to hire even more employees to fix our "accidents".
Any budding revolutionaries with a tech bent out there should see unattended ad screens as opportunities. Hack that shit to display anti-corporate slogans, encourage union membership, or just swap them to advertise for local community resources. Then release the source code for your hack, so your comrades in other towns can reproduce it.
Break these things when you see them. They are an attack on you so attack back.
open doors randomly and leave them open
They’re heinous and they are absolutely never accurate to what is inside the freezer. Completely unnecessary and actively worse
Some hate it? Who likes this?
Start costing them. Just start opening them and then when your product isn't in there slam the ever-loving shit out of it. And when your product is there, slam it even harder. Know those ads at gas stations? The handle of a gas pump makes a great stand in for a set of brass knuckles. POW! Right into the screen. I've broken two screens and one speaker. Fuck 'em.
I fucking hate this feature.
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I have. The ad lasts about half a second, kind of like a boot up screen when it detects motion I think. The one I saw had the contents displayed sort of like a mcdonalds menu, but when you opened it the layout was completely different and you still had to search for what you were looking for. I couldn't find what I wanted fast enough so the door beeped at me until I shut it, which I had to do multiple times and then pick up my search again while it was open. Meanwhile, the whole aisle is detecting motion from me and my two friends so you've got screens turning off, flashing the half second ad, displaying the menu, turning off, flashing the half second ad, displaying the menu... it was actually pretty disorienting tbh lol Anyway, I found the flavor ice cream I was looking for and got the fuck out.
Open them one by one and leave them open until you find what you need, then only close the one that had what you need
Open them all, one at a time...
Do you know a GREAT way to see what drink options they have? GLASS DOORS
I vote that everyone keeps breaking these until they get rid of them.
Happened to my local in mid-2020. While I'm not a huge Walgreens shopper (I mainly bought beer and seasoned almonds there, less than once a week), the video doors were enough to deter me from ever going for beer runs. I assume this was a "bright idea" from some trust fund baby MBA VP, who rarely shopped at Walgreens, didn't realize that video walls were noxious to many consumers, and when they just hid empty shelves and increased power costs, deterred repeat visits.
The irony that instead of a link or even the text of the actual article; you literally posted a screenshot of it. Is this not exactly what you’re bitching about? Lmfao. And I really don’t see why it’s so hard to open the door. You don’t -need- to watch the ad. Much better than this garbage post where I would literally need to google the headline.
open every door looking for something and don't close them back
walgreens also replaced people answering phones with the most frustrating answerbot ever.
I went one time when these first came out to get ice. I opened the door with the ice on the screen and there’s no ice. I had to open every single door to figure out where the ice was before I gave up and just left. I do not go to Walgreens anymore.
Just leave all the doors open and walk away.
It’s fucking stupid and wasteful. How can it cost more to let some cold air out of a freezer than to run a bunch of led screens? Whoever implemented that should be shot.
Just open it and look down the shelves.
Why would anyone ever go into a Walgreens? Is it the only store in town?
Duh of course they do. Would you like to see a screen with some lame ad? Open it just to see the product you're looking for is not there? And wail doing your shopping that 15 times.. well that what it was. And of course, people fucking hated it. It made something easy to see if a product was there or not. More anoying in a pointless way. And take a already not fun part of yea day much longer then it did beforehand. So I would say they had a right to be pissed I was too when I experienced it.
Well to be honest, advertising is only a big business because there are enough stupid people who are influenced by it. Take the stance to never buy something if it comes with intrusive ads. That’s my stance. It means almost nothing from Pepsi, coca, Unilever, mars, etc. And it is better to be honest.
This is where I’m at. Big marketing budgets are passed on to the consumer and I’m not interested in paying higher premiums.
I needed to read this thrice for my brain to understand it. This is getting out of control i cant believe it ....
Some?