Ramblings of an old Doc
deep drilling data, Amazon and Whole Foods
Published on August 24, 2017 By DrJBHL In Personal Computing

 

The first sentence in Ben Tarnoff's article pretty much says it all... "What if a cold drink cost more on a hot day?".

So, Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods has gone through. I promise you, Amazon will be a disruptor there, too. It's called "surge pricing". In other words, instant supply and demand determining pricing of what you eat and drink...even better, you have to believe them and trust they all aren't colluding. Because they're just so honest. and it'll spread to other commodities, as well. Wait, when your smart car tells the cloud you need fuel, prices all around you will change, too. Perfect...but not so much for you.

"Amazon isn’t abandoning online retail for brick-and-mortar. Rather, it’s planning to fuse the two. It’s going to digitize our daily lives in ways that make surge-pricing your groceries look primitive by comparison. It’s going to expand Silicon Valley’s surveillance-based business model into physical space, and make money from monitoring everything we do."

It's all about one thing: "Big data", structured and unstructured and a whole new marketplace. You can read about big data here, or search it yourself (I recommend Duckduckgo). It can be used well, and to your benefit (for example) by the NIH. It can be used to your detriment, as well. No matter what you do, you're part of it. And what you don't see is the marketplace for that data - it starts with the browser you use and ends up with what gets presented to that browser. Kind of like what AOL was in the beginning, a portal to a bubble in which sellers pay for a place to peddle and you as the hockey puck getting shuttled around between them. So, the smart people went outside that bubble and used IE or Netscape to search.

Now, the bubble is bigger, but you're contained and constrained. "Surge pricing" has hit Britain, and it's coming here.

So, don't be surprised when "surge pricing" gets to you, too. Ask not for whom the bell tolls...

My pathetic excuse for rebellion was turning off all the tracking in my browser. Yeah, like that's gonna make a difference. Same as my vote.

 

Sources linked in the article.

 




Comments
on Aug 24, 2017

Scary. Thanks for posting.

on Aug 24, 2017

 and scary...

on Aug 24, 2017

Just more greed. A popular thing with the human race. No caring about others, just make those megabucks!

on Aug 24, 2017

Depressing.  Any time you look to buy anything it's a 'surge'.

on Aug 24, 2017

It'll be surge pricing when prices go up, and "sales" prices when they almost return to normal. So they get you coming and going. Look, it's 40% less than the surge prices! Yes, but it's still 20% more than what it used to be...

on Aug 25, 2017

on Aug 25, 2017

Growing up a bag of M&M's cost ten cents. Today that same bag is 17 times more expensive. Now if you want one you call Amazon and they send a drone to deliver it and you get billed not only for the M&M's but also a delivery charge called shipping and handling. Only problem is what you get is not what you bought. What you got is a bag of melted chocolate in rainbow colors.   

on Aug 25, 2017

We'll see what google and walmart do as they are getting together to combat amazon.

on Aug 25, 2017


We'll see what google and walmart do as they are getting together to combat amazon.

Don't really see how this is going to help Walmart a lot. Maybe google. Walmart already has it's own website and it does pretty well. All Google is going to do is sell Walmart stuff on it's Google Express site for people that join and shop it. So a total win from nothing to something for google but not so much for Walmart.

Amazon on the other hand is actually buying the other companies so have total control. What needs to be done is the federal Government step in and stop this shit but all they keep doing is helping and approving it all.

You all look around in a few short years and see all the empty malls everywhere with closed big box stores. For those like myself that have a lot of malls around them it's going to look ugly in the near future. 

We have a society to lazy to even go out to shop anymore. There was a time it was a nice enjoyable night out for families. Gone now. Many people don't even go to the supermarket anymore. Just call or order on line and get it delivered. 

Soon someone will purchase a 1,000 gal or larger gas truck. Go to people homes and fill their cars up in the driveway. There is a thought 10 years ago would have sounded really stupid. Not so much now.

on Aug 25, 2017


Growing up a bag of M&M's cost ten cents. Today that same bag is 17 times more expensive. Now if you want one you call Amazon and they send a drone to deliver it and you get billed not only for the M&M's but also a delivery charge called shipping and handling. Only problem is what you get is not what you bought. What you got is a bag of melted chocolate in rainbow colors.   

More about what money is really worth...but people keep buying products made outside the USA because they're cheaper: But as you can clearly see, this has caused our money to be held outside the US (the debt, and trade imbalance along with money borrowed to finance wars), and consequently to lose its value.

 

We'll see what google and walmart do as they are getting together to combat amazon.

Maybe.

But hey, Mike...stay safe with your coming weather, ok?

on Aug 25, 2017

DrJBHL

More about what money is really worth...but people keep buying products made outside the USA because they're cheaper: But as you can clearly see, this has caused our money to be held outside the US (the debt, and trade imbalance along with money borrowed to finance wars), and consequently to lose its value.

Amen.

 

on Aug 25, 2017

I keep a close watch on Amazon's pricing.  The sometimes huge jumps in price make no sense.  No regular retailer would increase a price by 40% or more overnight.  It seems prices move faster once you have them saved to your shopping cart if you keep them there for a few days.  In other words, watch a product for several weeks and see no price change.  Add it to your cart and wait.  It appears more likely to increase once they know you want it.

I just wait for it to come back down.

on Aug 25, 2017

gevansmd

No regular retailer would increase a price by 40% or more overnight.

Supply and demand. Build the right algorithms that show sharp increases in demand, and change prices...or even better, the algorithms which predict the sharp demand increases and anticipate the demand and make even more.

 

on Aug 26, 2017

Chase that all mighty dollar! People worship that stuff. Unreal IMO