
San Francisco considers banning cashless Amazon stores - prostoalex
https://sf.curbed.com/2019/3/20/18273994/amazon-cashless-store-ban-vallie-brown-sf
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awkward
The principle they're being banned on is because they're cashless, not because
they're automated. The logic is sound - unbanked people exist, including in
San Francisco, and without a bank account these stores are inaccessible.

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morningmoon
Then the practical solution is to pass a law requiring them to have a machine
to load a card with, not banning them outright.

This policy is needlessly destructive.

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JumpCrisscross
> _the practical solution is to pass a law requiring them to have a machine to
> load a card with_

This wouldn't work with Amazon's grab-and-go vision. If someone loads $5 of
cash on a card and walks out with $20 of product, what do you do?

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morningmoon
AFAIK these stores employ security/loss-prevention (and stockers as well, just
not cashiers). There’s people at the door in the videos I saw. How do they
stop people from stealing?

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michaelvmata
Security is enforced inbound. You can't enter without an account. You can grab
"anything" you want and it's charged to the account.

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morningmoon
_According to Brown, as many as 50 percent of black and Latino households in
San Francisco go without a bank account_

This stat is hard to believe. Does anybody have a link to the actual study?
Most national studies (like the FDIC one) put this number around 5%. My wife
works in the restaurant industry, and most all of the illegal immigrants have
bank accounts, smart phones, use direct deposit, etc.

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dustcoin
According to the article, the data the city is using is from 2005. It is
likely access has increased in the past 14 years.

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morningmoon
The article doesn’t link to the study and I can’t find it. “As many as” could
mean anywhere from 1 to 50%. Smells like deception, but I could be wrong.

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sct202
There's a PDF
([https://prosperitynow.org/sites/default/files/resources/Bank...](https://prosperitynow.org/sites/default/files/resources/Bank%2520on%2520SF%2520case%2520study%2520electronic%2520version%2520FINAL.pdf))
that says that an analysis with those figures was done by Matt Fellowes at the
Brookings Institute, which is interesting because it doesn't mention any
polling or details, so who knows how those numbers were generated.

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morningmoon
Thanks! Their numbers seem to be far off from the FDIC studies, despite them
claiming they corroborate national averages.

Looking at the FDIC study from 2009, ~20% of Black/Hispanic households in
California were unbanked, and when looking at citizens the number is ~7%.

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40acres
The recent attempts at banning cashless stores is addressing the symptoms
without considering the root cause. The two main reasons to ban cashless
stores revolve around privacy and access to the un/underbanked. Privacy is a
legitimate concern, but what are we doing to solve the crisis of folks who
don't have access to a bank? There are some policy papers floating around
regarding postal banking and programs of a similar nature, but none of these
proposals are getting legislative traction.

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infecto
Instead of worrying about a store that gets very little foot traffic lets
worry about the homeless encampments, human poop, needles, piss bottles etc.
that flood the city.

I agree, if there is a huge shift in stores to cashless we have a possible
issue at hand if the unbanked are truly that high. BUT I don't see this kind
of shift in stores anytime soon.

There are a lot bigger problems to tackle in this city that none of city
government wants to take on. But sure lets spend time talking about these
Amazon stores.

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tyre
Don't pay attention to this. It's a political side-show by a Supervisor trying
to rally her base.

This is in the same vein as the "ban corporate cafeterias" shenanigans last
year. It won't fix anything and the politicians yammering about it don't
actually care about this.

It's all a game.

The real solution, of course, isn't saving jobs that don't pay enough money to
actually live in the city. It's building housing. But that's politically
difficult, so we get this.

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elektor
This is not an isolated political stunt. A lot of cities and states are now
enacting similar measures.

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RhysU
This is dumb. Imagine there's a totally cashless economy that keeps out the
unbanked. But then a merchant could price gouge the unbanked. But then there'd
be competition for this high margin unbanked business. But then the merchants
would compete for the unbanked by lowering their margins. But then equilibrium
would be hitting the unbanked up for precisely the inconvenience overhead of
dealing with cash. Unless unless unless someone interferes with the market in
a regulatory way. Or gets impatient waiting for the inefficiency to right
itself. Sheesh.

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ummonk
Can't they place a machine in the stores where people can deposit cash and get
a loaded card to purchase things with?

Cash is legal tender and should always be a possible method of purchase at
physical locations.

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umvi
The whole premise of Amazon stores is to just grab stuff off the shelf and
leave.

If someone feeds $1 into the machine and gets a loaded card, can they just
walk out with $20 worth of merch? With a credit card you just get charged for
whatever you took and you pay later.

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syntaxing
FWIW, more and more cities are trying to ban cashless stores. Philadelphia
became the first city to ban cashless stores citywide earlier this month [1].
Would be interesting to see if NYC and SF both ban them as well.

[1] [https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-ban-cashless-
stores...](https://www.phillyvoice.com/philadelphia-ban-cashless-stores-first-
us-city/)

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negamax
How about solving this through store credit cards? Put a machine outside
Amazon store. Insert cash -> Get loaded card. Sorted!

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psychometry
There are so many unbanked people in the U.S. that I wonder whether local
governments should step in to address the problem, because the private market
has clearly failed to serve these people.

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saagarjha
> There are so many unbanked people in the U.S.

How many?

> local governments should step in to address the problem

What do you suggest they do?

~~~
psychometry
[https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/](https://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/)

8.4M unbanked people. A publicly-owned bank might do them a lot of good,
especially in areas that are underserved by credit unions.

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marcell
I’ve been to that store and it’s clearly a test bed, not a real store. There
are employees who stand there and answer questions. The ceiling has hundreds
of cameras which I assume they plan to use for some sort of AI tracking to
determine who took what. For the time being, I’d bet they are mechanical
turning it, since there is a 10 minute delay between leaving the store and
being charged.

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projektfu
So the problem isn't a lack of cashiers but a lack of cash. It seems like the
problem could be solved by having a few smartphone-like devices that you can
shop on and take to an automated cash machine at the end. Then you'd just need
a supervisor to make sure people weren't walking off with the merch, which
they probably have anyway.

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olalonde
Is there any limit to what laws cities are authorized pass? I'm surprised this
is even legal. If you push the reasoning further, could they also ban ATMs?
Banks? Uber, AirBnB, Eat24, any cashless service? To be honest, I feel like
this has more to do with protecting local merchants than protecting the
unbanked.

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octocode
I don't disagree really, but I thought Amazon had a service where you could
add to your Amazon wallet using cash?

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CodeCube
How are you going to add cash to your amazon wallet (let alone use it), if you
don't have a smartphone?

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octocode
They give you a barcode that you can use to fill your wallet.

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thinkingkong
From the article it comes down to an equity issue; some people do not have
cashless service and that means they cannot shop at an Amazon store. If it's
true that 50% of black and latino families go without a bank account, banning
cashless stores feels like the equity equivalent of banning plastic straws.

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novalis78
This is exactly one of the problems we as a crypto ATM company solve. Allows a
lot of unbanked folks to convert the little cash they earn to digital currency
or cards. You wouldn’t believe the reasons why people can’t get bank
accounts...

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vosper
I don't see how cryptocurrency solves this - if you exchange your cash for a
cryptocurrency then there are even fewer ways to spend it than when it was
cash.

If you exchange your cash for (say) a Visa gift card or some similar
reloadable card then you can use it wherever Visa works, which is many places
(a lot of which would also accept cash) including online stores.

And if the laws are changing to prevent cashless stores from existing then you
can just keep your cash as cash.

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OrgNet
Makes a lot of sense, you have to accept cash unless you want to give out for
free.

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hindsightbias
So they’re going to shut down Blue Bottle too?

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theredbox
That's ridiculous. Why should Amazon even care about selling to people that
only have cash ?

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mal808
Just add one cashier.

