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.
If this is our future of "education", these parasitic, data grubbing companies can fuck right off along with any larger company that supports them.
Nothing whatsoever about this in the least bit improves the time you spend grabbing something from a cooler. It's blatant enshitification of a very basic buying task that need not involve any further interface, and it so obviously does nothing but try to squeeze more money from said basic interaction for nobody's benefit except Walgreens, the companies paying for their grubby little digital visuals, and the scum-loaded company that's selling this garbage to them.
I can almost imagine a future in which even the tissue of toilet paper comes covered in "engagement" ad visuals impregnated into its material through some sort of micro-display technology. At last in that case it would get exactly the engagement it most deserves and afterwards go where it really belongs.
“This is the future of retail and shopping,” Avakian said.
If this is our future of "education", these parasitic, data grubbing companies can fuck right off along with any larger company that supports them.
Nothing whatsoever about this in the least bit improves the time you spend grabbing something from a cooler. It's blatant enshitification of a very basic buying task that need not involve any further interface, and it so obviously does nothing but try to squeeze more money from said basic interaction for nobody's benefit except Walgreens, the companies paying for their grubby little digital visuals, and the scum-loaded company that's selling this garbage to them.
I can almost imagine a future in which even the tissue of toilet paper comes covered in "engagement" ad visuals impregnated into its material through some sort of micro-display technology. At last in that case it would get exactly the engagement it most deserves and afterwards go where it really belongs.