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Walmart wants to test "in-fridge delivery" for Silicon Valley customers with August Home "smart locks":
Here's how the test will work: I place an order on Walmart.com for several items, even groceries. When my order is ready, a Deliv driver will retrieve my items and bring them to my home. If no one answers the doorbell, he or she will have a one-time passcode that I've pre-authorized which will open my home's smart lock. As the homeowner, I'm in control of the experience the entire time – the moment the Deliv driver rings my doorbell, I receive a smartphone notification that the delivery is occurring and, if I choose, I can watch the delivery take place in real-time. The Deliv associate will drop off my packages in my foyer and then carry my groceries to the kitchen, unload them in my fridge and leave. I'm watching the entire process from start to finish from my home security cameras through the August app. As I watch the Deliv associate exit my front door, I even receive confirmation that my door has automatically been locked.
While some may find the idea creepy, others have downplayed the creepiness factor:
"Five years ago consumers wouldn't have assumed they'd let a stranger drive them from the airport, much less stay in their house," said Forrest Collier, the CEO of eMeals, a platform that offers shopping lists based on recipes and loads the items into online shopping carts at Walmart and Kroger (KR) . "Now both Uber and Airbnb are billion-dollar companies."
For now, the fridge restocking service will only be available to Silicon Valley users of August Home. Customers will get a notification through their August Home app every time a delivery person drops off their food.
[...] Even though this Walmart service sounds "creepy on the front end," said Collier of eMeals, "it's really not as creepy as letting a stranger sleep in your bedroom."
Also at LA Times, Reuters, SiliconBeat, and CNET.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday September 25 2017, @12:01AM (3 children)
Okay, first, years ago people would hitchhike ACROSS THE COUNTRY with random strangers. Five years ago hitchhiking was on the wane, but NO ONE with a net worth less than a billion dollars had a hired entourage of all people they know at every possible airport so that the shuttle, cab, or bus driver won't be an alarming stranger. Uber is irrelevant in this nonsense discussion, and neither has anything to do with someone invading my HOME.
Second, boarding houses are hundreds of years old, college towns are--and were five years ago--full of random strangers paired up in shared homes as roommates. Airbnb has not altered anyone's thinking on whether consumers "would not have assumed" that rental income is a thing. This is the most arrant nonsense, which you saw right away; I encourage everyone to consider why it's nonsense. That will make the world a better place.
Here is why some Wal-Martian invading my home is in fact creepy, and a renter taking possession for a term of lease or let is not creepy: Regardless of who owns a building or domicile, the persons rightfully occupying it (for whatever lease term) are the rightful persons there, and random corporate agents are absolutely not the rightful persons there.
If I rent out my house or condo, to use their insipid example, on Airbnb, the people who have the place for that period of time are in possession and are the rightful noncreepy occupants. If I breezed in to put something in the fridge, even as the owner, I would be a creepy intruder. And if I'm not renting out my place on Airbnb nor via any of the countless ways people rented living space for eons before Airbnb existed, and I'm rightful occupant, then the Wal-Martian is the creepy intruder. In fact, in every combination or permutation of these scenarios, the Wal-Martian delivery person in a stranger's home is the creepy intruder. Every time.
Either this person is a moron starved of basic intellect, and actually believes that Uber and/or Airbnb have squat-all to do with any of this, or this person thinks that YOU are then moron starved of basic intellect, and will actually believe it even though they, themselves, do not.
Do they think that since many people allow Microsoft control over their computers, both for spying and for Microsoft to randomly hijack their computers at any time for a day or so's worth of "important updates," that people will similarly not value the freedom to be secure in their own homes?
I don't insist that the answer to the above is "no" -- it might, I recognize, be a "yes". I just hope against hope that the human spirit will prevail against such.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 25 2017, @12:59PM (2 children)
What about the creepy friends of the renter who you know nothing about who can and are given things like keys.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday September 25 2017, @02:36PM (1 child)
In such a case, they're creepy on their own account, not because they aren't supposed to be in the house--if the renter gives an acquaintance a key, then their presence in the house isn't the reason for their creepiness, even should they be individually creepy.
If the renter gives a professional-but-stranger the key or authorization to get one (Cleaning service, maintenance) that's higher on the creepy scale than a friend with a key; sort of akin to housekeeping being in your hotel room.
Leaving a key or one-time-code for the Wal-Mart EFoods delivery courier seems higher on the creepyscale than either of these.
Does that make sense?
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Monday September 25 2017, @03:48PM
I can see the point if we are talking about a rental property that is NOT the renters place of residence. Other than that, I consider giving any stranger access to my personal living space (my home) high on the creepy scale.