Big Brother and now private companies

> Thomas, now you're spinning.

I don't know about spinning, but I will grant that when I posted my previous post I was thinking more of the type of electronic tags you have in clothing stores rather than smart tags that can be tracked after you have left a store.

> Since when does any retail GIANT reduce
> prices? Even ColesMyer is cutting out their
> shareholder discount. And speaking with an
> enployee recently, even the employee
> discount is heading to the chopping block.

Wal*Mart in the US has reduced prices for quite a while to the benefit of consumers and the detriment of its competitors.

I think it's been able to do that from its lower cost base relative to other competitors, primarily due to scale (physical size of stores) and purchasing / negotiation power. Some of these savings have been passed on.

Where there's competition for a customer, things that save cost tend to be passed on to the customer where the cost saving is easy for competitors to replicate.

Using bar codes to scan in items instead of manually writing them down improves efficiency, reduces costs, and has the end effect of reducing prices.

> IF the supermarket wants to stop theft, let
> them use a normal tag. Not an ID type tag.

> As for stock control and keeping track of
> stock... the car accessory chain SuperCheap
> has a brilliant system in place and they do
> NOT use tags.

> When you buy something at SuperCheap, the
> purchase is registered in a computer. Back
> at head office, that item is removed from
> the store in question's inventory and
> AUTOMATICALLY re-ordered from the warehouse
> and gotten ready for the restocking truck.
> This means, come the next morning when the
> restock truck arrives at the store, it is
> carrying replacements for all the goods that
> sold the previous day. No "smart
> tags" needed.
>
> General electronic tags may stop theft. They
> don't need to be ID tags. And stock control
> is already handled well. The individual
> numbering of stock serves no other purpose
> than tracking the buyer. As stock is already
> kept track of electronically with bar codes.

> Bit by bit we are losing our freedom and
> privacy. And people welcome it each time
> another bit is taken away under whatever
> guise is used. A person arriving in our time
> from the '50s would be horrified at how much
> freedom and privacy we have given away.

While I don't disagree with this, I was just pointing out that reducing your privacy is usually not the end goal of a company by itself, and that usually new devices are designed to lower costs which eventually get passed on to consumers.

I would imagine smart tags would improve supply chain efficiencies and reduce bottlenecks, lowering overall consumer cost. You could also use them to create automatic check-outs at supermarkets where you can wander out without delay and without implicitly paying the salary of the person serving you. All I'm saying is that I don't think it's all bad.

Now, is this worth privacy concerns? Perhaps not, but it's not a one-sided issue. Plus, I don't see why you couldn't have smart tags and just retain your anonymity by paying with cash, but perhaps I don't see the full picture. :)

- Thomas.