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elfsI stopped by Whole Foods to grab a breakfast sandwich this morning, one of many grab-and-go choices available to me on those days when I drive into work rather than take the train. This is the first time I'd been in Whole Foods since it had been bought by Amazon.
I'm not going into Whole Foods ever again.
I have a lot of qualms about Amazon in general. Under communism, you buy everything from a single store owned by the State. Under late capitalism, you buy everything from a single store owned by Amazon shareholders. But that's not what got me about Whole Foods. Instead, it's how The Amazon Way has infected the store.
I understand that Whole Foods has always been a wallet-sucking, capitalist enterprise that views its customers as marks. But in pursuit of that cash-vacuum, Whole Foods was a lot like another capitalist enterprise: The Olive Garden restaurant chain. Olive Garden has a vibe: when you walk in, you're translated to an Americanized, unchallenging version of the Villa Vignamaggio, a place of hand-applied cream stucco walls supported by dark brown wooden beams and rafters, a place that somewhere deep in the back of your mind suggests warmth, coziness, safety, reassurance, and familiarity. Whole Foods went for a similar vibe, a sense of farm-to-table wholesomeness and wandering comfort.
No more. Amazon's version of Whole Foods is a lot like Wal-Mart: bright lights so everything is highly visible, precise labels so everything is recognizable, and regimented aisles so everything is efficient. The lighting is not just bright, but hot, blue-bright, the kind of frenetic, frantic bright that makes you want to leave as soon as it hits your eyeballs. The message of Amazon Whole Foods is "Get what you want and get out. Bother our staff and use our resources as little as possible. Fair trade is when you get what you came for and you leave."
Much like the Amazon website itself, come to think of it. Nobody likes that website. It doesn't win awards. But it works. The only reason to go there is because you need to buy something you can't get anywhere else. The fortunate thing here is that, so far, everything you can buy at Whole Foods can still be bought somewhere else.
I'm not going into Whole Foods ever again.
I have a lot of qualms about Amazon in general. Under communism, you buy everything from a single store owned by the State. Under late capitalism, you buy everything from a single store owned by Amazon shareholders. But that's not what got me about Whole Foods. Instead, it's how The Amazon Way has infected the store.
I understand that Whole Foods has always been a wallet-sucking, capitalist enterprise that views its customers as marks. But in pursuit of that cash-vacuum, Whole Foods was a lot like another capitalist enterprise: The Olive Garden restaurant chain. Olive Garden has a vibe: when you walk in, you're translated to an Americanized, unchallenging version of the Villa Vignamaggio, a place of hand-applied cream stucco walls supported by dark brown wooden beams and rafters, a place that somewhere deep in the back of your mind suggests warmth, coziness, safety, reassurance, and familiarity. Whole Foods went for a similar vibe, a sense of farm-to-table wholesomeness and wandering comfort.
No more. Amazon's version of Whole Foods is a lot like Wal-Mart: bright lights so everything is highly visible, precise labels so everything is recognizable, and regimented aisles so everything is efficient. The lighting is not just bright, but hot, blue-bright, the kind of frenetic, frantic bright that makes you want to leave as soon as it hits your eyeballs. The message of Amazon Whole Foods is "Get what you want and get out. Bother our staff and use our resources as little as possible. Fair trade is when you get what you came for and you leave."
Much like the Amazon website itself, come to think of it. Nobody likes that website. It doesn't win awards. But it works. The only reason to go there is because you need to buy something you can't get anywhere else. The fortunate thing here is that, so far, everything you can buy at Whole Foods can still be bought somewhere else.
