A friend of mine talked about building something like this about 20 years ago now.

Amazon Go is a new kind of store with no checkout required. We created the world’s most advanced shopping technology so you never have to wait in line. With our Just Walk Out Shopping experience, simply use the Amazon Go app to enter the store, take the products you want, and go! No lines, no checkout. (No, seriously.)

That was when we were young and brash and attempting to come up with business ideas (none of which ever came to fruition mainly because I am too lazy to work hard enough to start a business). Our idea was similar to this, except it’d use RFID and since at the time RFID was not cheap compared to today, we thought of giving a 5% discount if you brought your RFID tags back next time.

What’s funny about it is that at the time, the few people we talked about it with thought it was a moronic idea that would never, ever happen and was laughably ludicrous.

Yet here we are.