[itsdesmond]

Some stores do not welcome Instacart or Postmates shoppers. You can shop there. You can shop with your phone out, scanning every item to price match, something that some bookstores frown on, for example. Third party services cannot send employees to index their inventory, nor can they be dispatched to pick up an item you order online.

Their reasons vary. Some don’t want their businesses perception of quality to be taken out of their control (delivering cold food, marking up items, poor substitutions). Some would prefer their staff service and build relationships with customers directly, instead of disinterested and frequently quite demanding runners. Some just straight up disagree with the practice of third party delivery.

I think that it’s pretty unambiguously reasonable to choose to not allow an unrelated business to operate inside of your physical storefront. I also think that maps onto digital services.

[rjbwork]

But I can send my personal shopper and you'll be none the wiser.

[Polizeiposaune]

To stretch the analogy to the breaking point: If you send 10,000 personal shoppers all at once to the same store just to check prices, the store's going to be rightfully annoyed that they aren't making sales because legit buyers can't get in.

[bradleyjg]

It’s possible to violate all sorts of social norms. Societies that celebrate people that do so are on the far opposite end of the spectrum from high trust ones. They are rather unpleasant.

[rapind]

It's all about scale. The impact of your personal shopper is insignificant unless you manage to scale it up into a business where everyone has a personal shopper by default.

[tom_m]

Perplexity isn't your personal anything. It's a service just like Postmates and Uber. You want a personal shopper equivalent? You're going to pay more money. It won't say perplexity all over it.

[dataflow]

> But I can send my personal shopper and you'll be none the wiser.

They will be quite the wiser if they track/limit how often your shopper enters the store. You probably aren't entering the same store fifteen times every day and neither would be your shopper if they were only doing it on your behalf.

[542354234235]

True, and I would ask, what is your point? Is it that no rule can have 100% perfect enforcement? That all rules have a grey area if you look close enough? Was it just a "gotcha" statement meant to insinuate what the prior commenter said was invalid?

[amelius]

But the store owner can ask the personal shopper to leave, if e.g. they find out that they work for a personal shopper service.

[fireflash38]

And you can be trespassed and prosecuted if you continue to violate.

[ghurtado]

Sure. There's lots of things you could do, but you don't do them because they are wrong.

Might does not make right.

[indymike]

> I think that it’s pretty unambiguously reasonable to choose to not allow an unrelated business to operate inside of your physical storefront. I also think that maps onto digital services.

The line is drawn for me on my own computer. Even if I am in your building, my phone remains mine.

[ugh123]

What if my local ai model and system crawls, indexes and trains itself on content that only I can see and work with?

[cma]

These are more like a store putting up a billboard or catalog and asking people to turn off their meta AI glasses nearby because the store doesn't want AI translating it on your behalf as a tourist.

[itsdesmond]

It is not because the store does not expend any resources on the singular instance of the glasses capturing the content of the billboard. Web requests cost money.

[tokioyoyo]

> Some stores do not welcome Instacart or Postmates shoppers

First time hearing this. Almost every single grocery store either supports Instacart, or has partnership with a similar service.