That’s not the issue that’s being discussed though. It’s a fair criticism, but that’s still irrelevant to the topic of Amazon Go stores requiring them and that you should therefore expect to need one if you want to enter a store.
> No wonder it isn't popular.
I wouldn’t deduce popularity from the closure of the stores. In Seattle at least, the stores had already been “temporarily” closed for a while and are in a fairly high-crime area of the city. [0] At the same time, they’re actively building larger suburban stores [1] which indicates a pivot, but that the format itself is still popular.
They’ve also added it to other venues like Climate Pledge Arena and Lumen Field in Seattle in the form of “Just Walk Out” [2]. You still need an Amazon One account to use it.
[0]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-shutters-some-c...
[1]: https://www.winsightgrocerybusiness.com/amp/topics/amazon-go...
There are plenty of cashierless stores which work just like any other store. They aren't exactly doing anything groundbreaking when it comes to that. They could also just put a regular payment terminal at the exit - the whole magic camera stuff would work just fine with it.
The end result is that they created an artificially cumbersome store concept, which does not provide a real benefit to the user. No wonder it isn't popular.