No Debit Card, No Smartphone, No Amazon Go

SEATTLE, WA - On a blustery Friday afternoon in downtown Seattle, Meredith Moffett is about to become a high-tech stowaway. Moffett is in line to enter the Amazon Go store, the company's famous cashier and checkout-line free market. Moffett doesn't have a debit or credit card, and that means she would not usually be able to shop at Amazon Go.

Like someone too short to ride a roller coaster, Moffett, 34, and many others can't access a growing number of services - Uber, car2go or dockless bikes - that require a bank account and smartphone for entry. Some call this the “digital divide," which tends to put the poor at a technological disadvantage.

“Bigger picture, we know that we have a digital divide not only nationally but also in our region. People’s income and where they live in King County are major predictors of technology access, such as internet access in the home,” King County Office of Equity and Social Justice Director Matías Valenzuela said. “And of course there is a close correlation with these factors and race, meaning that people of color have less access as well.”

For now, not much can be done unless the companies begin offering alternative ways to pay. Requiring a smartphone to access a store is not against state or city anti-discrimination laws, Seattle's Office for Civil Rights spokesman Roberto Bonaccorso said. (For this story, Patch lent Moffett a smartphone and Amazon account to go shopping.)

Asked about the gap, an Amazon spokesperson told Patch the company might offer different payment options in the future.

“As is true across Amazon, we’re always looking for ways to continue improving the customer experience. For Amazon Go, we’ll continue to expand our payments options over time in order to better serve customers,” the spokesperson said.

As an alternative, you can go inside Amazon Go if your friend has a smartphone and everything else.

Moffett lives with her wife, two cats, and 9-year-old pitbull, Sashimi, in a rental home along the Green River in Tukwila’s Allentown neighborhood. Moffett doesn’t have a debit or credit card because the household bank account is in her wife’s name. Moffett could go inside Amazon Go if the couple opened an Amazon account, but it’s not that easy for many others.

A survey released last year by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) found that almost 16 million adults in the U.S. were unbanked in 2015. Most of those 9 million told the FDIC they didn't have “enough money to keep in an account.”

Smartphone ownership, meanwhile, correlates to income and education levels. A survey released last year by the Pew Research Center found that about 77 percent of adults in the U.S. own smartphones. Only 54 percent of non-high school graduates and 64 percent earning less than $30,000 own smartphones. Smartphone ownership rates are highest (nearly 100 percent) among college graduates earning more than $75,000 per year, according to the survey.

Moffett spent about 20 minutes inside the store shopping for snacks for house guests she would be welcoming later that day. Her evaluation of the shopping experience: too small, too bourgeois, and, yes, discriminatory.

"Obviously, I wouldn't usually be able to go in there," she said.

Moffett spent about $63 on 13 items ranging from pistachios to frozen shrimp to Beecher’s cheese. The store was crowded with people seeming to wallow in the store's exclusive features. When you enter the store, a network of cameras and sensors tracks your every move, able to tell what items you pick out, and even ones you put back. When you're done, you just walk out.

The experience of not seeing cashiers was “disorienting” and a little upsetting, Moffett said. But she did find it convenient.

“And I kind of hate myself for that,” she said. “It’s important we maintain those kinds of entry-level jobs.”

There are plenty of workers, however. Moffett said shelves held only one or two of a particular item, and there was an army of clerks constantly restocking goods. The store reminded Moffett of a very small 7-Eleven, but upscale. She felt a little out of place.

“I was definitely an outlier in the store,” she said. “It’s not the type of place I would run to at 5 a.m. with slippers on. It’s way too bourgeois for that.”

Note: for the purposes of this story, Patch lent Moffett a smartphone and Amazon account so she could shop at Amazon Go.

Photos by Neal McNamara/Patch, courtesy Meredith Moffett