To avoid any NDA troubles, I'll keep it pretty generic: a facility designed and built in 2009 is going to be very hard to modify such that it's operating any differently than it did it 2009. Physical things are harder to upgrade than software. Built a new robotic system? That's great for new facilities, but what happens to the ones that predate it? Amazon has hundreds of facilities.
And on a software front, those older facilities are using different physical processes which need different software than the new tech. How do you architect the whole thing such that the increasing complexity of this ecosystem doesn't create exponential work as it needs to all integrate together and be maintained?
Shopify, by contrast, isn't carrying that legacy on their back. They're potentially on the same exponential curve, but they are much farther on the left and maybe they can find a way to make it a smaller exponent. Maybe. We'll see how it goes.
And on a software front, those older facilities are using different physical processes which need different software than the new tech. How do you architect the whole thing such that the increasing complexity of this ecosystem doesn't create exponential work as it needs to all integrate together and be maintained?
Shopify, by contrast, isn't carrying that legacy on their back. They're potentially on the same exponential curve, but they are much farther on the left and maybe they can find a way to make it a smaller exponent. Maybe. We'll see how it goes.