Purchasing Cheese
How does one buy cheese in their area of the setting? While this is a fun writing exercise, it also a great insight into how things work in that area of the setting.
The Magnetic Assembly
New Cambridge
Your personal sprite, a collection of software that manages your day to day activities, has been gathering data on you since birth. It aggregates everything, from personal preferences, to health data, to other smaller metrics like gate. This data comes not only from worn sensors, but also ingested nanomachines, and various other sensors that are shared throughout your personal home and public spaces. Your sprite knows more about you than you do, you control your sprite's settings, and your sprite controls who/what has access to your personal data.
Today, your sprite determines that you're likely to want some cheese. Your sprite checks with your sprites of those in your friend circle and peer group, gathering recommendations from those sprites. Further recommendations are gathered from publicly available sources, various Big-Data AIs providing helpful suggestions that are aggregated together. The selections that are available come from cheese makers all throughout Hawking, including ones made in the city itself, cheese made by the native Grawla, and various space cheeses made throughout the Bruno Confederation. They are moved to a nearby staging area for drones in preparation for the inevitable request for cheese.
When you mention that you would like some cheese, floating holograms are generated nearby of the various cheeses your sprite has determined you're most likely to enjoy. While you are considering your selection, drones race to move the pre-staged cheese to your location. You can look at the packaging of the cheese for more information: Environmentally friendly, biodegradable packaging with only information about the cheese itself displayed on it. Further information can be displayed in mid-air, and largely consists of personal reviews, information about the company that produces the cheese, environmental/ethical concerns, health information, and other informative topics. When you are ready to decide, you just pluck the cheese you want out of thin air and take it with you while the rest are returned to storage.
The cost of the cheese is automatically deducted from your account. Between your level of UBI assigned based on your citizenship/immigration/visitor status and what you make from your job you don't really need to worry about the cost, but a breakdown of the cheese cost and where that money actually goes is sent to your personal account where your sprite monitors generates a report for you on how you spent your money and how that impacts the local economy. Of course, you can engage with your personal finances as much or as little as you want.
You didn't bring a bag with you, since you can always just ask for what you want when you want it. It is generally assumed you'll be consuming the cheese right away, and can send any excess back to your home for storage. You could request a bag, but you can also request similar items like crackers or drinks. When you are finished it is preferred that you throw your trash away yourself, but you can always discard it where you're at, triggering another drone to come clean it up.
see: New Cambridge
The American Union
Various Governmental and Private entities have profiles on you. They have been gathering data on you since before you were born, sucking up any bits of data they can get ahold of from a variety of different platforms, information brokers, and services. A combination of AI, Big Data, and human sales craft are combined together to generate leads for sales. This system tries to match individuals with targeted ads and other sales techniques to encourage the consumption of cheese. This can range from ads placed on other items, to ads placed in public spaces, to news stories and other articles being published to promote consumption.
When you want to purchase cheese, you do not lack for options. You can purchase cheese online through a number of different vendors. Cheese ranges in quality from 'pretty good cheese' to 'this is probably not cheese', and sorting through the various user reviews can be difficult as some are just paid advertisements or 'fake people' giving reviews generated by AI. There are a number of places you can go to get free information about cheese but most of these are either tabloids or hidden advertisements run by cheese companies. Free information is easy to find and often deceptive or wrong. If you want in depth studies and information that is more trustworthy you need to pay for a subscription to such a service.
When you select the cheese you want, it is sent to you by mail. You can pay for rapid delivery, or if you need to save money you can skimp on the delivery cost which also increase the odds that the delivery will be late, missing, or damaged.
The cheese itself is likely packaged in the cheapest possible materials like thin plastics. The cover is adorned with logos and advertisement for other products as well as coupons and loyalty programs to encourage repeat business.
see: American Union