I was astounded the other day when I visited a town that had a nice busy grocery store. It was like what I imagine the 70’s were like. They had 20 lanes OPEN with cashiers quickly and efficiently ringing up items, much faster than I could, with baggers neatly and efficiently filling the bags. There were no waiting lines because everyone found a cashier lane to walk right up to as the last person was finishing up.

It was ten times faster than a self checkout.

I rarely see that anymore. Its usually one lone cashier and a bunch of people waiting for a self checkout machine.

Pretty funny coincidence here

I definitely prefer self checkout, I’m already shopping for myself why not just checkout myself.

Think about it, were already doing the Labour the shopkeeper used to do by picking our own grocery, so is self checkout not just the logical next step.

Outside of wages and the evilness of Walmart and shit I’m just talking about pure tech and grocery stores that actually pay a living wage.

This feels surreal, self checkout is insanely normal here and theres no scales and or other sensors besides normal cctv. Switzerland, for context.

The article talks about time savings but it was always about labor costs and I have a hard time believing it didn’t deliver on that front.

This probably has a wide latitude of success depending on whether it’s a high trust or low trust society.

I’m mixed.

I dislike peopling in person, and I hate lines with a passion, but I also hate putting cashiers out of business, running the register myself, and waiting for one person in charge of 17 registers to come over and figure out WTF just went wrong with the checkout process, which is also peopleing and lines.

Most of those who have one don’t plan to have an other one? Ok, but is that supposed to be weird?

It certainly always saves me time. Especially when I cut out doing the part where I pay.

In 2016 I used self checkout if I wanted to get through quickly.

In 2026 I look for a cashier.

I don’t like self checkout. Every time I feel I’m doing their cashier job for free.

Now if they could just get people to put refrigerated/frozen food back where they found it instead of leaving it wherever they happen to be standing. I love finding some meat sitting on the cereal shelf. Lazy f’ers.

Good. Just pay people, society is for people. All of these cost saving schemes from capitalists in service of infinite greed end up failing and wasting even more money than they would have made or saved simply by paying people for their labour. Also, wealth tax immediately, I mean now.

Is it? Not where I live.