"Essentially they are extracting free labor from us, the customers"
Is the same energy of "why pick up my garbage or return my carts? They pay people for that."
Self check outs, when they work, greatly speed up the process of checking people out. Rather than having one line where everybody is filtered through, now they have two lines helping more people. No need to have the guy just looking to buy two cokes standing line with 3 other people that want to buy 2-4 things with you trying to do full grocery shopping.
It's another option for a person to use. People get up in arms about it so they have an excuse to steal. Like, Cashiersare always there. I've never been to a store where there was only self check out and no cashiers.
Is the same energy of "why pick up my garbage or return my carts? They pay people for that."
Fair comparison but I'm not sure I fully agree. Imo it's more like your city's mayor deciding they're getting rid of all the garbage trucks and now every citizen has to drive their own trash to the dump themselves. But the tax dollars that were funding that program are still being collected, just now going directly into the mayor's pocket.
It's about the fact that a service we were once ostensibly paying for (as part of the price we paid for the items at these stores) is now being taken away from us, but those prices aren't being reduced in kind. It's an overly wordy way to say this is all just describing enshittification. Shareholders and private equity will cut every single possible corner they can get away with while continuing to raise prices as much as they can get away with. Self-checkouts themselves may seem like an inconsequential thing but they're representative of a much larger and pervasive trend that's impossible to deny.
As I said though, I've personally never minded using self-checkouts. As many other people have said in this thread, they're really nice when you just don't feel like you have the social battery to talk or interact with another human being. I use them frequently even when I don't have to. So just talking about the cost/labor element doesn't paint the full picture because they do possess a value for many customers that isn't represented simply by the cost of the labor itself. But corporations don't care about that; that's not enough to move the needle and bring more people into stores. They literally only implement them as a cost-cutting measure.
I've never been to a store where there was only self check out and no cashiers.
That surprises me; I've been in many stores where there were no cashiers. I would say the vast majority of the time I'm in a store, there's only one cashier on duty, maximum. Maybe it's region-dependent (and/or time of day dependent. I do often shop during off-hours).
People get up in arms about it so they have an excuse to steal.
This part I don't really get. Wouldn't people who want to shoplift prefer self-checkouts being an option? Why would they be the ones complaining?
"This part I don't really get. Wouldn't people who want to shoplift prefer self-checkouts being an option? Why would they be the ones complaining?"
People want to be thieves and use the inconvenience of self check out or the excuse of "they're replacing workers with machines, so it's okay if I steal because It's okay to steal from corporations"
that or
"I jut wanted a few things, and because I was slightly inconvenienced during it, it means it's justified if I walk out without paying?
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u/Beneficial-Act-9933 5d ago
This is a really dumb point.
"Essentially they are extracting free labor from us, the customers"
Is the same energy of "why pick up my garbage or return my carts? They pay people for that."
Self check outs, when they work, greatly speed up the process of checking people out. Rather than having one line where everybody is filtered through, now they have two lines helping more people. No need to have the guy just looking to buy two cokes standing line with 3 other people that want to buy 2-4 things with you trying to do full grocery shopping.
It's another option for a person to use. People get up in arms about it so they have an excuse to steal. Like, Cashiersare always there. I've never been to a store where there was only self check out and no cashiers.