Technology

Hmm I like self checkout because I don't like dealing with retail people. I'm introverted by nature.

Just get me the F in and get me the F out. Charge the correct price and give me correct change. Machines do this SO WELL.

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As someone who finds interacting with register attendants painful, and doesn't steal, this is unfortunate news.

Self checkout was great for me because I'd have like 3 items and breeze on out. Now people come to them with overloaded carts because they don't have any actual checkouts.

I always, within reason, try to check out with a person and use cash.

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.

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.

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.

Questionable savings? I have saved A LOT of time at self checkouts, especially when just buying a few things. It's way faster than standing in line behind people seemingly doing their yearly shopping.

They aren't bringing back cashiers, they'll have one cashier with a massive line as a deterrent to get you to download the scan as you go app on your phone so you supply the bar code scanner at your expense and they track your phone and change the digital price tags based on your Palantir profile as you walk up.

Or the other option is Walmart has started remodeling their stores into primarily warehouses. The main entrance is badged only for picker workers to hand orders to Doordash or put app orders in people's cars. The legacy experience entrance will be a temporary secondary option until they get enough robots to make the building fully lights out and automated. Shambling automatons will emerge from the black hell portal in the surface of The Edifice with your tampons and then run facial recognition on you and sniff your car for drug and explosive residue.

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

In 2026 I look for a cashier.

Self checkout in theory is better for both sides - business and consumer.

That said most self checkout as implemented is insufferable. The modern experience is waiting 5 minutes for someone to clear out your order because you accidentally clicked the version of Limes that this store doesn't sell, despite it being an option on the POS, or to tap no / decline on the 5 different "Donate? Round up? Bag? Survey? Phone number?" prompts, or for the POS to lock up because you scanned a single can 3 times rather than 3 cans once, or for the cart to lock up so you slam your shin into it because the camera determined you were a thief.

Personally I avoid all self checkouts.

Shitty thing is they won't hire more cashiers when they shut these off.

At supermarkets in my country they have a system where they will semi-randomly check what you have in your bags the moment before you'd pay.

There's random things that make it more likely like buying meat but there's definitely a random element to it.

What i have noticed, however is that at times of financial strife (or just before them), the regularity of me getting checked can go through the roof (25% baseline chance up to 70-80% at peak).

And so I'm beginning to see these signs as a recession indicator. Especially as it's a massive supermarket chain with access to a lot of customer and market data.

Probably someone smarter than me could use this to make money.

I’m pretty sure delivery made it obsolete?

Curbside delivery is awesome, in many situations.

And they can afford to leave a few checkers in there for the situations that call for in-store shopping. That’s where self checkout would fail anyway.

Is it? Not where I live.

Reads like a misleading statistic. Why would you invest in self-checkout if you already have it in place?

Also, the last time I went to a cashier, because it was the one time I saw a long line at the self-check lane, I stood in the short line, I was third, while the cashier chatted up the customers, left the line to help another cashier with something and was generally very slow. I suspect they're not required to be efficient anymore, and perhaps even encouraged not to be. I watched as the guy I would have been behind in the self-check line left the store while I was still second in line at the cashier.