If you have the option, do you use the cashier or the self checkout line at the grocery store? What about other types if store like hardware stores?
If you have the option, do you use the cashier or the self checkout line at the grocery store? What about other types if store like hardware stores?
I never use self checkout. I stopped buying at two retailers who installed self checkout on more than half the lanes.
Self checkout is a job killer, and worse, is making customers do the job of paid employees for free.
You’re looking at it wrong: it’s not taking away jobs, it’s saving on work that needs to be done.
The goal should be 0 jobs. Nobody should have to work. The fewer things that need to be done by humans the more time we all have to spend on things that actually matter.
You are confusing the need for an income with having a job. People need an income to live, they don’t have a need to be scanning groceries at Lidl all day.
And that’s exactly why I’ll start using self-checkout the day UBI is implemented (and not a day sooner).
Chicken/egg problem. As long as they can convince people to be wage slaves there won’t be a need for UBI.
Fair. But I’m not sure widespread poverty will do the trick this time. The wealth extraction by the richest is historically unprecedented, but the poorest blame the immigrants instead of revolting. Manipulation of public opinion has become easier than ever before, the same as surveillance. I don’t see the people rising up anytime soon and my neighborhood cashier has to eat this month.
Do you use horse-drawn carriages? No? What about the horse breeders and cartwrights?
So if everyone used self-checkout, groceries would be cheaper…
lol. lmao even.
That’s not how capitalism works.
How does it work? Why don’t supermarkets just ask a million for a loaf of bread? More money and profits, right?
Now, I am aware there are cartels and other anticompetitive practices, but no single supermarket chain has a monopoly. There is competition, the margins in the business really are not that high, and supermarkets can and do lower prices to attempt to increase their market share. In fact, for products like bread supermarkets often deliberately sell them at a loss.
Would supermarkets like to put the savings of self-checkout in their own pocket? Absolutely. Can and will they, on the long term? No. If businesses would always pocket such savings, then margins in the entire economy should tend upward over time, and they simply don’t.
Head in the sand my dude. Canadian groceries were caught red handed colluding on bread price fixing. There was a massive class action lawsuit. Companies charge as much as they can get away with and will always push the numbers higher. They’re not eating costs out of the goodness of their heart, loss-leaders lead to more spending.
Yes, I am aware there are cartels and other anticompetitive practices. I said as much in a comment on Lemmy not long ago - with some detective work you may be able to find it.
Obviously. And what they can get away with is profit margins up to a certain limit (assuming no monopolies, and at least moderately effective anti-cartel measures), that limit being the point where it becomes easy to enter the market or undercut a competitor, gain massive market share, and still make a lot of money.
They cannot get away with just endlessly taking all profits from productivity gains. These gains have been enormous since the start of the Industrial Revolution, and in most markets profits are on the order of a few percent of turnover, if that.
You reference it, you cite it.
Oh ho ho, they can and will.