'It hasn't delivered': The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology

ooli@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 513 points –
'It hasn't delivered': The spectacular failure of self-checkout technology
bbc.com
425

You are viewing a single comment

I don’t get their point that shoppers “need to be socialized into using self-checkout”. Who ever needed to be persuaded? It’s just that they try hard to make it painful. Self checkout was always an over-complicated conglomeration of parts with poor usability, then poorly thought out additions to try to control theft and no counter space . It just never works well. Maybe we should “socialize” retailers into getting their shit together she it can work more smoothly

I think I used self checkout once in my life. I very quickly realized that they're pushing their work onto me and never went to self checkout again.

I also think those jobs matter. Not great jobs, sure. But they are jobs. I'm sure tech will eliminate cashier jobs someday but I don't see self checkout doing so.

Those jobs may be important but they’re not the customer’s responsibility. My goal is to get out of there as conveniently as possibly for me, and sometimes that involves self-checkout.

Of course I was recently on the other side of this conversation when trying to buy beer at self-checkout. The other person claimed it’s easy, but I claimed the extra steps and edit made it less convenient

Consumers want this technology to work, and welcomed it with open arms.

That’s an actual sentence from that actual article. The fuck? I read it, like, four times. Is that even - what??