It seems like they will just mark everything up by 10% and then give that discount at self checkout. So they will pocket even more while harming those who don't use self checkout.
It also doesn't really make sense to do it as a percentage. A cashier's wage is typically hourly, and the labor market has settled on a particular wage for cashiers in this area - say $15/hr.
If I have a $150 grocery bill, a 10% discount would be $15. For maybe 5 minutes of work. Working out to an hourly wage of $180/hr (60/5 = 12, 12 * 15 = 180).
So if they're saying "we should be compensating customers for being made to do labor", they'd be compensating them at roughly 12x the going rate for cashiers in this example.
Now if it's just meant to be punitive, OK. But then why not actually address the real issue: displacement of workers by technology and passing the labor burden on to unpaid consumers - either make that illegal or tax the company to help mitigate the harm it's causing by eliminating jobs.
I don't think it would be difficult to outright forbid self-checkout at all, actually.
There's a difference between enforcing laws on individuals and enforcing laws on businesses. Businesses can't exactly run and hide, if they're using self-checkout they're going to get found out. That's distinct from something like the drug trade, which is all underground and hidden.
Some people fucking love self checkout. If you ban it, you'll have disability advocacy groups up your arse on behalf of autistic people and others with social anxiety.
ADA compliance will kill the entire thing. You can't charge someone for accommodation of a disability that prevents them from using the self checkout. All the human-staffed registers will be posted as handicap accessible, and they will default to the "discounted" self-checkout price.
We've given up so much as consumers. There was a time when people would be pissed that the store was making them do unpaid labor. Now we don't bat an eye.
You don't think they'll drag such a tax through the court system? Our enemies don't want any restraints on businesses, anything we try to do will be fought.
But not one that relates to the thing that we're trying to stop them from doing. Cashiers aren't paid per item scanned, they don't get commission. They are paid an hourly wage.
If you wanted to pay customers a rebate for their labor at the market rate for a cashier, or one set by the state, that'd make sense to eliminate the gains the company receives from automation.
So 5 minutes of work at $15/hr = $1.25. So not much, but it mitigates the benefit of not hiring people.
Though, it's still a benefit because you pay a person whether they're actively working or not and you have to pay tax on human labor (contributing to social security, etc) so maybe hiking it higher than whatever the typical wage is for cashiers would make sense.
If I have a $150 grocery bill, a 10% discount would be $15.
If you have a $150 grocery bill, it's being hiked to ~$166.66 before you get to the checkout. Then the 10% discount is bringing it back down to the $150 you were paying before. The net discount is zero: you're paying exactly what you're paying now.
If you keep going to the cashier after this, you're paying the company the hiked price, which gives them an extra $16.66 for maybe 5 minutes of cashier labor. The company turns around and pays the cashier $1.66, netting an extra $15 from you for their shareholders.
Cost of labor, overhead, and profit are already accounted for in that $150 price of the goods. That's why the store charges $150 for them - because that's what covers the wages, overhead, and includes the maximum markup they can get away with (~3% margin for grocery stores afaik).
All I'm saying is, they do have to be able to cover costs. So because of that and their thin margins, they'd just hike prices (probably more than they'd need to take advantage of the situation).
So it makes more sense to either tax them for avoiding using human labor and passing that labor on to customers (to help pay for the drain they're placing on the economy by not hiring people), or just ban the practice outright. Couple that with price controls to ensure they can't unfairly inflate prices. Things they can't avoid rather than a fee they can hike prices to avoid.
The problem with your logic is that I can scan the items slower and make the compensation more fair, if I scan the items 12x slower then I'm being paid a fair wage for that 150$ purchase.
The lowest estimate I found of sales volume through self checkout is 38%.
So a 10% self checkout discount is 3.8% hit to revenue. When profits are only 2.8% they'll take a 1% loss.
The CEO pay being only 0.4% of that $3.8B profit. Isn't remotely enough to matter.
Do you think the CEO compensation is the only place they are siphoning off funds to the oligarchs? And even with all the greed, they are still admitting to robbing $3.8B from the working class. That's all profits are.
The system rewards greed and corruption. So that's what they do. They conspire with other corporations to inflate prices. They take advantage of disasters to gouge consumers. These aren't conspiracies, they are things that have been admitted to under oath and discovered through investigation.
They're welcome to lie with the numbers! But then I can at least reason about it. Right now, we're looking at some cherry-picked end points and ignoring the proposed numerics entirely.
We're looking a 2 different things here. I'm doing the math on a specific policy and how it would effect a specific company. You come back with generalizations and broad conceptions.
You are right generally. We agree generally. But here specifically, this policy won't do anything to help that. It's bad policy-making. We're both right.
Sure they can. They hike prices 11.11% and the 10% discount brings them right back to their original price. Their 3% margin stays a 3% margin. They can even post the "discounted" price on the shelves to make it seem like customers are getting a good deal.
You're pretending that stores can just arbitrarily raise prices. They already set their prices as the maximum the market will bear. And yes, ultimately the point is to make self-checkout cheaper than regular.
You think that was arbitrary? Do you have any idea how much work stores put in to setting prices? It's more complex than this, but to illustrate, companies will maximize for total revenue, so quantity sold times price. And they know that whenever they raise the price, even by ten cents, some number of people will not purchase that item. They only raise prices if they predict the decline in sales will be more than offset by the increase in revenue per item.
It may seem arbitrary to you, but it's anything but. The prices in the store are already at what the company estimates to be the optimum total revenue level.
yeah you're right about your point so far, but this is different. if every grocery store in town were forced to raise prices by 5%, then they could all do it because all their competition does it too.
but if only one store decides to do it, then the customers would change to the other store nearby who offers lower prices.
Note that cheaper self-checkout means more demand for it (and less demand for cashiers). So we'll have fewer jobs, and worse service for those who can't (for w/e reason) use self-checkout.
"seize the means of production" as if that's an easy/good thing to do. then what, the employees own the company? and they get paid depending on company profitability? well, not every company turns a profit. what if the company has a bad year? will the employees go hungry? who says that it will turn a profit next year?
Then the employees decide what to do themselves in those situations. If it fails it fails, but they would be laid off or not be making money even if they didn't own the company because their boss wouldn't be able to pay them.
There's tons of examples if you actually care to look. Trash pickup is an easy example. I've lived in places where it was managed by the city and places where it was run by private companies. The city always showed up on time and never raised prices without justification.
Guess what the private companies did on a regular basis? And if you want to talk about efficiency let's consider whether or not it would be better to have four different companies running four sets of trucks on four overlapping routes through the city as opposed to one entity handling the whole thing. The only thing efficient about the private companies running things is the way the money is siphoned off to some rich asshole instead of being managed by accountable local officials.
If its so efficient why do trash companies exist? I live in a city that has municipal pickup and all my friends that own apartments/restaurants all have private business dumpsters because the city sucks at doing a simple job...
The government needs to stay in its lane and out of business.
If private companies are so efficient then why does the government exist?
Do you see why framing the question that way doesn't help you address the actual problem? I'm guessing you don't since you seem unwilling to consider the possibility that private ownership is not the ideal solution to every service problem. I don't think you need more than a cursory glance at the state of the US to throw that idea out the window but things must seem pretty good to you if you're still stuck in that mindset.
Not stuck in any "mindset". Been around the block a couple of times, not my first bbq, and every time any government gets involved they fuck it up and steal. Nope not on my watch.
And government exists as (and was intended) to hold the social contract we all have with each other together by the rule of law. Otherwise it entropy.
whether your government only makes chaor or actually helps, depends a whole lot on the government and especially on the people in it. there are good governments, for example here in austria.
the issue is more, whether your government represents you and whether they care about you. that is something that depends on your local context.
so i can tell you from an example why private companies exist that do things that are typically done by public companies ... here in austria, there's a railway operator called WestBahn. They provide passenger trains on the route from vienna to innsbruck (roughly). That's the only route that they service. Why do they do it?
because it's one of the most provitable routes in all of austria. it has many, reliable passengers. servicing that route turns a profit. servicing many other routes, for example bus lines in some remote village, is still necessary, but obviously doesn't turn a profit as it has maybe 3 passengers at a time.
so, they pick the 1 route that's actually very profitable, only service that, and leave every other route to the state-owned alternative. that's what's happening.
in other words, steal. i'm actually fine with that if it's for the greater good. the question is: would it work? do you have any idea how to run a company on that scale? there's a whole lot of companies that have business connections all around the world. what happens to those? can you handle these connections? what if other companies think that you're not trustworthy anymore and refuse to do business with you? how do you handle these cases?
also what about money? just that the company is now held by workers does not somehow suddenly make it have much more money. especially grocery stores maybe have 3% profit margins, that means, even if no CEO siphons off wealth, the company's ability to spend money increases by maybe 3%, so wages could go up 3%. just to inform you, about what's realistic here. it's not as if you're suddenly having a 3x wage increase.
Not quite. "Steal" would imply that the people you're taking it from have a legitimate claim of ownership over it.
do you have any idea how to run a company on that scale?
Some of us do. And maybe it doesn't need to be such a large scale in the first place.
what if other companies think that you’re not trustworthy anymore and refuse to do business with you?
Seize them too.
also what about money? just that the company is now held by workers does not somehow suddenly make it have much more money. especially grocery stores maybe have 3% profit margins, that means, even if no CEO siphons off wealth, the company’s ability to spend money increases by maybe 3%, so wages could go up 3%. just to inform you, about what’s realistic here. it’s not as if you’re suddenly having a 3x wage increase.
What about money? If we have the labor, the tools, the farms, and the factories ... what do we need money for?
i think you're unreasonably assuming here that a revolution would happen everywhere on the planet at the same time. realistically, that's not the case. you start with one place, then another, etc. and in the meantime you have exactly the problems that i cited. how to interact with other entities, etc?
It's not the government who would control the means of production, it's the workers. In theory they might use a vanguard party to seize it non-violently and then redistribute it, so in that case it may pass through the government's hands. But that's not the only way to seize the means of production. When properly done though, it would end up in the hands of the workers, every laborer owning their own tools and equipment so they can work for themselves instead of some faceless corporation.
The difference is that the government has no shareholders or incentive to turn a profit, unlike companies. However it can sell luxury goods at a high price, to subside other goods like food or housing from the markup.
Oh wow, where are my us government shares? When are the dividends getting paid out? Can I vote to invest more of my taxes into public schools so the education system does not fail it's shareholders?
And how does this work out? Do companies not lobby against safety or environmental regulations if it hurts their profits? Is the water safe to drink everywhere? Is medical care available to everyone who needs it, regardless of income? Does everyone get social security, even if he could not pay in because of health issues, accidents or other reasons that prevented him from working full time for 40 years?
Define pay such that it includes stocks, bonuses, rebates, real estate, food, clothing, transportation, or any other item that can be exchanged, borrowed against, or otherwise converted to cash money. When they find a loophole just close it.
The problem with this isn't the concept. It's getting politicians to implement it.
It’s a pretty good loophole though. A stocks value is considered an unrealized gain when you receive it but don’t sell it. My company gives me stock, but I don’t sell it. If I had to pay taxes on that, I’d be fucked. Maybe they could create some kind of untaxed minimum based on some index. And possibly even brackets.
But of course there’s a reason they like it this way.
Stocks are not a necessary piece of compensation for anyone. Besides, if you can borrow money from a bank using stocks as collateral then it is effectively a liquid asset that you absolutely should pay tax on. The simplest solution to that problem is to disallow stocks from being used as collateral.
Every loophole can be closed if we decide we want to. The ones that are still open were intentionally left open to benefit the rich.
I think if they handled it in such a way that you borrow against it in any fashion, what you borrow is taxed. Kind of stupid it isn't that way already, but here we are.
Except where I live you do actually have to pay taxes on stock you receive as a bonus, if you don't have the cash on hand, you just liquidate part of the stocks.
Yep, this is one of the reasons we need a tax on wealth. If you're wealthy enough you can also just borrow against your stocks at very low interest rates.
That "$300 billion" number is just completely made up. The math doesn't even remotely work.
The entire US grocery industry does somewhere around $1 trillion in revenue per year. For self-checkout to save $300 billion, that would mean roughly a third of every dollar spent on groceries was going directly to cashier wages. That is obviously not how grocery stores operate. Total labor costs for a store are only a fraction of their expenses.
And the idea that self-checkout was some massive money-saving miracle ignores the other side of the equation. Those systems cost a lot upfront, require maintenance, and they increase losses from theft, missed scans, and mistakes. A machine replacing a cashier doesn't magically eliminate costs; it just moves them somewhere else.
There is a reason companies like Walmart, Target, and Dollar General have started putting limits on self-checkout or bringing back more staffed lanes. If self-checkout was saving them hundreds of billions, they wouldn't be walking it back. They would be installing them everywhere they could.
This is the kind of post that hurts any community built around open discussion and critical thinking. A sensational claim gets repeated because it supports a certain viewpoint, while nobody stops to ask if it is actually true. The truth should matter regardless of whether it supports corporations, consumers, or anyone else. Being intellectually honest means checking the facts first, not just accepting information because it confirms what we already believe.
On a side note, totally support the bill in every way.
I really thought leaving Reddit would reduce the occurrence of this but honestly it was naive of me. This sort of clickbait crap is everywhere including Lemmy. Its unfortunate
It’s a shame because I can’t find a platform to get away from this type of nonsense. It’s all the same, false claim is made and nobody even asks if claim is true they just assume it is and start arguing about it in the comments.
Like, what’s the point? Wish there was a platform similar to this that actually permanently banned people sharing blatantly false or misleading content.
To further add some numbers (and their source) to this, the average grocery cashier makes $15-16 an hour, or liberally $35k a year. Note that this isn't the entire cost of a cashier, the checkout equipment and POS systems cost money too - let's assume that and the automatic checkout system are in the same order of magnitude. There were about 800k grocery store cashiers in the US in 2017 (source) so that's about $28 billion, or ~3% of that proposed $1T revenue.
Many factors not included in this calc, more importantly regional variations in costs. Food prices and wages are higher than average in NY, 10% might not be pretty well calculated for that state. Also, human employees must be insured/have benefits, and machines do not require this. That cost savings on stores isn't in the calculus here.
Also a huge fan of holding food chains accountable for fair pricing. Hope this becomes effective!
Also a huge fan of holding food chains accountable for fair pricing. Hope this becomes effective!
Most grocery stores are running at 2% profit margins. There isn't anything for this to be 'effective' for, except you just raise prices 10% across the board and pocket the extra from actual cashiers still being used. It sounds great on paper until you dig in and realize it's a completely asinine idea.
This is a good intentioned, well-principled idea, but it's a ham-fisted implementation that isn't going to have the intended effect and extremely easy to work around.
Doesn't seem that easy to work around. A checkout is either self checkout or it isn't. Write the law to define a self checkout as "a check out where the majority of items are scanned by a customer rather than an employee."
That's because you don't have the mindset of a sleazy corporate lawyer who is paid $500,000 a year.
Try this: Raise all the prices by 10 per cent. Give the 10 per cent discount to self-checkout customers, as required by law. Pocket the extra for people who are stupid enough to use the self-checkout. Don't forget to give a middle finger to your local elderly people or disabled people. They'll now pay extra for the privilege of shopping.
You do realize that the prices in the store right now are already the maximum the stores can charge, do you not?
Corporations are soulless and greedy. They don't set their prices by buying from a supplier and increasing them by a fixed percentage. There is no point where a company will go, "well, we could charge more and still have the product sell, but that would be improper." They already set their prices to the maximum the market will bear. They cannot raise prices further without a net loss of income. They set their prices for the maximum product sales cost and quantity sold.
And why can't the elderly or disabled use self-checkout? If you're capable enough to walk through a store and grab items from shelves, you're capable enough to slide them past a scanner. If they're shopping with a caretaker, then the caretaker can run the check-out instead. The level of dexterity required to use a self-checkout is the same as needed to grab items from shelves, inspect and bag produce, etc. Sure, some people are too disabled to use a self-checkout, but those folks are also too disabled to shop for themselves at all. That was literally how these systems were designed. The companies didn't want to have to deal with scores of people who were dexterous enough to shop, but not dexterous enough to run the self-checkout.
Why doesn't your grocery store charge $20 for a gallon of milk then if they can just raise prices as much as they want? Have you never even heard of supply and demand?
the thing that you may not be considering here is the increased competition from the new city-run grocery stores that are also being proposed will somewhat limit the traditional store's pricing power since presumably the city stores only need to break even, not turn a profit, and the city stores might not need to pay some set of taxes. we'll have to see if this actually plays out, but that's the proposal.
my guess is that large manufacturers like proctor & gamble may not want to supply the city stores, so they may be stocked with lesser known brands, at least at first.
You do realize that the prices in the store right now are already the maximum the stores can charge, do you not?
The market doesn't see the price hike. You pay $100 today, before I hike the prices. I hike the prices to $111.11, but my shelf labels show you the "discounted" price of $100. You keep paying the $100 price that the market currently bears.
And why can’t the elderly or disabled use self-checkout?
That point was completely irrelevant. If someone can't use the self checkout, ADA compliance requires accommodation, and the business can't charge them extra. They get the same discounted price as the self-checkout. So, they put a handicap placard on the cashier stand, train the cashier not to ask any questions about disabilities, and give the same "discount" to anyone who uses the register.
I don't think this addresses anything I said. Market constraints prevent them from raising prices, not math. I perfectly understand the math you're describing. You're failing to understand the economics.
For ADA compliance purposes, the human cashiers have to give disabled customers the same rate as the self checkout. If I'm running a store, all my staffed checkouts will have handicapped placards, and cashiers will be trained not to inquire as to disability status, but merely "accommodate" everyone in line.
And why do you figure you can't write a law to accommodate that as well? Some of you guys are looking for so many nits to pick that you think it would be impossible to ever write a law regulating anything whatsoever.
I'm pretty well read in economics. This is a well known concept called unintended consequences. People who are familiar know that there are endless ways to game any system and we tend to prefer very simple rules.
How is this a principled idea? There are countless examples across the economy where we have these labor tradeoffs. Building your own IKEA furniture. Picking up food yourself instead of getting it delivered. Yet we almost never have politicians come in and try to impose price controls on this deferred labor.
Can we go for upcharges on food items for modifying them next? If you are going to charge me $0.30 for adding tomatoes to a sandwich, you better damn well reduce the price by $0.30 when I remove tomatoes from a sandwich.
Oh that's one of my gripes. My son likes to get an egg mcmuffin with no meat, extra cheese. You'd think the slice of meat and cheese would cancel each other out. And I think they are up to charging $1 for a slice of american cheese. And its been this way for over 15 years.
It's not just the US. The race for the biggest profit has hit its limits on the best value front. Now it's pretty much all on deception and enshittification.
This is why I try to avoid self checkout. If I'm getting like 2 things and there's already a line, sure, maybe.... But if the lines are short, even if I only have a couple of things, I'll visit a real cashier.
Not because I need help with it, and not because I want to "stick it to the man" or anything. I want to be part of the metric that continues to justify that a cashier is still a position to keep, and pay someone for. I do it so that there will still be cashier's in the future, and someone can put food on their table because I didn't choose to do free labor for the 0.1%.
I know, I know. I'm so selfish, I should tHiNk oF ThE sHaReHoLdErS....
"Cashier" has pretty much always been a heavily exploited, poverty-wage position. Cashiers might be putting food on the table, but their dickhead bosses aren't paying them a living wage. They aren't putting roofs over heads, or kids through college. Turnover is ridiculously, criminally high. People aren't getting fired when the position is eliminated. They are leaving just as fast as they already were, and they aren't being replaced.
The position is used to systematically exploit workers. Eliminating that position is a net positive.
True. Very true. But the solution to that problem is a completely different conversation than what we have been having in this thread. That conversation starts with a "citizenship dividend".
Democracy takes the political power of the individual, conveys it to government, where it is used to provide all manner of services. Those services are available to everyone, but they are not utilized equally by everyone.
The individual is not currently compensated for the use of their political power. We are taxed proportional to those services that we use, but those taxes don't make it back to the source of the power that enabled those services.
That should change.
Each of us should be individually compensated for the government's use of our political power. We should each receive an equal dividend. The most common term for this dividend is "Universal Basic Income", and it should be enough for the food on our tables and the roofs over our heads. We should receive that income before we get out of bed on Monday morning. The 40 hours we typically work in the week should not be for basic subsistence, but should be entirely gainful.
If your cashier's are not making a living wage, then maybe the minimum wage should be increased?
Where I am, if a minimum wage worker worked 40 hours a week consistently, they would go home with the equivalent of $26k USD. The US Federal minimum wage at 40hrs/week will net you $15k USD.
The job isn't always for the impoverished, and if it were, and you were to eliminate it, you just put people who are already impoverished into homelessness because they no longer have any viable means of employment.
The people leaving the job is a net positive because they should be, in theory, moving on to better paying positions. Freeing up jobs for people who need the work and can't find it elsewhere.
It's better than working in an Amazon warehouse.
Also, I worked at grocery stores a lot when I was a younger person and I was never a cashier, but I knew most of them and I was able to go back there years and years after I left and see the same faces at the tills. A lot of wives with empty nests helping to save up for retirement, or simply to do something during the day while their kids are off at school or whatever...
A lot of people working to help pay their way through college or university.
There were a lot of people working at those jobs for years and years because they needed something to help make ends meet until they could graduate, retire, find a job in their field, pay off their mortgage.... Whatever it was.
You having this opinion indicates to me that you haven't worked at a major retailer, or you've never worked as a cashier. I'm not sure which and bluntly I don't really care. My lived experience disagrees with your pessimistic world view.
If your cashier’s are not making a living wage, then maybe the minimum wage should be increased?
Minimum wage is certainly too low. It should be more than double its current hourly rate, but that's not the main problem here.
Where I am, if a minimum wage worker worked 40 hours a week consistently,
Cashiers are rarely allowed to work full-time hours. Management keeps the position open only for part-time workers. Cynically, the reason for this is so they don't have to provide benefits to those workers. Giving retailers the full benefit of the doubt, this keeps a surplus of workers on the payroll, allowing the retailer to schedule everybody during major shopping events like Black Friday. Regardless, these workers are typically denied sufficient hours to be able to earn a living wage.
The job isn’t always for the impoverished,
You've got it backwards. The job isn't for workers who happen to be impoverished. The impoverishment is because the job does not compensate workers adequately.
Also, I worked at grocery stores a lot when I was a younger person and I was never a cashier, but I knew most of them and I was able to go back there years and years after I left and see the same faces at the tills. A lot of wives with empty nests helping to save up for retirement, or simply to do something during the day while their kids are off at school or whatever…
So, you're saying that these workers are holding these jobs for something other than gainful employment? They are using them as some sort of hobby or recreation? They are willing and able to accept exploitative conditions because they aren't actually trying to live off the fruits of their labor?
The people you are talking about are, ultimately, enabling this exploitative behavior from employers. They are competing for work with people who do need actual gainful employment. Their recreational participation in the workforce devalues the labor of everyone else. I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to work recreationally, or that employers shouldn't be able to hire them. I'm saying that this practice should be strictly regulated, so that the employer can't use their willingness to be exploited to justify exploiting everyone.
I think we need to establish both a "minimum wage" and a "standard wage". The minimum wage would be the fixed, hourly minimum rate that we already have . The "standard wage" would multiply the minimum wage by 40 hours a week. Employees who aren't paid at least that weekly amount are on "substandard employment". A 40-hour/wk worker earning minimum wage makes a standard wage. A 20-hour/wk worker earning 2x minimum wage makes a standard wage. Substandard wages should be allowed, but restricted. An employer should not be allowed to compensate more than 10% of its labor with substandard wages.
The discount comes from entering the code of the cheapest type of item no matter what item I picked up. Organic lady finger bananas? Looks like bulk Cavendish to me. I'm not being paid enough to know the difference when I'm using self checkout, a banana is a banana.
Great! Now AI is going to hallucinate products and if you don't pay attention, you'll be overcharged. Since it's "self-checkout", I bet they'll claim it's totally your responsibility to make sure you're not ripped.
Self checkouts don't use agentic AIs / LLMs that hallucinate permanently. As mich as I hate AI, that's one of the cases where the distinct types matter.
Image recognition software has been around for ages and was used for similar things way before the AI hype. The models used for selfcheckouts are highly specialised and have an error rate very close to 0%. That doesnt mean they can't make any errors, but the same goes for human cashiers.
1lb of expensive bananas is indistinguishable from 1lb of cheap bananas in most of the self checkout machines I have used. Maybe one day they will get advanced cameras
There may be an unintended consequence of this. Corpos love to optimize to minimize any hits to their bottom line.
I could see any of these possibilities as a reaction:
Self checkouts become overwhelmed so stores remove remaining paid cashiers to add more self checkout lanes.
Self checkouts are reduced or removed to avoid giving any discounts.
I believe I read that grocery margins are thin at the store and are much higher for manufacturers. I could see stores increasing prices across the board to recoup costs.
Hard to know for sure, the people seem to just rarely get a W these days that isn’t immediately wiped out by something else.
Yes price increases seem the most likely for pharmacies but not grocery stores. There is still sufficient competition in grocery stores, and enough of them without self checkout lanes. It would be hard to get away with a price increase when a cheaper alternative exists.
Pharmacies however... As much as I prefer small pharmacies, they often are tooo small for everything. Simply can't find everything one might need. There's basically just CVS and Walgreens, and they both are big into self checkout. Those two would collude for sure.
If a bill requiring 10% discounts at self checkout comes into law, they will all think the same thing: Increase the prices so the price at self checkout is the same, and people have to pay extra for a cashier.
The only way to realistically encourage corporations to reduce their margins within the current system is by establishing an alternative which is cheaper, and thus acts as competition which pushes the price down. So basically what Mamdani is doing with city-owned grocery stores.
The same goes for housing. Provide decent but simple housing at low rates, and the slumlords will either need to lower their margins or compete on quality instead.
Yeah, you just raise prices 10% and pocket the difference when people end up having to use more cashiers because the self checkout is too full from fools thinking they are getting a discount. It's no different than all the stores with 'reward' programs where you get cheaper or better prices. They track everything you buy and sell it, making more than the amount you are saving. Seems better to recognize that automation of things like checkout is here to stay and incentivize alternative methods to keep people you know, fed, housed and alive.
Hard to know for sure, the people seem to just rarely get a W these days that isn’t immediately wiped out by something else.
fun fact: the winning and the losing are not causes of each other. if you win, you will probably lose some of it later. however, if you don't win, you will probably still lose something later. so it's not better to not win just to avoid losing later. you lose anyways, the question is only whether you also win some.
As someone with social anxiety and ADHD, standing in line with a ton of people and then having to interact with a cashier is something I love to avoid.
That being said, I wouldn't mind a discount at all 😁
Grocery prices have gone up 25% to 30% since 2020. It has been at least three full years since the pandemic was declared over. And food prices have gone up at around 10% since then.
They don't need an excuse to add 10%, they're doing it anyway.
300 billion in pure profits to executives… that could have ended hunger in the US last year.
So the next time you use the self checkout, remember to glance over at the lone cashier who lives in your neighborhood, look them in the eye and make sure they know about your excitement to be working for the shareholders for free now instead of their former colleagues. And if on the drive home you see their former colleague is getting evicted because they were laid off, make sure to honk, lean out your window and let them know how much you enjoyed the sweet song of “unexpected item in the bagging area.”
Worlds smallest violin. Jobs get replaced or unneeded.
If Dems actually gave a fuck instead of this bullshit ineffective horse shit that makes service worse; they're offer real training and education programs. Instead we get sob stories like this trash any how I should feel bad.
My state has a whole program to strengthen the relationship of manufacturing industry with education. I dont know the details, butI know it exsists, along with our many many tech schools. We also have state funded community college programs for industry.
I read an interesting story about Obama admin funded these programs in West Virginia to help those jobs lost as coal mining became less profitable and mines closed, with the locals deciding what programs worked best for their communities. By far the most popular classes were: coal mining... Ironic if true, there may be some lessons learned in there somewhere.
In connecticut, there is a lot of aerospace, medical, the miltary industrial complex over at the sub base, and other various manufacturers. Thankfully its not coal, nor (I dont think) is it a federal thing.
aye I didnt want to lool this up, https://mfgskillsct.com/ I guess this goes over what it is kinda. It reminds me of the "school to prision" pipeline, but I guess I prefer "school to employment" pipeline better I guess.
For the coal folks, I guess if you dont know anything else, most people seem resistant to change.
I'd say that self-checkouts are fundamentally a good thing, just like other forms of increased productivity are a good thing – but in today's society they can both lead to unemployment and lower wages. That is unnecessary.
Employment for the sake of employment isn't a good thing, though. The problem that's trying to solve is people not having enough money to live, which has multiple better solutions than makework.
sure, yeah, I would say that if our problem becomes that there's too little work to be done, we should solve this by having a shorter work week, not by inventing unnecessary work
I have some similar feelings to AI here. The advantages of self-checkout are only present because we've made existing systems worse to the point where something not-great is now a better option.
In the 1980s, a grocery lane would have a check-out clerk and a bagger. Sometimes two baggers. You would put your items on the belt and they'd be scanned and bagged (well, so that eggs weren't crushed, freezer items were together, etc) about as fast as you took them out of the cart.
By lowering wages and reducing staff, this got worse. Now the check-out clerk is poorly-trained and probably quitting/being laid off soon and the bagger has been laid off. Mysteriously, the human-checkout line is now kind of slow and frustrating!
Having individual customers do the check-out themselves is even worse (so frequently, someone gets the machine stuck yelling about putting items in the bagging area, or just stares vacantly at the screen), but by parallelizing the process it comes out to usually slightly faster.
i think it would be better to give universal basic income (money) and people buy food with that. why is it better? because it ensures that while people can afford food, one person does not buy 20 bread when they only eat 2 "because it's free".
yeah especially the food-at-schools issue is just so obvious. just provide free breakfast / lunch etc. doesn't even have to be complicated, even if the schools just provided a liter of milk a day, it would be something and better than nothing.
there's a whole lot of things that schools could provide even if they don't have a cafeteria / kitchen in the building. stuff like lunch boxes: bread with vegetables, cheese, jam, etc.
I can at least understand where people come from when they claim that adults who can work don't have a right to food. I don't necessarily have to agree with it, but I understand it.
But why doom their kids? An 8 year old shouldn't have their studies affected because they're hungry because their parents are poor. That's antithetical to the American Dream they tend to talk so much about.
Naw, people get called tankies for pretending the USSR/China/DPRK were perfect and did no wrong.
Your comment translated to the right would be "People will call you a nazi for saying you think we should have borders."
Nobody but the absolutely deranged stretches that far, but people who are that extreme do like to pretend that their entire half of the political spectrum is labeled equally extreme; strength in unity by inventing enemies, I guess.
That's the issue with people like you; you see zero nuance and you refuse to participate in discussions in good faith. Any criticism of any (pseudo-)socialist group must be met with Whataboutism or other bad faith arguments.
I'm happy to concede it's zero without looking it up; it makes no difference to either of our positions here.
It's just a Red Herring for you to mount a soapbox to tell me and anyone who hasn't blocked you yet how China Did Nothing Wrong and America Did Nothing Good.
That's why people evidently keep calling you a tankie, and that's how you and I differ so I never get called a tankie.
TL;DR: Not All Socialists Are Tankies, but All Tankies Think All Socialists Are Tankies.
I think you've been mainlining American propaganda for your entire life. How many illegal wars has America started in the last 50 years? What about China?
well, they were not saying the "american or israeli" thing without reason. i remember a few years ago there was an UN vote whether food should be considered a human right ... and every country in the world voted in favor, except two ... america and israel.
(since america is a veto power, the proposal didn't pass)
Yeah that's one of many black marks on America's sanity, and as you remind us, particularly relevant in this way.
One of those classic "A shitty person has a point" moments (not you, them).
I will say that I'm pretty sure they had 0 downvotes until they started going Tankie Mode in the discussion I mentioned, so people seem to be downvotng based on that, not so much supporting the US or Israel.
What kind of food? Only the cheapest supermarket type of food or gourmet restaurant too? What about food delivered from another continent? Should all of them be free? How would that be possible?
which btw is good. imagine the opposite: if we threw away no food, that means that we consume about 100% of our food. now, if any environmental disaster hits (think of hurricanes, wildfires, etc.) then the amount of food produced will take a bump by maybe 10% in that year, ok? so now we produce 90% of the food we need ... disaster.
a positive excess in production capability is the only thing to prevent shortages when risk inevitably happens.
but, what if instead of lowering the amount of food production to match what you said, we just outlaw throwing still good food out, and instead enforce a donation style regulation where leftover food that is still safe to eat must be donated or given, not wasted.
Like I used to watch the dunkin employee at the store I used to work at throw away dozens of perfectly fine doughnuts daily, or the bagels that wern't used. It's so wasteful for something that could have easily just been set outside as a "free for the taking" and then anything that wasn't taken can then be tossed the next morning.
No establishment does it because they know it would likely lower their customers, cause they would just wait for closing. but at least then its not wasting it all.
Someone has to do work to produce that food. Those people need to be compensated somehow. You can go ahead and make hyperbolic declarations about "rights", but that doesn't mean economics just disappears.
You're conflating human rights with a human need as if through sheer force of ideology you can make food magically poof into existence.
In the past, million of people starved because of this way of thinking.
Sorry, but producing food requires people to do work. When you try to make something that involves work into something purely about ideology, bad things happen.
Maybe, have you considered? that access to food is already decoupled from work because of ideological factors? Perhaps the idea that it is OK for people to go hungry if they're not working is in itself an ideological posture. Just speed balling ideas here, maybe if people weren't hungry, perhaps they will have the strength and will to work harder and more efficiently. I don't know, it just came to me, I'm sure nobody has done any serious writing about it. We should go to the internet together and see if any of those scientists have ever done any study on that. Wild idea, maybe when people have their basic needs met they are more likely to be productive members of society. I'm sure that's not revolutionary or anything and just common sense. Or not, I'm not a social scientist, I mean, I am, but maybe there's something we are missing here.
Millions of people starved because of his writings.
What you're missing is the fact that someone's gotta plow the fields, plant the crops, harvest the crops, and someone has to get the food to you. If you think in terms of the food just magically appearing in the grocery store, you're might start thinking "why can't this just be free?" It's not free because there's a lot of work that happens before you you see food on the shelf at the grocery store.
There's the whole field of economics that's about this. You might reject this because you think economics is about money. It's not. Economics is about work and resources. Being ignorant of the real work that's involved in food production and thinking that through ideology you can factor it all out is disrespectful to workers.
The things you're talking about have been tried before, the result was a lot of people starved. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Someone somewhere always has to do work to make that lunch. They need to be compensated for their labour like everyone else.
nah the reason why people are working full time in the US today is not because food production requires that much work input, it's because of everything else.
to produce food, according to some calculations, you need about 1.2 hours of labor per person per week on average. source: read it a while ago. 2% of population produce enough food for 200% of population, assume these 2% work 60 hrs/week, that makes 1.2 hours per week if 100% of people were working in agriculture.
the reason why the people work full time is not because food production takes that much effort, but because agriculture is not the only thing that people are busy in. so you don't have 100% of people working "for food". it's everything else that takes the 98% of effort, not the food production.
That many!? Holy shit. I thought people being gunned down on the streets by inbred government goons was bad, but that means if we don't support that then every single human on earth will die more than once!
Eh. I'm not really big on focusing on terms for political ideologies. I prefer boiling things down to "don't be a cunt."
The people who bitch communism or capitalism killed so many people aren't really bitching about the concepts. The concept didn't do anything. The corrupt people in charge willing to twist things to their own benefit and accept people dying so they or their friends/allies can have more than they need killed loads of people under every political ideology.
I don't care if I live under either of those systems, but any system should have sane and fair caps to keep any individual or organization from amassing too much money, power, or control over the whole.
Say if the US had a 99% tax on every dollar a person earns per year over 1 million, and that was all inclusive of official income, stock options, bonuses, etc, then that would be a great change. Likewise with corporations. There should be a hard cap on valuation to keep corporations from owning each other in a giant pyramid so that the bulk of companies in the nation are all under the same actual control.
The tax code should clearly be fixed to keep companies from shifting money and values on paper and never paying anything. Tax breaks for companies shouldn't exist. If we're calling it capitalism than a company should be able to exist in fair competition with the rest without that socialist handout for them.
Private equity groups shouldn't exist. They create and provide nothing, they simply purchase existing businesses and lower product cost/quality and increase prices to create false profit. Since the consumer would start going to any competing business that didn't do that, it encourages buying entire industries to enshittify them and leave people no options but the higher prices and lower quality.
Some industries should not be run for profit. There should be laws and oversight in place to ensure the things that all humans need as a basic part of life are as accessible as possible. The things that come to mind offhand are medical care, a base level of housing for individuals and families, and basic foodstuffs. As the necessities of human life, those things would be kept profit free and made available at the lowest possible cost with heavy to complete tax subsidization.
Companies would be free (and encouraged) to deal in things medical care not actually necessary such as elective plastic surgery not done to correct a physical deformity, higher tiers of housing so people have more luxurious and spacious potential options, and cooked and heavily processed foods. The base level of these things being available cheaply or free would naturally limit the amount they could charge and so their profit, which would help keep any but the most insane homes from having insane costs. People would be able to get meat and potatoes and veggies and the like cheaply and not need to worry about starvation, but Oreos, frozen pizzas, and microwaveable frozen taquitos would cost more.
You could do all of that in a "capitalist" society. Base ideology isn't an issue. Virtually every base ideology we bicker about was created to try to help make something better. The problem is that they need to be applied with sane, rational limitations and regulations and strictly kept free from corruption.
They obviously can't engage, that could be a confrontation.
BTW I'm with you that any system can be abused, and it's that abuse that is the true issue. However capitalism does seem to encourage greed and the consolidation of resources, which has to be actively regulated. It feels like it's a losing battle as those who accumulate power will try to sidestep or remove any obstacles that prevent them from gaining more power.
I feel like we're currently seeing some particularly egregious examples currently and I welcome the discussion of other systems because open and unbiased discussion could hopefully lead us somewhere better.
I understand, even agree with the principal.
But don't grocery stores average low single digit margins? A universal 10% discount might not be workable. Unless the point is to eliminate self-checkout. But then why not simply do that?
I fully think large grocery chains are screwing customers.
But having worked at a few smaller grocery stores, the margins are absurdly thin. At one 6ish store semi-local store I worked for we made roughly 3 cents on the dollar. That included various fees and labor, but once you factor in theft and chargebacks and bounced checks and such - it could get even thinner some months.
Granted, I assume the megacorp ones maybe negotiate / strongarm for higher margins? So fuck 'em.
Mamdani seems to have a favor to improve supermarkets somewhat? Already showing this with the city-owned grocery stores (allegedly for food deserts). I assume the philosophy is somewhat like "you can only have a strong population if they're properly fed". which is true.
I'm just saying, from a purely mathematical point of view, the city would do more good by building cheap and efficient social housing, and public transport etc.
Jobs aren’t something to be preserved, that’s the wrong way of thinking about it. Jobs are a waste of everyone’s time. You’re not saving a job, you’re spending labour. The goal should be to eliminate all jobs.
The problem is the link between income and work, that should be eliminated.
That’s never going to happen under capitalism though, so until socialism is achieved, I’m going to do the best I can to ensure that my fellow workers have as much access to good paying jobs as possible.
It’s self-sustaining. They have convinced people that they don’t deserve access to resources unless they perform some meaningless demeaning labour. The job leaves them too exhausted and numb to question the status quo and do something about it. Yet, at the same time the 0.1% who is hoarding all the planet’s resources isn’t scanning any groceries to ‘deserve’ it.
Yes, which is why organization and political education is so critical, and also why MLs place importance on vanguard parties. The capitalists are never going to give us the time for everyone to realize we can demand better, so those of us who already realize it need to step up and help guide those who don’t.
It's not only the jobs, it's the liability: if you're forgetting to scan a product, you're shoplifting. If the cashier forgets to scan a product it's the shop's problem.
Whole lot of scanners are moving towards cameras and detection along with just automatically documenting when you didn't scan something. Clock over the felony amount in your state and they can just automatically send the info to the police. Target has been doing it for years.
One would think there are better ways of achieving this. How about we start to actually make solutions that make price conciousness easier? Actually enable the ”free market” people are raving about.
Start mandating open data standards, make the companies publish realtime pricing information, allow people to build solutions that make consumers aware they’re overpaying.
Fuel stations would be a good example of this, my phone could notify me that the pump price is 10% lower 4 minutes away, if it only had access to that data.
Crying about "free labour" seems pretty silly in this case. You're already going around the store picking your own shit, usually bagging it yourself, bringing it home yourself etc.
Yeah, before supermarkets that's how things worked. I don't think it was better. The gross profiteering is its own issue. I'd much rather see a crackdown on shopping apps that come with small "discounts" for invasive tracking.
Yep. We already had this discourse a little over a generation ago. It used to be you would roll up to a grocery store, hand your shopping list to the clerk, and then wait while they went and grabbed everything for you. Modern grocery stores where you go around and pick out your own items were rejected by consumers at first because they were perceived to have poorer customer service; but ultimately, it was faster and cheaper, so it became the new normal.
Not to mention some companies relentlessly prosecute "accidental" and accidental mis-scans in self-checkout, so you significantly increase your risk of arrest by using them. I never do.
- Ex-cop, have arrested people for such mis-scans, most frequently at Wal-Mart
I think companies firing people in favour of AI should also be forced to allocate some generous portion of those salaries back to same level and lower employees as wage increases
Which they will. It's a very obvious thing to do. If any of them wanted, they could lower their prices independently of any such law, but they don't, because they want their margins high.
Prices tend to be sticky. So businesses will be slow to lower prices when simply spending more on marketing has a higher yield. But they'll also be wary of inflicting sticker shock and scaring their customers away.
When the wholesale rate of groceries rises or the costs fall, it's easy to take profits universally. But it's harder to raise prices absent backroom coordination.
No. Because that would require raising the prices at the regular check-out as well. And companies cannot just raise prices as high as they want. The prices you see in the grocery store are already the company's best estimate for the highest price the market will bear.
If every grocery store did this, that is the market. We can’t decide to not eat, and even with a 10% markup, grocery stores are still cheaper than most other options.
Grocery prices are already constrained by the fact that people's budgets can only stretch so far. If you raise prices faster than people can handle, they just start buying cheaper food options.
Sounds like a tax on those who need a catcher or can't use the self checkout for various reasons. I could see stores just removing all the staff on the tills and switch to a self checkout only.
What I'm hearing is NY Democrats are working to pass a bill that will increase prices at businesses using self-checkout by 10 percent. They aren't going to cut into their own profits.
This seems like populist BS. For one, I don't think there's value in preserving jobs like cashiers - almost no one does that job because it's fulfilling. In a perfect utopia, this would be 100% automated.
The other thing is that I can't imagine this will have the result the law intends. The companies won't pay the 10% out of their own pocket, as they most likely couldn't. At least here in Germany, supermarket margins are pretty thin.
So they'd increase prices for all products to pay for this. Nothing would improve. Plus, going to the regular checkout would cost more than it does now.
I don't get it. This is such a non-issue compared to so many other problems. It's like they're trying to show they're doing something for workers but don't want to pay for it.
Yeah, they make more profit by introducing self-checkout, but I doubt It'd be 10% or more. I may be wrong. If there is any data on that, I'd love to see it.
But even if they can afford to lower all prices by 10%, I can't imagine they would just take the financial hit. Why wouldn't they compensate by increasing prices?
To me it doesn't make sense in any scenario.
If you believe in the free market, this would lead to nothing, as supermarkets are already providing their goods for the lowest reasonable prices, because of competition.
If you believe that supermarkets are engaging in price collusion, there is nothing that would stop them from just all increasing their prices further.
yeah, i remember reading that a bakery that bakes bread for $0.60 per bun today wouldn't even have to increase the price to $0.61 if the price of raw wheat doubles. that's how low the share of raw resource cost is in an everyday's item. was crazy to me to read this.
At first they promised us it would keep the prices down, I already knew that's not how businesses operate but hey...I got no influence over this so let's see how it works out.
A few years after grocery prices triple with all kinds of excuses, yes excuses...claims about how what when where and why it happened which all turned out to in reality be nothing more then a temporary nuisance, but prices never went down because duhh it's a business.
So here we are, paying the wages for jobs we do ourselves and a 200% tip to boot.
I really think we should keep track of the amount of time spent at the self checkout and make a bill for the store manager under the title: "freelance register operator" at a polite $40 bucks an hour.
Right, because if I self checkout my $200 grocery bill, that worker definitely would have made $20 in that few minute interaction.
I like the idea, but that's a terrible implementation. The cost of the bill has no relation to the money saved by using the machine and firing a worker. A flat amount no more than a % of the bill is tiny would be better. Like $1-3 but no more than 5% of bill.
The fun part that I have heard from a few retail managers is that the software that the self checkout uses costs as much or more per month than the employee would have.
Bad idea because companies will frame it as "going the cashier route will cost you 10% more!" while you pay the old price st the self check-out.
Here in Europe a lot of groceries are being shoplifted at the self checkout. People are taking their own discounts.
Newer self checkouts now have cameras built in and random controls are so freqent they are a huge annoyance. Spermarkets seem to be pissed.
Not to mention how irrelevant that comment is. He's talking about grocers in Germany while this article pertain solely to the state of New York in America where grocers have made record profits over the last 5 years.
Turnover of cashier jobs is ridiculously high. They aren't losing their jobs. They are leaving shitty jobs where they have been heavily exploited by dickhead employers, and they aren't being replaced.
Won’t this just encourage people to use self-checkout as it will make using an employed checkout lane more expensive?
I don’t think many people know how harmful self-checkout is to their neighbors employed the store. I made a comment to a Costco employee about how I was glad they added the hand scanners to self-checkout, and their response was to educate me that self-checkout isn’t good for the employees because it means fewer jobs. I’m was so self-absorbed in my own day-to-day life that I did not even think about the impact it had on Costco employees. I didn’t even think about the fact that here I am talking about this pain point of self-checkout (having to use the stationary scanner) and relief about having a better option (the hand scanner) when the best option is already there (employees handling the checkout). The real solution is to just open up more jobs, hire more employees to do the scanning and bagging. I stopped using self-checkout after that.
I went to Aldi recently. You have to put a quarter in to get a shopping cart (I haven’t carried around quarters in ages). The shelves often get into a state of disarray. The line for the 1 employee doing checkout is massive, but self-checkout is also a huge pain in the ass. Continuously cutting jobs to increase profits is a race to the bottom, and yet people who can barely afford groceries think they couldn’t live without a discount chain like Aldi. We are saving pennies by giving up our time doing our own checkout, when we could be getting paid to check people out, providing them some convenience and doing so with greater efficiency instead. I’ll add that many items at Aldi’s are actually more expensive than at other grocery stores, if you’re not paying attention you could end up paying more than a place with more employed checkout lanes.
That's funny. I've never once used self-checkout, my main reason being, if they're not giving me a 10% discount for using my labour, then I ain't playing.
I disagree. I've never been afraid to be alone with my thoughts and I roll and rhyme with the movement of time. Good place to make small talk and reconnect with the world around you. I get it though, in this world of capitalism we live in, time seems to be defined as "money". I'm not smugly standing there though, just trying my best not to be abused by the corporations.
A few months ago my grocery added AI to thier self check systems, and I dipped. I have gone back to using the staffed line.
It took a moment to get used to, but Im glad Ive made the change. I enjoy talking to the young people who work there, even have a favorite cashier. It's a vibe honestly.
If the self-checkouts cost the company less, then it'd be good for them to pass on the savings - but in a capitalist world, that's not normal. If a company gets one of its food ingredients cheaper, does it usually drop its prices? Not unless it's already competing at that price.
Self checkouts are a good thing. They're not "us doing the shop's work". They're not "free labour". In fact, they're a boon to a lot of us as customers, and shops with them still have "traditional" tills you can use if you want (e.g. if you have a huge trolley of things or you want a nice chat)
In what way are we not doing the shops work? I understand that unnecessary jobs get phased out if there are more efficient ways. For example parking attendants getting replaced by kiosks. Instead of paying someone to stand there all day and take payments for people entering, you have a machine to do it instead. And the experience for the customer is exactly the same. Instead of handing your card/money over to a person, you are now inserting it into a machine.
But in the case of self checkout, the machine does not take your groceries, scan them all, and manually input produce that doesn't have a barcode. Instead, that burden falls onto the customer. And while yes, for a single person doing a single transaction, that really isn't a lot to ask. But you are literally doing the exact thing that they were previously paying someone else to do. If what you are doing, is something that they would otherwise be paying somebody else to do, how is that you not doing their work/ free labor? As a matter of fact pretty much all stores still have regular checkouts. Where there is somebody in the store, performing the exact same tasks as you, just on a larger scale. And getting paid to do so.
Would it be acceptable for stores to start asking people to restock a shelf if they go to grab an item and see the shelf is low or empty? I mean they're not asking you to restock the whole store, just that one item. And it's really not that much of a burden, and if everybody does it, then the store will always be stocked! Why should they have to pay employees to keep the shelves stocked when it's more efficient for everybody to just contribute a little bit? It's hardly even work at that point.
Edit: Sigh, sorry if came across inflammatory, but we can do better. I'm not saying I want to get rid of cashiers, I'm saying $300 billion doesn't make sense. There are ~3 million cashiers in the USA, with a median pay of $14.99/hr / $31,190/year. They would need to average $100k/year for the $300 billion number to be accurate. There still need to be people staffing these machines, seems like 1:6 ratio is about the sweet spot. Taking into account that the machines themselves cost something too, the places using them are not making $300 billion back directly, it's just a ludicrous number that only undermines the good that the bill might be doing. Assuming this person published their research report, I'd love to see it!
The absolute bullshit that Dems pulls. Anything but grow a spine.
What a worthless effort blowing political capital that's going to make stores less likely let me avoid having some cashier bagging for me poorly and going slow as fuck.
Now calculate the amount of free labor forced by municipalities on their residents who are required to handle all the recycling while the towns get paid for the material.
Recycling processing facilities (MRFs) pay towns a rebate based on the market price per ton for specific commodities:
Aluminum Cans: $1,000 to $1,800+ per ton (The most consistent money-maker)
Corrugated Cardboard (OCC): $40 to $150+ per ton (The largest revenue volume driver)
Natural HDPE Plastics (#2 Milk Jugs): $300 to $800+ per ton
PET Plastics (#1 Soda/Water Bottles): $150 to $400+ per ton
Steel / Tin Cans: $100 to $250 per ton
Mixed Office Paper: $30 to $90 per ton
348 Comments
just2look@lemmy.zip · 159 pts · 1d
It seems like they will just mark everything up by 10% and then give that discount at self checkout. So they will pocket even more while harming those who don't use self checkout.
Or eliminating cashiers altogether.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 49 pts · 1d
It also doesn't really make sense to do it as a percentage. A cashier's wage is typically hourly, and the labor market has settled on a particular wage for cashiers in this area - say $15/hr.
If I have a $150 grocery bill, a 10% discount would be $15. For maybe 5 minutes of work. Working out to an hourly wage of $180/hr (60/5 = 12, 12 * 15 = 180).
So if they're saying "we should be compensating customers for being made to do labor", they'd be compensating them at roughly 12x the going rate for cashiers in this example.
Now if it's just meant to be punitive, OK. But then why not actually address the real issue: displacement of workers by technology and passing the labor burden on to unpaid consumers - either make that illegal or tax the company to help mitigate the harm it's causing by eliminating jobs.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world · 33 pts · 1d
For the last point, it is easier to tax unfavored behavior into the ground than it is to outright forbid it. That's why sin taxes exist after all.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 1d
I don't think it would be difficult to outright forbid self-checkout at all, actually.
There's a difference between enforcing laws on individuals and enforcing laws on businesses. Businesses can't exactly run and hide, if they're using self-checkout they're going to get found out. That's distinct from something like the drug trade, which is all underground and hidden.
teslekova@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 1d
Some people fucking love self checkout. If you ban it, you'll have disability advocacy groups up your arse on behalf of autistic people and others with social anxiety.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 10 pts · 1d
ADA compliance will kill the entire thing. You can't charge someone for accommodation of a disability that prevents them from using the self checkout. All the human-staffed registers will be posted as handicap accessible, and they will default to the "discounted" self-checkout price.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 1d
when I recently went back to using a staffed lane, I told the folks I had anxiety about being in the lane, and the cashiers comforted me.
I have social anxiety, practicing in the staff lane, has helped me with this. At least, in this small area of life.
I get the point, but if a person doesnt ever push themselves, they wont grow.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
Sure, I'm just saying, this wouldn't be a hard law to enforce.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
It would be a very dumb law that has zero chance of passing. It would be like banning cars to keep horses employed.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 4h
Except horses aren't allowed to vote, so actually, it's nothing like that.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1d
We've given up so much as consumers. There was a time when people would be pissed that the store was making them do unpaid labor. Now we don't bat an eye.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
My concern here is less about enforcement and more about getting the law passed and through the court system in the first place.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
You don't think they'll drag such a tax through the court system? Our enemies don't want any restraints on businesses, anything we try to do will be fought.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1d
Do sin taxes really stop anything though?
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
They definitely have some effect, simply because they push prices up.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 1d
Well. Discounting items in self-checkout is actually a tax on the company for using self-checkout.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
But not one that relates to the thing that we're trying to stop them from doing. Cashiers aren't paid per item scanned, they don't get commission. They are paid an hourly wage.
If you wanted to pay customers a rebate for their labor at the market rate for a cashier, or one set by the state, that'd make sense to eliminate the gains the company receives from automation.
So 5 minutes of work at $15/hr = $1.25. So not much, but it mitigates the benefit of not hiring people.
Though, it's still a benefit because you pay a person whether they're actively working or not and you have to pay tax on human labor (contributing to social security, etc) so maybe hiking it higher than whatever the typical wage is for cashiers would make sense.
But either way, 10% doesn't make sense.
unome@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Can you imagine if they discounted it based on time? People would be scanning .4 items per minute lol
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 1d
If you have a $150 grocery bill, it's being hiked to ~$166.66 before you get to the checkout. Then the 10% discount is bringing it back down to the $150 you were paying before. The net discount is zero: you're paying exactly what you're paying now.
If you keep going to the cashier after this, you're paying the company the hiked price, which gives them an extra $16.66 for maybe 5 minutes of cashier labor. The company turns around and pays the cashier $1.66, netting an extra $15 from you for their shareholders.
ALoafOfBread@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
Cost of labor, overhead, and profit are already accounted for in that $150 price of the goods. That's why the store charges $150 for them - because that's what covers the wages, overhead, and includes the maximum markup they can get away with (~3% margin for grocery stores afaik).
All I'm saying is, they do have to be able to cover costs. So because of that and their thin margins, they'd just hike prices (probably more than they'd need to take advantage of the situation).
So it makes more sense to either tax them for avoiding using human labor and passing that labor on to customers (to help pay for the drain they're placing on the economy by not hiring people), or just ban the practice outright. Couple that with price controls to ensure they can't unfairly inflate prices. Things they can't avoid rather than a fee they can hike prices to avoid.
brbposting@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 20h
Imagine the lines at self checkout for ~$10(+) off on decent-sized carts
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
$100 isn't much of a big cart these days. That's a week or less of food for many.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
$100 is a decent basket where I'm at...
TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip · 0 pts · 1d
The problem with your logic is that I can scan the items slower and make the compensation more fair, if I scan the items 12x slower then I'm being paid a fair wage for that 150$ purchase.
So am I being punished for being fast?
Steve@communick.news · 7 pts · 1d
That's the only way it could work.
Grocery stores average margins of ~3%. They can't do universal 10% discounts.
just2look@lemmy.zip · 31 pts · 1d
The CEO of Kroger made $15.63 million in 2024. Pretty sure there are lots of ways they could make it work. They choose not to.
Steve@communick.news · 21 pts · 1d
That's not how math works.
2024
Revenue was $147B
Profit was $3.8B or 2.8%
The lowest estimate I found of sales volume through self checkout is 38%.
So a 10% self checkout discount is 3.8% hit to revenue. When profits are only 2.8% they'll take a 1% loss.
The CEO pay being only 0.4% of that $3.8B profit. Isn't remotely enough to matter.
This won't lower prices.
just2look@lemmy.zip · 11 pts · 1d
Do you think the CEO compensation is the only place they are siphoning off funds to the oligarchs? And even with all the greed, they are still admitting to robbing $3.8B from the working class. That's all profits are.
The system rewards greed and corruption. So that's what they do. They conspire with other corporations to inflate prices. They take advantage of disasters to gouge consumers. These aren't conspiracies, they are things that have been admitted to under oath and discovered through investigation.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
The numbers are public. You can do the math and convince us.
baines@lemmy.cafe · 2 pts · 1d
say you’ve never worked in accounting without saying it
Artisian@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
They're welcome to lie with the numbers! But then I can at least reason about it. Right now, we're looking at some cherry-picked end points and ignoring the proposed numerics entirely.
Steve@communick.news · 5 pts · 1d
We're looking a 2 different things here. I'm doing the math on a specific policy and how it would effect a specific company. You come back with generalizations and broad conceptions.
You are right generally. We agree generally. But here specifically, this policy won't do anything to help that. It's bad policy-making. We're both right.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
That's an abysmally small number compared to the amount of product they move.
Yes, sure, CEO's should make less. But that amounts to fractions of a percent on the typical purchase, not 10%.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 1d
Sure they can. They hike prices 11.11% and the 10% discount brings them right back to their original price. Their 3% margin stays a 3% margin. They can even post the "discounted" price on the shelves to make it seem like customers are getting a good deal.
Steve@communick.news · 2 pts · 1d
Yah. That's what was already pointed out.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · -10 pts · 1d
You're pretending that stores can just arbitrarily raise prices. They already set their prices as the maximum the market will bear. And yes, ultimately the point is to make self-checkout cheaper than regular.
just2look@lemmy.zip · 16 pts · 1d
They arbitrarily raise prices all the time. Have you not noticed? And are you going to just stop eating food if it suddenly costs 10 percent more?
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 1d
You think that was arbitrary? Do you have any idea how much work stores put in to setting prices? It's more complex than this, but to illustrate, companies will maximize for total revenue, so quantity sold times price. And they know that whenever they raise the price, even by ten cents, some number of people will not purchase that item. They only raise prices if they predict the decline in sales will be more than offset by the increase in revenue per item.
It may seem arbitrary to you, but it's anything but. The prices in the store are already at what the company estimates to be the optimum total revenue level.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
yeah you're right about your point so far, but this is different. if every grocery store in town were forced to raise prices by 5%, then they could all do it because all their competition does it too.
but if only one store decides to do it, then the customers would change to the other store nearby who offers lower prices.
Artisian@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Note that cheaper self-checkout means more demand for it (and less demand for cashiers). So we'll have fewer jobs, and worse service for those who can't (for w/e reason) use self-checkout.
Most of its happening anyway.
lemonhead2@lemmy.world · 91 pts · 1d
honestly just cap executive pay. nothing they can do then
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 20 pts · 1d
In fact, let's just screw the whole thing and seize the means of production...
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
"seize the means of production" as if that's an easy/good thing to do. then what, the employees own the company? and they get paid depending on company profitability? well, not every company turns a profit. what if the company has a bad year? will the employees go hungry? who says that it will turn a profit next year?
Saurok@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 23h
Then the employees decide what to do themselves in those situations. If it fails it fails, but they would be laid off or not be making money even if they didn't own the company because their boss wouldn't be able to pay them.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -33 pts · 1d
Bang up idea, when have you ever seen the government run something correctly/efficiently?
krashmo@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 1d
There's tons of examples if you actually care to look. Trash pickup is an easy example. I've lived in places where it was managed by the city and places where it was run by private companies. The city always showed up on time and never raised prices without justification.
Guess what the private companies did on a regular basis? And if you want to talk about efficiency let's consider whether or not it would be better to have four different companies running four sets of trucks on four overlapping routes through the city as opposed to one entity handling the whole thing. The only thing efficient about the private companies running things is the way the money is siphoned off to some rich asshole instead of being managed by accountable local officials.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -29 pts · 1d
If its so efficient why do trash companies exist? I live in a city that has municipal pickup and all my friends that own apartments/restaurants all have private business dumpsters because the city sucks at doing a simple job...
The government needs to stay in its lane and out of business.
krashmo@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 1d
If private companies are so efficient then why does the government exist?
Do you see why framing the question that way doesn't help you address the actual problem? I'm guessing you don't since you seem unwilling to consider the possibility that private ownership is not the ideal solution to every service problem. I don't think you need more than a cursory glance at the state of the US to throw that idea out the window but things must seem pretty good to you if you're still stuck in that mindset.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -22 pts · 1d
Not stuck in any "mindset". Been around the block a couple of times, not my first bbq, and every time any government gets involved they fuck it up and steal. Nope not on my watch.
And government exists as (and was intended) to hold the social contract we all have with each other together by the rule of law. Otherwise it entropy.
0x0@infosec.pub · 11 pts · 1d
So has your 5 trash companies
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 0 pts · 1d
whether your government only makes chaor or actually helps, depends a whole lot on the government and especially on the people in it. there are good governments, for example here in austria.
the issue is more, whether your government represents you and whether they care about you. that is something that depends on your local context.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
so i can tell you from an example why private companies exist that do things that are typically done by public companies ... here in austria, there's a railway operator called WestBahn. They provide passenger trains on the route from vienna to innsbruck (roughly). That's the only route that they service. Why do they do it?
because it's one of the most provitable routes in all of austria. it has many, reliable passengers. servicing that route turns a profit. servicing many other routes, for example bus lines in some remote village, is still necessary, but obviously doesn't turn a profit as it has maybe 3 passengers at a time.
so, they pick the 1 route that's actually very profitable, only service that, and leave every other route to the state-owned alternative. that's what's happening.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz · 5 pts · 1d
The police and most three letter agencies, when you understand their purpose is to protect the wealthy.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 1d
Works for me.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 4 pts · 1d
Who said shit about the government?
We should seize the means of production. Us.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
in other words, steal. i'm actually fine with that if it's for the greater good. the question is: would it work? do you have any idea how to run a company on that scale? there's a whole lot of companies that have business connections all around the world. what happens to those? can you handle these connections? what if other companies think that you're not trustworthy anymore and refuse to do business with you? how do you handle these cases?
also what about money? just that the company is now held by workers does not somehow suddenly make it have much more money. especially grocery stores maybe have 3% profit margins, that means, even if no CEO siphons off wealth, the company's ability to spend money increases by maybe 3%, so wages could go up 3%. just to inform you, about what's realistic here. it's not as if you're suddenly having a 3x wage increase.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 1 pts · 21h
Not quite. "Steal" would imply that the people you're taking it from have a legitimate claim of ownership over it.
Some of us do. And maybe it doesn't need to be such a large scale in the first place.
Seize them too.
What about money? If we have the labor, the tools, the farms, and the factories ... what do we need money for?
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 3h
i think you're unreasonably assuming here that a revolution would happen everywhere on the planet at the same time. realistically, that's not the case. you start with one place, then another, etc. and in the meantime you have exactly the problems that i cited. how to interact with other entities, etc?
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -9 pts · 1d
Good luck with that bub.
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 1d
It's not the government who would control the means of production, it's the workers. In theory they might use a vanguard party to seize it non-violently and then redistribute it, so in that case it may pass through the government's hands. But that's not the only way to seize the means of production. When properly done though, it would end up in the hands of the workers, every laborer owning their own tools and equipment so they can work for themselves instead of some faceless corporation.
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
A lot more frequently than I see private industry run something correctly/efficiently.
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
The difference is that the government has no shareholders or incentive to turn a profit, unlike companies. However it can sell luxury goods at a high price, to subside other goods like food or housing from the markup.
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -15 pts · 1d
No share holder, we are all share holder in the US government if you pay taxes, are you daft?
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org · 8 pts · 1d
Oh wow, where are my us government shares? When are the dividends getting paid out? Can I vote to invest more of my taxes into public schools so the education system does not fail it's shareholders?
TIEPilot@lemmy.world · -11 pts · 1d
You have safety, food standards, drug standard, medical standards, social safety nets, roads, etc.
Thats the shit they are ok at, the rest leave it to companies.
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org · 5 pts · 1d
And how does this work out? Do companies not lobby against safety or environmental regulations if it hurts their profits? Is the water safe to drink everywhere? Is medical care available to everyone who needs it, regardless of income? Does everyone get social security, even if he could not pay in because of health issues, accidents or other reasons that prevented him from working full time for 40 years?
OS2Warp@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 1d
And they’ve all been gutted starting with Nixon.
Try harder troll.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
train networks, schools, healthcare, heck even social housing, here in central europe
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
USPS?
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 1d
Arent they often paid in stock?
krashmo@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 1d
Define pay such that it includes stocks, bonuses, rebates, real estate, food, clothing, transportation, or any other item that can be exchanged, borrowed against, or otherwise converted to cash money. When they find a loophole just close it.
The problem with this isn't the concept. It's getting politicians to implement it.
jaybone@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 1d
It’s a pretty good loophole though. A stocks value is considered an unrealized gain when you receive it but don’t sell it. My company gives me stock, but I don’t sell it. If I had to pay taxes on that, I’d be fucked. Maybe they could create some kind of untaxed minimum based on some index. And possibly even brackets.
But of course there’s a reason they like it this way.
krashmo@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 1d
Stocks are not a necessary piece of compensation for anyone. Besides, if you can borrow money from a bank using stocks as collateral then it is effectively a liquid asset that you absolutely should pay tax on. The simplest solution to that problem is to disallow stocks from being used as collateral.
Every loophole can be closed if we decide we want to. The ones that are still open were intentionally left open to benefit the rich.
Poppa_Mo@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
I think if they handled it in such a way that you borrow against it in any fashion, what you borrow is taxed. Kind of stupid it isn't that way already, but here we are.
Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 1d
Except where I live you do actually have to pay taxes on stock you receive as a bonus, if you don't have the cash on hand, you just liquidate part of the stocks.
ChristerMLB@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1d
Yep, this is one of the reasons we need a tax on wealth. If you're wealthy enough you can also just borrow against your stocks at very low interest rates.
GenosseFlosse@feddit.org · 5 pts · 1d
Surely the us president will get right on it drafting an executive order!
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 89 pts · 1d
That "$300 billion" number is just completely made up. The math doesn't even remotely work.
The entire US grocery industry does somewhere around $1 trillion in revenue per year. For self-checkout to save $300 billion, that would mean roughly a third of every dollar spent on groceries was going directly to cashier wages. That is obviously not how grocery stores operate. Total labor costs for a store are only a fraction of their expenses.
And the idea that self-checkout was some massive money-saving miracle ignores the other side of the equation. Those systems cost a lot upfront, require maintenance, and they increase losses from theft, missed scans, and mistakes. A machine replacing a cashier doesn't magically eliminate costs; it just moves them somewhere else.
There is a reason companies like Walmart, Target, and Dollar General have started putting limits on self-checkout or bringing back more staffed lanes. If self-checkout was saving them hundreds of billions, they wouldn't be walking it back. They would be installing them everywhere they could.
This is the kind of post that hurts any community built around open discussion and critical thinking. A sensational claim gets repeated because it supports a certain viewpoint, while nobody stops to ask if it is actually true. The truth should matter regardless of whether it supports corporations, consumers, or anyone else. Being intellectually honest means checking the facts first, not just accepting information because it confirms what we already believe.
On a side note, totally support the bill in every way.
solidus@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 1d
I really thought leaving Reddit would reduce the occurrence of this but honestly it was naive of me. This sort of clickbait crap is everywhere including Lemmy. Its unfortunate
Eheran@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 23h
Highly upvoted too. Yes it is exactly the same here, just a little different biases.
sgrakus@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 4h
It’s a shame because I can’t find a platform to get away from this type of nonsense. It’s all the same, false claim is made and nobody even asks if claim is true they just assume it is and start arguing about it in the comments.
Like, what’s the point? Wish there was a platform similar to this that actually permanently banned people sharing blatantly false or misleading content.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
It's how media works, rage get's click and the lack of critical thinking skills is incredible prevalent everywhere.
mobyduck648@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 5h
Reddit is a cesspool but unfortunately so is the wider media ecosystem for the most part.
Oijkuij@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 1d
To further add some numbers (and their source) to this, the average grocery cashier makes $15-16 an hour, or liberally $35k a year. Note that this isn't the entire cost of a cashier, the checkout equipment and POS systems cost money too - let's assume that and the automatic checkout system are in the same order of magnitude. There were about 800k grocery store cashiers in the US in 2017 (source) so that's about $28 billion, or ~3% of that proposed $1T revenue.
Many factors not included in this calc, more importantly regional variations in costs. Food prices and wages are higher than average in NY, 10% might not be pretty well calculated for that state. Also, human employees must be insured/have benefits, and machines do not require this. That cost savings on stores isn't in the calculus here.
Also a huge fan of holding food chains accountable for fair pricing. Hope this becomes effective!
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
Most grocery stores are running at 2% profit margins. There isn't anything for this to be 'effective' for, except you just raise prices 10% across the board and pocket the extra from actual cashiers still being used. It sounds great on paper until you dig in and realize it's a completely asinine idea.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
hakobo@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
Not OP, but a 2 second Google search turns up that it is in fact about 1 trillion. https://www.fmi.org/our-research/food-industry-facts
buddascrayon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
I didn't see your comment until after I deleted mine. But yeah I saw a comment below that actually had statistics from datausa.io.
I still say that they should back up their rebuttal with their own sources instead of just spitting out a number.
mechoman444@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
I'm not arguing my own dissertation here. And I'm definitely not doing an MLA format on a Lemmy comment.
But feel free to actually verify the information on your own if you want to take up your time doing that.
For the record, I did actual research for the information stated above but you don't have to take my word for it.
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2h
I frequent a DG Market in a rural area. They shut the self checkouts down pretty quick due to theft.
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 55 pts · 1d
This is a good intentioned, well-principled idea, but it's a ham-fisted implementation that isn't going to have the intended effect and extremely easy to work around.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 1d
Doesn't seem that easy to work around. A checkout is either self checkout or it isn't. Write the law to define a self checkout as "a check out where the majority of items are scanned by a customer rather than an employee."
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
That's because you don't have the mindset of a sleazy corporate lawyer who is paid $500,000 a year.
Try this: Raise all the prices by 10 per cent. Give the 10 per cent discount to self-checkout customers, as required by law. Pocket the extra for people who are stupid enough to use the self-checkout. Don't forget to give a middle finger to your local elderly people or disabled people. They'll now pay extra for the privilege of shopping.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · -1 pts · 1d
You do realize that the prices in the store right now are already the maximum the stores can charge, do you not?
Corporations are soulless and greedy. They don't set their prices by buying from a supplier and increasing them by a fixed percentage. There is no point where a company will go, "well, we could charge more and still have the product sell, but that would be improper." They already set their prices to the maximum the market will bear. They cannot raise prices further without a net loss of income. They set their prices for the maximum product sales cost and quantity sold.
And why can't the elderly or disabled use self-checkout? If you're capable enough to walk through a store and grab items from shelves, you're capable enough to slide them past a scanner. If they're shopping with a caretaker, then the caretaker can run the check-out instead. The level of dexterity required to use a self-checkout is the same as needed to grab items from shelves, inspect and bag produce, etc. Sure, some people are too disabled to use a self-checkout, but those folks are also too disabled to shop for themselves at all. That was literally how these systems were designed. The companies didn't want to have to deal with scores of people who were dexterous enough to shop, but not dexterous enough to run the self-checkout.
missingno@fedia.io · 11 pts · 1d
What do you mean maximum? There's no cap, as we've seen from the way prices have already been rising.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · -1 pts · 1d
Why doesn't your grocery store charge $20 for a gallon of milk then if they can just raise prices as much as they want? Have you never even heard of supply and demand?
missingno@fedia.io · 4 pts · 1d
Let me spell this out for you.
Discount on self-checkout passes.
Stores raise prices so that the price after the discount is the same as it was before.
Consumers continue to pay the prices they've been paying.
'Discount' evaporates into the aether.
obviouspornalt@fedinsfw.app · 1 pts · 1d
the thing that you may not be considering here is the increased competition from the new city-run grocery stores that are also being proposed will somewhat limit the traditional store's pricing power since presumably the city stores only need to break even, not turn a profit, and the city stores might not need to pay some set of taxes. we'll have to see if this actually plays out, but that's the proposal.
my guess is that large manufacturers like proctor & gamble may not want to supply the city stores, so they may be stocked with lesser known brands, at least at first.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 1d
The market doesn't see the price hike. You pay $100 today, before I hike the prices. I hike the prices to $111.11, but my shelf labels show you the "discounted" price of $100. You keep paying the $100 price that the market currently bears.
That point was completely irrelevant. If someone can't use the self checkout, ADA compliance requires accommodation, and the business can't charge them extra. They get the same discounted price as the self-checkout. So, they put a handicap placard on the cashier stand, train the cashier not to ask any questions about disabilities, and give the same "discount" to anyone who uses the register.
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
4.90
Includes self-checkout discount. Price without self-checkout discount: 5.44
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 1d
I don't think this addresses anything I said. Market constraints prevent them from raising prices, not math. I perfectly understand the math you're describing. You're failing to understand the economics.
NateNate60@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
I'm saying the economics don't matter because you can trick people into thinking prices haven't gone up.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
For ADA compliance purposes, the human cashiers have to give disabled customers the same rate as the self checkout. If I'm running a store, all my staffed checkouts will have handicapped placards, and cashiers will be trained not to inquire as to disability status, but merely "accommodate" everyone in line.
Now everyone is getting the "discount".
CannedYeet@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
The Amazon Fresh technology is already a loophole to that.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 5h
And why do you figure you can't write a law to accommodate that as well? Some of you guys are looking for so many nits to pick that you think it would be impossible to ever write a law regulating anything whatsoever.
CannedYeet@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2h
I'm pretty well read in economics. This is a well known concept called unintended consequences. People who are familiar know that there are endless ways to game any system and we tend to prefer very simple rules.
CannedYeet@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1h
How is this a principled idea? There are countless examples across the economy where we have these labor tradeoffs. Building your own IKEA furniture. Picking up food yourself instead of getting it delivered. Yet we almost never have politicians come in and try to impose price controls on this deferred labor.
Adalast@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 1d
Can we go for upcharges on food items for modifying them next? If you are going to charge me $0.30 for adding tomatoes to a sandwich, you better damn well reduce the price by $0.30 when I remove tomatoes from a sandwich.
This is getting so out of hand in the USA.
bitchkat@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
Oh that's one of my gripes. My son likes to get an egg mcmuffin with no meat, extra cheese. You'd think the slice of meat and cheese would cancel each other out. And I think they are up to charging $1 for a slice of american cheese. And its been this way for over 15 years.
matlag@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 1d
It's not just the US. The race for the biggest profit has hit its limits on the best value front. Now it's pretty much all on deception and enshittification.
Nemo@midwest.social · 43 pts · 1d
Fun fact: With very little effort, you can give yourself a discount at checkout!
Unethical corporations are humanity's predators and we should hurt them however we can.
PalmTreeIsBestTree@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
I grab my zero dollar curtesy gum every time I am at one.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1d
BeUnique@lemmy.zip · 31 pts · 19h
I didn't have to do a whole research paper on this to know that if I'm doing somebody else's job as a customer, the company is saving money.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca · 27 pts · 1d
This is why I try to avoid self checkout. If I'm getting like 2 things and there's already a line, sure, maybe.... But if the lines are short, even if I only have a couple of things, I'll visit a real cashier.
Not because I need help with it, and not because I want to "stick it to the man" or anything. I want to be part of the metric that continues to justify that a cashier is still a position to keep, and pay someone for. I do it so that there will still be cashier's in the future, and someone can put food on their table because I didn't choose to do free labor for the 0.1%.
I know, I know. I'm so selfish, I should tHiNk oF ThE sHaReHoLdErS....
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 1d
"Cashier" has pretty much always been a heavily exploited, poverty-wage position. Cashiers might be putting food on the table, but their dickhead bosses aren't paying them a living wage. They aren't putting roofs over heads, or kids through college. Turnover is ridiculously, criminally high. People aren't getting fired when the position is eliminated. They are leaving just as fast as they already were, and they aren't being replaced.
The position is used to systematically exploit workers. Eliminating that position is a net positive.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 1d
And yet people still work as "Cashier" if they can get the job,
Wonder why...
Oh, wait, it's because the alternative of having no job and no income IS EVEN WORSE.
Welcome the Capitalism!
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 1d
True. Very true. But the solution to that problem is a completely different conversation than what we have been having in this thread. That conversation starts with a "citizenship dividend".
Democracy takes the political power of the individual, conveys it to government, where it is used to provide all manner of services. Those services are available to everyone, but they are not utilized equally by everyone.
The individual is not currently compensated for the use of their political power. We are taxed proportional to those services that we use, but those taxes don't make it back to the source of the power that enabled those services.
That should change.
Each of us should be individually compensated for the government's use of our political power. We should each receive an equal dividend. The most common term for this dividend is "Universal Basic Income", and it should be enough for the food on our tables and the roofs over our heads. We should receive that income before we get out of bed on Monday morning. The 40 hours we typically work in the week should not be for basic subsistence, but should be entirely gainful.
MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 19h
I'm going to disagree with you there.
If your cashier's are not making a living wage, then maybe the minimum wage should be increased?
Where I am, if a minimum wage worker worked 40 hours a week consistently, they would go home with the equivalent of $26k USD. The US Federal minimum wage at 40hrs/week will net you $15k USD.
The job isn't always for the impoverished, and if it were, and you were to eliminate it, you just put people who are already impoverished into homelessness because they no longer have any viable means of employment.
The people leaving the job is a net positive because they should be, in theory, moving on to better paying positions. Freeing up jobs for people who need the work and can't find it elsewhere.
It's better than working in an Amazon warehouse.
Also, I worked at grocery stores a lot when I was a younger person and I was never a cashier, but I knew most of them and I was able to go back there years and years after I left and see the same faces at the tills. A lot of wives with empty nests helping to save up for retirement, or simply to do something during the day while their kids are off at school or whatever...
A lot of people working to help pay their way through college or university.
There were a lot of people working at those jobs for years and years because they needed something to help make ends meet until they could graduate, retire, find a job in their field, pay off their mortgage.... Whatever it was.
You having this opinion indicates to me that you haven't worked at a major retailer, or you've never worked as a cashier. I'm not sure which and bluntly I don't really care. My lived experience disagrees with your pessimistic world view.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 14h
Minimum wage is certainly too low. It should be more than double its current hourly rate, but that's not the main problem here.
Cashiers are rarely allowed to work full-time hours. Management keeps the position open only for part-time workers. Cynically, the reason for this is so they don't have to provide benefits to those workers. Giving retailers the full benefit of the doubt, this keeps a surplus of workers on the payroll, allowing the retailer to schedule everybody during major shopping events like Black Friday. Regardless, these workers are typically denied sufficient hours to be able to earn a living wage.
You've got it backwards. The job isn't for workers who happen to be impoverished. The impoverishment is because the job does not compensate workers adequately.
So, you're saying that these workers are holding these jobs for something other than gainful employment? They are using them as some sort of hobby or recreation? They are willing and able to accept exploitative conditions because they aren't actually trying to live off the fruits of their labor?
The people you are talking about are, ultimately, enabling this exploitative behavior from employers. They are competing for work with people who do need actual gainful employment. Their recreational participation in the workforce devalues the labor of everyone else. I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to work recreationally, or that employers shouldn't be able to hire them. I'm saying that this practice should be strictly regulated, so that the employer can't use their willingness to be exploited to justify exploiting everyone.
I think we need to establish both a "minimum wage" and a "standard wage". The minimum wage would be the fixed, hourly minimum rate that we already have . The "standard wage" would multiply the minimum wage by 40 hours a week. Employees who aren't paid at least that weekly amount are on "substandard employment". A 40-hour/wk worker earning minimum wage makes a standard wage. A 20-hour/wk worker earning 2x minimum wage makes a standard wage. Substandard wages should be allowed, but restricted. An employer should not be allowed to compensate more than 10% of its labor with substandard wages.
acchariya@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 1d
The discount comes from entering the code of the cheapest type of item no matter what item I picked up. Organic lady finger bananas? Looks like bulk Cavendish to me. I'm not being paid enough to know the difference when I'm using self checkout, a banana is a banana.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 1d
this is why the store near me changed the self check programing and added AI
No more codes, point to the picture
matlag@sh.itjust.works · 9 pts · 1d
Great! Now AI is going to hallucinate products and if you don't pay attention, you'll be overcharged. Since it's "self-checkout", I bet they'll claim it's totally your responsibility to make sure you're not ripped.
Jako302@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
Self checkouts don't use agentic AIs / LLMs that hallucinate permanently. As mich as I hate AI, that's one of the cases where the distinct types matter.
Image recognition software has been around for ages and was used for similar things way before the AI hype. The models used for selfcheckouts are highly specialised and have an error rate very close to 0%. That doesnt mean they can't make any errors, but the same goes for human cashiers.
JennyLaFae@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 16h
A SCO I use regularly loves ringing the third b2g1 item as something different. I swear it hallucinates to avoid sales.
0x0@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
Most self checkout machines rely on weight, so you have to find two items that weigh the same for that trick to work.
acchariya@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 20h
1lb of expensive bananas is indistinguishable from 1lb of cheap bananas in most of the self checkout machines I have used. Maybe one day they will get advanced cameras
DudleyMason@lemmy.ml · 22 pts · 1d
Ok, but since they're too cowardly to implement real price controls they just raised the price of everything by 10%.
MSids@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 1d
There may be an unintended consequence of this. Corpos love to optimize to minimize any hits to their bottom line.
I could see any of these possibilities as a reaction:
Hard to know for sure, the people seem to just rarely get a W these days that isn’t immediately wiped out by something else.
matlag@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 1d
Hmm... I've read the opposite about margins: grocery store chains centralize purchasing so that they have a huge leverage on manufacturers.
For NY in particular, they shouldn't be able to raise their price easily as the city will have its city-owned stores to compete with them.
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Yes price increases seem the most likely for pharmacies but not grocery stores. There is still sufficient competition in grocery stores, and enough of them without self checkout lanes. It would be hard to get away with a price increase when a cheaper alternative exists.
Pharmacies however... As much as I prefer small pharmacies, they often are tooo small for everything. Simply can't find everything one might need. There's basically just CVS and Walgreens, and they both are big into self checkout. Those two would collude for sure.
bus_factor@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
If a bill requiring 10% discounts at self checkout comes into law, they will all think the same thing: Increase the prices so the price at self checkout is the same, and people have to pay extra for a cashier.
The only way to realistically encourage corporations to reduce their margins within the current system is by establishing an alternative which is cheaper, and thus acts as competition which pushes the price down. So basically what Mamdani is doing with city-owned grocery stores.
The same goes for housing. Provide decent but simple housing at low rates, and the slumlords will either need to lower their margins or compete on quality instead.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
I mean when it comes to grocery stores, most have little profit margin to begin with.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
Yeah, you just raise prices 10% and pocket the difference when people end up having to use more cashiers because the self checkout is too full from fools thinking they are getting a discount. It's no different than all the stores with 'reward' programs where you get cheaper or better prices. They track everything you buy and sell it, making more than the amount you are saving. Seems better to recognize that automation of things like checkout is here to stay and incentivize alternative methods to keep people you know, fed, housed and alive.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
The consequences will be a flood of lobbying money into the next legislature races
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 0 pts · 1d
fun fact: the winning and the losing are not causes of each other. if you win, you will probably lose some of it later. however, if you don't win, you will probably still lose something later. so it's not better to not win just to avoid losing later. you lose anyways, the question is only whether you also win some.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 21 pts · 1d
Personally, I greatly prefer these anyway.
As someone with social anxiety and ADHD, standing in line with a ton of people and then having to interact with a cashier is something I love to avoid.
That being said, I wouldn't mind a discount at all 😁
Magnus@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 18 pts · 1d
They will increase prices by 10% to offset this.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 1d
Grocery prices have gone up 25% to 30% since 2020. It has been at least three full years since the pandemic was declared over. And food prices have gone up at around 10% since then.
They don't need an excuse to add 10%, they're doing it anyway.
Sources:
https://americandefault.org/statistics/grocery-price-increase-since-2020/
https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2025/june/food-price-inflation-slowed-in-2023-and-2024
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 5h
General inflation has went up 30% since 2020. So it matches food increases perfectly.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world · 17 pts · 1d
300 billion in pure profits to executives… that could have ended hunger in the US last year.
So the next time you use the self checkout, remember to glance over at the lone cashier who lives in your neighborhood, look them in the eye and make sure they know about your excitement to be working for the shareholders for free now instead of their former colleagues. And if on the drive home you see their former colleague is getting evicted because they were laid off, make sure to honk, lean out your window and let them know how much you enjoyed the sweet song of “unexpected item in the bagging area.”
makeshift0546@lemmy.today · -6 pts · 1d
Worlds smallest violin. Jobs get replaced or unneeded.
If Dems actually gave a fuck instead of this bullshit ineffective horse shit that makes service worse; they're offer real training and education programs. Instead we get sob stories like this trash any how I should feel bad.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
My state has a whole program to strengthen the relationship of manufacturing industry with education. I dont know the details, butI know it exsists, along with our many many tech schools. We also have state funded community college programs for industry.
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world · 1 pts · 1d
I read an interesting story about Obama admin funded these programs in West Virginia to help those jobs lost as coal mining became less profitable and mines closed, with the locals deciding what programs worked best for their communities. By far the most popular classes were: coal mining... Ironic if true, there may be some lessons learned in there somewhere.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 1d
In connecticut, there is a lot of aerospace, medical, the miltary industrial complex over at the sub base, and other various manufacturers. Thankfully its not coal, nor (I dont think) is it a federal thing.
aye I didnt want to lool this up, https://mfgskillsct.com/ I guess this goes over what it is kinda. It reminds me of the "school to prision" pipeline, but I guess I prefer "school to employment" pipeline better I guess.
For the coal folks, I guess if you dont know anything else, most people seem resistant to change.
DonkeyStar@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 1d
Holy shit, that’s more than the employee discount I got working in retail.
ITGuyLevi@programming.dev · 2 pts · 1d
I used to get 30% when I worked retail.
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
ChristerMLB@piefed.social · 13 pts · 1d
I'd say that self-checkouts are fundamentally a good thing, just like other forms of increased productivity are a good thing – but in today's society they can both lead to unemployment and lower wages. That is unnecessary.
moopet@sh.itjust.works · 18 pts · 1d
Employment for the sake of employment isn't a good thing, though. The problem that's trying to solve is people not having enough money to live, which has multiple better solutions than makework.
ChristerMLB@piefed.social · 5 pts · 1d
sure, yeah, I would say that if our problem becomes that there's too little work to be done, we should solve this by having a shorter work week, not by inventing unnecessary work
Mniot@programming.dev · 5 pts · 1d
I have some similar feelings to AI here. The advantages of self-checkout are only present because we've made existing systems worse to the point where something not-great is now a better option.
In the 1980s, a grocery lane would have a check-out clerk and a bagger. Sometimes two baggers. You would put your items on the belt and they'd be scanned and bagged (well, so that eggs weren't crushed, freezer items were together, etc) about as fast as you took them out of the cart.
By lowering wages and reducing staff, this got worse. Now the check-out clerk is poorly-trained and probably quitting/being laid off soon and the bagger has been laid off. Mysteriously, the human-checkout line is now kind of slow and frustrating!
Having individual customers do the check-out themselves is even worse (so frequently, someone gets the machine stuck yelling about putting items in the bagging area, or just stares vacantly at the screen), but by parallelizing the process it comes out to usually slightly faster.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 12 pts · 1d
How about food is a human right and should be free at point of purchase, lol.
Edit: lmao at the three American or Israeli downvoters. Eat shit, fuckers.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 17 pts · 1d
i think it would be better to give universal basic income (money) and people buy food with that. why is it better? because it ensures that while people can afford food, one person does not buy 20 bread when they only eat 2 "because it's free".
calmblue75@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 1d
The problem with UBI is that the ones who decide the price of things still will have a control over things.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
as i said in another comment, you lose anyways, the question is just whether you also win some.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 1d
I don't care how it happens.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 1d
I do think that people should be able to line up to get soup/stew/oatmeal/etc. low-cost food as much as they want.
Kids shouldn't be distracted from their schoolwork and even having their brains and bodies develop poorly because they don't get fed at home.
Adults shouldn't be distracted at work and/or committing crime to feed their families.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1d
yeah especially the food-at-schools issue is just so obvious. just provide free breakfast / lunch etc. doesn't even have to be complicated, even if the schools just provided a liter of milk a day, it would be something and better than nothing.
there's a whole lot of things that schools could provide even if they don't have a cafeteria / kitchen in the building. stuff like lunch boxes: bread with vegetables, cheese, jam, etc.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I can at least understand where people come from when they claim that adults who can work don't have a right to food. I don't necessarily have to agree with it, but I understand it.
But why doom their kids? An 8 year old shouldn't have their studies affected because they're hungry because their parents are poor. That's antithetical to the American Dream they tend to talk so much about.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -10 pts · 1d
Careful, they'll call you a tankie for this sentiment, lol.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
Naw, people get called tankies for pretending the USSR/China/DPRK were perfect and did no wrong.
Your comment translated to the right would be "People will call you a nazi for saying you think we should have borders."
Nobody but the absolutely deranged stretches that far, but people who are that extreme do like to pretend that their entire half of the political spectrum is labeled equally extreme; strength in unity by inventing enemies, I guess.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -8 pts · 1d
How many bombs has China dropped in the last 50 years? There's a reason so many people prefer China over America.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
I never said America was free of problems.
That's the issue with people like you; you see zero nuance and you refuse to participate in discussions in good faith. Any criticism of any (pseudo-)socialist group must be met with Whataboutism or other bad faith arguments.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -9 pts · 1d
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 1d
I'm happy to concede it's zero without looking it up; it makes no difference to either of our positions here.
It's just a Red Herring for you to mount a soapbox to tell me and anyone who hasn't blocked you yet how China Did Nothing Wrong and America Did Nothing Good.
That's why people evidently keep calling you a tankie, and that's how you and I differ so I never get called a tankie.
TL;DR: Not All Socialists Are Tankies, but All Tankies Think All Socialists Are Tankies.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
(citation needed)
also, yeah, bombs are one thing, and i see your argument there.
however, what moves people is largely the economic situation. people get dissatisfied with the US today because incomes are declining for the masses.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -1 pts · 1d
No response to the pew research article? Just downvotes? Interesting.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -2 pts · 1d
Hellooooo
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -2 pts · 1d
lol
EatMyPixelDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 2h
I sure as heck don't prefer China. America and China are both awful.
I think you've been drinking too much Chinese gutter oil.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1h
I think you've been mainlining American propaganda for your entire life. How many illegal wars has America started in the last 50 years? What about China?
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 1d
It's 5 now, after you started going wild below. Not everyone who dislikes toxic people is an "American or Israeli."
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1d
well, they were not saying the "american or israeli" thing without reason. i remember a few years ago there was an UN vote whether food should be considered a human right ... and every country in the world voted in favor, except two ... america and israel.
(since america is a veto power, the proposal didn't pass)
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Yeah that's one of many black marks on America's sanity, and as you remind us, particularly relevant in this way.
One of those classic "A shitty person has a point" moments (not you, them).
I will say that I'm pretty sure they had 0 downvotes until they started going Tankie Mode in the discussion I mentioned, so people seem to be downvotng based on that, not so much supporting the US or Israel.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
Hell yeah. A sane man to an insane society must appear insane. Also I'm showing -3. I wonder why it's -5 for you? I don't block users or instances.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 3 pts · 1d
federation issues. you might not block instances but your instance does block some other instances.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 1d
Interesting, thanks for the info!
Does ml have instance blocks?
froufox@lemmy.blahaj.zone · -1 pts · 1d
What kind of food? Only the cheapest supermarket type of food or gourmet restaurant too? What about food delivered from another continent? Should all of them be free? How would that be possible?
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 1d
I don't care, lol. We throw out thousands of tons of food every day.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · -1 pts · 1d
which btw is good. imagine the opposite: if we threw away no food, that means that we consume about 100% of our food. now, if any environmental disaster hits (think of hurricanes, wildfires, etc.) then the amount of food produced will take a bump by maybe 10% in that year, ok? so now we produce 90% of the food we need ... disaster.
a positive excess in production capability is the only thing to prevent shortages when risk inevitably happens.
Pika@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 22h
but, what if instead of lowering the amount of food production to match what you said, we just outlaw throwing still good food out, and instead enforce a donation style regulation where leftover food that is still safe to eat must be donated or given, not wasted.
Like I used to watch the dunkin employee at the store I used to work at throw away dozens of perfectly fine doughnuts daily, or the bagels that wern't used. It's so wasteful for something that could have easily just been set outside as a "free for the taking" and then anything that wasn't taken can then be tossed the next morning.
No establishment does it because they know it would likely lower their customers, cause they would just wait for closing. but at least then its not wasting it all.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 0 pts · 1d
Lmfao. Literal capitalist brain at work. We have to let people starve so that people don't starve when we have an emergency, lmao.
Good job, little buddy!
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 1d
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch, son.
Someone has to do work to produce that food. Those people need to be compensated somehow. You can go ahead and make hyperbolic declarations about "rights", but that doesn't mean economics just disappears.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Yeah, those people doing the work to produce food are starving. What is your point?
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 1d
You're conflating human rights with a human need as if through sheer force of ideology you can make food magically poof into existence.
In the past, million of people starved because of this way of thinking.
Sorry, but producing food requires people to do work. When you try to make something that involves work into something purely about ideology, bad things happen.
dustyData@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
There's people working 60+ hours a week and also starving. Again, what is your point?
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 1d
Nobody is stopping you from donating to the food bank and volunteering your time at a soup kitchen. What's your point?
dustyData@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Maybe, have you considered? that access to food is already decoupled from work because of ideological factors? Perhaps the idea that it is OK for people to go hungry if they're not working is in itself an ideological posture. Just speed balling ideas here, maybe if people weren't hungry, perhaps they will have the strength and will to work harder and more efficiently. I don't know, it just came to me, I'm sure nobody has done any serious writing about it. We should go to the internet together and see if any of those scientists have ever done any study on that. Wild idea, maybe when people have their basic needs met they are more likely to be productive members of society. I'm sure that's not revolutionary or anything and just common sense. Or not, I'm not a social scientist, I mean, I am, but maybe there's something we are missing here.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 7h
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 7h
This guys wrote a lot that was along your lines of thinking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko
Millions of people starved because of his writings.
What you're missing is the fact that someone's gotta plow the fields, plant the crops, harvest the crops, and someone has to get the food to you. If you think in terms of the food just magically appearing in the grocery store, you're might start thinking "why can't this just be free?" It's not free because there's a lot of work that happens before you you see food on the shelf at the grocery store.
There's the whole field of economics that's about this. You might reject this because you think economics is about money. It's not. Economics is about work and resources. Being ignorant of the real work that's involved in food production and thinking that through ideology you can factor it all out is disrespectful to workers.
The things you're talking about have been tried before, the result was a lot of people starved. There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Someone somewhere always has to do work to make that lunch. They need to be compensated for their labour like everyone else.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 4 pts · 1d
nah the reason why people are working full time in the US today is not because food production requires that much work input, it's because of everything else.
to produce food, according to some calculations, you need about 1.2 hours of labor per person per week on average. source: read it a while ago. 2% of population produce enough food for 200% of population, assume these 2% work 60 hrs/week, that makes 1.2 hours per week if 100% of people were working in agriculture.
the reason why the people work full time is not because food production takes that much effort, but because agriculture is not the only thing that people are busy in. so you don't have 100% of people working "for food". it's everything else that takes the 98% of effort, not the food production.
chunes@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
The government already subsidizes food production. We're just asking for a slightly bigger subsidy
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 1d
How much bigger?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 1d
Communism Killed 850 Zillion People
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 7 pts · 1d
so did the manifest destiny.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1d
Two things can be bad at the same time.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
That many!? Holy shit. I thought people being gunned down on the streets by inbred government goons was bad, but that means if we don't support that then every single human on earth will die more than once!
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
FYI capitalism kills 10 million people a year due to artificial housing and food scarcity alone, let alone wars.
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
Eh. I'm not really big on focusing on terms for political ideologies. I prefer boiling things down to "don't be a cunt."
The people who bitch communism or capitalism killed so many people aren't really bitching about the concepts. The concept didn't do anything. The corrupt people in charge willing to twist things to their own benefit and accept people dying so they or their friends/allies can have more than they need killed loads of people under every political ideology.
I don't care if I live under either of those systems, but any system should have sane and fair caps to keep any individual or organization from amassing too much money, power, or control over the whole.
Say if the US had a 99% tax on every dollar a person earns per year over 1 million, and that was all inclusive of official income, stock options, bonuses, etc, then that would be a great change. Likewise with corporations. There should be a hard cap on valuation to keep corporations from owning each other in a giant pyramid so that the bulk of companies in the nation are all under the same actual control.
The tax code should clearly be fixed to keep companies from shifting money and values on paper and never paying anything. Tax breaks for companies shouldn't exist. If we're calling it capitalism than a company should be able to exist in fair competition with the rest without that socialist handout for them.
Private equity groups shouldn't exist. They create and provide nothing, they simply purchase existing businesses and lower product cost/quality and increase prices to create false profit. Since the consumer would start going to any competing business that didn't do that, it encourages buying entire industries to enshittify them and leave people no options but the higher prices and lower quality.
Some industries should not be run for profit. There should be laws and oversight in place to ensure the things that all humans need as a basic part of life are as accessible as possible. The things that come to mind offhand are medical care, a base level of housing for individuals and families, and basic foodstuffs. As the necessities of human life, those things would be kept profit free and made available at the lowest possible cost with heavy to complete tax subsidization.
Companies would be free (and encouraged) to deal in things medical care not actually necessary such as elective plastic surgery not done to correct a physical deformity, higher tiers of housing so people have more luxurious and spacious potential options, and cooked and heavily processed foods. The base level of these things being available cheaply or free would naturally limit the amount they could charge and so their profit, which would help keep any but the most insane homes from having insane costs. People would be able to get meat and potatoes and veggies and the like cheaply and not need to worry about starvation, but Oreos, frozen pizzas, and microwaveable frozen taquitos would cost more.
You could do all of that in a "capitalist" society. Base ideology isn't an issue. Virtually every base ideology we bicker about was created to try to help make something better. The problem is that they need to be applied with sane, rational limitations and regulations and strictly kept free from corruption.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 1d
K
Abyssian@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 1d
I'm sorry that someone taking the time to type out a thoughtful response is such a bother for you.
DuncanTheDrunk@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
They obviously can't engage, that could be a confrontation.
BTW I'm with you that any system can be abused, and it's that abuse that is the true issue. However capitalism does seem to encourage greed and the consolidation of resources, which has to be actively regulated. It feels like it's a losing battle as those who accumulate power will try to sidestep or remove any obstacles that prevent them from gaining more power.
I feel like we're currently seeing some particularly egregious examples currently and I welcome the discussion of other systems because open and unbiased discussion could hopefully lead us somewhere better.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · -3 pts · 1d
Do I seem bothered? I'd say Indifferent at best.
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
😦
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
I'm very much in favor of this. They place the burden of work on the customers, so they should compensate them.
Steve@communick.news · 10 pts · 1d
I understand, even agree with the principal.
But don't grocery stores average low single digit margins? A universal 10% discount might not be workable. Unless the point is to eliminate self-checkout. But then why not simply do that?
AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 1d
I fully support capped CEO pay.
I fully think large grocery chains are screwing customers.
But having worked at a few smaller grocery stores, the margins are absurdly thin. At one 6ish store semi-local store I worked for we made roughly 3 cents on the dollar. That included various fees and labor, but once you factor in theft and chargebacks and bounced checks and such - it could get even thinner some months.
Granted, I assume the megacorp ones maybe negotiate / strongarm for higher margins? So fuck 'em.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
Mamdani seems to have a favor to improve supermarkets somewhat? Already showing this with the city-owned grocery stores (allegedly for food deserts). I assume the philosophy is somewhat like "you can only have a strong population if they're properly fed". which is true.
I'm just saying, from a purely mathematical point of view, the city would do more good by building cheap and efficient social housing, and public transport etc.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 10 pts · 1d
EU should take note.
Unless I'm in a huge hurry I'll wait in the cashier queue, to do my tiny bit to help preserve jobs.
BorgDrone@feddit.nl · 27 pts · 1d
Jobs aren’t something to be preserved, that’s the wrong way of thinking about it. Jobs are a waste of everyone’s time. You’re not saving a job, you’re spending labour. The goal should be to eliminate all jobs.
The problem is the link between income and work, that should be eliminated.
diablicja@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 1d
Sure, but I cannot eliminate that link. I can, however, queue to the cashier so that they can put food on the table.
moopet@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 1d
There are multiple solutions for poverty, making people dig holes and then fill them back in is not a great one.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
yeah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Polisheocket@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Futuristic thinking, I like it but that doesn’t pay the bills now
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
That’s never going to happen under capitalism though, so until socialism is achieved, I’m going to do the best I can to ensure that my fellow workers have as much access to good paying jobs as possible.
BorgDrone@feddit.nl · 6 pts · 1d
It’s self-sustaining. They have convinced people that they don’t deserve access to resources unless they perform some meaningless demeaning labour. The job leaves them too exhausted and numb to question the status quo and do something about it. Yet, at the same time the 0.1% who is hoarding all the planet’s resources isn’t scanning any groceries to ‘deserve’ it.
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Yes, which is why organization and political education is so critical, and also why MLs place importance on vanguard parties. The capitalists are never going to give us the time for everyone to realize we can demand better, so those of us who already realize it need to step up and help guide those who don’t.
moopet@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 1d
Mm, drag it out as long as you can, right?
FlyingCircus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Would you rather everyone be unemployed and destitute while you beg the capitalists to give you money?
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 1 pts · 1d
100% agree with you. our economy is not vegan as long as people are forced to work. people can still work if they want to, that would be vegan.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Same.
gabelstapler@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
It's not only the jobs, it's the liability: if you're forgetting to scan a product, you're shoplifting. If the cashier forgets to scan a product it's the shop's problem.
elucubra@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 14h
I have inadvertently failed to scan some small item that was in a fold of the bag a couple of times.
BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 1d
This is why I always skip a few items at self checkout, if you don't want to pay the cashier, then you'll pay me instead
Tiger666@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Is there no scale? Do you pocket the item? How does this work?
LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyz · 0 pts · 23h
If you scan one item and put two on the scale, it will usually just accept it.
The scales and the items aren't all that accurately documented, so it doesn't always know the difference.
GalacticRobot@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
Whole lot of scanners are moving towards cameras and detection along with just automatically documenting when you didn't scan something. Clock over the felony amount in your state and they can just automatically send the info to the police. Target has been doing it for years.
jalkasieni@sopuli.xyz · 9 pts · 1d
One would think there are better ways of achieving this. How about we start to actually make solutions that make price conciousness easier? Actually enable the ”free market” people are raving about. Start mandating open data standards, make the companies publish realtime pricing information, allow people to build solutions that make consumers aware they’re overpaying.
Fuel stations would be a good example of this, my phone could notify me that the pump price is 10% lower 4 minutes away, if it only had access to that data.
ProdigiousInsanity@lemmus.org · 5 pts · 1d
This already exists for gas stations
Saapas@piefed.zip · 7 pts · 1d
Crying about "free labour" seems pretty silly in this case. You're already going around the store picking your own shit, usually bagging it yourself, bringing it home yourself etc.
Bazoogle@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
Most people can do a pickup order now anyway. So of you truly want the most value for the least labor, you should only do pickup orders
Saapas@piefed.zip · 3 pts · 1d
Or just get it delivered and save even that "free labour". I'm just gonna shop normally but use the self-checkout because it's much much quicker
kshade@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Yeah, before supermarkets that's how things worked. I don't think it was better. The gross profiteering is its own issue. I'd much rather see a crackdown on shopping apps that come with small "discounts" for invasive tracking.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 2 pts · 1d
yeah but checkout supposedly requires responsibility (you're handling money after all) while carrying bags ... less so?
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Yep. We already had this discourse a little over a generation ago. It used to be you would roll up to a grocery store, hand your shopping list to the clerk, and then wait while they went and grabbed everything for you. Modern grocery stores where you go around and pick out your own items were rejected by consumers at first because they were perceived to have poorer customer service; but ultimately, it was faster and cheaper, so it became the new normal.
HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 1d
Not to mention some companies relentlessly prosecute "accidental" and accidental mis-scans in self-checkout, so you significantly increase your risk of arrest by using them. I never do.
- Ex-cop, have arrested people for such mis-scans, most frequently at Wal-Mart
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 0 pts · 20h
Is an ex-cop and ex-bastard?
Avicenna@programming.dev · 7 pts · 1d
I think companies firing people in favour of AI should also be forced to allocate some generous portion of those salaries back to same level and lower employees as wage increases
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 1d
I get the spirit is in the right place, but wouldn't this just incentivize self-checkout and accelerate the obsolescence of human cashiers?
pulsey@feddit.org · 8 pts · 1d
or increase the normal prices to compensate the 10% discount
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Only works if everyone does it.
bus_factor@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Which they will. It's a very obvious thing to do. If any of them wanted, they could lower their prices independently of any such law, but they don't, because they want their margins high.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
Prices tend to be sticky. So businesses will be slow to lower prices when simply spending more on marketing has a higher yield. But they'll also be wary of inflicting sticker shock and scaring their customers away.
When the wholesale rate of groceries rises or the costs fall, it's easy to take profits universally. But it's harder to raise prices absent backroom coordination.
jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 1d
that is a net positive outcome
Smaile@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 1d
couldnt they just increase the price by 11% and make it moot?
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 1d
No. Because that would require raising the prices at the regular check-out as well. And companies cannot just raise prices as high as they want. The prices you see in the grocery store are already the company's best estimate for the highest price the market will bear.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 1d
If every grocery store did this, that is the market. We can’t decide to not eat, and even with a 10% markup, grocery stores are still cheaper than most other options.
isleepinahammock@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 1d
Grocery prices are already constrained by the fact that people's budgets can only stretch so far. If you raise prices faster than people can handle, they just start buying cheaper food options.
OwOarchist@pawb.social · 5 pts · 1d
They could, but grocery stores are highly competitive on price.
If a different grocery store doesn't take that approach, people will go to the place where everything is 10% cheaper.
tazeycrazy@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 1d
Sounds like a tax on those who need a catcher or can't use the self checkout for various reasons. I could see stores just removing all the staff on the tills and switch to a self checkout only.
green_link@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
yet they are doing the exact opposite and removing self check out. all because they claim there is more theft from self check out
SanicHegehog@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
That's one way to get a discount.
heinln@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 6h
Amazon tried that with scanning for what people removed from a store and then shuttered it soon thereafter.
Arachnidbrilliant@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 1d
Even if a store with self checkout have a 10% discount for people using it. Wouldn’t they just mark everything up by 10% to compensate?
Nonconfrontational@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1d
Sounds like they should be socialized, then.
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 5 pts · 1d
these things are pay-as-you-want checkout IMO
buddascrayon@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 1d
Now watch as Hochul kills it because "it's bad for the economy".
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org · 4 pts · 2h
What I'm hearing is NY Democrats are working to pass a bill that will increase prices at businesses using self-checkout by 10 percent. They aren't going to cut into their own profits.
DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
They saw how popular Mamdami is and saw the writing on the wall.
We don't need to replace every single one of them, just enough to scare the rest.
Smaile@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 1d
ny need to make it own city grocer if they want to combat the chains
kinther@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Fuck yeah. I can get behind this 1000%
Hedup@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
Otherwise customers can unilaterally enforce the discount.
sascha_isagirlname@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1d
This seems like populist BS. For one, I don't think there's value in preserving jobs like cashiers - almost no one does that job because it's fulfilling. In a perfect utopia, this would be 100% automated.
The other thing is that I can't imagine this will have the result the law intends. The companies won't pay the 10% out of their own pocket, as they most likely couldn't. At least here in Germany, supermarket margins are pretty thin.
So they'd increase prices for all products to pay for this. Nothing would improve. Plus, going to the regular checkout would cost more than it does now.
I don't get it. This is such a non-issue compared to so many other problems. It's like they're trying to show they're doing something for workers but don't want to pay for it.
Mniot@programming.dev · 6 pts · 1d
This doesn't pass a quick reasoning check:
So the stores must be getting better margins at self-checkout than at human-checkout, or they wouldn't introduce it.
sascha_isagirlname@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 1d
Yeah, they make more profit by introducing self-checkout, but I doubt It'd be 10% or more. I may be wrong. If there is any data on that, I'd love to see it.
But even if they can afford to lower all prices by 10%, I can't imagine they would just take the financial hit. Why wouldn't they compensate by increasing prices?
To me it doesn't make sense in any scenario.
If you believe in the free market, this would lead to nothing, as supermarkets are already providing their goods for the lowest reasonable prices, because of competition.
If you believe that supermarkets are engaging in price collusion, there is nothing that would stop them from just all increasing their prices further.
rapchee@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
ofc, paying people is the highest expense almost everywhere
gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org · 3 pts · 1d
yeah, i remember reading that a bakery that bakes bread for $0.60 per bun today wouldn't even have to increase the price to $0.61 if the price of raw wheat doubles. that's how low the share of raw resource cost is in an everyday's item. was crazy to me to read this.
CrowAirbrush@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 1d
At first they promised us it would keep the prices down, I already knew that's not how businesses operate but hey...I got no influence over this so let's see how it works out.
A few years after grocery prices triple with all kinds of excuses, yes excuses...claims about how what when where and why it happened which all turned out to in reality be nothing more then a temporary nuisance, but prices never went down because duhh it's a business.
So here we are, paying the wages for jobs we do ourselves and a 200% tip to boot.
I really think we should keep track of the amount of time spent at the self checkout and make a bill for the store manager under the title: "freelance register operator" at a polite $40 bucks an hour.
HubertManne@piefed.social · 3 pts · 1d
some stores got rid of or reduced them a lot so there must be some downside.
fishy@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 1d
Theft, massive amounts of theft. Both intentional and unintentional.
NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 5h
Right, because if I self checkout my $200 grocery bill, that worker definitely would have made $20 in that few minute interaction.
I like the idea, but that's a terrible implementation. The cost of the bill has no relation to the money saved by using the machine and firing a worker. A flat amount no more than a % of the bill is tiny would be better. Like $1-3 but no more than 5% of bill.
CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 3h
The fun part that I have heard from a few retail managers is that the software that the self checkout uses costs as much or more per month than the employee would have.
ShotDonkey@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Bad idea because companies will frame it as "going the cashier route will cost you 10% more!" while you pay the old price st the self check-out. Here in Europe a lot of groceries are being shoplifted at the self checkout. People are taking their own discounts. Newer self checkouts now have cameras built in and random controls are so freqent they are a huge annoyance. Spermarkets seem to be pissed.
Doublenut@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 1d
Not to mention how irrelevant that comment is. He's talking about grocers in Germany while this article pertain solely to the state of New York in America where grocers have made record profits over the last 5 years.
adarza@lemmy.ca · 2 pts · 1d
the "free" labor is already offset by the higher frequency of theft at self-checkout.
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 1d
weird how labor is in quote and "theft" isn't
"wage theft" beats them both combined, though. and this is just another form of theft.
Faithless@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
This is progress. It’s stupid to fight it. Progress has always eliminated jobs but created new ones.
sudoer777@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 1d
So now everyone will use self checkout to get the large discount and cashiers will lose their jobs faster?
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 1d
Turnover of cashier jobs is ridiculously high. They aren't losing their jobs. They are leaving shitty jobs where they have been heavily exploited by dickhead employers, and they aren't being replaced.
DebraBucket@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
Won’t this just encourage people to use self-checkout as it will make using an employed checkout lane more expensive?
I don’t think many people know how harmful self-checkout is to their neighbors employed the store. I made a comment to a Costco employee about how I was glad they added the hand scanners to self-checkout, and their response was to educate me that self-checkout isn’t good for the employees because it means fewer jobs. I’m was so self-absorbed in my own day-to-day life that I did not even think about the impact it had on Costco employees. I didn’t even think about the fact that here I am talking about this pain point of self-checkout (having to use the stationary scanner) and relief about having a better option (the hand scanner) when the best option is already there (employees handling the checkout). The real solution is to just open up more jobs, hire more employees to do the scanning and bagging. I stopped using self-checkout after that.
I went to Aldi recently. You have to put a quarter in to get a shopping cart (I haven’t carried around quarters in ages). The shelves often get into a state of disarray. The line for the 1 employee doing checkout is massive, but self-checkout is also a huge pain in the ass. Continuously cutting jobs to increase profits is a race to the bottom, and yet people who can barely afford groceries think they couldn’t live without a discount chain like Aldi. We are saving pennies by giving up our time doing our own checkout, when we could be getting paid to check people out, providing them some convenience and doing so with greater efficiency instead. I’ll add that many items at Aldi’s are actually more expensive than at other grocery stores, if you’re not paying attention you could end up paying more than a place with more employed checkout lanes.
MrRandom@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 1d
I wonder how much is forgotten to scan
rounding_error@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 1d
They have annoying little AI cameras and sensors to make sure you do :)
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
That's funny. I've never once used self-checkout, my main reason being, if they're not giving me a 10% discount for using my labour, then I ain't playing.
Amir@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 1d
They also make you stand in line for 10min for the one cashier, and that 10min is worth more than the smugness of not using self checkout
melsaskca@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
I disagree. I've never been afraid to be alone with my thoughts and I roll and rhyme with the movement of time. Good place to make small talk and reconnect with the world around you. I get it though, in this world of capitalism we live in, time seems to be defined as "money". I'm not smugly standing there though, just trying my best not to be abused by the corporations.
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
A few months ago my grocery added AI to thier self check systems, and I dipped. I have gone back to using the staffed line.
It took a moment to get used to, but Im glad Ive made the change. I enjoy talking to the young people who work there, even have a favorite cashier. It's a vibe honestly.
ITGuyLevi@programming.dev · 1 pts · 1d
Where I live the self checkout lines are just as long, at least with the one cashier, they know how to operate the damn machine. Lol
TheHound@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
I'm fine not having cashier's, will happily pay the extra to not have to interact with someone.
Sirdubdee@piefed.social · 0 pts · 1d
Stores could just add a 10% fee for using a manned checkout lane and make more money instead of discounting merch.
Indie@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
But won't this put human cashiers out of a job ?
chunes@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 1d
I think many people already get a 10% discount on all items at self-checkout.
moopet@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 1d
If the self-checkouts cost the company less, then it'd be good for them to pass on the savings - but in a capitalist world, that's not normal. If a company gets one of its food ingredients cheaper, does it usually drop its prices? Not unless it's already competing at that price.
Self checkouts are a good thing. They're not "us doing the shop's work". They're not "free labour". In fact, they're a boon to a lot of us as customers, and shops with them still have "traditional" tills you can use if you want (e.g. if you have a huge trolley of things or you want a nice chat)
Gorillazrule@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 1d
In what way are we not doing the shops work? I understand that unnecessary jobs get phased out if there are more efficient ways. For example parking attendants getting replaced by kiosks. Instead of paying someone to stand there all day and take payments for people entering, you have a machine to do it instead. And the experience for the customer is exactly the same. Instead of handing your card/money over to a person, you are now inserting it into a machine.
But in the case of self checkout, the machine does not take your groceries, scan them all, and manually input produce that doesn't have a barcode. Instead, that burden falls onto the customer. And while yes, for a single person doing a single transaction, that really isn't a lot to ask. But you are literally doing the exact thing that they were previously paying someone else to do. If what you are doing, is something that they would otherwise be paying somebody else to do, how is that you not doing their work/ free labor? As a matter of fact pretty much all stores still have regular checkouts. Where there is somebody in the store, performing the exact same tasks as you, just on a larger scale. And getting paid to do so.
Would it be acceptable for stores to start asking people to restock a shelf if they go to grab an item and see the shelf is low or empty? I mean they're not asking you to restock the whole store, just that one item. And it's really not that much of a burden, and if everybody does it, then the store will always be stocked! Why should they have to pay employees to keep the shelves stocked when it's more efficient for everybody to just contribute a little bit? It's hardly even work at that point.
WFloyd@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 1d
$300 billion is complete BS and you know it
Edit: Sigh, sorry if came across inflammatory, but we can do better. I'm not saying I want to get rid of cashiers, I'm saying $300 billion doesn't make sense. There are ~3 million cashiers in the USA, with a median pay of $14.99/hr / $31,190/year. They would need to average $100k/year for the $300 billion number to be accurate. There still need to be people staffing these machines, seems like 1:6 ratio is about the sweet spot. Taking into account that the machines themselves cost something too, the places using them are not making $300 billion back directly, it's just a ludicrous number that only undermines the good that the bill might be doing. Assuming this person published their research report, I'd love to see it!
makeshift0546@lemmy.today · -3 pts · 1d
The absolute bullshit that Dems pulls. Anything but grow a spine.
What a worthless effort blowing political capital that's going to make stores less likely let me avoid having some cashier bagging for me poorly and going slow as fuck.
kikutwo@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 1d
Now calculate the amount of free labor forced by municipalities on their residents who are required to handle all the recycling while the towns get paid for the material.
caboose2006@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 1d
They're only getting paid for aluminium. Everything else is a net loss.
kikutwo@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 1d
Recycling processing facilities (MRFs) pay towns a rebate based on the market price per ton for specific commodities: Aluminum Cans: $1,000 to $1,800+ per ton (The most consistent money-maker)
Corrugated Cardboard (OCC): $40 to $150+ per ton (The largest revenue volume driver) Natural HDPE Plastics (#2 Milk Jugs): $300 to $800+ per ton
PET Plastics (#1 Soda/Water Bottles): $150 to $400+ per ton
Steel / Tin Cans: $100 to $250 per ton Mixed Office Paper: $30 to $90 per ton
Tolc@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 3h
"democrats" "fighting for worker rights", are we doing this in big 26? No wonder american left is dead.