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Comment by scarygliders | Hacker News Reader

Self-service tills are good for when you've only got a very few items to purchase and rather than stand in a long line of a staffed checkout, you can just use that instead.

Otherwise, yes, as the article mentions, they're quite frustrating to use if you have to wait for staff approval for, say, alcohol purchases, and it can take a while for said staff member to attend to the self-service till; you might as well have waited in the staffed checkout line.

Bringing staff back to checkouts increases employment. That can only be a good thing.

Perhaps some time in the future, someone will come up with a robotic assistant intelligent enough to do the checkout task... but I suspect that's not going to happen at least for another 5 years or so.

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> Self-service tills are good for when you've only got a very few items to purchase and rather than stand in a long line of a staffed checkout, you can just use that instead.

Reaction I: Back in the day, many stores had staffed "Express" checkout lanes for that. Or, they actually cared about keeping the lines short.

Reaction II: Judging by some long lines I've seen recently - to use the self-service tills - businesses are starting to optimize away the speed advantage of self-service tills.

My secret trick at the local grocery store was going to the non express checkout if it had even 1 less person than the express checkout because people took a lot more time to pay than it took the cashier to scan and bag their stuff.

The benefit of the express checkout is the number of tills, where 4 self checkouts usually end up replacing the space for 1 manned checkout, so even if 3/4 customers are really slow, odds are you will still find an open self checkout station on arrival.

That being said, manned checkouts are superior in every way (like I said, cashiers are usually much faster than the customers themselves) as long as the grocery store mitigates the number of stations problem by having a single checkout line so you don’t end up waiting an inordinate amount of time because you made the mistake of standing in line with a customer who chooses to pay their groceries in quarters.

Unfortunately the concept of a single checkout line seems alien to the grocery stores in my area.

> ...people took a lot more time to pay than it took the cashier to scan and bag...

Stores vary, but one of my reasons for usually paying with cash is to minimize the chance of computerized delays or f*ck-ups during payment.

> ...cashiers are usually much faster than the customers themselves...

My experience is that this varies enormously between stores. Trader Joe's, Aldi, and most "little local" stores are fast. Vs. the last time I was at a Target - Cashier Training [FAILED], No Long Procedures Required During Checkout [FAILED], Sane Store Policies [FAILED], Competent Manager Available [FAILED], etc., etc.

I agree with both your reactions.

My observations also support Reaction II. Customer waiting time is free for the store, they will increase it right up to the point people start giving up and leaving.

Enshittification is not just for software.

> Customer waiting time is free for the store

Disagree. Customers will get angry long before they actually give up and walk out, especially if there is no easy alternative.

Guess what happens the moment there is an easy alternative.

The empirical evidence suggests a theoretical competing alternative is doing nothing to stop this or other enshittification trends in established markets.

> Bringing staff back to checkouts increases employment. That can only be a good thing.

Imagine how much more employment there would be if we got rid of agricultural machinery and went back to people growing crops with manual labor.

My local Uniqlo just has a bin you put all your clothes into and then pay. It’s… actually really great. And takes a bare fraction of the checkout time, since nothing needs to get scanned.

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