this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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If I'm scanning groceries for somebody else then sure but if it's just my own stuff, it's not work. Take pumping gas, some locations do it for you but if I'm pumping it myself, I'm not doing work for fre.
You're performing labor vital to the store's goal of selling you shit. Either someone else does that labor and gets paid for it, or you're doing that labor for free. Doing it "for yourself" doesn't make it not-labor and pushing the labor costs onto you are literally the entire point of these things from the business's viewpoint. You're choosing not to be bothered by it.
Just curious, how do you feel about ATMs for banking instead of the tellar? Although I agree labor is labor, freeing up a task for a cashier/grocery worker so they can focus on something else is a win. If I see a grocery cart far from the return stack, I'll move it. That's somebody's job, but I don't see it as free labor.
That's how you choose to see it, but you also did work for the bourgeoisie for free
Look at it this way: nobody has ever had their workload lightened by it. Companies have just cut positions and hours instead.
With the cart example, yeah, cool, that's good. I could fold every messed up shirt I ever see in a store and that would certainly make some workers day easier, but I'd also be doing work for free
To be clear since people seem to regularly confuse arguments for endorsement, I use self checkout, but it is what it is. I'm doing something someone was paid to do, for free. That's the facts. And if you think about it, when i do so, I do especially valuable free labor because I used to work retail and can easily deal with it. Even if it's slight it's still a form of exploition and it's galling to think of my past exploitation providing value to this current form. I was a good little retail worker long enough that I can add to walmart's throughput by not clogging up a checkout, yay
ATM: push button, receive money
Self checkout: you scan, look up, and physically manipulate and bag dozens of items
You: these are equivalent
The task of the ATM used to solely be performed by bank tellars. Looking up accounts, checking balance, taking out the money, depositing checks, etc. It was all automated for self service, which is good as it frees up tellars responsibilities, but necessary labor before.
But the use of the atm requires no labor other than press button
I'm not talking about the use of the ATM by pressing buttons, I'm talking about the functions it serves. The functions that an ATM performs were once functions only a bank tellar did but we're not against ATM because it was automates task for the better. Self checkout requires nothing but scanning a barcode for me (before self checkout, I bagged for myself and paid for myself; things I carried over).
My point being, ATM have been around long enough that we don't even regard those task as labor anymore, which is okay and will be how self checkout looks. Bank tellars can focus on people who have other questions. Grocery workers can focus on stock, albiet most stores I go to still have checkout lanes open. The grocery owner will underpay and price gouge.