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Wall Street cheers McDonald's replacement of cashiers with kiosks

7 points by utkarshs12 9y ago

bobbington 9y ago
McDonalds has been saying for years that higher minimum wage will drive only them to technology and automation faster. I guess they finally did it.
anotheryou 9y ago
Less work is good, capitalism is the problem.
undersuit 9y ago
We should all be cheering. Human beings have far more potential than being a trained interface between another human being and a basic assembly line. I also am cheering for the companies that are trying to remove the humans from the basic assembly line[1]. Maybe one day the only time a human makes a burger is because they want to, not because it's required for them to demonstrate value to the market. [1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4602682/Robots-churn-400-burgers-hour-set-over.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4602682/Robot...
mark-r 9y ago
"self-order kiosks in McDonald's restaurants are not a labor replacement". Right, and if you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you. I'm sure a lot of these kiosks will be going into places that have a high minimum wage. Somehow they think this is going to increase same-store sales. I don't know how, unless they're counting on more traffic due to the novelty factor. Or maybe the kiosks are going to automate upselling - "do you want fries with that? They've automatically been added to your order, hit Delete if you don't want them."
pasbesoin 9y ago
If Wall Street could sell you [1] for parts, they would. ---- 1) I could have said "surplus-ed people" or something more specific, but I didn't want to imply that I believe these people have any less value than others. They are just the unfortunate ones at the end of the stick, at this moment. But, seriously, if the law allowed Wall Street to chop up and sell not just decommissioned material capital (e.g. all those manufacturing machines and lines boxed and sent to China), but also the surplus-ed / terminated employees, I have no doubt they would. We need finance and management to make our society work. We shouldn't need to sell our souls (or, our hearts, kidneys, etc.) for it. But that seems to be what we are coming to. Witness recent Republican statements that only "people who have led good lives" (that being demonstrated and defined by their affluence) deserve health care insurance. If this change allowed the surplussed cashiers to move on to bigger and better things, more power to them. But, Wall Street doesn't give a shit about them, except to the extent they will no longer be "cutting into" Wall Street's profits. I'm for progress, but I'm for shared progress. Investment in people and their abilities. I find it hard to welcome these signs of technical progress, when they seem to be inevitably accompanied by societal disinvestment in the people they supplant.

7 points by utkarshs12 9y ago

McDonalds has been saying for years that higher minimum wage will drive only them to technology and automation faster. I guess they finally did it.

anotheryou 9y ago

Less work is good, capitalism is the problem.

undersuit 9y ago

We should all be cheering. Human beings have far more potential than being a trained interface between another human being and a basic assembly line. I also am cheering for the companies that are trying to remove the humans from the basic assembly line[1]. Maybe one day the only time a human makes a burger is because they want to, not because it's required for them to demonstrate value to the market. [1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4602682/Robots-churn-400-burgers-hour-set-over.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4602682/Robot...

mark-r 9y ago

"self-order kiosks in McDonald's restaurants are not a labor replacement". Right, and if you believe that I've got a bridge to sell you. I'm sure a lot of these kiosks will be going into places that have a high minimum wage. Somehow they think this is going to increase same-store sales. I don't know how, unless they're counting on more traffic due to the novelty factor. Or maybe the kiosks are going to automate upselling - "do you want fries with that? They've automatically been added to your order, hit Delete if you don't want them."

pasbesoin 9y ago

If Wall Street could sell you [1] for parts, they would. ---- 1) I could have said "surplus-ed people" or something more specific, but I didn't want to imply that I believe these people have any less value than others. They are just the unfortunate ones at the end of the stick, at this moment. But, seriously, if the law allowed Wall Street to chop up and sell not just decommissioned material capital (e.g. all those manufacturing machines and lines boxed and sent to China), but also the surplus-ed / terminated employees, I have no doubt they would. We need finance and management to make our society work. We shouldn't need to sell our souls (or, our hearts, kidneys, etc.) for it. But that seems to be what we are coming to. Witness recent Republican statements that only "people who have led good lives" (that being demonstrated and defined by their affluence) deserve health care insurance. If this change allowed the surplussed cashiers to move on to bigger and better things, more power to them. But, Wall Street doesn't give a shit about them, except to the extent they will no longer be "cutting into" Wall Street's profits. I'm for progress, but I'm for shared progress. Investment in people and their abilities. I find it hard to welcome these signs of technical progress, when they seem to be inevitably accompanied by societal disinvestment in the people they supplant.