"Rather than speed things up, they make us miserable" - well, they weren't introduced to speed things up, they were introduced to allow the supermarket to save

"Rather than speed things up, they make us miserable" - well, they weren't introduced to speed things up, they were introduced to allow the supermarket to save personnel and therefore money. I usually avoid them, because most of the time I either have some alcoholic beverage or some loose items (vegetables etc.) which would require waiting for assistance, and at that point the staffed checkout is faster.