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That's the direction every company is headed everywhere. It's far more prominent in locales with very high labor costs, but once those technologies are easily s

That's the direction every company is headed everywhere. It's far more prominent in locales with very high labor costs, but once those technologies are easily scalable they will roll out everywhere, even places with cheap labor.

lovich 1y ago
No, you don’t understand. If the government hadn’t been involved, private organizations would have kept employees around even when cheaper alternatives exist. This is sarcastic of course. Ideally if our economy distributed rewards across all of society everyone would be for changes like this if they did actually speed up automation
- laughing_man 1y ago
  The government does have an effect, though. If a company is avoiding automation because automating things is expensive, a big jump in labor costs may speed the process along. If you push a bunch of companies to automate, automation becomes cheaper for everyone.
  - carlosjobim 1y ago
    It will force all businesses to either become more effective or close down. Depending on how you look at it, it's a good or a bad thing.
    - laughing_man 1y ago
      From what I can see, it's pretty much a bad thing all around. The business would have had more money if it had hired someone, and there would have been a job available to someone who needs it. The other thing that will probably happen is a reduction in service. Cashiers get replaced by ordering kiosks, for instance.
      - carlosjobim 1y ago
        There are times and places when service is greatly reduced because the work force is tied up in more profitable employment. Such as working in factories instead of doing butler type jobs. One way of forcing this is making the minimum wage high enough that any venture has to make sure their workers have a high output. And some types of businesses become inviable as a consequence. Investment which would have gone to such ventures will instead go to other ventures, and workers become available for better jobs. There's also significant down sides to this.
        laughing_man 1y ago
        Yes, the significant downside is we have a bunch of people with no job. It's not economically efficient to have half the work force being paid more than their labor is worth and the other half on government assistance.
        carlosjobim 1y ago
        Exactly, that's the biggest down side. But you're wrong that anybody would be paid more than their labour is worth. Companies never pay any worker more than they are worth, unless it's a mistress, a nephew or an old buddy, etc. Increasing wages (or increasing taxes on labour) are methods of forcing and increasing the minimum level of productivity for all jobs. If you have a business and suddenly have to pay your employees 20% more, then you have to make sure they are 20% more productive as well. If you are able do that with training them and/or investing in more effective processes and practices, then everybody wins. Or you have to this in combination with raising prices, which is not a bad thing if that means higher worker compensation. Now let's say your business is not able to train, invest, and price increase enough to cover for a 20% increase in wages. Perhaps your customers simply do not accept a higher price? Perhaps the kind of business you are in has a very low return margin and thus cannot motivate investments in better tools for your workers? Then that kind of business generally goes under - or more realistically there won't be new businesses of that kind opening. For the economy as a whole this is good, that people are not wasting their time with inefficient ventures which customers are not willing to pay for. Even considering some unemployment, this can be beneficial. Instead of two workers producing for example 100 units per day, you might have one worker producing 1000 units per day and the other being unemployed. But for all of this to work as intended, it is absolutely necessary to have enough opportunity for workers to switch into different jobs. And why shouldn't we be able to have that?
- michaelt 1y ago
  In quite a few industries, companies are very reluctant to risk $$$$$ on developing new automation (which might not even work, and even if it does work might not be cheaper) Why spend $$$$$$ developing a drone delivery system that might face insurmountable technical hurdles like range, capacity and safety if you can just pay undocumented migrants on bicycles $2 per delivery?
morkalork 1y ago
There used to be many grocery and liquor stores that you handed in a list of what you wanted at the counter and the staff collected it for you from behind the counter. With the way stores are locking up items it seems like we're steadily returning to that era.
- lupusreal 1y ago
  All grocery stores were once like that, before Piggly Wiggly invented the "self service" model of grocery store in 1916. It could turn out that the self service model is ultimately a historical oddity of the 20th century.
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    Frankly an app driven pick-up only grocery store would probably be pretty popular nowadays.
  - jhbadger 1y ago
    It's funny how old things become new. From the late 19th century (and in declining amounts all the way up until the 1980s), people in the US routinely would order things from the Sears Roebuck catalog and have them delivered. Local merchants used to complain about how this was taking their business. Of course ironically, Sears got out of catalog sales in the 1990s, shortly before e-commerce took off.
- bombcar 1y ago
  We literally have that now - what do you think Walmart Pickup or other similar things are? We’re a few years from the Walmarts in the really bad parts of town turning to pickup and delivery only.

lovich 1y ago

No, you don’t understand. If the government hadn’t been involved, private organizations would have kept employees around even when cheaper alternatives exist. This is sarcastic of course. Ideally if our economy distributed rewards across all of society everyone would be for changes like this if they did actually speed up automation

laughing_man 1y ago
The government does have an effect, though. If a company is avoiding automation because automating things is expensive, a big jump in labor costs may speed the process along. If you push a bunch of companies to automate, automation becomes cheaper for everyone.
- carlosjobim 1y ago
  It will force all businesses to either become more effective or close down. Depending on how you look at it, it's a good or a bad thing.
  - laughing_man 1y ago
    From what I can see, it's pretty much a bad thing all around. The business would have had more money if it had hired someone, and there would have been a job available to someone who needs it. The other thing that will probably happen is a reduction in service. Cashiers get replaced by ordering kiosks, for instance.
    - carlosjobim 1y ago
      There are times and places when service is greatly reduced because the work force is tied up in more profitable employment. Such as working in factories instead of doing butler type jobs. One way of forcing this is making the minimum wage high enough that any venture has to make sure their workers have a high output. And some types of businesses become inviable as a consequence. Investment which would have gone to such ventures will instead go to other ventures, and workers become available for better jobs. There's also significant down sides to this.
      - laughing_man 1y ago
        Yes, the significant downside is we have a bunch of people with no job. It's not economically efficient to have half the work force being paid more than their labor is worth and the other half on government assistance.
        carlosjobim 1y ago
        Exactly, that's the biggest down side. But you're wrong that anybody would be paid more than their labour is worth. Companies never pay any worker more than they are worth, unless it's a mistress, a nephew or an old buddy, etc. Increasing wages (or increasing taxes on labour) are methods of forcing and increasing the minimum level of productivity for all jobs. If you have a business and suddenly have to pay your employees 20% more, then you have to make sure they are 20% more productive as well. If you are able do that with training them and/or investing in more effective processes and practices, then everybody wins. Or you have to this in combination with raising prices, which is not a bad thing if that means higher worker compensation. Now let's say your business is not able to train, invest, and price increase enough to cover for a 20% increase in wages. Perhaps your customers simply do not accept a higher price? Perhaps the kind of business you are in has a very low return margin and thus cannot motivate investments in better tools for your workers? Then that kind of business generally goes under - or more realistically there won't be new businesses of that kind opening. For the economy as a whole this is good, that people are not wasting their time with inefficient ventures which customers are not willing to pay for. Even considering some unemployment, this can be beneficial. Instead of two workers producing for example 100 units per day, you might have one worker producing 1000 units per day and the other being unemployed. But for all of this to work as intended, it is absolutely necessary to have enough opportunity for workers to switch into different jobs. And why shouldn't we be able to have that?
michaelt 1y ago
In quite a few industries, companies are very reluctant to risk $$$$$ on developing new automation (which might not even work, and even if it does work might not be cheaper) Why spend $$$$$$ developing a drone delivery system that might face insurmountable technical hurdles like range, capacity and safety if you can just pay undocumented migrants on bicycles $2 per delivery?

morkalork 1y ago

There used to be many grocery and liquor stores that you handed in a list of what you wanted at the counter and the staff collected it for you from behind the counter. With the way stores are locking up items it seems like we're steadily returning to that era.

lupusreal 1y ago
All grocery stores were once like that, before Piggly Wiggly invented the "self service" model of grocery store in 1916. It could turn out that the self service model is ultimately a historical oddity of the 20th century.
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  Frankly an app driven pick-up only grocery store would probably be pretty popular nowadays.
- jhbadger 1y ago
  It's funny how old things become new. From the late 19th century (and in declining amounts all the way up until the 1980s), people in the US routinely would order things from the Sears Roebuck catalog and have them delivered. Local merchants used to complain about how this was taking their business. Of course ironically, Sears got out of catalog sales in the 1990s, shortly before e-commerce took off.
bombcar 1y ago
We literally have that now - what do you think Walmart Pickup or other similar things are? We’re a few years from the Walmarts in the really bad parts of town turning to pickup and delivery only.