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Self-checkout at the grocery store is a major vector for shoplifting. That's why the cameras are there. If I was running such a store, I wouldn't want to spend
by WalterBright 2mo ago
Self-checkout at the grocery store is a major vector for shoplifting. That's why the cameras are there.
If I was running such a store, I wouldn't want to spend the money on those cameras. But alas, the money is well spent in stopping thieves.
I was talking to one of the staff in a grocery store a while ago. He said the corporate auditors came in one day and decided to review the security cams. The result was half the staff was fired for theft.
It's just too bad that we live in a low trust society.
- Aeolun 2mo agoSo maybe the problem is that you shouldn’t have self checkout if you cannot do it without immediately being stolen from?
- WalterBright 2mo agoThe self-checkout is there because it is cheaper than a cashier.
- ridgeguy 2mo agoThis is why I use the human-run checkout lines. I want to keep the humans employed.
- WalterBright 2mo agoOur high standard of living is due to machines doing the work rather than humans.
- bluefirebrand 2mo agoPart of our high standard of living relies on living in a high trust society, which self checkouts seem to erode.
- whilenot-dev 2mo agoAll fine and dandy, but in the case of self-checkouts the cashier work is done by myself, and I'm not a machine.
- OJFord 2mo agoI scan and bag while I shop, so self-checkout is just paying. It's barely a shift of work from cashier to me, because I have to pick things up and place them in my bag/basket/trolley anyway, scanning them as I do is barely an increase in work.
- sandblast 2mo agoYou describe mobile handheld scanners that are a form of self-checkout in some stores, but not the norm. Most of the commenters here probably associate self-checkout with a station with touchscreen, scanner and bagging area.
- tremon 2mo agoI only use the mobile handheld scanner version. If someone has to go through all my items and scan them at the terminal, it's not going to be me; store clerks can do that much faster than I can.
- OJFord 2mo ago> You describe mobile handheld scanners Aka 'my phone', but yes. It's the same self-checkout machine (just only need to pay if you already scanned). Widespread in the UK at least.
- america_sux 2mo agoNot all machines lead to increase in the standard of living, and many things that would improve the standard of living are not done. At some point the argument you have made becomes irrelevant and cliched.
- WalterBright 2mo ago> Not all machines lead to increase in the standard of living I did not say "all" machines. If I had meant "all" I would have written "all". That's what the word "all" is for. Consider: "people like ice cream" Riposte: "not everybody likes ice cream" I see this kind of response over and over here. It's cliched and irrelevant.
- psd1 2mo agoYou both miss the crux of the argument, i think. It would be more precise to say that physical machines raise the standard of living that we measure, but abstract machines reduce that which we don't measure. (Viz, finance.) Compared to a generation ago, we can stuff more crap in our pockets and wardrobes, but housing is precarious and public institutions are weaker. Good luck supporting a family on a bottom-quartile wage. GDP, measures of inflation: Goodhart's law.
- america_sux 2mo agoIt was implied. Why else would you use that argument in responding to ridgeguy's comment about using human-run checkout lines? What machines would you point to as making the world worse? In any case, since it bothers you so, you explained the situation yourself: "The self-checkout is there because it is cheaper than a cashier." It's an error to equate "cheaper" to "increase in standard of living" because the people benefiting from the reduction in cost are usually not the entirety of the community, and it's unfortunate that someone of your caliber accepts such lazy thinking. Over the last twenty years, automation has increased but the standard of living has gotten worse.
- WalterBright 2mo ago> It was implied. No, it was not. When you inserted "all" you knew it was not implied.
- nehal3m 2mo agoHumans are still doing the work, except now it’s you instead of someone earning a wage. You do it for free!
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- sebastiennight 2mo agoIt is not a machine, in this case. It's you, the customer, doing the work of the cashier. Driving a car yourself is not "the machine doing the work of a bus driver".
- red_admiral 2mo agoEven after taking a higher percentage of shoplifting into account.
- snypher 2mo agoI highly doubt that story as camera footage is audited remotely (the store staff know nothing about it), and half the staff is way too high (to not be detected on the ground).
- WalterBright 2mo agoI wouldn't be surprised at half. If a worker sees others at the store stealing without consequence, they may be tempted to steal as well. BTW, the cash register was invented because of rampant theft by the cashiers.
- artisinal 2mo agoThe savings that a store has from self checkouts far outweigh the shoplifting it attracts. I don’t see what the cameras add. Do stores review camera footage at the end of the day and then hunt down the offenders?
- cannonpr 2mo agoPrimarily used to catch and ban from the shop heavy repeat offenders, some people shop lift on order and resell items versus use them for them selves, or have addiction problems with alcoholism etc.
- WalterBright 2mo agoThere's usually one person in charge of an array of self-checkouts, and the self-checkouts flag suspicious activity. > I don’t see what the cameras add. Again, stores would not spend money on self-checkouts and cameras if they didn't pay off.
- artisinal 2mo agoSo all the customer has to do is shoplift the item before the self checkout.
- WalterBright 2mo agoYes, I've seen the videos on X of plenty of people doing just that. Then people complain that the stores close down. In the Seattle area, the cities are trying to stop grocery stores from shutting down.
- al_borland 2mo agoThey can catch legitimate mistakes. I had this happen about a week ago. I scanned something, thought I heard the beep, then put it in the bag. It stopped me and replayed the video. I looked at the item list and sure enough, it didn't scan. It was an honest mistake, and the camera caught it. I rescanned it after the attendant cleared the error. I've also had it flag when it thinks there is more stuff in my cart when going to pay. This happened to me when I had an umbrella in my cart. The attendant had to come over and clear it. When I worked at a grocery store 20+ years ago, checking that there was nothing on the bottom of the cart was a big thing for cashiers; the cameras seem to automate this check at self-checkout. I've also had if false flag when I pass my hand over in a way that looks questionable, where the attendant has to come review the video and clear it. All this stuff happens in real-time during the checkout process. For people who want to steal, they seem to find ways around it. I was at the store a couple months ago (the same one that has all the tech mentioned above) and the beep next to me sounded ever so slightly off. I looked over, the guy was on the payment screen, which I'm assuming disables a lot of the camera checks, and was passing all his items over the scanner and making the beep noise with his mouth. The tone wasn't perfect, but it was really close.
- windowliker 2mo agoBut the cameras on the UK self-checkouts only point at your face. How does that stop anything other than casual opportunistic theft of low value items by inculcating some kind of pre-crime guilt feeling? Professional shoplifters (if that isn't an oxymoron) have much more subtle means to carry out their trade, or not as the case may be, depending on their target, usually carried out long before they reach any kind of till.
- WalterBright 2mo agoThe cameras here are in the ceiling, and they watch to see if you are scanning the merchandise before putting it in the bag. I presume they are AI-trained to catch this. I know this because I was idly thinking about something else and put an item in my bag without scanning it.
- windowliker 2mo ago>I was idly thinking about something else and put an item in my bag without scanning it. A likely excuse!!
- WalterBright 2mo agoFortunately, I am a regular customer and they know me.
- vnnDiag 2mo agoRetail groups had to retract claims of organized shoplifting: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shoplifting-retail-crime-theft-retraction.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/organized-shopli... They just dirty the airwaves with whatever lies they want to justify spying. Drag them to court where they have to be honest and well, their BS is revealed. The low trust side is entirely on the rich owners class side of the divide. Academics and credentialed class take some blame here too; of course no one is going to be capable of a task or job without their coursework. Nevermind expertise in $thing been around since before their class Capitalism has turned everyone into a fucking Udemy sales pitch. Only 30% of people have seen a mental health professional since 2020. Everyone else does what we used to do; rather than pay a modern day preacher for faith healing[1] we have friends. [1] lots of people truly need intervention but America uses therapy to cope with basic shit https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-became-addicted-therapy/677532/ https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/02/how-we-...
- ifwinterco 2mo agoMaybe not organised like the mafia but you 100% get crackheads shoplifting in an organised fashion to get money for drugs in London, and self checkouts obviously make this easier. Not unheard of to get crackheads trying to sell you stolen supermarket meat out of a bag if you hang around in some of the less salubrious pubs
- jstanley 2mo agoDo you even have crackheads in London? I was familiar with "crackhead" only as an American concept.
- ifwinterco 2mo agoYes actual crack is pretty popular among that demographic, the UK has a very good relatively low cost supply of cocaine. The classic combo is Afghan buj + crack but synthetic opioids are starting to make an appearance now the CIA isn’t producing heroin anymore. It’s nowhere near as bad as the west coast of the US obviously, that’s a whole other level. I would normally use a different word than crackhead but I thought I’d use the internationally recognised term
- hgomersall 2mo agoI know this is the standard response, but it doesn't make sense. If you're going to steal something, why would you expose it at the checkout? Wouldn't you just not bring it out at that point? It's the same for the really annoying scales that some supermarkets insist on that weigh every item you as you pack it, which makes packing really hard. The whole thing feels like post hoc justification for bad design (or bad understanding of the usage).
- exe34 2mo agoI think the idea is that you'll go to the check out with several items and only present some of them and then skip the one that is expensive. If you just walk out of the store several times with items you haven't paid for, they might catch and ban you immediately.
- nly 2mo agoThese businesses chose lower staffing costs knowing full well the price would be higher theft.
- codedokode 2mo agoNot only there are cameras, but the machines typically accept only cards and not cash (except for one supermarket chain in my city) so I never use self-checkout.