These self-serve kiosks have existed forever and they're not really a recent invention. Yet somehow they are still not very ubiquitous. More efficient? Probably

These self-serve kiosks have existed forever and they're not really a recent invention. Yet somehow they are still not very ubiquitous. More efficient? Probably. But when has a business made a fast decision just because something was more efficient? But most likely it is inevitable that fast food will go this route. (Probably not until McDonalds decides to deploy it all across the US), but your statement that at least one "front-end" person is out of a job is not true at all. No one behind the counter is trained only to be a cashier. Pretty much the first thing you do when you work these kinds of jobs is learn how to handle the register because that's the most important thing at a restaurant (getting money from a customer). So how many people is this kiosk actually replacing? Who is to say that having these self-serve kiosks won't just free them up to do something else like cooking food? If freeing them up allows them to serve more customers to make more money then why would the store fire them? There are a lot of things to consider but it seems short sighted to just assume that nixing this task will somehow eliminate an entire spot in the employee roster. Anyways. I just realized how big of a tangent this is, since essentially your example of this was to underlie the fact that people working minimum wage should be appreciative because it can all be automated away, which I disagree with. The whole "ladder" and chopping off the bottom "rungs" is a bit bullshit though since it implies that all the burdens will land upon those same workers.