this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2025
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[–] mriswith@lemmy.world 27 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (7 children)

Fun fact: This is why a huge amount of people don't use self-checkout despite it potentially saving a lot of time. They are afraid the person behind them is going to judge them like this while trying it for the first time.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 10 points 5 hours ago

Super fun fact, the people who aren't idiots at the self checkout, are not notable and therefore are not noted. It's the morons who stand out.

Just like with driving. The guy in front is always too slow, and the guy behind is always going too fast. Because you don't notice when the inverse is true.

[–] camelbeard@lemmy.world 11 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

I avoid self checkout for different reasons.

  1. I'm not getting a discount while I have to do more work and the supermarket less.

  2. I take extra responsibility, if I forget to scan one item I could get in actual trouble during a random check.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

Further:

  • Most self-checkouts are too small and unwieldy to hold two shoppings bags when you're packaging a week worth of purchases.
  • You still need an employee to come over and certify that you're over 18 if you buy alcoholic drinks, and there's usually just one for many tills who is usually busy with somebody else.
  • I like to pack my weekly shopping in specific ways (cold items together, fragile stuff on top, weight balanced) and whilst in a normal checkout I can do packaging in parallel with somebody else doing the checkout plus already place things roughly ordered on the threading band to the cashier, in the self-checkout it's just me and things are in whatever order it went into the trolley so it takes at least twice as long.
  • They often have quirks, such as for example the one I used more recently would not let me start unless I put a bag in the output compartment first, so I needed to have or buy a bag even though I was buying just 1 item (mind you this might have just been trying to force people to buy a bag, since many forget to bring one - in other words, structuring the software to force people to spend money which is a form of enshittification).
  • They're non standard and each store has a different model, with different physical structure and different software with a different UI with buttons in different places and often different quirks, so anything you learn beyond the basics about how to use one effectively is often non-translatable to self-checkouts in different stores.
  • They often don't take cash. Cash is good, it means your buying habits are not in some database somewhere and used for things like having an AI estimate how much an airline company can wring out of you for a ticket for a flight or a Health Insurer assessing your risk profile and upping your price, it works always even during outages (of power, of your bank, of payment processors) and studies have shown people save money if they pay in cash because they tend to spend less (something about the physicality of parting ways with your notes and coins makes people be more wary of paying more than if it's just a number on a screen).
[–] _core@sh.itjust.works 1 points 39 minutes ago* (last edited 38 minutes ago)

Even if you're not using a card, or discount/member program, you're still being tracked. Your face, what you purchased, how much of each item, what you paid with, etc are all being tracked.

If you have social media or associate with anyone with social media your face is online and can be matched to your name. If you have a drivers license your face can be matched to your name.

You are 100% deluding yourself if you think you're not being tracked b/c you used cash.

whilst in a normal checkout I can do packaging in parallel with somebody else doing the checkout

The store I go to most often has those rotating plastic bag holders at the end of the belts which makes it effectively impossible to put stuff into your own bags. And they have the fucking gall to put up signs asking you to bring your own bags! I do self-checkout there no matter how much shit I have in the cart.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 hours ago

My number one reason for avoiding self checkout is that I want people to have jobs.

If fewer and fewer people use the manned cashier lines, there will be fewer manned cashier lines.

If it's busy, and I'm just grabbing a few things, sure, I'll divert to the self checkout, but if there's nobody in line, or just a few people in line, I'll avoid self checkout. I'm not going to be the reason someone lost shifts.

[–] BowtiesAreCool@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)
  1. It’s often very time saving to go through checkout. It is really that much hassle to scan your own items? If you’re using a card you typically handle that yourself anyway and many places already have you bag your own goods.
  2. you’re not going to get in any real trouble if you forget one item. If they happen to check and you did, simply go pay for it, or say “oops, missed that, here take it back I’ll get it next time” if it’s not needed.
[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

number 2 works less well if you are off white

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 hours ago

🎶 the land of the freeeeeeeee 🎶

🙄

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

For me it's mostly privacy concerns. Now the fucking shop and all their 111 marketing partners know my email and where I live.

[–] vaionko@sopuli.xyz 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Why? At least here the self checkout gets exactly the same info from me as the regular one

[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

You mean you can pay with cash? The one I've seen is with making an account with email and online payment, or worse, an app that can extract all sorts of info.

[–] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 2 points 2 hours ago

Havent seen one where you can pay with cash, but I have never seen one where you need to make an account to use.

[–] vaionko@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)
[–] AlteredEgo@lemmy.ml 1 points 44 minutes ago

Well then they know your name at the very least and can use and sell your shopping data.

[–] Psythik@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Well then don't be a fucking moron. Sorry for being a dick towards those kind of people, but the voice prompts walk you through the entire process. All you gotta do is listen to them. I didn't have any issues when I first tried one 20 years ago. They're self-explanatory.

I mean at this point they've been around long enough that everyone should know how to use them by now, unless you recently moved from a country that doesn't have them. But again, the machines walk you through the process every time.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 hours ago

Mate, not the previous poster but I'm a senior software engineer with an EE degree and broad enough experience that I could design and implement myself a self-checkout from the ground up, both hardware and software, including UI and backend integration, and I still tend to avoid self-checkouts for those reasons and a lot more (many which I listed in another post here).

There are two very opposite ends of the curve for people who don't like self-checkouts: those who can't deal with the tech (who you deem "fucking morons") and those who have evaluated self-checkouts as a process and found it to overall be inferior to the existing process for their own usual use conditions or who look at it in a broader context and find it to have indirect social damage.

That you can only spot the "being a moron" as a reason to avoid self-checkouts is a pretty good indicator of your own intellectual limitations.

[–] ijedi1234@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 hours ago

Fortunately, I'm the sort who goes, "Who the FUCK are you looking at?", when I catch people staring.

[–] Jimmycakes@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

I don't need them to be speedy Gonzalez but to just not be actually illiterate buffoons

Screen: scan items to begin

Them: staring at the machine, slack jawed until the employee comes over

[–] Sabata11792@ani.social 0 points 13 hours ago

I'm also really lazy and don't want to do it.