If lower operating costs doesn’t lead to lower costs to the consumer, it’s not the fault of the self checkouts. Then it’s a lack of competition which would keep margins low. It’s your government at fault for not regulating the market properly.

In my neck of the woods grocery stores all operate with razor thin margins. So I’m fairly sure they’d cut prices if self checkout allows them to. There’s so many people chosing grocery stores primarily based on price.

Why would I care about doing the cashiers work? We don’t have baggers where I live. The work is essentially the same as bagging. In many cases I explicitly want to use self check out because it’s more convenient and saves me time. If I need three items I can scan them and put them in my bag and be out of the store before I’d get half way through the checkout line.

As for theft, in principle I see the problem. In practice I’ve never heard of anyone being charged for it around here.

If we can operate shops with less labor I think that’s just good. We should instead focus on creating other more meaningful jobs. Again, a government issue IMO. We need more teachers and nurses but we don’t pay them well enough.