opening more lanes very obviously makes things better for customers but that’s not even remotely the goal. self-checkout lets them slash their labor costs and give out more executive bonuses by just paying one employee to manage the entire self-checkout section. they wouldn’t get to keep that money if they opened up more lanes and paid an employee per lane. so now every store has 20 lanes with at most three lanes open, and only if it’s really slammed.
opening more lanes very obviously makes things better for customers but that’s not even remotely the goal. self-checkout lets them slash their labor costs and give out more executive bonuses by just paying one employee to manage the entire self-checkout section. they wouldn’t get to keep that money if they opened up more lanes and paid an employee per lane. so now every store has 20 lanes with at most three lanes open, and only if it’s really slammed.