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Comment by jedberg | Hacker News Reader

I must be a rube, because I've never stolen from one of those things. When it makes a mistake I call the attendant to correct it. Mainly because I support the idea of automation and want it to work well. Maybe it's just the reliability engineer in me that wants to call out the bugs and have them fixed. Or maybe it's the former security engineer in me who got paid to find the flaws in these systems and my ethics demand I don't exploit them for personal gain.

Honestly though I hope they don't go away just because everyone abuses them. I really like the self checkout machines and being in control of how long the transaction takes instead of up to the whims of which cashier I've chosen (although if the markets would just do a little research on queuing theory and make us all like up in one single line for the human cashiers, that wouldn't be a problem).

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The self-checkout at Costco is a godsend. I usually buy 2-5 items at Costco, and the self-checkout allows me to avoid standing in line behind people with overflowing shopping carts. I can pay in about 30 seconds and get out of there.

Sams Club has a self-checkout phone app. Scan as you shop, tap to pay, and show the receipt at the door.

Wow, that takes customer tracking to a whole new level.

Tracking items you bought?

Yes, and your phone and all its identifying data, and exactly when you went to each part of the store.

Doubt it's any different than membership cards.

Those don't track you around the store, or profile you for personalised advertising, or connect your purchases to online behaviour, or even necessarily identify you (I never filled in the contact details for mine, just use the number to get the discounts).

They definitely do profile you for personalised advertising. They identify you because you have to give the card when you pay, and unless you always pay with cash your name comes by.

They had that briefly at my local Costco, then killed it shortly after. Never found out why...

I find it very annoying to use the self checkout in Costco especially if you are buying bulky items. They force you to place scanned items on a scale which isn't always feasible.

Funny, my impression of Costco is that they have literally the worst self-checkouts anywhere. I've never made it through without needing assistance and it takes forever to get assistance because, as best as I can tell, no other customer is more successful at it than me and there's never more than one person working there.

Meanwhile, the staffed checkouts always seem to have another person assisting the cashier to get those overflowing carts through quickly.

Maybe the experience is better than usual at the Costco store across the street from Costco headquarters is Issaquah, Washington, where I usually go.

> Mainly because I support the idea of automation and want it to work well.

I must be missing something. Where is the automation? It's just the customer doing all the work instead of an employee.

I don't know what it looks like in the US, but here in Europe it is often faster / more convenient to use the self-checkout. The lines are shorter, it's easier to bag everything, and it's easier to keep an eye on all the prices.

Plus there are random inspections every now and then, and usually cameras on each machine. To top it off, they don't take cash, only debit cards, so it's very easy to find any wrongdoers. I wonder if the anonymity of cash is part of the 'problem' here.

U.S. resident here: every where I've been the self check out mostly supports cash. Sometimes there will a machine or two in "card only" mode, presumably due to running out of bills/coins.

Machines that take cash require 10x the maintenance and are much more expensive.

Having some without even the ability to take cash is a cost saving measure.

If it looks like it could take cash but isn't right now it is probably jammed up or broken. This happens all the time.

"Europe" covers too many countries and supermarkets to make such a generalisation, I feel. In Estonia at our local supermarket the self-checkout lanes / machines are often extremely busy, and also introduce the chance of getting stuck behind a number of people who have problems using the machine or who are just slow.

We know who are the fastest operators at the 'manual' check-out, and it's easier to watch prices as they are scanned when one doesn't also need to be doing the scanning.

I don't know which part of Europe you're referring to, but I've used self checkout machines in both Poland and the UK and pretty much all of them always accept cash. There's no issue with anonymous purchases using self checkout machines at all.

>I really like the self checkout machines and being in control of how long the transaction takes instead of up to the whims of which cashier I've chosen

But if there's a line for the self checkout machines, you're not at the whim of a cashier, you're at the whim of some customers who many not know how to operate the checkout machines well.

Very true. Luckily in every place I've ever been, they seem to follow proper queuing and have a single line for all the self checkout, so the wait usually isn't very long.

Luckily, most places have 6 or more self-checkouts, so you would have to get 6 customers. 1 customer here or there doesn't slow you down significantly because 5 others are moving.

> I must be a rube, because I've never stolen from one of those things. When it makes a mistake I call the attendant to correct it.

That you know of - there are plenty of errors that are entirely innocent.

It wasn't even self-checkout but in college I went to Walmart to buy a new microwave for my sorority and it was so big we left it in the cart with the barcode up instead of putting it on the conveyor belt. I just assumed the cashier scanned it and since we were buying so much stuff the price didn't seem off. Well when I went to submit the microwave receipt for reimbursement I realized there was no microwave on the receipt. I had "stolen" it. (Though I'm not sure you can call it stealing when you lack intent.) But if I hadn't needed to look at the receipt to get reimbursed I never would have known I needed to go back and pay for it.

I’ve had this happen with a case of noodles checking out via cashier. It had a barcode on it, which was scanned, but later realized that it was a copy of the code on the individual boxes so ended up getting 24 for the price of one. Self checkout might have prevented that one as the weight sensor would have tripped.

There are countless people in this thread (which concerns me because I generally think of HN as a pretty highly educated and moral group) who see errors like that at the register and walk away thinking they won a prize.

Yeah. I've noticed errors on my receipt after coming back home and I would always go back to the store to pay for the items that slipped through.

The best interaction I had with one of these machines went like this.

It said 'Press button to start'. I did. It stated 'now giving back change' and proceeded to dispense 17,xx€. I was then able to scan my items (2 jars of jam) and pay for them (~4€) (and got my change back too). Fantastic interaction, really.

I gave the wrong change back to the cashier in the other lane though. I'm not sure how often that happens, I could have taken the money and just left, easy.

I'm a sucker, too. I tell the DMV how much I actually paid for the car. I had to go out of my way to ensure Garmin understood they sent me a second $600 watch, and be extra clear that when I returned it, they needed to make sure they didn't send me another in the RMA process.

I could say I sleep better at night. But I don't know. I'd get over selling the extra watch on eBay. I'm sure I've understated vehicle value in the past to save a few bucks on taxes. I apparently regret it so little that I can't even remember for sure. I've DEFINITELY bought things from out of state to avoid tax. shrug

None of us are perfect or perfectly moral, but I think starting out by not considering yourself a sucker for doing the logically correct thing (without bringing morals into it) is a good start.

Not a rube, just honest. I'm really surprised and disappointed this is common.

I think there is a growning distinction between being honest in face to face dealings, and being honest with a machine built by people for the expressed sole purpose of profit.

I hope society will one day reach a level of honesty and trust where we can just leave stores unlocked and unattended at night.

It already has, in Singapore. There are Starbucks which close at night simply by drawing a plastic chain across the storefront and emptying the cash registers. I think they still lock the Frappuccino fridge, but no one knows for sure because we don't go test it.

The point would be that people could still come in and buy stuff with self checkout. It doesn't sound like this is what that Starbucks intends you to do.

It think it will go that way but not because level of honesty increase but because the survielance tech becoming so advance that it can quicky identify you if you stole something

I think that may have happened to me accidentally once: a couple years ago I was sick and unable to sleep, so I went to a grocery store at about 1 AM to buy decongestants so I could maybe get some sleep. Most of the lights were off inside and I didn't see another person there, it was sort of creepy actually, but I figured, meh, 1 AM. I bought my pills with the self checkout and left.

About a week later I was at the same store and saw a sign on the door that said they close at 11...

Don't think that's possible. They have to open and close registers for accounting etc.

Maybe someone was in the store and just had not yet closed down the checkouts.

On the other hand someone who would leave the door unlocked might also be someone who wouldn't close out the registers.

Or maybe there was someone there and I didn't notice. I was sick; I was pretty out of it.

There are a number of reasons to reopen a machine after end of day close including testing hardware. Also someone could have forgotten to close it out.

For a machine where all the cash is locked in or more likely emptied their is not much risk in that.

Gas stations are already this way. I've pumped gas at unattended or closed stations. The credit card machine works the same either way.

It’s pretty hard to steal gas from a gas station though. They take the money first and you can’t really take extra gas since it’s all measured.

Way back when, Safeway’s 10c off per gallon rewards would just continue stacking up. I saved up until my discount was more than the price of gas, and got myself a free tank.

I’ve always wondered how much it would have let me pump. The limits I’ve seen on pumping have always been on the dollar amount, presumably because they verify they can charge that amount before you start pumping.

That's not how it works in a lot of places. I almost always need to fill it up then go inside to pay.

I’ve seen a few luxury condo buildings in Canada with a 24/7 convenience store and self-checkout, though with an entrance that only tenants can access (and I guess surveillance).

So this is starting to happen already, but proliferation really depends on expanding the social contracts that can enable this. The above convenience store wouldn’t last in an apartment building where the tenants weren’t exceedingly well-off as the world is now.

It seems like China already has this

https://youtu.be/mc8htuhSyWE

https://youtu.be/0QKrHi-G9WQ

> make us all like up in one single line for the human cashiers

I have encountered these at Decathlon and Carrefour (in Europe). It feels fairer, but standing in longer line feels worse, even when that doesn’t make any sense.

The trader Joe’s on 4th and market in SF does this, seems to work pretty well! They have too much traffic to handle though—the line snaked through 3 aisles the last time I went on a weekday after work.

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