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Comment by rwbt | Hacker News Reader

If you don't like going to the grocery store pay someone to go get them for you. Thousands of people remotely "following" you around and scanning things for you, just so that you can avoid using self checkout sounds ridiculous and excessive.

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Is it more ridiculous than having someone standing at a cash register in the store doing the same task, while also having to bag for you and pretend to smile?

I don't see where you're getting the impression that 1,000 workers are monitoring every single individual that walks into the store. The figure used was the total amount for the whole program (many locations), only one person was reviewing each case, and they were only even reviewing 70% of cases. Your argument is no different than saying that every time you go to McDonald's, you're entitled for expecting the hundreds of thousands of McDonald's employees globally to band together to make you your burger.

So does having somebody sitting next to the checkout machine watching me (directly or through security camera) while I finish my groceries ? I fail to see the major difference with somebody working physically in the shop that makes it ridiculous and excessive. One may even argue that remotely it could opens the job to more people (one could do that from home in their wheelchair while their baby is taking a nap )

There is a difference. In a typical grocery store, people only have to tally what you bought only once at the end during checkout. Where as in this "walk out" system someone has to follow you around "virtually" and keep track of everything you do in the store.

I've adressed that point with the security camera (or adequatly positionned mirror in old-fashion store)

And the workers just sit idle when there is no customer and you have to physically go there. So I dont see the clear advantage, i see it more as a "choose your poison"

> keep track of everything you do

It wasn't all manual.

An important question to ask is how many minutes of camera-viewing there were per customer. Let's not assume too hard before we judge the level of wastefulness.

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