Oh, maybe.. That said, we do have self scanning at supermarkets here. That works great for some people, but not so well for others.
And, some places that sell fast food let us use machines to place the orders. (But there's still a cashier for people who want to pay in cash - or you can even order at the cashier, but that's slower.) And, food there is still prepared "by hand" (though using other kinds of machines). Then again, places that pushed machine mediated transactions too hard (refusing cash orders) have gone out of business, despite having great food. And, there's a variety of stuff that we buy off the internet, including some kinds of food. But, mostly, not fresh food (and what little fresh food I've encountered via the internet tends to be priced extremely high). But, also, as these systems get rolled out, their shortcomings and failure modes start to become apparent. And, one issue which strikes me is that a lot of the designs reflect USA concepts which seem to fall over and break when responsibility for building and/or managing them is moved into countries with conflicting traditions. (But they seem to work fairly well in Nordic countries, maybe since a lot of the relevant USA traditions were originally Nordic...) Technical systems require bug reporting feedback, and when people don't know how to provide relevant information, or feel that problem reports are unacceptable, failures become greatly amplified. (There's lots of other issues, also, of course.) Thanks, -- Raul On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 1:40 PM Björn Helgason <[email protected]> wrote: > I guess the situation is different in various places. > > Around here cashiers are disappearing. > > Self scanning at supermarkets are replacing people. > > Ordering and paying at fast food done in machines. > > People are buying all kinds of stuff over the internet and that includes > food > On 9 Oct 2019 17:09, "Raul Miller" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 12:57 PM Björn Helgason <[email protected]> wrote: > > > We do not need many outlets with cashiers anymore. > > > > And, yet, the cashiers at local franchises I visit frequently are so > > often having to work around failures in their register system... > > > > (These are the sort who tend to deal in fresh food - products where > > I'm not seeing serious competition from online systems.) > > > > So... is this "We do not need" statement a copy of some lame excuse > > for shoddy register systems? Or are shoddy register systems instead a > > consequence of people investing based on that idea? Or, are both > > happening and this is a self-reinforcing idea? > > > > My training suggests that stuff like this doesn't happen unless > > someone sets out to make it happen. But that doesn't mean I understand > > the goals of the people who would be responsible... > > > > Mind you - the registers *usually* work. So we can presumably mostly > > rely on them. But they also exhibit characteristics which suggest that > > there's people responsible for building them out who -- at best -- are > > sloppy and/or clueless. > > > > Anyways.. I should probably appreciate the optimism, but I am > > disturbed that we do not seem to be able to grapple with the > > difficulties. > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > Raul > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
