Social experience at a grocery store feels contrived and not everyone may want it. Maybe you enjoy talking to your cashier but not everyone does, so why should everyone be forced to just because some do? It makes much more sense to keep groceries for grocery shopping, and social places such as bars for socializing.

"Social experience at <x> feels contrived and not everyone may want it."

This pretty much sums up _everything_. So, why do we even try to have societies?

Edit: You use an example of going to a bar. You realize "... not everyone may want ..." to socialize at a bar? Some just go to drink.

I would hypothesize that wanting shopping to be focused on convenience over the social aspect is a much more common opinion (see: online shopping) than wanting to go to a loud, crowdy, noisy environment where you can pay a premium to drink alcohol and not be social.

I don't think that is a fair comparison at all. Somethings are inherently social, like going to a bar, where as others are much more of a grey area. I would argue that many of these have historically been social experiences out of necessity (no automated machines, no online shopping, etc.), not out of the need for social interaction.

My stepfather owned a bar for some decades. It's not quite as social as you would imagine. A great many people go there to drown "around" people, but not necessarily to drown "socially".

Doesn't that even more show the value of just being around other people? It's definitely a lot cheaper to drink your own booze at home.

And that's what people do when e.g. they care more about economic considerations than social stigma of drinking alone.

This is an excellent point. For thousands of years, the default was every interaction was social. The idea that you should be able to walk into a standardized store and converse with a clerk like they were an automated sales droid is only a fairly recent phenomenon. These faceless, purely functional transactions - they are exception, not the norm.

The point of a bar is to socialize, or at least have company. Otherwise why not buy a bottle and stay home?

Some people don't want to socialize, but just be "around" people. There seems to be a difference.

May be the stigma of drinking alone, where one is sometimes considered a drunk if one drinks alone.

There are these other people at grocery stores besides the employees, I believe they are called "patrons" to whom you may also converse with...

This is a typical sales-y way of trying to fake an interaction people actually seek. People paid to "talk" with you are not the same as honest, casual conversation with hard-working clerks.

Paid to talk to you? What kind of dystopian grocery store do you go to?

That's how I understand your comment.

Shops in the place I live in are fine, but I've heard about "greeters" in America, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if there also were paid people to talk to...

haha no I've never encountered such folks. I was being sarcastic when I put "patrons" in quotes, because the GP seemed to imply the only people to socialize with at a grocery were the cashiers.

Couldn't we just have more "greeters" and fewer cashiers?

welcome to costco, i love you