Robots answering support calls are annoying, but self-service websites are pretty good for 99% of things.
some wholesale clubs apparently counter this by randomly auditing every cart as you leave, but that seems to leave the whole thing only marginally more efficient than traditional checkout
I have lost count of how many items I forgot to pay for at Home Depot.
They scream at me when they think I'm stealing (Any human being doing that would instantly be reprimanded by a manager), they have tiny platforms where I can't even fit my groceries and heaven forbid if I do something the machine doesn't like, an attendant needs to come unfuck it for me.
The best thing about them is that I can do some work for the store for free as part of my shopping. I can't wait for the next grocery innovation of having the customers stock the shelves from the backroom before they can fill a sack with onions.
I was a cashier for a couple summers. There were a couple members of staff that were really experienced experts who could really fly through the checkout, but there were plenty of us that were just kids working over the summer...
Supermarkets have always looked to save cost, it is a price sensitive business after all. At some point you'd give a list to the clerk and they'd put your order together. I'm sure people were annoyed when they had to start doing that clerk's job.
Think bolder. As a software engineer in the Soviet Union I had to spend about three weeks each year in the collective farm fields planting, tending and harvesting potatoes and cabbages. Since some of my American friends are very fond of socialism these days - these types of “improvement” look definitely a possibility.
Something about this doesn't seem to entirely add up, given that workers in government and defense-critical industries weren't exactly rounded up a la carte to work the fields. Not when there was a dedicated class of kolhozniks that were paid next to nothing, and couldn't really leave the countryside for better jobs in the cities.
But now that you mention it, I would pay good money to see the likes of Peter Thiel spend a few weeks a year picking strawberries, or filling grocery bags, or piloting a shitbarge up the Hudson river along with the rest of us. I do keep hearing from that half of the political spectrum that hard, poorly paid work, and pulling yourself up by the bootstraps builds character...
I kinda think I should write an essay about the life of a software engineer in the Soviet Union. It is always interesting to get reactions of un-believe to simple truths, known to everybody with the same "living experience". What stops me - my English is bad and Russians know all this already. Still, let me do what I can.
So, software engineers and the food supply. I worked as a software engineer in a biological research center. I've participated in the practice described below from 1979 to 1991, 1991 being the last year of the planned economy. Each employee has a quota to be fulfilled in the collective farm fields, like 20 days a year. Each morning, weekends including, a big number of buses was coming to the city center. Our research institution was assigned one bus. We packed in it and were driven into the fields. There was a quota to be done by each until afternoon: planting, tending or harvesting depending on the season. In the afternoon like "before lunch" buses arrived to take us back to the city. You were free from work this day, but paid in full. You were also paid for the work done in the fields. Twice paid for a half of a day's work.
No one was exempt from the farm work quota, nor government workers, nor defense contractors from a county seat 20 miles away.
So the whole system was not especially cruel, but extremely ineffective, like the life in the late Soviet Union in general - do not forget these buses with their fuel, some of them bringing people from 20 miles away - for half a day's work.
( In 1990 yours truly organized and participated in an economic experiment, reducing some of the costs. Instead of giving a quota to each co-worker, we've organized a team of volunteers, spent whole days in the field and were done with the quota for the whole institution in a week or so. This was a back-breaking affair, but earned a good money. I've sent a letter to the county newspaper with a proud name Kommunist, describing the "experiment". They published it, but they also published "letters from workers" naming me "the enemy of the people". )
Some misconceptions to correct, if I may.
>in the 1940s, when people were packed into train cars to bring in the harvest
Incarceration rates in Stalin times were less than incarceration rates in present Texas or Luisiana. So not much could have been done using inmates labor only.
>dedicated class of kolhozniks that were paid next to nothing,
Kolhozniks in my time were paid 2-3 times more than a software engineer. Not that was much, but still.
>and couldn't really leave the countryside for better jobs in the cities.
This practice ended in 1965. Free movement of people was restricted in general though, meaning you have to jump through some stupid obstacles to move, but absolutely possible.
>I would pay good money to see the likes of Peter Thiel spend a few weeks a year picking strawberries
This is a strange wish. If Thiel is a good person, he will work along with you, yes. But if he is the bad guy like I guess you've implied - he will be a supervisor over you packing strawberries. Some things never change with a change of a political system.
For anyone who doubts it I highly recommend Adam Curtis's new 6 hour docu-montage "Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone"[1]
[1] https://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/ideas-in...
[1] https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/a...
And not to be overly pedantic (although we are on hn here, and when in Rome...), but leading American socialist movements are focused on democratic socialism, much like many European countries where I'm pretty sure forced agrarian labor isn't a thing.
Is there possible anything democratic without free speech?
( Speaking of which. In the Soviet Union all western media - newspapers and magazines - was put under the lock. Foreign propaganda. Sound familiar? Only trusted persons could get the key. Funny thing is all former Party media - newspapers and magazines from former years - were put under the same lock. Protocols of former Party congresses too. Dangerous, same as foreign propaganda. And now I see this:
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/youtube-demonetizes-tk-content
YouTube demonetized a video showing years of audio and video clips, tweets, and headlines produced by the Party politicians at about and after 2016 - nothing else.
So we may be not there yet but we are sure sailing in the same direction ).
It has never been easier to build a business(software). Labor is abundant, and the tech boom has created a million Medicis willing to throw money at wild things. Look at FTX fund for example.
It's how we end up with shit like grocery self-checkout machines and robots answering customer support calls. Nobody likes being yelled at by a robot who doesn't understand the situation, except the decision-makers buying the machines.
This isn't peak tech, not by a longshot. This is just Intel's competitors eating it's lunch.