If I’m scanning groceries for somebody else then sure but if it’s just my own stuff, it’s not work. Take pumping gas, some locations do it for you but if I’m pumping it myself, I’m not doing work for fre.
You’re performing labor vital to the store’s goal of selling you shit. Either someone else does that labor and gets paid for it, or you’re doing that labor for free. Doing it “for yourself” doesn’t make it not-labor and pushing the labor costs onto you are literally the entire point of these things from the business’s viewpoint. You’re choosing not to be bothered by it.
Just curious, how do you feel about ATMs for banking instead of the tellar? Although I agree labor is labor, freeing up a task for a cashier/grocery worker so they can focus on something else is a win. If I see a grocery cart far from the return stack, I’ll move it. That’s somebody’s job, but I don’t see it as free labor.
ATM: push button, receive money
Self checkout: you scan, look up, and physically manipulate and bag dozens of items
You: these are equivalent
That’s somebody’s job, but I don’t see it as free labor.
That’s how you choose to see it, but you also did work for the bourgeoisie for free
Look at it this way: nobody has ever had their workload lightened by it. Companies have just cut positions and hours instead.
With the cart example, yeah, cool, that’s good. I could fold every messed up shirt I ever see in a store and that would certainly make some workers day easier, but I’d also be doing work for free
To be clear since people seem to regularly confuse arguments for endorsement, I use self checkout, but it is what it is. I’m doing something someone was paid to do, for free. That’s the facts. And if you think about it, when i do so, I do especially valuable free labor because I used to work retail and can easily deal with it. Even if it’s slight it’s still a form of exploition and it’s galling to think of my past exploitation providing value to this current form. I was a good little retail worker long enough that I can add to walmart’s throughput by not clogging up a checkout, yay
