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They eliminated cashiers and keep the profits. NY Democrats are fighting back. (thelemmy.club)
submitted 3 weeks ago by to c/workreform@lemmy.world
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[–] 21 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

There may be an unintended consequence of this. Corpos love to optimize to minimize any hits to their bottom line.

I could see any of these possibilities as a reaction:

  • Self checkouts become overwhelmed so stores remove remaining paid cashiers to add more self checkout lanes.
  • Self checkouts are reduced or removed to avoid giving any discounts.
  • I believe I read that grocery margins are thin at the store and are much higher for manufacturers. I could see stores increasing prices across the board to recoup costs.

Hard to know for sure, the people seem to just rarely get a W these days that isn’t immediately wiped out by something else.

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  • [–] 10 points 3 weeks ago

    Hmm... I've read the opposite about margins: grocery store chains centralize purchasing so that they have a huge leverage on manufacturers.

    For NY in particular, they shouldn't be able to raise their price easily as the city will have its city-owned stores to compete with them.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    Yes price increases seem the most likely for pharmacies but not grocery stores. There is still sufficient competition in grocery stores, and enough of them without self checkout lanes. It would be hard to get away with a price increase when a cheaper alternative exists.

    Pharmacies however... As much as I prefer small pharmacies, they often are tooo small for everything. Simply can't find everything one might need. There's basically just CVS and Walgreens, and they both are big into self checkout. Those two would collude for sure.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

    If a bill requiring 10% discounts at self checkout comes into law, they will all think the same thing: Increase the prices so the price at self checkout is the same, and people have to pay extra for a cashier.

    The only way to realistically encourage corporations to reduce their margins within the current system is by establishing an alternative which is cheaper, and thus acts as competition which pushes the price down. So basically what Mamdani is doing with city-owned grocery stores.

    The same goes for housing. Provide decent but simple housing at low rates, and the slumlords will either need to lower their margins or compete on quality instead.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 weeks ago

    Yeah, you just raise prices 10% and pocket the difference when people end up having to use more cashiers because the self checkout is too full from fools thinking they are getting a discount. It's no different than all the stores with 'reward' programs where you get cheaper or better prices. They track everything you buy and sell it, making more than the amount you are saving. Seems better to recognize that automation of things like checkout is here to stay and incentivize alternative methods to keep people you know, fed, housed and alive.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 weeks ago

    Hard to know for sure, the people seem to just rarely get a W these days that isn’t immediately wiped out by something else.

    fun fact: the winning and the losing are not causes of each other. if you win, you will probably lose some of it later. however, if you don't win, you will probably still lose something later. so it's not better to not win just to avoid losing later. you lose anyways, the question is only whether you also win some.

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