No offense intended, but what you describe sounds pretty dismal to me. We have what you describe where I live (France), but I prefer to go to the markets where I know the butcher/green grocer/cheese person/dried fruits and nuts person/fish monger/etc. and they know me. I stand in a line, sometimes for a while, and finally they get to me and ask me how I've been doing recently. Then they ask me for my order and frequently tell me something interesting or useful about what I'm ordering (e.g. where it comes from, how it was grown, etc). They might tell me how to prepare something or offer a suggestion as to what I could buy that I don't usually buy. They might even tell me something about an event happening in the community soon. It's pretty rad.
The human operated lanes still exist in my store. Many people use them, and they do have chats at the checkout line.
And no offense :), but I don't go to the grocery store to make friends. I have much better or more interesting things to do. If I could get fast reliable delivery and not even have to go, I would choose that option.
The point relevant to the OP is that self-checkout systems can be implemented well.
I think the idea of making acquaintance with people in one's community is what has held society together historically, and the derision for human interaction with others (shopping, eating, pub, etc) is the downfall of civil society.
I chat with the cafe owner on my street fairly often.
My grocery store, however, is 20 minutes away in a neighboring town. They have a large staff which is in frequent rotation. The staff also is mostly early 20s or younger age. Add all these things up, and it just doesn't make much sense for me (or them) to go out of our way to socialize.
Yes same here. I really go crazy when technology that takes us further away from each other is presented as some sort of progress. Why don't we look around at how isolated we've become? Is it any wonder that our stupid little factions (right vs left, black vs white, etc) are pulling further and further away from each other when so much effort is being put into limiting our contact with one another?
To be fair, the self checkout are mostly replacing the cashiers in supermarkets that are lowly paid for a very though job, who probably don't know you and who would probably be fired if they "lost" one second saying something nice to you, not the friendly fruit producer from your local market.
