More and more people refuse to use the automatic checkout machines to pay: "they take away jobs"

Over the past few decades, technology has truly changed many aspects of our society. We just have to look around to realize that electronics have become much more affordable for everyone and for many operations that were previously performed in a completely different way.

Among these there is also the ways of payment for our purchases when we go to a store. Automatic and do-it-yourself checkouts have been a reality for a long time now in many points of sale: they certainly speed up payments, but are we really sure that they only bring benefits? Many people around the world have asked this, so much so that a real "phenomenon" has arisen in Canada whereby customers refuse to use them, claiming that they take away jobs and contribute to the economic crisis.

via CBC

pin add/Wikimedia - foto di archivio

A survey conducted by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) revealed that there are a growing number of customers in Canada who refuse to use automated checkouts. The reason? They could cause unemployment, taking jobs from flesh and blood cashiers, thus worsening the country's economic situation.

These are, in fact, reasons that are not entirely without foundation, if we consider that managing an automatic payment machine is certainly not like hiring an employee, with all that entails in terms of expenses, taxes and pensions. It is precisely in this direction that the protests of those who are against automatic checkouts are going, despite the fact that there are many other people who are in favor of automatic checkouts.

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Those who advocate the widespread use of self-service payments believe that the "old" cash desks with real staff are now an outdated model, which companies must abandon in favor of technological development and cost reduction. Probably, as often happens, the truth lies somewhere in between, and it certainly isn't fair to mass-automate every job a human being can do. Technology is useful and can simplify many things, it is true, but people still have the right to work, earn and live peacefully.

After all, human contact and direct exchange are things that we should never put aside. What do you think about it? Are these people in Canada right to refuse to use self-service checkouts?