I’d rather have the pennies than getting a tetanus shot because I tripped and fell. Now I have the tetanus shot and injuries to recover from.
Side note, now that they're asking cashiers to monitor self-checkout, now they're calling it "assisted checkout." I mean, isn't that all of them? The only difference is we're expecting the customer to do more of the work lol. I don't complain too much as long as they're still giving me a paycheck. But I'd always rather be on a real register than monitoring "assisted checkout" when I have a choice in the matter. That makes me feel like a cashier. Working "assisted checkout" makes me feel like a babysitter lol.
When Harris-Teeter installed a new style of self-checkouts a few months ago, those things were absolutely paranoid. I don't think I ever managed to check out through one without having a cashier come at least once to review the overhead video of my bald head and my clumsy hands scanning items. I gave up using those units, mostly because of that, but also because they won't take cash at all.
It's just progress. I remember going to the grocery store with my mother, she was dressed to then nines, hair done up and in a nice dress. She would smoke as she went, dropping the half-finished cig to the floor, stepping it out with her high heels, and slide it to the side out of the way. At checkout there was a cashier and a full-time bagger who would take the cart out to the car and load her groceries in. They usually got a nickel or dime for their efforts, and they were always smiling, as polite and helpful as could be. As the cost of labor increases you have to reduce employee count to stay competitive. Rural areas where the cost of housing isn't so high there is less automation, so more laborers are needed. That bagger in the 60s was actually supporting himself and maybe even a family off of that job because it didn't take three weeks salary just to pay the mortgage. The next step will be the scanner - you just move between two pedestals, and every item in the cart is detected via chip. Pass your card over the reader and walk on out. Maybe even get your own chip embedded somewhere, no card needed.
Remember, once you pay for the items they are yours and the store has no right to check them, then or as you leave.
I assume you're talking about things like the Walmart exit checks. I'm sure their response would be that they aren't "checking" "your property", they're checking to make sure everything you're leaving with is your property. Retailers do a lot of things that bug me, but that isn't one of them. If they let people walk out with stuff they haven't paid for, I'm the one who ends up paying in the end, when prices rise to cover the losses.
There's always people by the self checkout to "assist". But they are really there checking what people are scanning and paying to see if they are stealing. And there are reverse mirrors at the self checkout. Just look for it, because every move you make is on camera and has been for MANY years.