[vladvasiliu]

> But in the economists wet dream the automated, humanless solution wins by being cheaper.

Because the consumers will, usually, choose to go to the cheaper store.

> Absolutely, because you have no need to pay additional squishy meat sacks when people/shoppers can do the work themselves with self checkout. Externalise the cost onto the customer.

As opposed to the "squishy meat"'s salary, which is paid by... whom?

Also, I'd say that the actual scanning is not the most "labor-intensive" / annoying part of the checkout process, but moving the products out of the basket, onto the cash register, back in the bag. And even with regular checkout, the customer does that. With self-checkout, you can actually do the scanning while moving the product from the basket to your bag, which means handling it only once.