I’m on the fence with this one…
Modern life seems to be all about apps. There’s one for just about everything.
No doubt we would get used to it if necessary. I’ve only just started using the self service tills!
Nope…absolutely not…the surreptitious roll out of 5g…the way China is treating it’s citizens…the failure of the concept of a universal basic income for all…the instability of crypto currency…as someone who buys from her local Saturday market I wonder how small business would trade without cash…In my local supermarket I refuse to use the self checkout till and would much rather stand in a queue…a cashless faceless AI system has too much potential to cut off the most vulnerable in our society and I’m not gonna be a willing participant in that…
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My phone doesn’t take Apps… I do use the S-S tills on occasions, but am nervous in case I make a mistake and get “caught”… I would die of shame… 
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Here in the little backwaters of the Charente, the fruit and veg stall at the Saturday and Wednesday markets uses a card reader which also includes contact less transactions…
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I wonder how much they have to pay per month to provide that service…??? Years ago I got a card reader from my business bank for customers…the fees ultimately made it a non viable cost for me…
Fabulous! Anything that involves spending less time in supermarket has to be good news! As it is I use ‘Drive’ - click and collect - bloody marvellous.
I do appreciate that, for some, a supermarket outing is a social event - not for me, it’s just a waste of living time! 
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Lol…do you ever get sent alternatives to what you ordered…??? I used to use Asda online but I got so pissed off with being sent alternatives that just weren’t that I gave up and went back to a weekly shop instead…x
Yes Helen but only substitutes I’ve specified. I can also select ‘dont substitute’ against any item. Once you’ve got a master list setup it’s a doddle.
That’s reminded me - a couple of weeks ago I had a chat with a lady who told me she specifically goes to the supermarket to interact with humans!! She said that if she didn’t she could go from week to week without talking to anyone. I thought she was kidding - she wasn’t
Blew me away - sad life / no life.
One time as I walked back to my car with my trolley an elderly French lady asked me (in French) for a lift…I had no idea where she lived but would have given her a lift to wherever…turned out she wasn’t far from me…I helped her unload her shopping from the boot of my car once at her home whilst her cats appeared from all directions and followed her inside…x
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I’m in favour of self-service tills. I remember when self-service stores were introduced in UK in the 1950s. Before that customers had to queue at a counter to be served by the grocer who weighed out sugar, cut cheese with a cheese-wire, and butter with a special pallette and hammer to pat it into shape. It was then wrapped up neatly in dark blue paper. Quaint, but very slow. To save time, it was a good idea to write a grocery list in pencil, and hand it in, then collect the order the following day. Often items were O/S (out of stock).
Working on a check out is demeaning, backbreaking work. Many operatives suffer repetitive-strain injuries and lower back pain, not to mention stress. They have my strongest sympathy, I can’t imagine a more detestable job. My local Utile employs two young check-out operatives who have a haunted, broken-spirited look about them. They are clearly capable of much more, and deserve more IMO.
But what’s to be done about it? I don’t know, but there must be a better way to order our affairs in the 21zt century.
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I cannot understand Peter why you would think that working on a check out is demeaning.
There are a lot of other ‘service’ jobs ‘outside’ that are IMHO worse…collecting smelly rubbish, sweeping the streets and all the smelly dog poo , cleaning public toilets, delivering the post …
At least on a check out you are in the dry, have specified break times, do not carry heavy bags on your shoulder in pouring rain or snow for miles.
No job is demeaning if it puts food on the table …
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Nothing demeaning at all Peter, they’re doing the same as I did, earning an honest living 
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I agree with you about work putting food on the table, Anne. And young women with a child or children must do that, for their kids’ sake. We’ve all had to do ‘menial’ work to get a foot on the ladder to something better. But too many young people seem to to be trapped in jobs like that, especially young women, people with obvious talent and with hopes and aspirations for something better, some réalisation of potential…
Our local Utile seems to be a family franchise, all the staff are related by family, they work what seem to be excessively long hours, fulfilling all the obvious functions of shelf-stacking, cleaning, checkout operation and dealing with confused old ladies, boorish foreigners and alcoholic shoplifters day after day including weekends.
I don’t know how they do it. One youngster who works in the local shop offered to give my wife French lessons, and we agreed. But her shop hours meant she couldn’t combine that with caring for her school-age child, and having sessions with my wife. She obviously needed the money, but it couldn’t work out for her, and she cried off. It was desperately sad.
Life is like that, but it’s not fair.
Speechless!
Does anyone know of any self awareness courses…?
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Too true Peter, very little in life is fair.
A little question though, how do you know that the people who work in your local shop aspire to something better? Maybe they are just pleased to have a steady local job without all the hassle and stress of commuting!
Lots of jobs involve dealing with drunks, rude and boorish people, foreigners or locals. Take a train trip and see what the staff at SNCF have to cope with, especially in the Paris region and on long distance trains! Numerous jobs are like that, local jobs are like gold dust and most people, men and women, I have spoken with are pleased to have the chance at steady employement !
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I am too self aware to answer that Simon ! 
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We can’t all be brain surgeons Peter, I was a Harbourmaster, catered to fishermen and others, took their money off them, I never felt “demeaned”!
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Look, Anne, I am not a wishy-washy Liberal who doesn’t know the meaning of hard or menial work, even if some high-flyers have the arrogance to assume otherwise. I was a nurse for over fifty years and no other occupation on earth brings one into closer contact with piss, shit, pain, pus, gangrène, death, heavy lifting and regular abuse and the likelihood of physical assault. Not to mention unsocial hours, unpaid overtime and rock-bottom pay. Womens’ payrates.
I shall take no lessons from you, simonflys,in what it means to work for a living, so pipe down.
Having had the privilege of traiining nurses I can also recognise human potential and the need to give it due recognition in young people, particularly young women. I have four daughters.
Perhaps simonflys is happy to have women permanentlyvserving drinks, peddling expensive tat and lottery chits, smiling winsomely at his well-heeled passengers as he pilots them to Bermuda or Dubai as long as their vital statistics fit the trolley dollly stereotype that the company requires. After all "This is your captain, speaking!*
It may be you that needs the reality update, Simon, you are unbelievably smug.