Self checkouts, whether they are in McD's or at Costco are a poor example of automation as they aren't really automation at all. They are simply transferring the burden of labour to the consumer from an employee. There was a "labour" redundancy in retail, because the consumer was standing around doing nothing and so their labour capacity was being wasted. The businesses introduced self-checkout to capture the available labour capacity of the consumer and in practice split the benefit with them.
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