Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd
Gone are the heady days of cashiers asking if you want your order "supersized."
Not only has the infamous upgrade gone by the wayside, but cashiers at fast-food restaurants are becoming increasingly uncommon. McDonald's started rolling out ordering kiosks at its US locations in 2015, and the chain hasn't looked back since: by 2020, most of its 14,000 locations will have kiosks installed.
Panera Bread has also committed to digital ordering. Admittedly, when I first tried it in 2015, I found it had decidedly dystopian vibes. But it ended up being a fairly pleasant and painless experience.
A recent poll conducted by Business Insider's partner MSN suggests that diners aren't big fans of automated kiosks: 78% of customers said they would be less inclined to go to a restaurant that has automated ordering kiosks.
The popular narrative is that kiosks and mobile ordering are here to take jobs and hours away from underpaid cashiers, ultimately saving companies money in the face of rising labor costs — but the data suggests that isn't true. It may be true for some, but most chains are simply reallocating labor behind the scenes. And with such a tight labor market, many chains are struggling to hire and retain customer-facing employees.
Americans don't seem too threatened by automation in general. Nationally, only 21% of responders to MSN's poll believe their job may one day be done by machines. And restaurants like automated ordering for its increased accuracy and efficiency as more chains look towards cashless options.
But for now, a question remains: are kiosks, in fact, better for customers?
Source: Business Insider
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 01 2018, @05:53AM (3 children)
Interesting that you consider non-starving employees a punishment for employers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 01 2018, @12:46PM
Interesting how you frame it instinctively as employees starving.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 01 2018, @01:00PM (1 child)
You're making the unwarranted assumption that the restrictions and costs imposed on employers make for less starving employees. After all, that's the gist of a lot of minimum wage research right? But here we see the dark side which all that research ignores, namely, that there's a huge incentive for businesses to do what they can to strip employees out of their business.
But I guess if one ignores the half century of employers automating and moving parts of their business to the developing world, then one might indeed get the impression that there's no consequences to these games.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 01 2018, @04:32PM