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Yeah but on the flip side, supermarkets in Australia use them in place of staffed checkouts to save money, at the expense of speed and convenience. I like them if they're there as a time-saving option, but not as a replacement for staffed checkouts.

They're all I use and the only issues that sometimes crop up are age checks, which a lot of places have solved with the option to remotely approve. It's so much faster as even a small shop can fit many more of these machines in than human-manned tills. This is in England though, while the article seems to talk mostly about US chains.

The article even says that most people actually prefer using them, and that usage has increased, but most have also had issues. I doesn't say how often they've had issues though. Having a machine be a bit wonky once doesn't put people off them forever, as the stat implies.

There's some weird assumptions being made in this.

Agreed. In Italy we've had those for some years now in big stores, and while they haven't replaced traditional checkouts and likely never will, they provide a nice and fast way out, especially for people who bought few items.

I prefer my self-scanned shopping over putting every single item in my cart twice at a conventional register.

It sure takes longer because scanning while shopping is still slower. But the advantage of packing my stuff once the way I want it, makes it worth it.