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Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#321

Post by CivBase »

inter_netuser wrote: post #249
CivBase wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I'm at, the vast majority of employees working "grunt" positions in supermarkets are high schoolers along with some elderly and disabled folks. Given those demographics, I strongly suspect most of them are not working there to make a living.

Disabled people work for fun in grunt, manual labour, positions? Seems hard to believe.

I never said anybody was working for fun. The disabled people to which I am referring are certainly dependent on others for their care. The livelihoods of most people in the demographics I mentioned are not dependent on a part-time job like that.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#322

Post by avidiax »

INTPenis wrote: post #265
JasonFruit wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is growing awareness that this service should not be run by private companies/banks. At risk of sounding snarky, I'm growing in awareness that the anonymous nature of paper money and coin had a lot of advantages. I would be unhappy if the only option for groceries in my area required me to strongly identify myself to shop there.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

Even something as seemingly innocuous as milk and eggs can be a big deal. Suddenly spending more? Maybe you have guests. Maybe you are hiding refugees. Might be innocuous, might be life and death.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#323

Post by matsemann »

throwaway4good wrote: post #259
tpmx wrote: post #202

The BankID service seems to trip up many people here. Swedish residents have a personal identity number issued at birth or immigration. Format: YYYYMMDD-NNNN. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity_number_(Swed... BankID is a service run by the Swedish banks that interfaces with the banks, individuals and third parties (like this chain of unmanned stores). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID T…

The Danish parallel to BankId - NemID / MitID is also partly owned by the banking cartel: https://digst.dk/it-loesninger/mitid/partnerskabet/ It is a curious construction; we wouldn't accept a personal id card issued / owned by banks but for the digital equivalent we do so with little debate.

In Norway the usual form of ID for anyone without a driving license used to be your debit card. Banks have mostly stopped issuing cards with profile pictures on them now, as they don't want the responsibility. But the national id card has been delayed for a decade. So many now have to bring their passport to buy beer...

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#324

Post by nivenkos »

avidiax wrote: post #322
INTPenis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

Even something as seemingly innocuous as milk and eggs can be a big deal. Suddenly spending more? Maybe you have guests. Maybe you are hiding refugees. Might be innocuous, might be life and death.

Maybe just don't have a government where that's an issue, rather than holding back the technological development of society.

Why use mobile phones or credit cards? Or ID cards? or ISP subscriptions? It could all be tracked! Let's just do everything by landlines and faxes like Germany...

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#325

Post by nivenkos »

azpotufi wrote: post #285
INTPenis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Why are you worried about disclosing how much milk and eggs you buy? I know this is the age old "I have nothing to hide" argument but I truly am curious why people are so afraid of saying where they're travelling (train tickets) or what they're buying (shops). Don't you think that once that dystopian future comes - when that info might be used against you - we'll have much worse things to worry about?

This data will invariably be sold to health insurance companies who will use any excuse to make you pay a premium. Bought four bottles of olive oil? You're going to get very fat, better make you pay a premium! Who cares if you actually used it to make soap?

Good thing Sweden has decent public insurance then...

Don't hold back technology and society just because of a few other issues - those other issues can be better resolved directly. In this case, with single-payer public healthcare.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#326

Post by jiveturkey »

crocodiletears wrote: post #238
random_upvoter wrote: post #104

I worked in a supermarket for a while and there was plenty of old people who came to that shop almost daily just to interact with another human being.

There's an interchangeable, overpriced, soulless gas-station chain on nearly every street corner in my town. When I fill up my tank at any one of them, I'm forced to listen to the sound of 9+ pumps puke out celebrity-gossip, advertainment pieces, and PSAs telling me about the coronavirus. You can't mute them anymore. Inside, the shelves are lined with nearly identical selections of overpriced merchandise. I could be…

> You can't mute them anymore.

Oh but you can! A pin, paper clip, etc through a couple of the speaker openings will do the trick nicely.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#327

Post by tpmx »

SahAssar wrote: post #305
tpmx wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding: After the recent money laundering revelations the banks have become relatively strict in accepting/keeping certain customers. I think that most of all the banks are afraid of being blacklisted/sanctioned by the US. This leads to friction and situations where some people are essentially excluded from large parts of society. The banks also don't seem to be all that interested in interacting with their…

Wasn't all of those scandals tied to foreign branches of the banks and the strictness has mostly only been applied there? I might be wrong, but I haven't heard of swedish residents being denied banking.

- 6-9 months ago I started reading online of mostly Swedbank customers who had suddenly been asked to move their monthly salaries to this bank, or they'd lose their accounts. These people were doing stock trading only via Swedbank.

- 18 months ago I tried to facilitate creating a corporate bank account managed by a foreign CEO from a non-EU and very first-world country in order to be able to create a Swedish company (AB) with the goal of hiring software people here in Sweden. Tried two banks (SEB and Handelsbanken) before giving up and going another route.

My impression is that Swedish banks have tightened up things quite a lot in the past few years.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#328

Post by cambaceres »

greensea wrote: post #316
cambaceres wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is growing awareness that this service should not be run by private companies/banks. I don't agree. I'm a Swede too (as I assume you are), and I have basically never heard anyone complain of BankID being owned by the banks. I am really happy that our government does not own BankID, since they suck badly at developing software.

It is an issue that digital identification in Sweden is run by a single private company. The drawbacks are not clearly seen from a consumer standpoint, but they do charge service providers for each login, and can set their prices freely since it's a monopoly. They also have rules against being logged in for too long, and against identity transfer (directly or indirectly using BankID to authenticate for a different lo…

That’s some good arguments, I change my mind.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#329

Post by raverbashing »

tchalla wrote: post #130
raverbashing wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully the Swedes are not as luddites as the Germans and adopt more easily solutions that make their lives easier In fact I wouldn't be surprised if these stores were cashless, in several Scandinavian countries shop attendants handling change manually are already on their way out

> Thankfully the Swedes are not as luddites as the Germans and adopt more easily solutions that make their lives easier Germans are not luddites, they are careful with privacy. They have more than one reason to be careful with it [0, 1]. There's a tradeoff between "personal convenience" and "civil liberties" like privacy. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennkarte [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi

> Germans are not luddites, they are careful with privacy.

Being scared of Google street view and continuing to use fax machines are not wise worries about privacy, sorry

Yes I know about the historical reasons they're "worried" about privacy, but it's a misplaced worry because they don't address their real privacy shortcomings, like requiring registration of people (+ sensitive privacy info) who live in a city, using last names (and not apartment numbers) in mailboxes, limited anonymous internet access (to please the copyright lobby, etc) and their lax internet security capabilities (like the Berlin courts who were still on Windows 95)

So again, if they really worry about privacy they're addressing it through the wrong angle.

Re: Shops return to rural Sweden but are now staff-free

#330

Post by nivenkos »

aboringusername wrote: post #35
alexf95 wrote: post #2

Ok but what if I wanted to shop without a smartphone, or don't own one? Don't get me wrong this is great for the current situation but like all things it doesn't only have good things about it.

Then you're excluded, simple as that. We're rapidly approching the point where you're: a) Expected to have, engage with and be active on a smartphone b) Be accessible via the mobile network (have an active phone number that can get SMS) c) Be "always online", frequently checking the bank in 'real time' to verify transactions, account balance etc d) Have battery life on your device. It's no good if you have just 5% an…

While I agree this level of possible exclusion isn't great, what is the alternative?

In Germany for example, that had resisted a lot of technological progress (online credit cards, Google Street View, etc.), I had to cancel my internet subscription by fax in 2015... It was hard enough to get a fax service, and then send personal details, etc. to prove my identity.

I'd rather have a streamlined experience with apps and technology than have to deal with loads of bureaucracy.

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