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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

#301

Post by BoorishBears »

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?

Why don't you share with the workd your in-person purchases over the last year complete with location and time?

It's just eggs and milk after all...

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

#302

Post by clairity »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #260
sethammons wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one gets me every time. I’ve only ever seen a couple super markets or stores implement this for human-operated check out stations. Ross has this, and Best Buy used to during the holidays.

Trader Joe’s does it also, at least in LA.

that’s odd, none of the trader joes’s i usually go to in LA regularly have a single line. i’ve seen it irregularly, and seemingly temporarily (when especially busy perhaps).

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

#303

Post by opayen »

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…

It's also worth noting that BankID requires access location permission access (at least on Android).

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

#304

Post by dhimes »

ghaff wrote: post #235
msh wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some shops have scan yourself where you scan things with your phone when putting them in your basket, even produce then have a barcode, maybe not on the item but then at a sign at their location.

I've never seen that in the US and produce isn't barcoded unless it's shrink-wrapped--which it isn't in most stores. And I'm not sure that seems any easier than a normal self-checkout in any case.

There are scales and look-up tables for the produce out in the produce area (the look-up tables are also programmed into the scales but the UI is slow and tedious).

So you gather your, say broccoli, look up the PLU code (it also might be on a sticker affixed to the item), put it on the scale, enter the code, and the scale prints out your bar code that you scan.

I'm a dozen miles north of Boston, MA.

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

#305

Post by SahAssar »

tpmx wrote: post #233
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.

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.

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

#306

Post by tpmx »

dheera wrote: post #299
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…

Also worth noting is that this is not Amazon Go. Customers have to be honest and scan items. We're not civilized enough here in the US for such nice things.

I'm not so sure it's a matter of civilization - it's more a matter of infrastructure:

The other piece of the puzzle is:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Enforcement_Authority

Basically the government runs debt collection in Sweden. They have the ability to withdraw money from your bank account.

All of this is enabled by every resident having a (public) personal identity number.

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

#307

Post by clairity »

norenh wrote: post #242
aivisol wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I use self service checkout, it always takes much longer time for me to get through. I guess I am not so good at quickly juggling and locating bar codes at each item as the staff working at checkout are. So I leave it to professionals.

Resident in Sweden here and heavy user of the self-checkout. My experience is that self-checkout is slightly slower than the serviced one. For a serviced checkout I try to put all bar-codes towards the cashiers scanner (it is a nice thing to do, the cashiers do not like juggling either) when putting stuff on the belt and I will need to unpack from my basket, pay and pack it to my bag. The same is operations needs to…

that’s my experience too: because i am serializing unloading, scanning, paying, bagging, and reloading, the checkout process itself is longer, but when buying only a few items and including line wait times, total time is usually shorter.

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

#308

Post by akudha »

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?

Let me turn around and ask you - if you think this is not a problem, why don't you publish all your purchase info online? Along with where you bought them, what time, how etc? While you are at it, also publish your travel info - including mode of travel, time of travel, source, destination...

I might be the boring-est person on the planet - lets say nothing about me is of any value to anyone. It is still nobody's business to know even the most mundane aspect of my life. My life is my business, just like your life is your business. Thats all.

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

#309

Post by SahAssar »

dsco wrote: post #268
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.

Try starting a Blockchain company and they will violently fight you until they’ve (the big banks) have shut down your access.

I'm guessing you don't just mean blockchain, but rather virtual, unregulated currencies. If so I'm glad that's the case.

If you actually mean a company using blockchain in other ways: do you have any examples?

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

#310

Post by AlecSchueler »

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?

I'm not very much worried about my personal data being collected, what worries me is that when it is pooled with the data of many other individuals the entity who controls that pool will be able to do all sorts of analysis and make all sorts of predictions about behaviours on the small and the mass scale, the benefits of which might allow them to engage, with an advantage, in various fields and with various intentions which cannot be predicted or understood by other entities.
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