
McDonald's Says Goodbye Cashiers, Hello Kiosks - tosh
https://www.forbes.com/sites/edrensi/2018/07/11/mcdonalds-says-goodbye-cashiers-hello-kiosks/
======
detaro
duplicate of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17517278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17517278)

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Jaruzel
All the comments so far seem to be just re-hashing personal anecdotes about
using the kiosks, and not the key message that's in the article.

Replacing cashiers in stores with kiosks, and ultimately replacing the fries-
making and burger-flipping jobs with automation, removes a massive slice[1] of
job roles for young teens from the market. As the article writer asserts, this
will prevent lots of first time workers from learning the basic work-skills
that are needed as they progress to more senior roles elsewhere. Things like
time-keeping, quality-control, ability to focus, and social skills... the list
goes on.

With young people the world over now only able to interact with society via
the medium of toxic social media, resulting in poor face-to-face social
skills, the next time you bump into an intolerant sulky mono-syllabic
belligerent teen, remember that it was these sort of technical 'innovations'
that resulted in their abandonment, and directly contributed to them becoming
the anti-social outcasts that mainstream media has always painted them as.

As elders, we need to support the up-coming generation, not cast them aside in
pursuit of our own greatness.

\---

[1] pun totally intended.

~~~
imgabe
And yet, 5 days ago we were lamenting that teenagers no longer want these jobs
and they are going unfilled:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17557298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17557298)

Sounds like the market is coming up with a solution. There are many ways for
teens to learn the lessons you mentioned besides working in fast food.

~~~
krapp
McDonald's would have automated those jobs away regardless of labor supply,
and whatever alternatives there might be are going to be automated as well.
Entry-level work is categorically being done away with, and yet the
expectation of social and business skills being provided by entry-level work
is not.

~~~
dnadler
I suppose that this is correct, but mostly because of the cost-benefit
analysis. If labor is more expensive than automation, then the company will
turn to automation. Automation is getting less expensive and labor is getting
more expensive, so here we are.

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afpx
Of course Forbes would try to make a connection to minimum wage, but there are
much more practical reasons to do this: consistent user experience,
elimination of training, instant rollout, capacity management, A/B testing,
transaction speed, etc.

If the kiosk is designed well, it ends up being a better experience than a
human interaction. One example that comes to mind is Panara Bread’s system. If
a kiosks is available, I always prefer it to a person.

~~~
annabellish
All of those things are meaningless to a company on their own. This kind of
decision comes down to one simple calculation: Is more profit likely to be
generated from doing it, or from not doing it?

All the things you've mentioned are things which potentially increase profit,
though the rollout is a big investment with a lot of risk, which decreases
profit.

Also decreasing profit is having to pay your workers more, so in that sense,
increases in minimum wage possible did contribute to this decision. The thing
which people who point to that as a sign of minimum wage increases being bad
miss is that these things are a moving target. Automated kiosks are getting
cheaper every year, and at worst an increase in minimum wage brings it a few
years closer.

That's not great for people working in jobs that were a few years away from
being economically viable to automated, but they'll still benefit in their
next job, and a huge chunk of the population still benefits (and thus the
economy overall)

~~~
afpx
Yes, of course, decreasing costs always makes sense, but Forbes makes it
appear that that’s the driving force,

One thing the last few decades has shown particularly well is that often it’s
easier to make money through growth than through cost cutting. Of course, this
isn’t universal, especially within tiny markets, commoditized offerings, or
when growth has plateaued.

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dajohnson89
I'm a regular McDonald's customer for breakfast, about 3-4 times per week. the
ones I go to in NYC have kiosks. I refuse to use them. here's why:

* I order an off-menu item (scrambled eggs, they're delicious and you're welcome). it's literally impossible (afaik) to get it from the kiosk

* i want to see somebody and and have some kind of interaction. I'm a software engineer and I'm about to spend 8 hours staring at a computer screen with minimal human contact. I'm a huge introvert but still human and will go crazy alone just like everyone else.

* sometimes the cashiers are cool. I don't mean to be creepy but last week one definitely was flirting with me and asked where I'm from. it got so intense, that at the end she burst out in laughter and she was smiling at me the whole time till I got my order and left. Im a single guy in his 20s, don't skewer me for this. another time, this guy made a d&d joke (!!) and we both had a good laugh.

* I don't want to touch a filthy screen. there's 200+ ppl in these places at a given time... remember this is downtown Manhattan.they do an admirable job of keeping the place clean, but it's just one more unnecessary disease vector

* I used to be a cashier at a KFC in high school. it helped pay for my first, oh so shitty car. $7/hr, I was happy because minimum wage at the time was like $6.50. I made money, got tasty free employee meals, learned how to work with others, and met tons of cool people (and some shitty ones). it taught me a lot and we had fun.

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icebraining
I'd be surprised if having a cashier breathing on you wasn't more unsanitary
than touching the tip of you finger on a glass panel a few times.

~~~
Humdeee
Fingers also touch faces including the inside of mouths, ears, eyes, etc.

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kuon
Here in Switzerland, we have had those kiosks for a few years and they are
great.

* Much better product discoverability.

* Better customization (like removing onion from the burger).

* Easier to see the prices and compare them.

* No more waiting in line, you just go to the kiosk and then pick a seat, they serve at the table.

* I live in the French part of Switzerland and French is my native language, and while I have a good german level, understanding every swiss german dialect is really hard, I'm glad I can use the machine. This also applies to tourists as the kiosk is also in english.

~~~
renjimen
This also saved my ass in Russia recently since I don't know any Russian and
the staff didn't know any English. I do think it's nice to have the option to
be served by a real person if you want to though, so hopefully McDonald's go
with a combination of kiosks and cashiers.

~~~
reustle
While I agree it's super helpful, I travel full time and trying to / learning
to communicate with humans is half the fun! :)

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BrentOzar
I've used these in downtown Chicago, and they're wonderful because:

* I don't have to yell to be heard during rush hours

* It makes lines way easier to deal with (they can pack in more kiosks than cashiers)

* Apple Pay seems way more reliable on these than the cashier machines

* I don't have to wonder whether they entered my customization correctly

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jefe_
I'm really surprised this has taken so long. In 2000, I made it to my state's
Invention Convention, even got an article in the local newspaper with an
'invention' I called E-Waiter. It was a 'tablet' with a simple Visual C++ app
to place orders. I legitimately thought I was going to win. One of my judges
was the founder of a prominent regional pizza chain. He pretty quickly made
the assessment it wasn't practical. I didn't win the event, and being a kid I
didn't pursue it further.

Every time I see one of these things, I remind myself that good ideas are only
half of the puzzle, the other half is the ability to execute.

~~~
detritus
Also, I imagine, the ever-decreasing cost of large format touchscreens. I
shudder to think how much one of those must've cost back in 2000!

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kennydude
These are common in the UK to pretty much all McDonald's.

They've also moved to a style similar to Argos where you pay and then wait in
a different place to collect instead of 1 cashier taking on 6 orders and
having to crowd around their till. They do have 1 or 2 human cashiers if
people choose however.

Overall it's much better. For a customer it's less crowded and for the staff
there's less pressure to take on several orders at once.

~~~
Tijdreiziger
In the Netherlands, I have even seen one McDonald's where the cashiers'
registers were hooked into the same system; i.e. if you ordered at the
cashier, you would get a number just as if you used the kiosk and would have
to wait at a different counter to collect your order.

~~~
kennydude
Yeah that's the same system we have. It works rather well.

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ryanmercer
One less person to mess up my order.

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dantheman
One aspect of these kiosks that is often overlooked is that it's an
exceptionally better experience if you don't speak the native language. It
allows you to order exactly what you want, customize it how you want it, and
not have to stumble through a foreign language.

~~~
Freak_NL
But stumbling through a foreign language is one of the nice things about being
on holiday. It puts things in perspective. Why bother going abroad at all if
you don't intend to either learn the local language (work, study), or just
want to experience the foreignness of it all (leisure)?

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majewsky
> Why bother going abroad at all

To experience a different:

\- climate

\- landscape

\- city size (there are no 10M+ cities on my continent)

\- architecture style

\- culture (can be very diverse between speakers of the same language)

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cimmanom
If they completely eliminate cashiers, that will be a loss for the customer
too - no one to answer questions or take a custom order that’s reasonable yet
outside the parameters the computer system is aware of.

~~~
mattmanser
In the UK they have been rolling these out. They don't eliminate the cashier
completely, there's still 1 or 2, but most people now seem to use the kiosks
from the few times I've been in since they rolled them out a year ago.

The more annoying thing is that they've moved to a JIT production system at
the same time, which means if you just wanted to pick up a cheeseburger in a
rush, you end up waiting much longer than you used to.

The people on the JIT production line also tend to completely ignore the
customers and tend to just stand around chatting right in front of them
waiting for things to arrive, the customers all mill around awkwardly near the
serving counter, and all this reinforces the impression you're waiting a
lonnnggggggggg time.

It really feels less a fast food restaurant and more like an awkward food
restaurant.

Perhaps it's just because I'm British ;)

On the plus, I'm sure it's reduced food waste.

~~~
ryanmercer
>The more annoying thing is that they've moved to a JIT production system at
the same time, which means if you just wanted to pick up a cheeseburger in a
rush, you end up waiting much longer than you used to.

They've done this here in the US with several of the product lines, preparing
it once you order it instead of keeping it in a heating unit. It's pretty
annoying in the drive-thru unless they are really busy. If there is only a car
or two in front of you, guess what... once you pay they're going to have you
park and wait a couple of minutes, if there are several cars in front of you
though it will usually be ready by the time you get to the second window.

I'm not getting fast food because I want made-from-scratch freshness, I'm
getting fast food because I am in a hurry and want something inherently
portable.

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krapp
>I'm not getting fast food because I want made-from-scratch freshness, I'm
getting fast food because I am in a hurry and want something inherently
portable.

Macdonalds wants to disassociate itself from the image of fast food and heat
lamps for much the same reason that KFC no longer calls itself "Kentucky Fried
Chicken."

~~~
mattmanser
Well, they still have a bunch of sullen workers standing around at the end of
a conveyor belt waiting to dish out orders...

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pongogogo
I think the article is wrong, he assumes 100% automation. I'm not sure the
marginal gain from completely eliminating all serving jobs will be worth it
for a long time given that there's probably quite a long tail of quite complex
interactions when things go wrong (and hey, redundancy is important as well in
case the kiosks go down!). Though obviously the number of cashiers is going to
end up significantly lower than it was at the start of this decade.

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kszxgz
Why do they not replace the kiosks with QR codes on the dining tables? You
scan the code and order directly from your smartphone.

That's the experience I know from China. Are there any restaurants in the US
that do it similarly? Or perhaps not due to the lack of WeChat and suitable
payment providers?

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ToFab123
After that comes the burger flipping robot, the drone delivery robot … and
free McDonalds for all readers of hacker news :)

~~~
harryf
Influencers get to eat free burgers

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ggg9990
All these unemployed people are not going to crawl under a bridge and die.
When people are hungry and see people with food, they kill them and take their
food. We don’t really have any plan for this yet and it will seem like a
distant scenario until we are in it.

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ryanmercer
All the unemployed high school students?

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kristopolous
The average age of a fast food worker is 29 and 40% are over 25. Fewer than
1/3 are under 20.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/more-
th...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/more-than-a-
quarter-of-fast-food-workers-are-raising-a-child/278424/)

~~~
ryanmercer
>Fewer than 1/3 are under 20

Because there are restrictions on what hours minors can work and what
equipment they can operate.

Guess what job they do the most of? Cashier.

Guess what job these kiosks replace? Cashier.

You still need humans to do the cooking, to troubleshoot system issues, you'll
always need a proper cashier for times when systems go down or you have a
disabled patron (blind for example), you'll need people cleaning the facility
and parking lot, taking the trash out, restocking things.

This is a chicken little issue "ermagerd, a kiosk is going to replace a
cashier, we're all gonna starve to death when our jobs are replaced!!!".

This is something we WANT. Widespread adoption of kiosks gives John Q Public a
wake up that automation can replace jobs, it gives minimum wage workers yet
another nudge that saying "do you want fries with that" isn't a career.

They're replacing cashiers, the most pointless and un-fulfilling job on the
planet. It'll be ok.

~~~
kristopolous
The admonishment is the structural way technological progress screws over poor
and vulnerable members of society and proactively detracts from society's
well-being.

If the kiosks cause people to lose a job and, say fall behind in rent, then
they create homeless people or bad educational outcomes, or any of the other
consequences of poverty.

If we want to continue our 35 year old preposterous cult of imagining everyone
who is homeless are really just lazy versions Jeff Bezos who don't apply
themselves, then we will continue to get the same results having that approach
has generated.

It is empirically beyond any reasonable doubt, demonstrably conclusive to be a
highly dysfunctional and patently incorrect approach to structuring a society.
Sure, let's have kiosks, but let's also prioritize not having profound
disruptive deleterious harm to society in the process. There's consequences
and costs to all of us for our negligence, incompetence and irresponsibility.

Those who continue to advocate for ignoring this reality are controlled and
blinded by their passions and preference. It's terribly wrong and we are
suffering the consequences.

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tnzn
It's been like that for like, 3 years, in France

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arketyp
I see these in Sweden. Self-serving checkouts are booming here too. Personally
I hate them, it's the same masturbatory horror as with VR goggles. But the
tech will improve and become more seamless I'm sure. And human interaction
will become a luxury. The fancy stores still hold on to their cashiers, I've
noticed. Gradually they will become the experts, connoisseurs, who will help
and guide you with your more involved questions, or if you're just high out of
your mind or whatever. "What burger works with my French Cabernet Sauvignon?"

So the article lifts an interesting point. The low-competence trainee entry
will disappear, meanwhile perhaps a greater demand for expertise than ever
before will arise. How will the training occur?

