The Invisible Price of Convenience

Friction is the point, not the enemy

Stop using self-checkout. I don’t care how much you like it, you must stop using it because the frictionless convenience of self-checkout is costing us human connection, and the price of efficiency in all of this is our human engagement.

That’s my main point. Full stop. But I know it’s more complicated than that, and I know you’re going to push back on this absolutism, which is exactly what I want you to do.

The tension between convenience and cost (between what technology promises and what it actually takes from us) is worth sitting with.

-|- Field Notes -|-

There’s an illusion of convenience when it comes to self-checkout. In some cases, it’s just being thrust upon us and we don’t really have a choice in the matter, which I understand. But at those times when you do have a choice, when you’re at the grocery store and there’s self-checkout alongside human checkers, it’s worth asking why you’re choosing it over the alternative. What invisible assumptions make that choice feel obvious?

Sometimes it really is more convenient. You’re buying three things, you want to get in and out, and self-checkout is legitimately the fastest path. I’m not here to condemn that choice or deny that efficiency sometimes matters most.

But there’s an invisible set of assumptions built into this model, and they’re worth examining. Self-checkout presents itself as speed and control and your best route out of the store. But most of the time it’s just shifting costs rather than eliminating them. It reduces the number of checkers, which makes the store more efficient while simultaneously reducing the human interaction you experience.

When I go through self-checkout, I find myself wondering: why I’m doing work that used to be someone’s job? why this is now the expected labor I’m supposed to perform just to buy groceries? how long is it going to be before I’m stocking shelves here? and in some cases, why am I being asking to leave a tip? who exactly am I tipping, me??

And more than all of that: what am I not getting when I’m doing self-checkout?

What I’m not getting is that moment of human contact; that brief exchange with a checker who might comment on the weather, notice I’m buying ingredients for a specific meal, or simply make eye contact and acknowledge me as a person. It’s small, sure. Sometimes perfunctory. But it’s a thread of social fabric that self-checkout eliminates, one transaction at a time.

The promise of self-checkout is autonomy: you are in control; you are efficient; and, you don’t have to wait while someone in front of you makes small talk. All true.

But the reality is often frustration. The scale doesn’t register your produce. The machine can’t determine if you’ve placed the item in the bagging area. You need assistance for age-restricted purchases. Suddenly you’re standing there waving at an employee monitoring four self-checkout stations simultaneously, wondering why this was supposed to be faster and why you feel so frustrated and alone in it all.

This isn’t about being anti-technology or romanticizing the past. It’s about recognizing that every technological “solution” makes a claim about what matters and what doesn’t. Self-checkout claims that efficiency matters more than engagement, that speed matters more than social contact, that labor costs matter more than the dignity of employment. Maybe sometimes that trade is worth it, but we should at least acknowledge we’re making one.

So, here’s what I’m asking: the next time you’re at the store and you have a choice between self-checkout and a human checker, pause. Notice your default impulse and why it exists. Are you actually in a rush, or have you internalized the idea that faster is always better? Are you avoiding human contact because you’re tired, or because we’re all being conditioned to see other people as friction in our consumer experience?

I’m not saying you must choose the human checker every time, but I’m saying the choice itself deserves examination. These small moments, the ones where we choose between convenience and connection, accumulate over time and they shape what kind of world we’re building together, and whether that world has room for the slow, inefficient, unpredictable beauty of human encounter and genuine human engagement.

And in those moments when you reject the self-checkout option and choose the human checker, think of it as a moment of tiny rebellion against the larger forces trying to drive a wedge between us all even deeper.

-|- Three things worth your time -|-

· Next grocery trip: Notice whether human checkers are available or if self-checkout is positioned as the default. How does the store design your choice?

· That moment of eye contact: The next time you interact with a service worker, pay attention to whether you make eye contact and how that brief exchange feels

· Your own labor: Track how many unpaid tasks you perform as a customer (self-checkout, online ordering, app-based service). What used to be someone’s job that’s now yours? How does that make you feel?

-|- Keep Evolving -|-

When did convenience stop being a luxury and start being an expectation you feel guilty for not maximizing? (And let’s not even start a conversation about tipping!)

Tomorrow morning at 10am Pacific, I’ll be releasing the video version of this essay on YouTube along with the companion podcast episode. If you prefer watching or listening to reading, you’ll find both on YouTube and wherever you get podcasts. Same ideas, different format — pick what works for you. If it were me, I’d pick all three.

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