• AdelleChattre
    +4

    I fundamentally disagree with you about a minimum wage. Subway will adopt automation as soon as they think it'll make them one thin dime more. This repackaged Subway press release can be seen as more of a threat to automate than news that automation's arrived. This is a threat meant to keep wages suppressed.

    There isn't one state in this country where having one full-time minimum wage job means you can rent an apartment with a bedroom. To me, that's a sign wages are too low. How many jobs should Americans have?

    • NinjaKlaus
      +3

      I fundamentally disagree with you about a minimum wage. Subway will adopt automation as soon as they think it'll make them one thin dime more. This repackaged Subway press release can be seen as more of a threat to automate than the news that automation's arrived. This is a threat meant to keep wages suppressed.

      Yes, they were always going to eventually adopt automation, I believe that it's happened faster than it would have because of the push for higher wages. Within a year of the push for 15, several restaurants have pushed announcements of this type of technology, even sit down places are in on it, Darden I think it is, is putting tablets at the table to order with.

      There isn't one state in this country where having one full-time minimum wage job means you can rent an apartment with a bedroom. To me, that's a sign wages are too low. How many jobs should Americans have?

      I'm not saying wages aren't horribly bad, I never said that; I believe we need annual COLA on wages to bring them in line with actual living, I'm just pointing out that a business isn't going to like this at all and thus introduce or threaten to introduce technology to not pay people any more.

      • AdelleChattre
        +3

        Fair enough. Still, we've seen ordering kiosks being threatened decade after decade after decade after decade, and I see zero in the wild. My guess is that ordering may be where automation can take over, but it's not where the costs are. I wouldn't've minded ordering kiosks at fast food places back in the Eighties when bank ATMs took off, but at some point I stopped expecting them any day now. I'll grant you that I'm maybe a bit jaded in my old age, but to me the giveaway that this tarted-up press release was advertorial was when they wet their pants over Apple Pay. Not even Apple gives a shit about Apple Pay. It's just their brand of NFC.