In 1986, an inventor named David Humble rolled out the first self-checkout machine to a Kroger outside of Atlanta. It was a watershed moment for store owners at the time, who hoped to "increase store profits" and "alleviate labor shortages" — another way to say "avoid hiring workers above the minimum wage" of $3.35 — about $9.80 today. Fast forward about 50 years, and self-checkout has taken the US by storm. It is now in TK stores, and has eliminated an estimated TK jobs, saving corporations and store owners $TK. But with constant outages, unsettling surveillance initiatives, and millions of […]