> It’s a form of free labor that somehow society is okay with.

It's very popular to say this in some places, but wouldn't you expect that the money that businesses are saving when they do this is passed along to the customer in lower prices? Since they're competing with other businesses?

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darth_avocado 10 hours ago | parent [-]

When your grocery store gets a self checkout, do you see your grocery bills go down? What ends up happening is that the grocery store makes more profit, the other stores notice and they too get rid of self checkouts. Your grocery bill remains the same, you are more inconvenienced but all of their profits go up.

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mhb 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Yeah sure. That's the logic that elects Mamdani. Maybe you're confused because instead of going down, prices increased less than they otherwise would have.

Economics happens on the margins where the reality is that store A reduces its costs and lowers its prices to compete with Store B. Or are you paying $100 for a jar of peanut butter?

	▲	darth_avocado 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ehh. Corporate profits are at all time highs. The idea that somehow if corporations replace workers or pay them less, will somehow ensure we see smaller price increases as consumers is the fallacy that’s brought us here in the first place. Trying to make this a political discussion is pointless. In-n-out hires a large staff and pays people well, and somehow their hamburger is still $3 and top quality. The same time when every other fast food chain is charging restaurant prices. Costco hires plenty of staff and pays them well, their prices are some of the lowest in the country. Meanwhile Walmart, target etc. are always understaffed and somehow still more expensive. We were told that $20 minimum wage would make our McDonalds burgers to be $100 (like your hyperbole about peanut butter). Our burgers are just marginally more expensive than the rest of the country. I still remember when all the fast food chains raised their prices together even when they didn’t need to post pandemic. Makes me really skeptical of the claim about companies lowering prices to compete with each other.