Some updates to self-checkout guidelines at department store retailer Walmart have customers upset at the prospect of using a subscription service to provide access to the checkout mechanism.
Customers who have taken to social media to express their outrage over the prospect have likened the idea to paying to work for the company.
Now, another customer is putting her own spin on the idea of paying for a service to use self-checkout at Walmart. In a video posted to TikTok by @setaminata, she says she is more comfortable paying for services like Netflix, which offers a specific kind of service.
“My earliest encounters with subscriptions was with Netflix, and that was when we were still watching TV,” she says in the video.
She says services like Netflix made sense because the appeal was you can watch your shows on your own time.
“Perhaps you’ve been looking to watch shows or movies that are no longer available on your TV to watch, no channels are airing them and you want to watch them,” she says. “Perhaps you don’t even have a TV to watch your shows on, perhaps all you have is a laptop and a phone. Netflix kind of resolved all of these problems, right?”
Other subscription services like Spotify similarly resolved issues of access to extended catalogs of content on demand, she says. However, the proposed model of subscription access to self-checkout aisles at the grocery chain is deeply upsetting to her.
@setaminata Capitalism will eat us all. #creatorsearchinsights #walmart #fyp ♬ original sound – Setaminata
“They purposely keep a lot of the cashier register spots closed, so that there’s a long a** line waiting, forcing everyone to go on self-checkout, and now they’re going to make you pay for self-checkout,” she says.
She continues, “You have to pay to pay for your groceries. Does that make sense to you? You have to pay to cash out and pay for your groceries yourself. You’re checking out yourself. You’re paying to work at Walmart. It doesn’t make sense and nobody can tell me otherwise.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to @setaminata via TikTok direct message regarding the video, as well as to Walmart via its contact submission form.
It is worth noting that the grocery store giant has denied claims that it is charging folks to use its self-checkouts. In a report from Reuters, a Walmart spokesperson has said that some stores might close their self-checkout lanes or limit their use at local discretion, but are not asking customers to pay $98 per year, or about $12 per month, to use them.
Exclusive use of self-checkouts is also not listed under the website description for the grocery store’s Walmart+ and Spark programs, which is what critics of the claim suggest may be the subscription service required to use them.
Some viewers commented on the video that they generally had several complaints about the broader shift to using subscription models for services.
“The other biggest appeal w subscriptions was the lack of ads. and now that’s gone,” one commenter wrote.
“The fact that so many companies are doing memberships or subscriptions, will literally be the downfall,” another user said. “What do I look like paying a subscription for a GROCERY STORE!!!!”
“Related but unrelated: there’s too many subscriptions (esp w streaming) to keep up w now and those not allowing account sharing is absurd if i’m paying this money i should decide who uses it!” one user added.
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