you really do speak about things you know little about, don't you
Well if the technology is already here, and it is far "better and cheaper," then why isn't anyone using it?
This is what I know. About three times a week I stop by Burger King in the morning and pick up my double-croissant, Hershey pie and Dr. Pepper. I usually go there between 6am-7am. Each and every time I go, there is never more than two employees working. This, even during the morning rush when everyone is picking up food on their way to work. On most occasions, it is just the one woman, usually a bi-lingual Latina who happens to be the manager. She is running back and forth making the food, taking orders with her headset, and swiping debit cards. I saw this when I first came back from Brazil and thought OK, everyone called in sick. But then I noticed it was happening all the time at all the restaurants.
This is very different from the days when I was working fast food as a teenager making $3.35 an hour. Most of the employees were kids in high school, save a couple of college students including the manager.
Nowadays, these places are operated mostly by grown adults, sometimes overqualified adults, who support families. These companies have been doing essentially what corporate America at large has been doing since the 80's, and that's making the worker do more work for the same pay. Making them "more productive" so the CEO can get his bonus and shareholders are happy with their quarterly statements. So what is the limit of a person's productivity? When does a corporation decide that an employee had reached his or her limit of productivity? Simply put, it doesn't. It just keeps throwing the whip at them and say like it or leave it.
Hasn't anyone ever noticed that these places don't even use the first drive through window anymore? "Pull up to the second window please." Managers running these places are told that their promotions are dependent on their ability to cut costs better than other store managers, so you generally see them doing all the functions other employees are supposed to be doing.
So these places have been cutting costs left and right for decades now. I don't think there is room for investing is burger machines because these places will still need someone there to run the store and make sure nothing malfunctions. Since these places generally have only one to three people doing all of the necessary functions these days anyway, it is hard to imagine how it would be beneficial to invest in such a machine.
But I've said several times over the years that absolute automation is in our future no matter what. At some point in time, whether it be 50 or 200 years from now, everything is going to be automated. During the first phase of this transition the only jobs available will be for computer programmers. That is, until they figure out a way to make computers program themselves, and then even they will be jobless. So what happens to all the low skilled workers who have no hopes of ever having a job because computers and robots are doing it all without complaining about vacation time or restroom breaks? It freaked me out when I came back from Brazil in 2008 and saw people scanning/bagging their own groceries and paying a computer. This is the trend, and it isn't about to change now no matter what the minimum wage is.
There will eventually be a point in human history when we'll all have no choice but to move towards some kind of universal socialism. It is inevitable. I mean, if no one is working because everything is automated, then how does anyone live? Except of course, the wealthiest .05%, who will own 98% of all the world's wealth? Not because they ever worked a day in their lives or earned anything themselves, but because they were lucky enough to be born into families that had invested in automation years before it completely took over.