Inspired by  Chaplin’s famous speech from The Great Dictator:

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We have put machines before men, mistaking efficiency for progress. Self-checkout was promised as an advancement, a liberation—but it is a lie. Once, a single clerk could master their craft, serving thousands with skill and speed. Now, that burden is scattered among the people, each one forced to fumble, to learn, to struggle alone.

What was once the work of one, refined and swift, is now the work of many—slow, frustrating, and impersonal. They tell us this is improvement, but at what cost? The hours saved by corporations are stolen from the people, their time chipped away, their dignity reduced to error messages and beeping machines.

We are not machines! We are human beings! We seek connection, not cold transactions. We are meant to speak, to smile, to share a moment—not to stand in silent frustratio

n before lifeless screens. Efficiency without humanity is no progress at all.

Let us not be fooled by their numbers, by their profits. The true measure of progress is not in what is saved, but in what is lost.