Invisible Costs and the Entertainmentization of Consumption

Subtitle: Labor cost reduction is being staged as 'freedom'

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Introduction | Is it 'freedom', or is it 'staging'?

We in the modern age seem to have an astonishing amount of 'freedom' when it comes to shopping.

We choose products ourselves, pay at self-checkout counters, and have them delivered to our doorsteps by courier.

Furthermore, we can have items delivered with a single click without even going to a store.

However, isn't the structural purpose behind that 'freedom' the store's reduction of labor costs, and the fact that we are 'taking on those costs without realizing it'?
No, rather, it is being turned into entertainment so that it goes unnoticed.

Chapter 1 | In the old days, 'if you asked, it appeared'

100 years ago, this is how it was at shops.

If a customer said, 'One bottle of soy sauce,' the shopkeeper would take the product from a shelf in the back and hand it to them.

I remember reading that in America, they would write it on a piece of paper and hand it over.

This is close to a modern pharmacy.

Or you could think of an item shop in an RPG.

—The process of the shopkeeper 'retrieving' it from across the counter.

There was a clear structure here where 'only the store side touches the product'.

Chapter 2 | The price of the customer's freedom to 'choose'

Eventually, product shelves were opened up, and picking items became the customer's job.

This change could be said to have 'given customers freedom'.

The joy of seeing, comparing, and choosing with your own eyes. Truly an evolution of 'shopping as entertainment'.

However, structurally speaking, this is the shifting of labor costs.

The customer is taking on the effort that the clerk used to perform by taking items off the shelf.

But customers do not feel this as a 'burden'.

Rather, they accept it gladly as the 'joy of choosing'.

Chapter 3 | Register operation has turned into an 'experience'

In recent years, self-checkout has become widespread.

At first glance, this looks like an improvement in convenience.

However, if you flip it over, it is a reduction of cashiers.

The act of 'operating a register,' which should originally be 'labor,' is being converted into a 'customer experience'.

We are now in an era where ordinary people can enjoy as entertainment an experience that was once only permitted to cashiers.

Here too, there is a clever staging that wraps the structure of cost-cutting in the context of entertainment.

Chapter 4 | Amazon rules the world through 'intermediation'

Amazon does not make things.

What they do is,
connect wholesalers and customers, optimize the delivery mechanism, and profit from that intermediation.

In other words, Amazon is 'an RPG item shop that doesn't even have a physical store space'.

Here, there are no display shelves and no cashiers.

Customers click on inventory data and receive it at their doorstep a few days later.

There,the 'in-store experience' itself is erased.

Chapter 5 | Costco is a dual structure of 'omission and staging'

So, what is an example that retains 'physical stores' while structurally innovating?

That is Costco.

• Products are piled up on pallets

• Display is minimal

• Products are in commercial sizes

This is clearly a cut in display labor costs, but customers accept it as a 'sense of value'.

Why?

Because it has become entertainment where you step into the warehouse itself and 'discover' things at a 'real site'.

In other words, cost-cutting and the entertainmentization of shopping are perfectly compatible.

Costco is a theme park for shopping.

One could say that.

In Japan, Don Quijote, Village Vanguard, and Seikatsu Soko would likely fall into this category.

It is like a modern-day treasure hunt.

Conclusion | Consumption is 'how you accept structure'

Without realizing it, we are shouldering a lot of 'trouble'.

But instead of recognizing it as a 'service',
we accept it as 'freedom', 'discovery', or 'comfort'.

In other words, how to wrap the structure of cost-cutting is the biggest key in modern consumption design.

The reduction of labor costs is not just 'rationalization'.

When it can be sublimated into an experience as an 'attraction',
consumption becomes 'participation' rather than the imposition of a structure.

However, that participation is not necessarily entirely voluntary.

Choosing.

Searching.

Carrying.

Scanning.

Paying.

While it appears we are acting of our own volition within a world designed by corporations, we are actually taking on some of the tasks that were once handled by the store side.

Modern consumers are not only customers buying products but also the final workers who complete the distribution system.

However, shouldn't the question be: 'Whose benefit does this freedom serve?'

When 'freedom' is staged, who designed that staging, and who is bearing the cost?

A world that hides all struggle eventually weakens the very 'power to feel'.

Even so, will we continue to call it 'freedom'?

Supplementary Chapter | Invisible costs extend beyond the screen

In this article, I have looked at the structure in which some of the work once performed by store clerks is transferred to consumers, while being presented as freedom, convenience, or entertainment.

However, this issue has several more branches.

The first is the question of why omitted labor is perceived as comfort.

In an RPG item shop, the shopkeeper is never shown going to the warehouse to retrieve items or checking inventory. The player selects items from a list and purchases them with a single button press.

Even though processes that would exist in reality are omitted, we do not find it unnatural. Rather, we feel it is comfortable.

I thought about this 'omission as staging' in detail in another article.

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The second is the question of what kind of customer service corporations provide after delegating tasks to the customer.

At a manned register, a clerk would explain things, correct mistakes, and sense the customer's confusion.

At a self-checkout, the screen takes on that role.

The words on the screen, the placement of buttons, error messages, and how to call a clerk—these reveal how the company treats its customers.

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The third is the question of how much a company's philosophy is reflected in its UI.

Does it explain things when the user is lost?

Does it rush the operation?

Does it allow you to go back if you make a mistake?

Does it make it easy to find options that are disadvantageous to the company?

A company's true intentions sometimes appear more clearly on the screen than in their mission statement.

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And the fourth is the question of how long we will continue to create separate UIs for every company for things necessary for daily life.

Hospitals, banks, government, transportation, hotels, restaurants.

Even if the purposes are different, the basic actions—identity verification, selection, confirmation, payment, cancellation, and requesting assistance—are similar.

If so, couldn't parts of the UI become a common social foundation, like road signs?

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The problem of invisible costs does not end with self-checkouts.

Omitted labor.

Judgment transferred to the user.

Screens that convey corporate philosophy.

UI as a common social touchpoint.

What consumers are taking on is not just mere hassle.

It may be the final process that connects corporations and society itself.

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