Have you visited the buggy whip store lately?
Progress and innovation often lead to obsolescence for items like buggy whips. They met their demise with the advent of the automobile.
Remember when you called a telephone operator for a phone number? Hello, cell phones.
Now kiosks often take payments at local car washes and fast food stores. And see the self-check out lanes at big box and grocery stores.
Consider Amazon has new technology that will allow shoppers to bypass the checkout line at a grocery store.
Technology reduces costs and often disrupts the work force with entry-level and unskilled labor at greatest risk of job loss.
A question: Will mandated minimum wage increases to $15 an hour create just another incentive for businesses to substitute lower cost machines for more costly human labor?
Greg C. Truax is a documentary filmmaker and publisher of AliveTampaBay. His On the Point commentaries also air weekly on WHBO 1040 AM.