The Barcode Engineered Its Own Downfall
To marvel at the choice and convenience of modern shopping, go visit your grocery-store mustard aisle. My local Whole Foods sells more than 20 different kinds: basic yellow mustard and Grey Poupon, yes, but also “spicy brown mustard” and “banana-pepper mustard” and “no-sugar-added honey mustard” and “organic salt-free mustard.” There is “uniquely sharp mustard”(!), and “sulfite-free original Dijon mustard squeeze”(!?).
Such dizzying choices are made possible by an amazing piece of technology: the barcode. These black-and-white lines are machine-speak for an item’s Universal Product Code, which allows a scanner to tell you exactly what the item is, and draw up its price in any given store. The barcode is why a cashier can quickly scan your stuff, shove it into a bag, and hand you a receipt (and how self-checkout kiosks are able to make you do all the work). And because the barcode allows for incredible efficiency in tracking and managing inventory, it is a large part of why grocery stores now have a paralyzing number of options. Around the time the barcode debuted, in 1974, supermarkets stocked an average of 9,000 products. Today, you will find more than 30,000.
In this half century, the barcode has become the plumbing of global capitalism—revolutionary, pervasive, forgettable. More kinds of scannable codes have arrived since the ’70s, but the UPC barcode is on the packaging of most consumer products you get from every store, grocery or otherwise, brick-and-mortar or online. It is among the greatest, most consequential inventions in American history. How did we, ,
