The thing is, where I live the system works well. It doesn't make UX choices that make it hard to use, assuming that people are stealing all the time. It's fast and easy, although so are the human manned checkouts, which also exist and are fine.

US here. Scan-as-you-go plus self checkout is amazing. Lay out your reusable bags in the cart when you arrive then pick-scan-bag through the store. Self checkout becomes a 2 minute process at most, no matter how many items you have and everything's already bagged for the trip home.

Our local store (Stop&Shop) is rather trashy compared to competitors but we go there because of the fast scan and self-checkout process.