Same in Germany. Lots of people avoid digital transactions and almost exclusively pay in cash. It’s always weird for me to see huge lines at the cashier while the self checkout is completely empty.
That sucks. For us it’s been working great for a few years already but we’re also all based in the same city, usually share a lot with each other, often meet (and log into the same wifi) and possibly most importantly, we’re based in the EU where tech companies are usually less anti-consumer as they’re more worried about fines.
Currently I‘m sharing a premium family subscription with as many users as Google allows which is like 6€ for each user.
If Google ever cracks down on sharing or this gets much more expensive (because even 6€ is too much IMO) we’re probably just gonna cancel the subscription altogether.
Also worth comparing to graphics cards here. After the crypto mining boom, prices didn’t drop significantly. Expensive cards were just the new baseline because gamers need graphics cards and do not have many alternatives to look elsewhere.
In Germany too and I always found them strange. At least at our closest supermarket they recently got phased out and replaced with cashless self checkouts.