Who Wins When Cash Is No Longer King?

Of the most popular coffee shops in San Francisco's Financial District, only one is manned by a robot. Every morning, in a glass-and-wood booth on the corner of One Bush Street, customers queue around a whirring hydraulic arm, waiting for it to serve them cappuccino. Cafe X has three San Francisco locations, and all are cashless and fully automated, with orders taken via app. The one I pass on the way to work each morning is mere steps away from Amazon's cashless Go store, where human cashiers and baggers have disappeared, and juice and milk are dispensed by wanding your phone over a sensor. Human attendants hover in the lobby to aid shoppers, mostly newcomers confused by the entire cashless scheme.