Barcodes are about to go extinct

> No one is talking about it. It feels like a meteorite is hitting the planet and no one is paying attention.

An unintentionally appropriate metaphor. How many of the ~17 meteorites that hit the planet per day do you pay attention to?

GS1 Datamatrix is what I see here locally (Switzerland) starting being used for fresh food like sandwiches which makes sense as it contains the sell by date. This allows them to quickly scan items and sort out what has expired or needs a discount because it's expiring soon.

Sadly food tracking apps still don't read these codes. They are vibe coding new features constantly but not working on adding what is actually important.

Yazio, im talking to you...

I work for a global consumer goods company - we print probably billions of (1d) bar codes on packs per year.

1d bar codes will go extinct, but only after every scanning system at every retailer has changed to recognize 2d bar codes/qr codes. This will likely take decades.

In the meantime, there will be a world where 2d bar codes and 1d bar codes will coexist on packs. With the additional confusion that many packs already have qr codes, either for consumer information or for internal tracking at the plant (batches for quality control), so we will probably have a little zoo of qr codes for a while, until they all finally can be merged.

Prediction.... 'about to', will mean over the next fewdecades. Retail product barcodes may be the fastest to go, over the next 2 decades. Other uses, like self printed labels for warehouse stock control will be here for the foreseeable. You might install a new Manufacturing Execution System in 20 years that supports it. But the Warehouse Management System and ERP don't...

They mention QR code being a link and companies having to store data on their side.

Surely the actual data will be stored in the QR code and available offline

I'm glad to see this. Switching to a new standard barcode format that can hold more data and enable better tracking of physical consumer goods seems like the sort of thing that will have a large number of small benefits pervasively in the economy, one of the many small improvements of human technological civilization that in the aggregate results in a better world today than in the past.

I also like the aesthetics of QR codes better than traditional barcodes. They do kind of invoke the look of a Go board partway through a game, which is more visually interesting than the boring straight lines of the traditional barcode.

Does encoding URLs in QR codes expose the scanners to quishing[0] attacks, such as bad actors sticking malicious QR codes over legit ones?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing#QR_code_phishing_(qui...

This is very similar to IPv6. Sure, the new standard solves a lot of problems, but it also has to fight decades worth of existing infrastructure.

I recall all the chat, maybe twelve to fifteen years back when Asian use of QRs took off, thanks to ready availability of mobiles. There were impassioned arguments that it might be fine in those markets but it would never catch on in the West because it was not appealing to consumers who wouldn't want them all over magazines and menus. I never bought that, as fairly quickly the phones came with built in recognition and it was just a matter of time. We saw at table ordering thanks to COVID and many products added QR for consumers even if the shops hadn't pushed it (in the UK at least)

If the Pamper's app is anything to go by, the QR codes will fail to be read, and the older "text recognition of the printed code" will keep working.

Well, „classic“ barcodes have the advantage that they can span the entire product length. That makes it easier for me at Self-checkout counters. Hard to do with QR codes :)

QR codes are just a type of barcode...

At family mart in China, some of the pastries are in bags with a QR code and a bar code. If it accidentally scans the QR code the self checkout (not in English) goes into a weird mode and I have to get help. So I just learned to cover the QR code for any packaging that had both it and a bar code on the same side.

What a bad piece. Optical is obsolete. Decathlon (here in France at least) has RFID on all their products, they're used as anti-theft, automatic tilling: you just put them in a box at the register and it knows what it is (also kills the chips once paid) and very likely they're used all along the logistic chain.

We must create a barcode reservation to preseve the last of the species before they go extinct!

Hopefully they can reproduce and ensure the survival of their species.

QR codes will not likely be used to their potential. They are being used as 1D bar codes. I have seen products with several QR codes all over different parts and in the manuals. Usually if you scan them going to a useless homepage or a manual that does not specifically refer to the thing being scanned without an exhaustive search.

Remember the most important fact about these codes: Nobody cares.

consider digimarc barcode too. qr code is nice, but nicer is it if you even not see it.

JAB Code (color bar code) can fit more data into the same space: https://jabcode.org/

QR codes are a bit more fragile than barcodes though. A scratch or a stain can make them unreadable.

Are there studies on how that might affect logistics?

Nah…

Barcodes are easy and cheap to read in a way that QR codes aren’t (particularly complex ones)

Any old cheap laser scanner will read a barcode and they can be made at large sizes e.g. how Aldi use them on products in the UK to make self scan faster

QR codes need a camera, their complexity goes up as more data is encoded in them so require better cameras especially is high speed situations

They both have places in the world and will co-exist for years to come

I think this is great! i've long wanted a future where i can stock my fridge and cupboards with goods and scan the barcodes in and be tracking what their expirations are to better manage when i need to restock or throw things out

They aren't. Sage.

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Fun fact: QR codes are about 80% depleted. /s

Not what I see in shop at all, I can't think of literally ONE product I bought which wouldn't have barcode.

Reminds me of RFID labels pipe dream.

I am the creator of https://www.closient.com/ - a GS1 Digital Link Resolver (still building it, be gentle).

I have been deep into this space for a fair bit of time now. The real power is in Recalls and Return Fraud. There a ton of other nice things that this will empower of course. AMA - I will do my best to answer.

For some other stuff to read about how they can help have a poke at https://blog.closient.com/

Not advertising - just trying to get the word out on 2D codes and RFID and what they provide consumers.

For those saying "Why not something else?" - it comes down to adoption - QR was just the more popular winner. While the register/till is where most of the scanning is happening the QR is just a normal URL and consumer can scan them.