{ "archive_path": "archive/1791021967.72841", "base_url": "thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct", "basename": "why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct", "bookmarked_date": "2026-10-03 10:06", "canonical": { "archive_org_path": "https://web.archive.org/web/thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct", "dom_path": "output.html", "favicon_path": "favicon.ico", "git_path": "git/", "google_favicon_path": "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thehustle.co", "headers_path": "headers.json", "htmltotext_path": "htmltotext.txt", "index_path": "index.html", "media_path": "media/", "mercury_path": "mercury/content.html", "pdf_path": "output.pdf", "readability_path": "readability/content.html", "screenshot_path": "screenshot.png", "singlefile_path": "singlefile.html", "warc_path": "warc/", "wget_path": "thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct.html" }, "domain": "thehustle.co", "extension": "", "hash": "QVPY01AC61MVABVE8JB5", "history": { "archive_org": [], "dom": [], "favicon": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--max-time", "120", "--output", "favicon.ico", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?domain=thehustle.co" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:22.191736+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "favicon.ico", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791021967.72841", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:21.713010+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "git": [], "headers": [ { "cmd": [ "curl", "--silent", "--location", "--compressed", "--head", "--max-time", "120", "--user-agent", "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/118.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 ArchiveBox/0.7.4 (+https://github.com/ArchiveBox/ArchiveBox/) curl/curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "https://thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct" ], "cmd_version": "curl 8.14.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)", "end_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:22.647996+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "headers.json", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791021967.72841", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:22.201218+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "htmltotext": [], "media": [], "mercury": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/@postlight/parser/cli.js", "https://thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct" ], "cmd_version": "1.0.0", "end_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:44.417122+00:00", "index_texts": null, "output": "mercury", "pwd": "/data/archive/1791021967.72841", "schema": "ArchiveResult", "start_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:39.477096+00:00", "status": "succeeded" } ], "pdf": [], "readability": [ { "cmd": [ "/app/node_modules/readability-extractor/readability-extractor", "/tmp/tmpqhb8r_w4", "https://thehustle.co/originals/why-barcodes-are-about-to-go-extinct" ], "cmd_version": "0.0.11", "end_ts": "2026-10-03T10:06:39.467143+00:00", "index_texts": [ "QR codes are here. Barcodes should be very afraid. \nIn 1992, on a factory floor in a Toyota auto-parts subsidiary in Japan, workers were drowning in barcodes.\nThey were everywhere: some components on the line needed ten barcodes just to capture all the tracking data. Employees scanned them, one by one, hundreds of times a day. \nMasahiro Hara, an engineer on the barcodes team at Denso, the subsidiary, tackled the problem. What if, he reasoned, you could build a barcode in two dimensions instead of one? You could pack it with information, cutting the number of scans from ten to one on every item. \nIn the company cafeteria, Hara watched as his coworkers squared off over a game of Go, a board game played with black and white stones on a grid. The contrast he saw there inspired the design for what would eventually become the QR code, a code that can be read from any angle and hold 200x more data than the barcodes emblazoned on the products we buy today. \nWorkers at Denso\u2019s auto parts factory were scanning components covered in barcodes before QR emerged. (Photo by Si Wei/VCG via Getty Images)\nAfter a year and a half of work on the QR, Denso patented the innovation. Rather than enforce royalties on it, they published the specs so any company could use it for free. \nAnd that decision is about to change every single thing you buy. \nQR code takeover\nTwenty years earlier, in 1974, a cashier at a grocery store in Troy, Ohio, scanned the world\u2019s first barcode, affixed to a pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum. \nGrocery retailers and manufacturers had recently formed a committee and chosen the Universal Product Code, or UPC, as the single industry standard. \nThe decision created a network effect: once enough retailers required UPC codes on products, manufacturers had to comply. And once manufacturers printed UPCs on packages, retailers needed to buy scanners. \nIt also created a self-reinforcing monopoly, one that with widespread adoption reached critical mass by 1980. \nThe Uniform Code Council, now known as GS1, received the authority to issue the first six numbers of every barcode, called company prefixes. It\u2019s the only way to sell mainstream retail products: there\u2019s no alternative registry. \nInspired by the board game Go, Masahiro Hara developed a 2-D barcode. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)\nToday, GS1 charges annual licensing fees for company prefixes, which scale with company size. It didn\u2019t so much become a monopoly as it was set up that way. Barcodes have been a retail stalwart for the last 50 years, on more than 1B products scanned billions of times a day across the globe. \nTwo years ago, though, GS1 made an announcement. The barcode was out. \nThe organization\u00a0was ushering in a new era, a global shift unlike any the retail industry has seen before. Much like the transformation of the \u201870s, retailers would begin to move to QR codes. \nThe real estate of packaging\nToday\u2019s packaging has to do a nearly impossible number of jobs with limited real estate. \n\nSell the product.\nSatisfy legal requirements.\nExplain how to use it.\nOffer information about sourcing, ingredients, authenticity, and disposal. \n\nYou try fitting all that on a bottle of nail polish. \u201cThis is one of my biggest battles,\u201d says Nicole Light, founder and CEO of packaging strategy firm Power in Packaging. She\u2019s worked on product development and packaging design in everything from fragrance to beverages to meat and seafood to, yes, nail polish. She\u2019s used to shrinking text down to sizes smaller than the human eye can comfortably read just to make everything fit \u2014 and to keep products within their industry\u2019s regulations. \nIt\u2019s some of those regulations that prompted Sunrise 2027, the shift GS1 is introducing next year. \nFood recalls, like the one on infant formula in 2021, meant manufacturers needed better tracking information for their products, and quickly. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)\nIn the early 2020s, food recalls spiked. So did another problem for manufacturers: a barcode can\u2019t tell you where a product originated, only what kind of product it is. That became an issue during contamination events like the great onion recalls of 2020 and 2021 and the great peanut butter poisoning of 2022. Later in 2022, the FDA mandated that manufacturers keep more detailed tracking information across the food supply chain, sparking a need for a better barcode. \nThe humble barcode has done its job brilliantly for 50 years, says Kate Hardcastle, business strategist and author of The Science of Shopping. \n\u201cIt tells the till what the product is and how much to charge,\u201d she says. \u201cBut that\u2019s where the conversation ends.\u201d \n\u2018A futuristic experiment\u2019\nSo what can a QR code do instead?\nHardcastle says a 2D barcode, like the QR, can tie a product to information about:\n\nIts origins and authenticity.\nIngredients and allergens.\nExpiry dates.\nEnvironmental impact.\nCare and disposal. \n\nThe same code works at checkout, in the stock room, and for the customer. \nHardcastle, who helps GS1 conduct research, says nearly half of retailers she and GS1 polled have already started to introduce QR capabilities.\n\u201cThis is no longer a futuristic experiment,\u201d she says. \u201cThe infrastructure of shopping is already being rewritten.\u201d \nAnd Light adds that while brands can wait until retailers demand they add a QR code to their products, most probably shouldn\u2019t. Consider all the things that will need to change in the overhaul:\n\nHow systems talk to barcodes.\nHow all the tracking data is stored.\nLabels on packaging. \nAnd more. \n\nBigger brands have the systems (and budgets) to weather a change like this. Last year, Unilever unveiled an upgrade of products across brands like Dove, Vaseline, and Hellman\u2019s. It was a massive undertaking involving 45k SKUs. \n\u201cI have worked with a lot of these brands, and they change their packaging like they change their underwear,\u201d Light says. \n\u201cSo, in the grand scheme of things, it\u2019s the companies that have used the same box for decades that are going to have to change it now.\u201d\nGS1\u2019s shift isn\u2019t mandatory or government mandated. But as Walmart, Costco, Target, and other retail behemoths change over to new scanners and tracking databases, brands risk being left behind (ie., off the shelves). \nSo what does this mean for suppliers?\n\u201cPrinting a new square on a box is the easy part,\u201d Hardcastle says. The new code is a link \u2014 and links need infrastructure. Making sure that information is accurate and contemporary is the real task. \nIt also presents a dilemma for packaging designers: until retail catches up, GS1 requires products to carry both codes, within 50mm of each other. \n\u201cBrands that wait until retailers insist on it may find they have an enormous data problem and very little time to solve it,\u201d Hardcastle says. \nGet ready to see a whole lot more of these \u2014 on nearly everything you buy. (Photo by Debarchan Chatterjee/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\nAs for consumers? Hardcastle says her research with GS1 found that 79% of consumers preferred QR codes. But that doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re scanning every box of berries in their grocery cart. Rather, Hardcastle says, they want useful information at the ready, waiting for when they actually need it. Think: a smattering of dinner recipes for parents in a pinch, or more information on a product\u2019s origins for people in, say, a trade war. \n\u201cThey don\u2019t necessarily want more information,\u201d she says. \u201cThey want the right information.\u201d \nAs next year looms closer, Light says there are still scores of unanswered questions about how the changeover will play out. Will designers be responsible for quality control measures like scanning every QR code individually to ensure each link and landing page work? Will there be a number associated with each code so it\u2019s easier to track inventory and keep databases? \n\u201cPeople don\u2019t like change, and they don\u2019t like change that\u2019s going to cost money,\u201d she says. \n\u201cNo one is talking about it. 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