Counting may be so easy that a child can do it, but machines have a great way of making it look like a Herculean feat. Mechanical counters must be designed specifically for the type of items that they are to count, and tend to be very complicated and expensive. A great deal of precision must go into the design to allow for the separation and manipulation of items to get an accurate tally. This can lead to slowdowns in industrial settings where counting machines introduce a rate-limiting bottleneck and, on occasion, halt processes entirely due to maintenance issues.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.edgeimpulse.com/blog/were-counting-on-you-fomo