It's not going to turn into Wal-Marts but some of the things (I haven't seen anything as extreme as that Time article shows, but the parking people) are still around (and totally unnecessary). Places have tons of employees around to help you with trivial things but very few people who can actually help you when you need it.

For example, every gym I've gone to (various branches of Tipness and one Konami branch) has tons of employees around. Not only do they not have a clue how to repair machines (something the people at my gym in the US could do), their fitness advice is generally terrible (unless you pay one of the trainers). They would show people how to use weights, the wrong way. And the gyms weren't understaffed (imagine the typical number of employees in a gym in the US, then multiply it by 6 or so to get the number of employees there).