People under 50 might not remember this. But there used to be a time when if you wanted to draw cash from a bank account, you had to show up at the bank during their office hours. Usually 10 am to about 3:30 pm - this is where we got the term "bankers hours".
Once there, you had to fill out a withdrawal slip with a pen chained to a table. Hopefully you knew your account number because you had to fill that in. If you had a savings account, you usually had to have a passbook with you that it could get stamped with the amount of withdrawal and current account balance.
Once the paperwork was filled out, you had to get in a line and wait your turn. It was usually a long line. Think Registry of Motor Vehicles. And once you got to the front, if your paperwork wasn't completely in order, you got turned away so you could fix it and then you had to go back to the back of the line.
So you see, ATM's are a very under appreciated invention.
I worked at at bank. It cost about $8 to have a teller transaction. It costs about a buck a transaction for an ATM. Web transactions cost about $0.15.
And the machines make a lot fewer mistakes.
And the machines work all day and night.