Why don't we have cool vending machines in the US?

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Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨TriflingToad@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9ceaba69-5278-4254-8e7e-971ff87b5db7.jpeg

with supply and demand and all… IM DEMANDING CANNED BREAD!! where’s the supply 🥺?

It replaces workers with robots so it would probably save money too.

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Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
People in the US don’t respect others property. Look at any atm machine or vending machine. There’s no way these things wouldn’t be vandalized immediately.

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- kitnaht@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is the answer. Japan has a lot of respect for others, so these types of machines will last a lot longer; making the payoff more palatable.
  
  Place a vending machine outside in America, and it’ll be vandalized in a week max.
  
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  - ininewcrow@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Vandalize? … the entire machine would be stolen. Either by thieves wanting to steal the merchandise or money or both. Or a bunch of teens that would tie a chain to it and drag it to the end of town for fun.
    
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  - HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Vending machines in the USA are common, but they are typically attached to an existing business. For instance, a Walmart or gas station will commonly host several machines in its entrance area.
    
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- GottaKnowYourCHKN@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Completely this. Americans don’t like letting other people have nice things. A vending machine would be vandalized, filled with glue as a TikTok prank, attempted to be stolen, and stop working within a few days.
  
  Americans don’t really give a shit about other people. We’re more individualistic. You got yours? Good. Fuck everyone else. If we have to have protests and fundraising efforts to TRY to convince people to help others – we got a long way to go.
  
  Japan is built on respect for your fellow man. You can leave your wallet out somewhere and someone would return it immediately.
  
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  - MutilationWave@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Respect for your fellow Japanese man. They have a long way to go in the xenophobia angle.
    
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- OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Respect for others property might follow respect for others but that’s not a popular concept in America
  
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- ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  When I visited california, there was a mall with multiple vending machines like the one in the OP for various foods and icecreams.
  
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  - Stern@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Bet it that stuff was inside the mall, with a camera watching it. Japanese vending machines like the one mentioned can be just outside nbd.
    
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- scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s a shame too because automats used to be a great way for urban poor to get low cost food. I know a vending machine isn’t the same as an automat but they are similar and would be treated similarly.
  
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Death_Equity@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Too much reliance on cars for transportation and commerce built around that. Compared to Japan; we don’t have the opportunity for vending machines except when we are contained to a location without the ability to go to a store that isn’t that “far”. We have a larger scale of living; a half hour drive is normal to us, but a half hour drive for other countries is at the tipping point of finding a place to stay for the night and a vending machine selling a common foodstuff makes sense.

If you were forced to walk everywhere and “corner stores” were infrequent, vending machines would be far more common and worthwhile for owners of those machines.

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- Skunk@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  That is most likely the right answer.
  
  I’m in Switzerland and we have vending machines (not as cool as the Japanese ones tho) because we walk past them everyday.
  
  They are generally on the pavement near post offices, at train stations and other large public transportation places.
  
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  - lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    TBF I also felt Swiss people are much more trustworthy than most.
    
    I even remember having going out for dinner and the person behind the counter asking what we ordered; seems like a lot of restaurant ordering systems don’t keep track of orders because you can trust people being honest when they re-state their order at the counter.
    
    I’m from the Netherlands, also in a very walkable city (Utrecht), and students would vandalise vending machines if they existed!
    
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  - vovo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    !()[landfleischerei-koch.de/…/Wurstautomat_Landfleisc…]
    
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finitebanjo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In the USA they lack the population density pressure to make it the most optimal solution of serving food, and the startup costs don’t justify changing from human labor to fully automated food sales. Also I bet the quality isn’t as good as you think it is from some preserved fried food wrapped in plastic.

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- Duamerthrax@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Japan loves wrapping everything in plastic. They and the US were the only ones not to sign a promise reduce plastic usage. For all the appearances of Japan being eco conscious, they have this one big issue.
  
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  - Maeve@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    And whales.
    
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- MirthfulAlembic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Your first sentence hit the nail on the head. Most Americans travel nearly exclusively in their car. Why would they get out of their car to use a vending machine when McDonald’s has a drive-thru? Or if they are willing to get out, why wouldn’t they just pick up fresher food from a restaurant? Moreover, mobile ordering has solved the issue of having to talk to people.
  
  The US does have some vending machines like this, but pretty much exclusively in areas with very high foot traffic, like airports, train stations in major cities, etc.
  
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- fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Is that really what’s happening in the picture OP posted? Like someone puts foil wrapped morsels of… food in there once a week and the machine just keeps a couple hot and ready to go?
  
  Seems very unappealing.
  
  That said here in Australia the food you get at gas stations / road houses is more or less the same, just that there’s a person to heat it up and hand it to you.
  
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- asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What’s NYC’s excuse?
  
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partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Bro, do you even vend?

Pizza vending machine in Seattle:

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Cupcake ATM in Beverly Hills (and 3 other cities I’ve been in including Orlando FL and Las Vegas):

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- TriflingToad@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Oh that’s rad! Wonder if the amount of public areas in cities could relate to have more vending machines. The closest city to me doesn’t have a lot of public spaces.
  
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  - partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I would imagine the requirement would be high foot traffic. Food has an incredibly short shelf life compared to other vending machine contents. That pizza vending machine likely has to be serviced/refilled/cycled every 2 or 3 days. The cupcake ATM would be slightly longer. Most of the cupcake ATMs are attached to the cupcake bakeries, but allow customers to buy from the ATM outside of business hours or when the line of customer is really long inside.
    
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- GottaKnowYourCHKN@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This is at the Hyatt, ain’t it?
  
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- jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  What’s the wait time for the pizza to bake?
  
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  - partial_accumen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    About 4 min. There’s a countdown on the screen after you pay and your order is being prepared.
    
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lurch@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
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- SomethingBurger@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’m in France. There is a gas station near me with three vending machines : drinks, pizzas, and CBD.
  
  The pizza one is mostly fine. The grid protecting the screen was torn apart. Tbf it was annoying. The drinks one is damaged, and is now protected by a metal cage. The CBD machine is completely destroyed.
  
  All publicly available objects in France end up like this.
  
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- Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I thought you were going to say that their culture is more insular and less sociable, because that would be a better explanation than the popularity of vending machines.
  
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31337@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Factories I’ve worked at had vending machines filled with microwavable food (burritos, burgers, sandwiches, etc). All of it was pretty disgusting.

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- hydrospanner@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Exactly.
  
  My thought when opening the post was basically, “Can you imagine the depths that American corporations would sink to in a market where they can totally conceal the flavor, size, quality, etc. of their products until after the sale, and not have anyone from the company present, making them totally immune to any negative feedback?”
  
  Presumably the companies behind these things in Japan are at least delivering a somewhat acceptable food item. I wouldn’t be surprised in any way to find an American version of this thing dispensing literal dead rats.
  
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- PassingDuchy@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  My experience here. Had one a place I worked which did breakfast foods (yogurt, breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos , etc) with a small microwave slot to heat up after it vended. Food was absolutely gross and it was always dicey if anything it vended was still in date. Only nice thing was the front was see through so you could check which items had visible mold and avoid those…
  
  Was cheaper than the cafe and had better hours (all of them) for my shift, but I don’t think the trade off of rolling the dice on food poisoning was worth it lol.
  
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- EbenezerScrew@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Reminds me of when I had a summer job in a Steel Mill. Two hotdogs for a dollar from a vending machine (AVI). I’d eat that almost every day.
  
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  - Jode@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Wash it down with some SQUINCHER
    
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alienanimals@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Vending machines work better when there’s more foot traffic and more density. Vending machines with specialty good that need to be restocked every day require so much foot traffic that it’s not viable in a lot of places.

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- SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I’d argue places like Sheetz serve a similar function in the US
  
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  - alienanimals@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    We do have lots of places like Sheetz that serve a similar function, but to be entirely automated is rare.
    
    Automats might be a closer analog.
    
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SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In the Netherlands Food Automats are still very popular

Image

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- huztich@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Looks cool! How is the quality?
  
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- NikkiDimes@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Wow. Those words are so wild that my mind just defaulted to thinking the image was AI generated.
  
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synapse1278@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
In France they have this: Distributeur automatique de baguette

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- ammonium@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We have this: Image and this: Image
  
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  - synapse1278@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ve been way for too long ! I only knew of Baguette and pizza vending machines. Things are evolving so fast. Today it’s potato and mushrooms, tomorrow it will be seeds to grow in your own garden !
    
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ultrahamster64@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My boss once said that you can abuse human workers, you can underpay them, you can worsen their conditions (and if you do it slowly) they might not notice, or they going to work even harder to survive. Worst case scenario they quit, and you just find another one “new” and repeat the cycle.

But you can’t underpay robots. You can’t abuse them. Why? Because they just break. You skip on maintenance, on working conditions, on anything around robots - and you are looking on fat sum of money that just going to get burnt on a new robot and its installation.

So no, robots are not going to save money, especially in this scenario, because abuse would be massive.

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- HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Except robots don’t need to take as many breaks nor do you have to pay them minimum wage.
  
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  - HK65@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You do actually have to pay them more than minimum wage, if you think about it.
    
    Minimum wage in many countries is so low it’s not enough to sustain a human. You can’t do it to a robot, since it will just not do its job, no matter how many regulators you capture or how many middle management manipulations you pull. You have to pay a living wage to a robot.
    
    This is why “people are still cheaper than robots”. What happens if there’s a 20% wave of inflation? With workers, it’s “we don’t give out 20% pay raises, grow up”, with robots, it’s “here is your power bill, it’s 30% higher to cover for any further fluctuations in inflations, pay it or shut your factory down”.
    
    Robots need breaks too, if they are not regularly maintained they will start to make mistakes, costly mistakes, and they might break, and when one breaks, you don’t just recruit one more wage slave from the fucked up job market, you shell out a lot of money for a new robot.
    
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  - Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The problem is minimum wage is the break even equivalent of like 2-10k human hours without even factoring in expensive maintenance costs.
    
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  - ultrahamster64@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You have to pay them minimum wage, It’s just called “monthly maintenance expenses” and it’s quite a bit more than minimum pay for humans
    
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Professorozone@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We used to. They were called Vendo-mats. They had sandwiches and cakes and all kinds of things. They weren’t exactly vending machines in the sense that things would fall down. The food was behind a little door you’d open after paying. I’m too young to remember what the stuff tasted like, but it seemed pretty good because the food would always have to be put in the machines fresh every day.

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- kent_eh@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The Horn and Hardart automat was an interesting bit of early 20th century Americana.
  
  …wikimedia.org/…/Horn_%26_Hardart_automat.JPG
  
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  - AlexisFR@jlai.lu ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Just like the cake machines in the TVA break rooms!
    
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- nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  as an elder millennial, I can say they were not that great. I enjoyed the novelty though.
  
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- Gestrid@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Oh, we had something like this in college. The vendor would load up the… well, actually, it was more like a big version of those little coolers you see in the checkout line in grocery stores—the ones with the sodas and stuff in them. Anyway, the vendor would load them up every couple days. It’d have sandwiches, salads, puddings (which were actually really popular), sodas, Gatorade, water, and a bunch of other stuff. If we wanted something, we would just get it out, scan the barcode on the scanner attached to the handle, tap our phones or cards to pay, and be on our way.
  
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- mojofrododojo@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  
  the food would always have to be put in the machines fresh every day.
  
  ate from these on a few occasions as a kid, and no, they were not fresh every day. I remember my mom sniffing egg salad sandwiches and throwing half the ones they purchased in the trash at a rest stop. also had them at rest stops in the UK in the late 80s as well. it was not great.
  
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  - Professorozone@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    LOL. That was an assumption on my part. Eat at your own risk, huh?
    
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orcrist@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Japan has a lot of drink vending machines, but relatively few food or candy vending machines. This is actually an area where the United States performs strongly. That being said, Japan has a real number of strange vending machines.

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- captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I just loved the beer vending machines. Not as much as I would have as a teenager that looked 20 something but that’s why we can’t have nice things here
  
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AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
My company has a vending machine for computer accessories. For example, if you need a replacement mouse, just go over to the machine, wave your badge in front of the sensor, select the mouse, and wait for it to drop

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scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m seeing a lot of advanced retail in US vending machines - inside airports. Food, electronics, cosmetics, all kinds of stuff.

This hints at the problem. Airports have improved security and you have to spend money on a plane ticket to enter so they don’t suffer the same dystopia as public spaces in the US which are trashed and destroyed by any asshole coming through who doesn’t give a shit, including the extremely impoverished and homeless which as a category includes many drugged up people, congenital criminals, and mentally ill. There are some over generalizations here about Americans all having no respect for others and this isn’t fair. Most are wonderful people. But enough Americans suck that it spoils the party for everyone, and broken window syndrome is a thing.

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- Chee_Koala@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Sidenote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Japan is really low because they made some serious efforts to tray and reduce it.
  
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  - blarth@thelemmy.club ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Homelessness in Japan is illegal, so people turn Internet cafe pods into “homes”.
    
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  - Baguette@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I wonder if they’re including those that are living in internet cafes and such. I remember that being a pretty prevalent problem a bit back. Wikipedia says they counted it on 2007, but no notes of whether they continue to include them or not as homeless.
    
    Not discounting their achievement though, they have their shit together, at least way more than the US
    
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  - scarabic@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I’ll give that a read. There’s also almost no homelessness in San Francisco Chinatown, despite the rest of the city being an open sore. I’ve never heard the whole story about why but I think it’s a combination of active community development organizations offering low cost housing and cultural differences in how families work, how drugs are regarded, and what is permitted out in the open street.
    
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LemmyRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Somehow related. There is a Japanese anime where the protagonist is a human that reborns as a vending machine.

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- Soulg@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Been watching it. It’s fucking wacky
  
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- tamal3@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Uh where can it go from there
  
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  - LemmyRefugee@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It is quite interesting. I don’t think that there is a better adjective than that. It is called ‘Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon’.
    
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nutsack@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
cuz nobody likes eating out of plastic containers in the United States. these vending machines are full of extremely processed garbage taste like shit and produces a shitload of plastic garbage, waste garbage crap. I like Japan.

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Anticorp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We used to have cigarette vending machines here, but nooo, all the people worried about not dying of preventable diseases had to go and ruin the fun.

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Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We have cool ones here, too!

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johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I recall reading that part of why Japan has more vending machines and more variety is the ownership model. In the US vending machines are typically run by companies that service them and collect the revenue. But in Japan, they’re typically owned by the shops. So shops are more likely to put a variety of products from their store in the vending machines.

I also suspect a higher incidence of social anxiety increases the demand for them in Japan.

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TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
“The head was never found.”

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Cringedrif@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I just saw a book vending machine in an elementary school this weekend…I thought that was kind of cool.

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timewarp@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Sometimes those vending machines are very unsanitary and would not pass health regulations here in the US.

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smokebuddy@lemmy.today ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Where I am in Canada we have personal pizza machines, coin-op skate sharpening and once I saw a french fries/onion rings one

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NateNate60@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Think about it realistically. Considering just food machines, what foods popular with Americans can realistically be sold out of a vending machine?

Popcorn is a clear winner. It can be made in advance, stored for a while, and then easily dispensed. Its profit margin is high. You can charge two dollars for a bag of popcorn that only cost you twenty cents in ingredients.

Packaged food like potato crisps is also a good idea for the same reason. You don’t even need to keep the vending machine heated. Similarly, cold drinks and ice cream can also be easily dispensed out of a cooled vending machine, although I don’t consider those different from “packaged food”.

But what other American classics are there to consider? Hamburgers are out immediately. They’re too complex to prepare fresh and most people wouldn’t buy a reheated frozen burger.

Hot dogs might be viable, but a machine that sells hot dogs can only see hot dogs due to the mechanical complexity. I think many people would also question the freshness of a vending machine hot dog unless you cooked it right in front of them and let them see it via a glass window. Additionally, a hot dog has a much lower profit margin. If you charge four dollars for a hot dog, it might cost nearly a dollar in ingredients along with the mechanical complexity of the machine. Most people would expect the machine to also dispense condiments like ketchup, mustard, and relish.

Pizza is also complex and would take several minutes to bake from fresh or reheat from frozen. I don’t think people would stand around for several minutes waiting for a machine to heat up pizza. Unless you can get the cooking time under sixty seconds, forget it. Pizza also traditionally baked at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, or 370 degrees Celsius. It’s not an easy to safely install a component that gets that hot in a machine. Pizza that is pre-cooked and kept warm tends to not taste very good.

Fried chicken tenders will lose their crispness over time, even when kept warm. There is no temperature you can keep fried chicken at where it will remain crisp for hours but also not overcook. Hot oil in a machine is a recipe for disaster. French fries are a possible inclusion (the machine in the post sells French fries), but Americans don’t really eat French fries on their own; they are usually served as a side dish along with something else.

Ideally, a machine should be loaded with frozen or pre-cooked food, which it merely keeps warm and dispenses to a buyer when purchased.

Think about Japanese food. Curry, in particular, can be served just barely hot and still delicious. Rice balls can be served refrigerated, as can cold Lawson sandwiches. Instant ramen is also popular, but that’s just packaged food that requires a hot water spigot. I argue that Japanese food in general is just more suitable to be served out of a vending machine.

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electromage@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
We’re trying to get away from wrapping everything in plastic film.

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ech@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
That one is actually pretty hot.

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jagged_circle@feddit.nl ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Popcorn seems like the simplest to me. Saw one in a subway in Buenos Aires once. Its so cheap and once it pops, the smell sells itself

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thann@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Americans would just crush themselves to death on them

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wesker@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
There are a lot of cool vending machines in Japan, but the food ones are usually gross.

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Varyk@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Walmart and Amazon have expensive canned bread.

apparently people like it?

www.walmart.com/ip/…/10291606?wmlspartner=wlpa&se…

as for cool vending machines… gotta be cool to have cool vending machines.

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