Solving inefficiencies is pretty much what businesses do. Once upon a time we bought newspapers from actual humans. Same with cigarettes, potato chips, sodas, you name it. That’s been replaced whenever possible by vending machines. I still don’t see how this is any different, and I’m sure people thought the sky was falling when each of those products was introduced.
Me too, and I’ve set foot in a Walmart probably twice in my life, for precisely the reasons you’re mentioning. And I almost never eat food from chain restaurants. But I don’t see how a goofy business idea to sell more things from vending machines poses the slightest threat compared to, say, Walmart. The only thing new about this business is the alarmist way the product is being introduced in this article.
But who knows, maybe you’re right and this will catch on to such a massive extent that corner stores will soon be completely replaced by automats. But I highly doubt it, despite whatever grand visions the makers of this particular vending machine might have.
You’re comparing vending machines for high priced goods to vending machines meant to replace convenience stores. My office building doesn’t have some guy manning a counter to sell me a can of coke or bag of chips in the basement, so if the convenience store down the street at home could be replaced with a machine that won’t mark up a bag of chips by $2, then what of it?
To be fair, I’m not sure any kind of new business idea would ever get off the ground if not for the people who are prepared to sink lots of money into some idea without ever checking whether it is actually any better than the existing.
Sure, but I don’t think there’s nearly the outrage towards Lyft and Uber that there is against these guys. And Lyft and Uber have successfully disrupted an industry, while these guys merely have some ridiculous pie-in-the-sky aspiration to do so.
If everyone here complaining about this absurd vending machine company is also boycotting the Lyft and Ubers of the world, then fine, to each his or her own. But otherwise, I think those people have to question their assumptions.
“We are the BorgDegas. Lower your shields and surrender your shops. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your jobs will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
