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2 ex-Google guys secure venture capital, re-invent vending machines

Zoe

Member
Are not this type of vending machines for everything popular in Japan and other countries? I don't see much innovation in this.

I never saw any vending machines that have completely unrelated products and without any kind of automatic retrieval system.
 

Lunar15

Member
I wish this level of effort and capital could be focused towards things that make life more liveable, not more convenient.
 
I wish this level of effort and capital could be focused towards things that make life more liveable, not more convenient.

The money is in making life easier for people with too much money, not to make life better for people who don't have much.

That first picture is hilarious, its basically a goddamn glass window food pantry.

I can't wait until some stupid startup implements the moviepass model for food, like "for only $10/day we give our customers one free meal at any fast food restaurant, we think most people will only use it a few times a month."

Of course it could be subsidized by a health care company to make money on all the suddenly new obese people.
 
It can't be both things.

It can't be both an evil genius super plot to shut down the world's local markets and siphon profits away to Silicon Valley (TM) and also the stupidest idea on earth because vending machines already exist and therefore nobody would ever want this.

Dense residential cities have no need for this, they have 24-hour stores on every street corner or delivery services that run all night. This can succeed in small-to-mid college campuses which don't have all night markets (these are the majority of college campuses in North America) and don't have easy or convenient access to a CVS, Store24, WalMart, or any of the other stores that have already put your independently owned corner store out of business in those towns. I went to a relatively small school which was in a city but about 2 miles from a convenience store without public transportation or anything like that, and walking to that store wasn't really an option late at night. This was 10+ years ago so delivery services like Foodler or Uber Eats or w/e didn't exist. Your food options after 10PM was to order delivery from Dominos, and if you didn't want cardboard pizza and cheese bread but rather toilet paper, a box of cookies, or any other thing that any drunk ass high college student wanted, you were either out of luck or had to use the dorm vending machine which had like... Pop tarts and candy bars.

Something like this would have worked really well for a college campus. It could also work well in low-priced hotels in small-to-mid size cities where you don't have a 24 hour corner store open within walking distance. Like colleges, this describes the overwhelming majority of cities in North America, and just like how hotels have had mini bars for half a century, this appeals to business travelers, people making short stays, and other people who get to the hotel late at night and everything else is closed around them. It could also work really well in office parks, a lot of which have something similar.

The concept is fairly similar to RedBox, which unsurprisingly, launched as a similar business in 2002. The original pitch for RedBox was a vending machine that sold things like milk, eggs, sandwiches, and had DVD rentals. They quickly shelved the milk, eggs, and sandwiches, and focused on DVDs. When RedBox launched, they were competing against Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, local stores that had video rentals. Eventually, other services (On demand video, Netflix, the internet, etc) put Blockbuster out of business, but RedBox paradoxically grew in areas that were underserved by Netflix or OnDemand... like college campuses, small cities, and places where Netflix or Amazon VOD didn't have penetration but, but lacked convenient video store rentals. RedBox is probably on its way out in a decade or so, but it still has surprising market penetration. Likewise, Amazon Fresh or other food delivery services would probably put somethign like this out of business, but it could still succeed in places where you wouldn't normally get food delivery, college campuses, near hotels, and so on.

That this thing is called 'Bodega' is fucking stupid, but that's clueless Silicon Valley pitch marketing for you.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
I can't wait until some stupid startup implements the moviepass model for food, like "for only $10/day we give our customers one free meal at any fast food restaurant, we think most people will only use it a few times a month."

Of course it could be subsidized by a health care company to make money on all the suddenly new obese people.

I've...actually had that idea. Like sort of an extended Groupon, "for $20 a week get up to three meals from any restaurant on our plan (in a certain price tier)"
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
It can't be both things.

It can't be both an evil genius super plot to shut down the world's local markets and siphon profits away to Silicon Valley (TM) and also the stupidest idea on earth because vending machines already exist and therefore nobody would ever want this.
.

I mean it can be both bad and stupid.
 
I thought I was alone in finding that phrase ridiculous


322442.jpg
 

Chindogg

Member
A lot of tech types think they can take things in everyday life and make it ~better~. They have some tech they think is cool, so they want to shoehorn it into everything.

Think a business entrepreneur version of a kid adding lens flares to everything because he just found the lens flare tool in Photoshop.

Man they're the business JJ Abrams?
 

Mortemis

Banned
That seems to be the goal of all of these start ups.

Disrupt (aka destroy) a market and in the process ruins a ton of businesses and get rid of a ton of jobs in exchange for making a few people very rich and giving the customer some added convenience.

Yeah, that's what it usually feels like.

"What can we make a little bit more convenient and get rich off of, while getting rid of a shit ton of jobs".

edit: to be clear the actual idea just seems like an evolution of vending machines and would be fine for places vending machines are like offices, gyms, dorms, etc. though they need to cut down what they're selling to basically just chips and drinks and shit. But the messaging and "make blank a thing of the past" always comes off as let's kill this industry for a little convenience.
 

Guevara

Member
Seems like a fine idea. Probably will sell out to Amazon or one of the others before really having to figure out the hard stuff.

This would be fine in a gym, hotel, office building, on campus, etc.
 
The ethics don't cross anything that doesn't already exist in the US and elsewhere, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3CR89bTAxE
it just seems to be a bad idea with their way of implementing it, especially being limited to non-perishable goods (does it still require mains power? I guess it does)
It doesn't seem at all robust enough for use in a public/semi public space, and any office can arrange their own delivery of wanted goods without doing it via this scheme.

It's a DRM cupboard.

Our vending machines at work have giant touch screens and dispense keyboards, mice, headsets and various Apple peripherals.

Oh jeez, hadn't heard of these, maybe I spoke too soon. I've only known open cupboards or cupboards that a few people own keys to for that. Doing an occasionaly stock check on a few office supplies isn't much of a time consuming task.
 
Man, I feel like some folks are still chasing that early .com money when you could get a few dozen millions just by promising a new, revolutionary concept to sell kitty litter through the interwebs.

The most perplexing thing is that it's kind of working for them.

Silicon Valley VC's are determined to bring the .com bubble back.
 
I'm not saying that's what started the idea necessarily, just that's gonna be the end result

The end result is this going belly up because its a terrible idea. The reality is most of the lightning in a bottle ideas have already been used so people grasp at nonsense like this to make a quick buck.
 

Lagamorph

Member
Our vending machines at work have giant touch screens and dispense keyboards, mice, headsets and various Apple peripherals.
 
Wait they aren't licensing these things out? They're trying to make them amenity purchases on other peoples land?

LOOOOOOOOOOOOL good fucking luck with that. I'm sure college #3928 and Random Slumlord #7 will gladly give up any potential of profit for themselves so someone else can make money and increase waste and theft in their place of business.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
My building has a vending machine that dispenses iPods and DVD copies of Terminator 3 but only if you manage to push the button right when the blinking lights align correctly
 
The end result is this going belly up because its a terrible idea. The reality is most of the lightning in a bottle ideas have already been used so people grasp at nonsense like this to make a quick buck.

I mean, yeah it's a ridiculous concept that's completely unworkable on a large scale and probably not even on a small one, but it's depressing as hell to see a project like this take any step forward even if it won't amount to anything because of the implications of that end goal. Nobody gave it a second thought. Which is true of a lot of Silicon Valley bullshit, but still.
 
I mean, yeah it's a ridiculous concept that's completely unworkable on a large scale and probably not even on a small one, but it's depressing as hell to see a project like this take any step forward even if it won't amount to anything because of the implications of that end goal. Nobody gave it a second thought. Which is true of a lot of Silicon Valley bullshit, but still.

This is what happens when our newest round of wealth and investors made their money being penny wise but pound foolish. A lot of the people investing made their money in the first investment bubble in the mid-90's and are going to go broke in the one going on right now.
 

mclem

Member
2. But what you are describing here is literally just a vending machine:

My first thought wasn't quite vending machine, and was in fact something a bit more akin to a modern hotel minibar that automatically charges the room. Still very, very similar, though - it just struck me as a more direct comparison.
 

Sylas

Member
I feel like this is missing the entire point behind bodegas. In some neighborhoods they're an alternative to your typical convenience store but most of those neighborhoods aren't going to have a bodega in the first place or people would rather hit up the rite-aid/walgreens/CVS.

The bodega is a cultural thing in NYC. You've got the guy who knows all the kids and helped raise a lot of them. Hell, the family that runs the bodega usually winds up becoming part of your own family. I can't count the number of times I've seen my local bodega owner walking some drunk home after giving them a free bagel. You've got the cat everyone knows and you've got the convenience of shitty food on the corner or right down the street. It's not 100% about the convenience--it helps, but a good portion of the appeal of the bodega is the people. This thing sounds like it's just overcomplicating those vending machines that have miserable, over-priced sandwiches in some office spaces.
 
Do they even have a logistics chain set up for servicing their theoretical expansionary model? These are tech guys not retail specialists, I can't imagine they have that many connections to 3PL's or fulfillment or any wide net of distribution to keep product levels consistent.
 
These things aren't going to replace convenience stores. Where's the beer, milk, pop, cigarettes...? It also doesn't look like they keep more than a couple of each thing in the box - keeping a gazillion of these stocked seems rather expensive and a logistical nightmare.
 
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