I used Google Wallet on vending machines in 2011.
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2 ex-Google guys secure venture capital, re-invent vending machines
- Thread starter The Technomancer
- Start date
I used Google Wallet on vending machines in 2011.
Phrynobatrachus
Neo Member
I'd happily take a sledgehammer to one of these if I saw it.
mightynine
Member
I guess calling it Automat would be too on the nose?
NullPointer
Member
Already get my kitty litter from the interwebs, and its a fucking godsend.
Amazon Prime Now FTW
On topic, I can't help but feel this is the way things are inevitably going. Walk in, walk out, cameras and other assorted tech determining what to charge people.
This is the shit I hate. The shit I absolutely, positively do not like.
Let's get the name out of the way. Absolutely cornball move calling this a bodega and using the bodega cat as a meme. Strikes me as two well off dudes that follow /r/blackpeopletwitter and think they know what's hip and cool with millennials. I bet the even did some surveys where they mysteriously found 90% (or more) of people that would call this unoffensive.
Well look at that.
My biggest issue with this is how fucking common it is for silicon valley guys to come out with some startup that talks about making life better that inherently makes life worse for people that fall into lower income brackets. These people are typically minorities too, making things even more tone deaf.
Bodegas are community staples. Relationship are built there with the people that work/own the shop and with people in your neighborhood that frequent the establishment too.
So let's replace those institutions with ikea-looking boxes bearing that Bodega name. Boxes that won't help you out when you need milk for your kids but are short on cash. Or will give you your first job working the register after school. Or will give you a place to dip into when someone from your neighborhood wants to fight for no reason.
Bodegas are the last real example of the American dream; People fulfilling a need in their own community and starting and owning their own business. So of course two Google bros are popping up, wanting to take the name and replace the an extension of your family in some ways with some soulless box.
They roll in with half-baked ideas like "what if Home Depot bought in and sent them to job sites??" Never really considering the people that are actually hurt. They get high off the idea of being a 'disruptor' and changing the way business is done or pushing progress forward. Forward where, my guys? To an antisocial society where we buy shit out of boxes? To a society where less middle class people have good jobs that service the community they're part of?
I'm sure their answers to these questions would be that they should get "training" for 'other fields' or that it's the governments responsibility to look out for those people I'm describing. To which I would agree, however we all have the same government but we certainly aren't governed the same. So what are you doing about that, you silicon valley dweebs.
I bet these dudes consider themselves liberal too. I bet they don't realize this is the shit that makes people turn away from the left because well off, left leaning people don't actually consider those at the bottom all that much.
This is a long post. I apologize. I'm just mad a lot these days.
Let's get the name out of the way. Absolutely cornball move calling this a bodega and using the bodega cat as a meme. Strikes me as two well off dudes that follow /r/blackpeopletwitter and think they know what's hip and cool with millennials. I bet the even did some surveys where they mysteriously found 90% (or more) of people that would call this unoffensive.
Well look at that.
My biggest issue with this is how fucking common it is for silicon valley guys to come out with some startup that talks about making life better that inherently makes life worse for people that fall into lower income brackets. These people are typically minorities too, making things even more tone deaf.
Bodegas are community staples. Relationship are built there with the people that work/own the shop and with people in your neighborhood that frequent the establishment too.
So let's replace those institutions with ikea-looking boxes bearing that Bodega name. Boxes that won't help you out when you need milk for your kids but are short on cash. Or will give you your first job working the register after school. Or will give you a place to dip into when someone from your neighborhood wants to fight for no reason.
Bodegas are the last real example of the American dream; People fulfilling a need in their own community and starting and owning their own business. So of course two Google bros are popping up, wanting to take the name and replace the an extension of your family in some ways with some soulless box.
They roll in with half-baked ideas like "what if Home Depot bought in and sent them to job sites??" Never really considering the people that are actually hurt. They get high off the idea of being a 'disruptor' and changing the way business is done or pushing progress forward. Forward where, my guys? To an antisocial society where we buy shit out of boxes? To a society where less middle class people have good jobs that service the community they're part of?
I'm sure their answers to these questions would be that they should get "training" for 'other fields' or that it's the governments responsibility to look out for those people I'm describing. To which I would agree, however we all have the same government but we certainly aren't governed the same. So what are you doing about that, you silicon valley dweebs.
I bet these dudes consider themselves liberal too. I bet they don't realize this is the shit that makes people turn away from the left because well off, left leaning people don't actually consider those at the bottom all that much.
This is a long post. I apologize. I'm just mad a lot these days.
But Silicon Valley doesn't do eggs and cheese - think organic quinoa, responsibly sourced kale and artisan tofu. Yum! (
Yuck!
(Only in Silicon Valley can a vending machine become a novel idea worth millions of dollars of venture capital. That bubble can't collapse soon enough.)
ProtomanNeo
Member
Came in thinking this was some replicator type thing that prepared meals.
Isn't this basically a small scale implementation of the Amazon workerless grocery they did a video for some time back, where you go in, pick up items, and computer-vision cameras automatically deduct your credit card?
They literally have these in Italy now, and have had them for decades.
You can get medicine, plasters (band aids), hot food, drinks, condoms, nappies (diapers), all sorts of things, from the vending machines on the street through the night.
Congrats. You invented something that already exists.
You can get medicine, plasters (band aids), hot food, drinks, condoms, nappies (diapers), all sorts of things, from the vending machines on the street through the night.
Congrats. You invented something that already exists.
Lights and Waves
Member
I wish Japanese vending machine technology existed in the US.
Zoe
Member
But are they all in the same machine? Do you still have to swipe/tap to pay for each item?
Duane Cunningham
Member
Are you not counting gas station convenience stores? Because in most cities (including medium and smaller metros) those are everywhere, including way out in the burbs, usually 24 hour and at least in my city, they're prolific enough that there's always one within a very short drive if not walking distance.
itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
Yes say it with me
"BO-DE-GAS"
"BO-DE-GAS"
As far as I can tell, this is basically an argument for stasis. Any change in how goods and services are delivered is going to have some negative effect on people whose livelihoods are organized around the status quo. But on the other hand, stasis in low-income communities is hardly something to celebrate. If a glorified vending machine can deliver goods more efficiently and more cheaply for people in low income people and therefore low income people choose to use glorified vending machines more and bodegas less, it's hard for me to see how those communities are being made, on net, less well-off.
If some VC guys decided that to encourage market adoption of their glorified vending machines, they were going to buy up a bunch of bodegas, close them, and replace them with their glorified vending machines, then yeah then maybe you have a problem. Especially if the bodegas are not owned by people in the communities they serve, which is probably usually the case. Or, more realistically, if they lobbied local governments to like change zoning laws to make it harder to open and run bodegas, like restaurant owners habitually do against food trucks.
In any case if bodegas serve multiple functions to the community that cannot be replicated by the glorified vending machine then bodegas will probably be fine. Given that regular vending machines certainly are not and never were threats to bodegas, I don't see why these would be either.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Silicon Valley people really come from another planet
Herbspiceguy
Member
Definitely fits in the future/smart urban life.
I'd probably prefer a drone to deliver my daily consumer needs though.
I'd probably prefer a drone to deliver my daily consumer needs though.
Wasn't there a similar recent article on self-driving minis-stores doing this same thing? You "summon" it with an app, or it stops in a neighborhood, people get on, pick up, get charged, exit.
Part of the issue with traditional vending machines is that they are limited in the products they carry, and they have complex dispensing mechanisms, so they are limited in amount of things they can easily sell. At least in the US.
Atomic Playboy
Member
How often are people going to bodegas for toilet paper or detergent as opposed to, I don't know, cigarettes or beer? Alcohol and tobacco are huge sellers for corner stores, and unless I miss my guess, there's no way that local ordinances would allow for vending machines to stock those items. Without that, you're never replacing the corner store.
Also, vending machines get absolutely fucking destroyed all the time; there's a reason we don't just have vending machines everywhere, and it's because people deface them, vandalize them and break them. You're going to stick this on some random street corner in a bad part of town and leave it accessible 24 hours a day? It's going to be destroyed the first night. Your camera with "computer vision" isn't going to capture the faces of people wearing masks, is it?
What even is this nonsense?
Also, vending machines get absolutely fucking destroyed all the time; there's a reason we don't just have vending machines everywhere, and it's because people deface them, vandalize them and break them. You're going to stick this on some random street corner in a bad part of town and leave it accessible 24 hours a day? It's going to be destroyed the first night. Your camera with "computer vision" isn't going to capture the faces of people wearing masks, is it?
What even is this nonsense?
Ninja Scooter
Member
These "Bodegas" are probably meant for affluent shopping centers and office buildings.
ghostofsparta
Member
I have a hard time believing this isn't the future. A future where there are no more locally owned corner stores, but instead an automated mini store run by 2-3 large corporations. Tell me that isn't the future
Widdle Puppy
Banned
Over engineered shit. I'm thinking of getting into tech. Seems like venture capitalists aren't very smart and will throw money at anything.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Only if you're well connected. That's the thing. Idiotic ideas get millions if the person doing it was involved with something successful once. Actual startups with revenue and profit struggle to find funding because they're out of the social scene noI'mnotbitteratallwhatareyoutalkingabout
I have to think these people know they're just scamming investors out of money with this shit at this point. Like, if this idea was workable, it would have happened with the vending machine tech that already exists. Attaching an app to it doesn't add some miraculous new functionality.
A vending machine just can't offer the variety of products that customers want from a local store like that, and probably can't keep well enough stocked on what it does have. Want diapers? Well, this machine only has room for one brand, and can only hold three things of them at a time, so they sold out and won't be refilled until the weekend.
A vending machine just can't offer the variety of products that customers want from a local store like that, and probably can't keep well enough stocked on what it does have. Want diapers? Well, this machine only has room for one brand, and can only hold three things of them at a time, so they sold out and won't be refilled until the weekend.
BlastProcessing
Member
But because they are selling non-perishable items, it's the stuff that those people are either buying from big box stores or ordering online. I don't even think there is enough of a niche to support this thing. Like Jucero it's a dumb idea stacked on top of other dumb ideas.
We just live in an age where a stupid idea, given the correct name and font treatment, can pull down millions in VC funding.
Ninja Scooter
Member
I mean, I'm not too sure the idea of vending machine, especially in well populated areas like shopping centers or office buildings, is all that bad. It doesn't seem to be a dated concept at all. My office has one and the thing is getting restocked every day. The execution of this one, from the name to the fact that unmanned snack shops already exist, isn't that great.
Same here. I don't see any payment mechanism on the cabinet, so I guess the premises receives a bill whenever the cabinet is restocked? If it's by Google people though, they might integrate cameras to take pictures of your face, then bill you electronically based on that identification, and also potentially monitor your purchase habits to sell them to marketers. As a business model, I guess it makes sense. It's a little shady though.
What if you pick it up? can you put it back? Would the charge not go through?
If so, well lets just pick up a bag of cheez its. open the box, take the bag out put the box back in.
Oh there is Tide? Well let me just refill the bottle of Tide I brought with me, or just swap them out if it is the same bottle.
If so, well lets just pick up a bag of cheez its. open the box, take the bag out put the box back in.
Oh there is Tide? Well let me just refill the bottle of Tide I brought with me, or just swap them out if it is the same bottle.
This is exactly what I think.
As a side effect of getting this dumb money they also get dumb articles on business websites.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
Fortunately their business model is fucking busted on a fundamental level
NFC payments haven't taken off much in my country yet I'm afraid.
I mean college campuses have 7-11, bodegas, campus stores etc all around
Edit. Didn't read the whole thing before posting
Literally just shitty PR meant to get people to talk about it like this.
It's a vending machine. Call it whatever you want, make it out of whatever fancy materials you want and invent complicated payment methods people don't want to use.... it's a vending machine.
Zoe
Member
So.. one of these?
Anyhow my old university already has something like this in actual use, maybe I can get a buddy to take a pic of a real life one.
The payment system is completely different.
Duane Cunningham
Member
Good listen that was in one of the twitter thread replies. A day in the life of a Bodega. It's about an hour long.
http://latinousa.org/2015/02/20/1508-a-day-in-the-bodega/
http://latinousa.org/2015/02/20/1508-a-day-in-the-bodega/
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Seems like an odd decision to try to steal "bodega" for branding since people who actually know what bodegas are won't be into this and the kind of people who'd be into this would probably be wary of anything Spanish-sounding lol
BomberMouse
Member
Fuck this shit, yet I guess it'll be a hit if they pull it off. This is to bodegas what chipotle is to mexican restaurants.
SinCityAssassin
Member
What stops me from taking more than I paid for.
jellies_two
Member
It took 6 hours before they apologized for the name on medium. Ok not on medium
But https://blog.bodega.ai/so-about-our-name-aa5bff63a92d
Sorry it may have been posted already.
It feels like society is getting a bit tired of giving tech people a free pass on everything they dream up.
But https://blog.bodega.ai/so-about-our-name-aa5bff63a92d
Sorry it may have been posted already.
It feels like society is getting a bit tired of giving tech people a free pass on everything they dream up.