Every company wishes they could become a vending machine. Actually, these apps are even better than vending machines since their cost of sales is zero. And the

Every company wishes they could become a vending machine. Actually, these apps are even better than vending machines since their cost of sales is zero. And the first rule of vending machines is that user experience doesn’t matter. Who cares if customers’ sodas are getting stuck? Neglect is the business model. What money you lose to bad UX you make up for in volume due to physical presence. All of that is what it is. But with the erosion of public goods like a public parking lot for critical infrastructure (hospitals) that is what we are left with. On a personal level, I hate the way all of this busted and unfixable technology is allowed to proliferate. If a refrigerator is broken you send out a repair man to fix it. But if your printer stops connecting to wifi there’s basically nothing you can do.