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Agreed. I lived somewhere that switched from a credit card reader on the machines, to an app. The credit card reader was instant. You could just put in your la
by BytesAndGears 3y ago
Agreed. I lived somewhere that switched from a credit card reader on the machines, to an app.
The credit card reader was instant. You could just put in your laundry, swipe your card, and that was it. Instantly started.
They switched to an app by the same service company, and now there were a bunch more steps involved. Put in your laundry, find the app, open it, scroll through their “what’s new in laundry!” news that nobody cares about, click a bunch of buttons until you find the machine number that matches yours, go through the menus to pick washer settings, then pay there, and still need to push the start button on the machine itself.
So much worse, and also more error prone — I would regularly get errors when a machine disconnected from the internet.
Why people think it’s better, I have no idea. The only thing I can think is that credit card fees are cheaper on a $20 transaction compared to 20 $1 transactions
- midasuni 3y agoI guess the value to the user is a notification when the wash completes?
- heavenlyblue 3y agoCredit card fees are exactly the reason why the switch happened. Do you really think the washing machine companies would bother building an app when they could continue charging without any investment whatsoever?
- alistairSH 3y agoIf I use a CC to pay in app, there’s still a fee. Is an IAP considered lower risk, so lower fee than a physical card at a terminal?
- chucksmash 3y agoThe cost for a vendor processing CCs is something like (iirc) 3% of purchase price + $0.10. The benefit to vendor of selling you credits (aside from the fact that you might not use them all), is that they only have to pay the $0.10 portion of the fee once for every, say, $20 worth of washes instead of paying the flat part of the fee every single wash.
- convolvatron 3y agointermediation. they get a chance to have their own laundry bucks currency. they get better tracking. they get to show you ads, and have marketing touch points with you every time you need to do laundry.