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Lots of anecdotes, which is a sign everybody is having problems. Or is it? Talk about vending machines with a person of sufficient age, they'll tell you storie

Lots of anecdotes, which is a sign everybody is having problems. Or is it? Talk about vending machines with a person of sufficient age, they'll tell you stories about getting cheated, not getting it to take their money, taking their last dollar and not giving any product. Yet that's largely been cured. The vending industry has matured and such problems are reported to be largely extinct. I wonder when the self-checkout woes of the first years will give way to flawless self-checkout, but with people still complaining because of something that happened years ago?

Workaccount2 3y ago
I've used self checkout at a variety of stores since they very first turned up almost a decade ago. I always used them over a human since day one. I don't know if people are just really dumb or I'm really lucky, but I very rarely have issues with self checkout.
seabass-labrax 3y ago
> Yet that's largely been cured. The vending industry has matured and such problems are reported to be largely extinct. I beg to differ! Just last year, I was at the platform for Gleis 11 at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof trying to buy a drink at the vending machine. After waiting in vain for the VISA transaction to go through, I cut my losses and caught my train with only a few seconds to spare. I never did get my bottle of Fanta, and it's still on my to-do list to find out if the amount was actually charged or not. In those brief moments between observing that the machine wasn't working and running for the train, I surmised that the vending machine's payment terminal was running some version of Android, probably 4.4 or 5.0 judging by the GUI, and had lost its Wi-Fi connection. That's rather sloppy UX in my opinion, and I've made a point of using the (somewhat) more reliable cash vending machines instead (human-staffed counters are even better!)

Workaccount2 3y ago

I've used self checkout at a variety of stores since they very first turned up almost a decade ago. I always used them over a human since day one. I don't know if people are just really dumb or I'm really lucky, but I very rarely have issues with self checkout.

seabass-labrax 3y ago

> Yet that's largely been cured. The vending industry has matured and such problems are reported to be largely extinct. I beg to differ! Just last year, I was at the platform for Gleis 11 at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof trying to buy a drink at the vending machine. After waiting in vain for the VISA transaction to go through, I cut my losses and caught my train with only a few seconds to spare. I never did get my bottle of Fanta, and it's still on my to-do list to find out if the amount was actually charged or not. In those brief moments between observing that the machine wasn't working and running for the train, I surmised that the vending machine's payment terminal was running some version of Android, probably 4.4 or 5.0 judging by the GUI, and had lost its Wi-Fi connection. That's rather sloppy UX in my opinion, and I've made a point of using the (somewhat) more reliable cash vending machines instead (human-staffed counters are even better!)