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Vending machines covered by a large screen stand for everything I hate about contemporary tech. They improve absolutely nothing from a buyer's perspective. Eve

Vending machines covered by a large screen stand for everything I hate about contemporary tech. They improve absolutely nothing from a buyer's perspective. Every step of the transaction is made worse. You can't glance at the entire inventory. You never know how much of an item is left. The machine does not reliably know how much of an item is left. Every interaction lags. And in return I get ads and mini games. Just so some C-suite cretin (guess what the C in C*O stands for) can show his little cretin friends how innovative his farts are. It is late. I am hungry. My train departs in 2 minutes. Please, I just want a bloody Snickers. These companies are a blight.

callahad 3y ago
> They improve absolutely nothing from a buyer's perspective. It's the "good ads" argument -- this machine can guess your age/gender and offer up items most purchased by your demographic, all the while feeding that data back to the vendor. Who wouldn't love that? :-/ More seriously, this has been a standard capability in vending machines, fast food menu systems, and digital signage in general for over a decade. Check out this ad from 2012 for Intel's AIM Suite for an example of how this stuff is pitched: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KdMIp2vQjG8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=KdMIp2vQjG8 "Is the viewer a teenage girl? Then change to content to highlight a back-to-school shoe sale a few doors down. Is it a senior male? Then why not tell him about the golf club sale at the sporting goods store?"
- dataviz1000 3y ago
  The technique in restaurants is to track the number of items sold, add innovative special dishes every day or week, and at the end of every week or month, remove the worst selling items on the menu and replace it with one of the special dishes. This over time creates demand. Vending machines can do the same. Remove the worst selling item and replace it with anything. After a time, the vending machine will only sell items with demand for that location.
  - Freak_NL 3y ago
    And this requires absolutely zero screens, cameras, or demographic data collection of any kind. Just track the inventory. This isn't new; I would be extremely surprised if Japanese vending machines didn't do just that for decades already. But those cameras aren't there because of the vending machine. That is just a convenient platform. This is about ads, and tracking, and data brokering. We had digital ad screens placed on the platforms at train stations in the Netherlands with a camera hole a few years ago, and the advertising company swore that those cameras would not be activated, for now, until the legal side was resolved, or until they could get away with it without anyone noticing. It feels icky.
    - mt360 3y ago
      Unfortunately they're popping up in Japan too, I just walked past this one https://ibb.co/27nh6gZ https://ibb.co/27nh6gZ
    - Loughla 3y ago
      While I agree with you, the benefit is that it's automatic. That's the difference. It doesn't require anyone to count and track anything. It doesn't require thought or planning. It just happens. It doesn't require money spent on people to keep track of. Whereas classic vending machine inventory systems requires an human person to track the re-fills or sales. A happy medium would be no stupid cameras, but with electronic tracking and reporting of what is sold. That has to be a thing that can be done, right?
      - justsomehnguy 3y ago
        > Whereas classic vending machine inventory systems requires an human person to track the re-fills or sales. Sorry? You order by the # of the item. This is recorded in NVRAM/sent to cloud nowadays. There is absolutely no need to involve any human being in the process of tracking sales.
      - dylan604 3y ago
        > the benefit is that it's automatic I wouldn't trust this automatic data for shit. When's the last time you used a vending machine that did not have any problems? The classic meme of people beating on a machine because something got stuck. How is that inventory managed? Does the inventory decrement every time someone pushes buttons to vend an item? Is it tracked by weight? Who enters the weight? This seems like a system ripe for abuse by the manufacture on needing maintenance like the McDonald's soft server machine.
- everdrive 3y ago
  The "good ads" people need a "hammer to the face."
  - i_am_jl 3y ago
    I'm okay with that flavor of "good ads". I'm fine with a machine taking my observable physical characteristics and using that to select ads for me. I'm also fine with ads that are not so much targeted as self-selected. It's the use of non-observable, non-public info to build and reference an advertising profile where I start to object. It's creepy, and the ads are somehow less relevant.
alwa 3y ago
Did you ever have the pleasure of encountering the US drugstore that replaced the entire set of doors of its entire refrigerated section with hulking, bright, animated, human-height-and-ultra-heavy TV screens? [0] https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-screens/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-sc...
- stavros 3y ago
  Not to mention the genius of putting a heat generator right in front of the fridge.
  - jowea 3y ago
    I wonder if people opening it to look for something that is out of stock has a large effect.
    - itronitron 3y ago
      No measurable effects were observed on the items not in stock.
- ramenbytes 3y ago
  Yes, though at the time I believe it was static (no ads) so I was just left wondering why they felt the need to put up a TV screen showing what I'd see through the glass. It may have obscured whether something was in stock, but I forget.
- southernplaces7 3y ago
  To Avakian, it’s simply an expected growing pain. Cooler Screens plans to educate customers about the digital displays and launch features like voice recognition, so shoppers can ask about prices or item locations. “This is the future of retail and shopping,” Avakian said. If this is our future of "education", these parasitic, data grubbing companies can fuck right off along with any larger company that supports them. Nothing whatsoever about this in the least bit improves the time you spend grabbing something from a cooler. It's blatant enshitification of a very basic buying task that need not involve any further interface, and it so obviously does nothing but try to squeeze more money from said basic interaction for nobody's benefit except Walgreens, the companies paying for their grubby little digital visuals, and the scum-loaded company that's selling this garbage to them. I can almost imagine a future in which even the tissue of toilet paper comes covered in "engagement" ad visuals impregnated into its material through some sort of micro-display technology. At last in that case it would get exactly the engagement it most deserves and afterwards go where it really belongs.
euroderf 3y ago
Welcome to an outer ring of hell. Brought to you by... Moore Slaw.
hn_user82179 3y ago
The one upside I would offer is that with some of them, you can "click" the item to view nutritional facts and ingredients. That's invaluable to me personally, as frequently I want the "least sugary" option available in the machine.

callahad 3y ago

> They improve absolutely nothing from a buyer's perspective. It's the "good ads" argument -- this machine can guess your age/gender and offer up items most purchased by your demographic, all the while feeding that data back to the vendor. Who wouldn't love that? :-/ More seriously, this has been a standard capability in vending machines, fast food menu systems, and digital signage in general for over a decade. Check out this ad from 2012 for Intel's AIM Suite for an example of how this stuff is pitched: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KdMIp2vQjG8 https://youtube.com/watch?v=KdMIp2vQjG8 "Is the viewer a teenage girl? Then change to content to highlight a back-to-school shoe sale a few doors down. Is it a senior male? Then why not tell him about the golf club sale at the sporting goods store?"

dataviz1000 3y ago
The technique in restaurants is to track the number of items sold, add innovative special dishes every day or week, and at the end of every week or month, remove the worst selling items on the menu and replace it with one of the special dishes. This over time creates demand. Vending machines can do the same. Remove the worst selling item and replace it with anything. After a time, the vending machine will only sell items with demand for that location.
- Freak_NL 3y ago
  And this requires absolutely zero screens, cameras, or demographic data collection of any kind. Just track the inventory. This isn't new; I would be extremely surprised if Japanese vending machines didn't do just that for decades already. But those cameras aren't there because of the vending machine. That is just a convenient platform. This is about ads, and tracking, and data brokering. We had digital ad screens placed on the platforms at train stations in the Netherlands with a camera hole a few years ago, and the advertising company swore that those cameras would not be activated, for now, until the legal side was resolved, or until they could get away with it without anyone noticing. It feels icky.
  - mt360 3y ago
    Unfortunately they're popping up in Japan too, I just walked past this one https://ibb.co/27nh6gZ https://ibb.co/27nh6gZ
  - Loughla 3y ago
    While I agree with you, the benefit is that it's automatic. That's the difference. It doesn't require anyone to count and track anything. It doesn't require thought or planning. It just happens. It doesn't require money spent on people to keep track of. Whereas classic vending machine inventory systems requires an human person to track the re-fills or sales. A happy medium would be no stupid cameras, but with electronic tracking and reporting of what is sold. That has to be a thing that can be done, right?
    - justsomehnguy 3y ago
      > Whereas classic vending machine inventory systems requires an human person to track the re-fills or sales. Sorry? You order by the # of the item. This is recorded in NVRAM/sent to cloud nowadays. There is absolutely no need to involve any human being in the process of tracking sales.
    - dylan604 3y ago
      > the benefit is that it's automatic I wouldn't trust this automatic data for shit. When's the last time you used a vending machine that did not have any problems? The classic meme of people beating on a machine because something got stuck. How is that inventory managed? Does the inventory decrement every time someone pushes buttons to vend an item? Is it tracked by weight? Who enters the weight? This seems like a system ripe for abuse by the manufacture on needing maintenance like the McDonald's soft server machine.
everdrive 3y ago
The "good ads" people need a "hammer to the face."
- i_am_jl 3y ago
  I'm okay with that flavor of "good ads". I'm fine with a machine taking my observable physical characteristics and using that to select ads for me. I'm also fine with ads that are not so much targeted as self-selected. It's the use of non-observable, non-public info to build and reference an advertising profile where I start to object. It's creepy, and the ads are somehow less relevant.

alwa 3y ago

Did you ever have the pleasure of encountering the US drugstore that replaced the entire set of doors of its entire refrigerated section with hulking, bright, animated, human-height-and-ultra-heavy TV screens? [0] https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-screens/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/12/business/walgreens-freezer-sc...

stavros 3y ago
Not to mention the genius of putting a heat generator right in front of the fridge.
- jowea 3y ago
  I wonder if people opening it to look for something that is out of stock has a large effect.
  - itronitron 3y ago
    No measurable effects were observed on the items not in stock.
ramenbytes 3y ago
Yes, though at the time I believe it was static (no ads) so I was just left wondering why they felt the need to put up a TV screen showing what I'd see through the glass. It may have obscured whether something was in stock, but I forget.
southernplaces7 3y ago
To Avakian, it’s simply an expected growing pain. Cooler Screens plans to educate customers about the digital displays and launch features like voice recognition, so shoppers can ask about prices or item locations. “This is the future of retail and shopping,” Avakian said. If this is our future of "education", these parasitic, data grubbing companies can fuck right off along with any larger company that supports them. Nothing whatsoever about this in the least bit improves the time you spend grabbing something from a cooler. It's blatant enshitification of a very basic buying task that need not involve any further interface, and it so obviously does nothing but try to squeeze more money from said basic interaction for nobody's benefit except Walgreens, the companies paying for their grubby little digital visuals, and the scum-loaded company that's selling this garbage to them. I can almost imagine a future in which even the tissue of toilet paper comes covered in "engagement" ad visuals impregnated into its material through some sort of micro-display technology. At last in that case it would get exactly the engagement it most deserves and afterwards go where it really belongs.

euroderf 3y ago

Welcome to an outer ring of hell. Brought to you by... Moore Slaw.

hn_user82179 3y ago

The one upside I would offer is that with some of them, you can "click" the item to view nutritional facts and ingredients. That's invaluable to me personally, as frequently I want the "least sugary" option available in the machine.