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Chasing Passive Income, Americans Turn to Vending Machines
- planet_1649c 3y agoConsidering how much people steal in walmart, i dont see this going well unless this is mainly added in secured places
- CydeWeys 3y agoIt's much harder to steal out of a vending machine than it is to grab something off a shelf in a store and walk out.
- ethbr1 3y agoWith sufficient value? A pickup truck, a stout chain, and one of crowbar / sledgehammer / angle grinder / cutting torch goes through that right quick. And there's a lot of economically depressed parts of the country where those things are in abundance.
- CydeWeys 3y agoYeah, that's a lot more work and required tools than just taking something out of a shop. A lot easier to get busted too if you're walking around with those tools.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Bettye22 3y ago[dead]
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- oskapt 3y agohttps://archive.ph/ls2fx https://archive.ph/ls2fx
- cozzyd 3y agoI hope we reach the vending machine density of Japan.... Was extremely helpful to have a vending machine every 10 m when it was 40C outside with extreme humidity last summer when I was there.
- eellogical 3y ago[flagged]
- renewiltord 3y ago[flagged]
- ethbr1 3y agoThe most surreal thing about Tokyo (and there were a lot) was having Tommy Lee Jones' grizzled visage staring back at me from every street corner. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+boss+vending+tommy+lee+jones&t=fpas&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+boss+vending+tommy+lee+jones...
- csa 3y ago> Was extremely helpful to have a vending machine every 10 m There used to be more vending machines, but the prevalence of convenience stores every 200m (or so it seems) makes them less viable financially. It is a sad day when a favorite vending machines that sells something unusual just vanishes. Usually this is something like a type of seasonal beer that vending machines will have in stock longer than the stores do. Whole large banks of vending machines in Shinjuku have gone the way of the dodo. Sadness.
- ChumpGPT 3y agohttps://archive.is/ls2fx https://archive.is/ls2fx
- nick7376182 3y agoThe next rent-seeking scam to pitch to the incoming generation. I'm surprised Fannie and Freddie aren't offering financing for vending machines too.
- vundercind 3y agoThis was already an “entrepreneurship” fad pretty recently. Maybe 15 years ago.
- smallmancontrov 3y agoAt one sucker born every minute, 15 years sounds like enough minutes to sustain a new fad.
- dullcrisp 3y ago15 years * 1 sucker/minute = 7,884,000 suckers, not accounting for leap years!
- red-iron-pine 3y ago> Coinbase had 108 million users in 2022, up from 56 million people in 2021
- kirkarg 3y agoI wonder how much of a difference there is in the quality and reliability of Japan's machines and countries where is not common. I've worked at the Madrid airport in Spain and every single day we have a problem with this things and that would destroy the concept of "passive income". On the other hand, it's not that easy to find a good user interface, or at least to me.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- pram 3y agoI looked into doing this in the 2010s and it’s really an enormous pain in the ass to scale. A lot of the turnkey options were pretty much scams too. Machines that vended DVDs were popular back then. You have to find the hot spots, negotiate for the space, deal with any vandalism, reload the machines, respond to problems. Not what many would consider “passive”
- coredog64 3y agoWhen machines were cash only you could theoretically avoid taxes on some of the income, something that might have offset some of the hassles. With credit cards and electronic payment that’s not really possible.
- ethbr1 3y agoWhen machines were cash only, there was a big box of cash sitting unguarded on a lonely corner at 3am...
- floren 3y agoI've drilled out the lock on an old Coke machine my dad bought at an auction. It's not a fast, discreet, or easy process.
- ethbr1 3y agoThat's why you drag it somewhere you can do it in peace.
- prepend 3y agoThat’s why it is so rare for people to drag vending machines somewhere to do it in peace. They are big and bulky and heavy and all that work for, what, $80? Junkies aren’t usually that coordinated to pull this off.
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- deegles 3y agoThe trick is to sell the vending machines and parts.
- phroxen 3y agoselling shovels to the gold miners
- jurassicfoxy 3y agoI want to make a vending machine that sells vending machines. It'd have to be real fuckin' big.” — Mitch Hedberg
- lulznews 3y agoBuy my course on vending machines
- gnicholas 3y agoYep, there's a good chance that the people selling the proverbial shovels and pick-axes are getting richer than those mining the gold.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- xp84 3y agoReading this on WSJ is interesting. Having been raised in a very working-class family, but now being fortunate enough to have a stock portfolio, I'm struck by how romantic a business like this (or the other small business entrepreneurs I see on YouTube, such as a guy who runs laundromats and car washes) is to me -- I guess just by how straightforward the business model is and how it appears (at first glance) to be something one man can just do all by himself. It's inexplicably intriguing to me to consider doing a side hustle like this -- even though in terms of both risk and reward I have to acknowledge it is probably no better than what my savings is doing right now in various stocks and funds.
- abnercoimbre 3y ago> it is probably no better than what my savings is doing right now in various stocks and funds. From a numbers perspective sure. When we talk about social ramifications and future business potential — the calculus changes entirely: this guy got a cover in the WSJ, for example.
- nothercastle 3y agoThis isn’t Japan half the cost will be in securing the machine from vandals and thieves
- downvotetruth 3y agoOne would think there would be a higher rate of vandalism in Asian societies as all it takes is one with a crowbar[1] and the more prominent mask wearing culture. 1 https://japantoday.com/category/crime/charges-dropped-against-group-that-allegedly-broke-into-vending-machine-after-noto-earthquake https://japantoday.com/category/crime/charges-dropped-agains...
- WillPostForFood 3y agoGoes to show it is culture, and not tools that lead to crime.
- renewiltord 3y agoThe mask-wearing is quite common in the US these days. It appears that many people experiencing unbought merchandise like to stop the spread.
- 55555 3y agoIn Japan, crime is both illegal and frowned upon.
- Larrikin 3y agoThe outdoor machines are built like tanks. I read stories after the March 11 earthquake of people trying to get into them for food and completely failing.
- booleandilemma 3y agoI wonder if he makes more money from his YouTube channel where he talks about vending machines.
- jauntywundrkind 3y agoAnything to disrupt the everything-via-cloud model. Yes, please, more, don't stop. Fine good useful nice stuff & stock it in bizarrely accessible places. If anything I'd believe demand is mostly gated on having fairly low expectations of what's available. I fully believe this could expand up & out, that vending machines could provide much much more, if they maintain their well-stockedness & are expansive enough so that we get some curatorial interesting nice shit from our local machines.
- mrtron 3y agoIn 1998 I went to a seminar on vending machines and the numbers didn't work. I would love to see some details from a Japanese owner where vending machine usage is more common, but also there are zillions of machines.
- MilStdJunkie 3y agoHave people not heard of depreciation, maintenance, restocking? Oh. Oh waitaminute I see the angle here. Mining company shares to goldbugs, substandard shovels and rations to 49ers, stakes in stablecoin exchanges to the common techbro, and now, at last, "ISO-Certified Vend Automation Accreditation Training" where you can get all the tools you need to STRIKE IT BIG. Then you can rope in more people with the scam, and they can rope in more people yadda yadda yadda Another goddamn grift . . did we really need another? . . in search of the last dregs of pocket change lost in the American cushions. Looking for actual returns that aren't sacked with fees and conditions, everyone wondering, with an ever-growing suspicion, that all the new clever retirement "vehicles"[1] they've been dumping money in their entire lives will grow mysteriously inaccessible, in a suspiciously timely fashion, until they are all dead. Shit. Put up a vending machine that dispenses Quietus pills, then you might get some business. Forgive my cynicism, please. It's not a luxury I can afford at the moment. [1] Which not-so-coincidentally inflate the market valuation of the same industries employing them. Jesus Christ, did anyone think for twenty seconds about the follow-on effects of that? Whelp. Too late now.
- ineedaj0b 3y agoThe Japanese have numerous vending machines of high quality that offer decent prices with good selections of food. Perhaps it is in our Future in America too
- yieldcrv 3y agoMy house mates’ drug dealer used a vending machine yes it was brazen, yes it worked
- gnicholas 3y agoWas it just one specific item that was not appetizing looking and was very expensive (to keep unsuspecting kids/etc.) from accidentally buying it? Were they concerned about getting nicked every time they refilled the machine?
- Animats 3y agoWhatever happened to those little automated convenience stores people were talking up a few years ago? There was a startup called "Bodega".[1] Automated convenience stores the size of a shipping container were a thing in China, but they now seem to have one employee. There's "venhub.ai", but it comes across as a ploy to get VC funding, not a retail operator.[2] Serving locations too small to staff, such as small apartment buildings, doesn't really pay. If you have fresh food items, the location has to be serviced at least once a day, and expired items must be discarded. Plus you're competing with Amazon and Doordash. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/bodega-once-dubbed-americas-most-hated-startup-has-quietly-raised-millions/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/bodega-once-dubbed-america... [2] https://www.venhub.com/ https://www.venhub.com/
- dsq 3y agoPerhaps a good business would be running a vending machine 'compound' or 'center', basically a big empty room with electrical sockets and some CCTV cameras. Preferably somewhere next to a parking lot. You rent out spots to vending machine owners.
- Spastche 3y agoas someone who has looked into this extensively and even owns a few machines, the biggest cost of machines besides "rent" is credit card devices and fees. there's coin op mechanisms, but nobody carries money so you get much less sales. unless the feds redo the coinage system... good luck
- suzanneeddie633 3y ago[dead]