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Three problems: 1. Switching costs. There are a ton of vending machines and other automated stuff that takes dollar bills but not coins. You can say “oh they’d

Three problems: 1. Switching costs. There are a ton of vending machines and other automated stuff that takes dollar bills but not coins. You can say “oh they’d switch”, and maybe, but they don’t want to because it’s expense and complexity for little/no benefit. 2. Critical mass. Similar problem: nobody will invest in supporting dollar coins as long as their customers don’t use dollar coins. Customers won’t use them because they won’t accept them from banks and stores. And they won’t accept them because they know lots of infra doesn’t support them. 3. US psychology sees coins as “change”, not money. If you see someone buying lunch with change, the assumption is they’re homeless or something. It’s irrational, but so what? And it would change… if we ever got over the hump. Don’t think of the problem like a technocrat, where any 5% improvement is obviously worth it. Think of it like a marketer, where you have to change customer behavior, and that needs a 10x value prop. Or I guess we can think like autocrats: we know what’s good for ‘em and they’ll just have to accept it.

9dev 2y ago
With that mindset, you’re not going to accomplish anything at all. The same stagnation occurs with the switch from imperial units to metric. If modernising things is so scary you better not do it, other people will force the change on you, for better or worse, but you’re out of the loop.
- brookst 2y ago
  I wasn’t making a prescriptive moral point, I was describing the reality of the situation. Sure, someone may force the change to dollar coins on those who oppose it because it costs them money and offers them no benefit.
sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago
For many classes of vending machines, dollar bill support is going away without government intervention. For a while it's been very common in the US to see vending machines that have bill, maybe coin, and card options. It's increasingly common to find machines that only have card options, no cash. Products are more expensive and people use less cash generally...how many customers actually carry enough $1 bills to buy themselves a $3.75 bottle of soda? They're already switching because it allows them to charge higher prices with less friction. You'll likely grumble a bit while you're feeding the 4th dollar bill into the machine but a card swipe or tap is the same level of customer effort regardless of cost. Vending machines will continue to move towards electronic payment as the preferred and eventually only widely available option, and will no longer have relevance to what a physical dollar looks like.
- kube-system 2y ago
  Yes, it is happening over the course of many decades, naturally, as machines are updated/replaced as a matter of normal business. That's a very different thing in terms of switching costs than an immediate switch that demands replacement all at one time.
  - toast0 2y ago
    All the novelty $1 coins since the Sacagawea offer the potential for a gradual shift too. Modern multi-denomination coin mechs are likely to accept them, unlike the Susan B Anthony's that were too close to quarters [1]. Some of them even have a sticker near the coin slot advertising the feature. So if someone has given you a dollar coin in change (probably a government cashier or machine), you might be able to use it in a machine. I couldn't find a well reported number on dollar coin acceptance --- just an undated claim of 30% of machines accepting them according to Vending Market Watch but no link to an article or anything. I did see an article on VMW from 2011 about cash recyclers that allow a machine to take a larger bill and issue change with smaller bills rather than only coins, that featured a quote that resonates with me: > "Customers have told me firsthand how thrilled they are to receive bills as change instead of dollar coins," said Mike Gallagher, service manager for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. "Sales on those machines have increased, and the technology has been extremely reliable." [2] [1] I did see one coin mech in the wild that took Anthony dollars; but it was a spendy arcade game and had a dispenser next to it to get the dollar coins you needed from bills or quarters. And there were big signs about it, at the Disneyland StarCade in the 90s. [2] https://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/technology/article/10251806/make-buying-easier-for-customers https://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/technology/article/102518...
    - kube-system 2y ago
      There was always a potential, but without a plurality of momentum, they're not going to replace their predecessors. The early 00s was the best chance for this, in the wake of the Susan B Anthony reissuance and the new Sacagawea dollar, when there was a decent amount of public interest, but as it turns out, anything less than 100% acceptance is just not as good as the 100% acceptance of quarters in coin machines, or dollar bills in bill readers. People won't use them if they aren't accepted, and retailers won't accept them if they aren't used.

9dev 2y ago

With that mindset, you’re not going to accomplish anything at all. The same stagnation occurs with the switch from imperial units to metric. If modernising things is so scary you better not do it, other people will force the change on you, for better or worse, but you’re out of the loop.

brookst 2y ago
I wasn’t making a prescriptive moral point, I was describing the reality of the situation. Sure, someone may force the change to dollar coins on those who oppose it because it costs them money and offers them no benefit.

sjsdaiuasgdia 2y ago

For many classes of vending machines, dollar bill support is going away without government intervention. For a while it's been very common in the US to see vending machines that have bill, maybe coin, and card options. It's increasingly common to find machines that only have card options, no cash. Products are more expensive and people use less cash generally...how many customers actually carry enough $1 bills to buy themselves a $3.75 bottle of soda? They're already switching because it allows them to charge higher prices with less friction. You'll likely grumble a bit while you're feeding the 4th dollar bill into the machine but a card swipe or tap is the same level of customer effort regardless of cost. Vending machines will continue to move towards electronic payment as the preferred and eventually only widely available option, and will no longer have relevance to what a physical dollar looks like.

kube-system 2y ago
Yes, it is happening over the course of many decades, naturally, as machines are updated/replaced as a matter of normal business. That's a very different thing in terms of switching costs than an immediate switch that demands replacement all at one time.
- toast0 2y ago
  All the novelty $1 coins since the Sacagawea offer the potential for a gradual shift too. Modern multi-denomination coin mechs are likely to accept them, unlike the Susan B Anthony's that were too close to quarters [1]. Some of them even have a sticker near the coin slot advertising the feature. So if someone has given you a dollar coin in change (probably a government cashier or machine), you might be able to use it in a machine. I couldn't find a well reported number on dollar coin acceptance --- just an undated claim of 30% of machines accepting them according to Vending Market Watch but no link to an article or anything. I did see an article on VMW from 2011 about cash recyclers that allow a machine to take a larger bill and issue change with smaller bills rather than only coins, that featured a quote that resonates with me: > "Customers have told me firsthand how thrilled they are to receive bills as change instead of dollar coins," said Mike Gallagher, service manager for Coca-Cola Bottling Co. "Sales on those machines have increased, and the technology has been extremely reliable." [2] [1] I did see one coin mech in the wild that took Anthony dollars; but it was a spendy arcade game and had a dispenser next to it to get the dollar coins you needed from bills or quarters. And there were big signs about it, at the Disneyland StarCade in the 90s. [2] https://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/technology/article/10251806/make-buying-easier-for-customers https://www.vendingmarketwatch.com/technology/article/102518...
  - kube-system 2y ago
    There was always a potential, but without a plurality of momentum, they're not going to replace their predecessors. The early 00s was the best chance for this, in the wake of the Susan B Anthony reissuance and the new Sacagawea dollar, when there was a decent amount of public interest, but as it turns out, anything less than 100% acceptance is just not as good as the 100% acceptance of quarters in coin machines, or dollar bills in bill readers. People won't use them if they aren't accepted, and retailers won't accept them if they aren't used.