[Noisebridge-discuss] vending machine fail

[Snail]

On Sun, Jan 16, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Adam Fritzler <mid at zigamorph.net> wrote:

> (and, perhaps, the thought that the old method of
> exchanging donations for soda was a bit more transparent than a
> hulking glowing mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring black box)
>
> asf.
>


Sadly, we shifted from people unreliably leaving money for drinks to
machines unreliably dispensing drinks for money. :/

I heard people who counted the turn-out from the honors system complained
that not enough people were leaving enough money to restock the fridge --
but I'm not 100% certain this hearsay is fact. I never took drinks from the
fridge because it never had anything I wanted to drink. [Not counting
tastebridge offering me kombucha where I tossed money in the tastebridge jar
specifically. Having someone watching you take the drink makes you feel more
obliged to offer money, but for other reasons that social pressure kept me
from trying anything from tastebridge for a long time ... but now I'm
getting off track.]


Is the machine still more likely to give drinks than people are likely to
leave cash for drinks? I guess that's the bottom line here on whether or not
people will keep using it.

Anyone is still welcome to stock the fridge and run an honors system for
soda -- I think you'll just be stuck with a constant restocking fee, which
is why I won't volunteer to donate drinks to it. Too many people who
can't/won't leave money and not enough social pressure to keep you out of
the fridge if you're poor/a jerk. Something like tastebridge only got
positive returns [or so Frantisek told me it was paying itself back] because
it had people standing in front of the tip jars watching you, which was
enough to keep poor folk like me from taking food when they had no money to
donate and were too shy to help in the kitchen. :)

-- 
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