Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and you might know us from our
Speaker 1: other podcast, Stuff to Blow your mind. But today you
Speaker 1: have apparently wandered into our Hall of cursed inventions. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: it's not all cursed inventions. Cursed, you know? I mean
Speaker 1: is how some things are perfectly fine inventions. So some
Speaker 1: of them make our lives better, but or they taunt
Speaker 1: you with goods that you could almost reach. Robert, did
Speaker 1: you when you were a kid, did you ever play
Speaker 1: that game? I suppose it was a game, but I
Speaker 1: took it very seriously where you really thought you could
Speaker 1: reach up through the bottom of the vending machine and
Speaker 1: get that food item from the bottom row. I do
Speaker 1: not remember trying too hard at it, because it ultimately
Speaker 1: seemed like there were there were too many risks, both
Speaker 1: both physical and social, because either you are going to
Speaker 1: get your arm caught in there or jammed or pinched. Uh,
Speaker 1: There're just's gonna be some sort of trap or fail safe,
Speaker 1: or you're just gonna be seen doing it and you're
Speaker 1: gonna get in trouble for trying to steal from a
Speaker 1: candy machine. It always seemed like a kind of humiliating.
Speaker 1: Homer simpson escalway to die would be you die accidentally
Speaker 1: pulling the vending machine over on top of you while
Speaker 1: you're trying to reach up and grab some andy cap
Speaker 1: hot fries from the bottom row. Exactly. And you know,
Speaker 1: these are two key points though, that we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna come back to again and again in this episode.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we are talking about the vending machine
Speaker 1: aka the robot cashier. That's right, So time was back
Speaker 1: in the olden days when you had to either buy
Speaker 1: goods directly from a human salesperson that sounds horrible, or
Speaker 1: you simply had to leave payment after you took off
Speaker 1: with it. And as as far as that payment goes
Speaker 1: prior to the invention of money, which would be have
Speaker 1: to be another episode for us. You'd have to leave
Speaker 1: goods there, and you know, in exchange some sort of
Speaker 1: a barter system. Well, that sounds difficult if you can't
Speaker 1: work out what the exchange rate for what you're bringing is.
Speaker 1: Sor right. In either case though there's a human interaction
Speaker 1: or there's some there's some human judgment on what is fair,
Speaker 1: or there's just some sort of an honor system in place,
Speaker 1: or or a human there just to prevent you from stealing. Right,
Speaker 1: But then what about a machine that sells goods for you,
Speaker 1: something that has become so ubiquitous Now it's fascinated to
Speaker 1: think back on on where the shift occurs we get
Speaker 1: into this vending machine territory. Just where does such a
Speaker 1: machine come from? At what point do we cross over
Speaker 1: from machines that are ultimately a little more than honor boxes,
Speaker 1: you know, honor system situations where you're just trusted to
Speaker 1: leave your money and take exactly what you paid for.
Speaker 1: And then where do we get into true mechanical sellers. Right.
Speaker 1: The honor box system is what you would often find
Speaker 1: in say a church where they'll be selling prayer candles
Speaker 1: or something like that, and there's a little offering box
Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, please put a dollar in
Speaker 1: and don't just take all the candles, and and and Yeah,
Speaker 1: the honor system is enforced by the sacred nature of
Speaker 1: the space and your obligations there. There's a supernatural security
Speaker 1: guard in that case. Yeah, you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about you know, somebody trying to reach their hand in there.
Speaker 1: Just make off with all the candles for the most part.
Speaker 1: But you really do have to worry about that if
Speaker 1: say you want to sell minor food items snack items,
Speaker 1: and say you're running a concession stand at the pool
Speaker 1: side or something like that, and you need to run
Speaker 1: off to put some money in the parking meter. I
Speaker 1: don't know whatever whatever the people maaming those concessions stands
Speaker 1: had to do when they put up the sign that
Speaker 1: said be right back. So, so kids are coming, they
Speaker 1: want to buy an ice cream bar or a Snickers
Speaker 1: or something like that, and the goods are just right there.
Speaker 1: Do you trust the children to leave money on the
Speaker 1: counter as they should and take things and take only
Speaker 1: what they've actually paid for. Wouldn't it be better if
Speaker 1: you had a machine that enforced the exchange of currency
Speaker 1: for for payout of items and didn't allow kids to
Speaker 1: sneak an extra hot fries here and there. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: that as we're talking about on our boxes here, one
Speaker 1: of the important things to note is that, uh, you
Speaker 1: still find plenty of honor boxes out on the street
Speaker 1: in the form of newspaper on our boxes, oh, the
Speaker 1: newspaper vending machines you put your money in and if
Speaker 1: you wanted yes, you could take all the newspapers. That
Speaker 1: would be cumbersome. How often does somebody want more than
Speaker 1: one newspaper though, unless they're like, there's an article about
Speaker 1: them in it, right. But but obviously you could not
Speaker 1: do the same with say a you know, a cola
Speaker 1: machine or chocolate machine. Now, I wonder something that we
Speaker 1: can maybe come back to in a bit, because I
Speaker 1: wonder how the psychology of transaction and the psychology of
Speaker 1: consumer behavior changes when you're dealing with a machine versus
Speaker 1: with a person, Because I think back to my childhood self,
Speaker 1: who you know, I would reach my arm up in
Speaker 1: the machine and see if I could grab whatever, a
Speaker 1: brisk tea out of the drink machine, or grab something
Speaker 1: out of the snack machine. I don't think I was
Speaker 1: ever able to do anything like that, but I would try,
Speaker 1: and I would never do that at even even if
Speaker 1: the concession stand attendant was away and I could have
Speaker 1: just reached out and stolen whatever I wanted. I would
Speaker 1: never have done that at a real concession stand that
Speaker 1: was not controlled by machine operated mechanisms. It's a different
Speaker 1: scenario entirely. And then at the same time, it's it's
Speaker 1: ultimately not it's still somebody's property that is for sale.
Speaker 1: There's still individuals involved in this scenario, and you are
Speaker 1: defrauding them. Well, it felt completely legitimate to try to
Speaker 1: reach into the machine and steal from it in a
Speaker 1: way that it wouldn't from a place that had a
Speaker 1: human even if they weren't there right now, right, because
Speaker 1: you would have been exploiting a design flaw. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so that maybe that makes it okay, it
Speaker 1: doesn't to be clear. But but let's go back in
Speaker 1: time a bit. Let's let's look for the roots of
Speaker 1: the vending machine. So I was reading through an excellent
Speaker 1: book on the social history the vending machine titled Vending
Speaker 1: Machines on American Social History by Carrie C. Grave and
Speaker 1: uh it points out that the you know, the first
Speaker 1: American vending machines popped up in the eighteen eighties, but
Speaker 1: the earliest mention of what we can reasonably describe as
Speaker 1: a vending machine is attributed to the Greek inventor Hero
Speaker 1: or Heron, the Alexandrian engineer of the first century. See Okay, now,
Speaker 1: Hero has tons of inventions attributed to him, right, And
Speaker 1: then the book that the stems from is loaded with
Speaker 1: descriptions of strange devices. So, uh, this the sixty two
Speaker 1: c E book Newmatica has descriptions and illustrations of various curios, fountains,
Speaker 1: temple gadgets, you know, doors that open due to the
Speaker 1: you know, some sort of movement of steam or fire water. Uh,
Speaker 1: with entries like a drinking horn in which a peculiarly
Speaker 1: formed siphon is fixed and uh, water driven from the
Speaker 1: mouth of a wine skin in the hands of a
Speaker 1: satyr by means of compressed air. So a lot of
Speaker 1: curios and marvels toys essentially, So it sounds like he
Speaker 1: designed one of those early on like peeing fountains right exactly,
Speaker 1: you know, which would would would have been technological wonders
Speaker 1: then and are still kind of technological wonders today. But
Speaker 1: where does the vending machine come in. Well, he describes
Speaker 1: and illustrates a coin operated device for for selling sacred
Speaker 1: water in Egyptian temples. Okay, so the idea is it's
Speaker 1: maybe you don't believe in the honor box system like
Speaker 1: we discussed for buying candles in a church or something.
Speaker 1: Maybe you think, well, people are just going to be
Speaker 1: stealing sacred water if we don't make them pay for it,
Speaker 1: so you need a machine to enforce that transaction. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of it was because I
Speaker 1: think there is still an honor so I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a temple, right, but maybe there's a sense of let's
Speaker 1: make it a little wondrous, you know, because the number
Speaker 1: of these devices are kind of like that, like the
Speaker 1: doors open, uh, you know, as if by sacred magic.
Speaker 1: But of course it's supposedly caused by you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of heat apparatus. But but here's how this device
Speaker 1: would work. You'd insert a five DROPMA coin and the
Speaker 1: coin would tip a balance inside which would lift a
Speaker 1: plug and allow a small amount of water to escape
Speaker 1: and then pour into your chalice or cup or what
Speaker 1: have you. And then once the coin makes its way
Speaker 1: into the collection chamber, the balancer turns and the plug
Speaker 1: goes back into place. Okay, so it sounds like a
Speaker 1: very simple design. You've got like a lever, and when
Speaker 1: the weight of the coin hits one side of the
Speaker 1: lever like a see saw, it lifts the plug up
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like a toilet. Actually, it is
Speaker 1: very much like a modern toilet, especially when you when
Speaker 1: you see the illustration, it basically functions like a coin
Speaker 1: operated flush. Uh. And I should also point out that
Speaker 1: say Chakrain also discus us as this in his American
Speaker 1: Scientist article water Fountains with Special Effects from two thousand five.
Speaker 1: But it's still certainly benefited from an honor system of sorts.
Speaker 1: So you know, the gods are watching, so you're not
Speaker 1: going to try and cheat the machine with, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of a coin on a string or some
Speaker 1: some smooth stones that are just happened to be shaped
Speaker 1: like a five drop mccoin, right, because this was not
Speaker 1: a refined system of judging what had been put into
Speaker 1: the slot. It was basically anything that could push the
Speaker 1: lever down. Right. Now, in terms of like who actually
Speaker 1: invented this and whether it was actually Bill, this is
Speaker 1: a little more difficult to to really figure out. It's
Speaker 1: certainly possible that Hero himself was indeed the inventor of
Speaker 1: the device, but we don't know for sure. It might
Speaker 1: have been to Cebious, a reputed inventor of water clocks
Speaker 1: from to seventy b c. Who also would have resided
Speaker 1: in Alexandria. To cbs is water clocks are worth looking
Speaker 1: up by the way, I was looking at some videos
Speaker 1: of how these things worked, and there was some ingenious
Speaker 1: design because it's difficult to design a consistent water clock
Speaker 1: that just keeps working the same over time because you
Speaker 1: know your your reservoir tank strained down. So he created
Speaker 1: that these really smart designs with like extra reservoir tanks
Speaker 1: that would pour into your main reservoir tank and then
Speaker 1: a siphon to manage how high the water level was
Speaker 1: is really clever. Now, we also don't know if what
Speaker 1: Hero describes here was ever actually built or if it's just,
Speaker 1: you know, a novel design. And this is the case
Speaker 1: with a lot of old technological gadgets that you see
Speaker 1: described in books. And then on top of this, some
Speaker 1: mentions of this vending machine include embellishments that are difficult
Speaker 1: to nail down or simply don't fit the timeline. But
Speaker 1: it does give us an idea of of what some
Speaker 1: of the earliest, if not the an actual vending machine
Speaker 1: consisted of, then at least the earliest ideas of what
Speaker 1: a vending machine could be. Right, the general principle of
Speaker 1: automating a transaction without just relying on the honor system.
Speaker 1: Him on the buyer's part, right, and it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of a gradual evolution to get to that point. Uh. However,
Speaker 1: as a Seagraft points out, it's gonna be a long
Speaker 1: time after after this, uh, this temple device describe a
Speaker 1: hero before we actually get any real advancements in vending
Speaker 1: machine technology. He does point out there there's some For instance,
Speaker 1: there's an uncredited nineteen sixty New York Times article that claims,
Speaker 1: among other things, that there was a coin operated pencil
Speaker 1: selling machine in ten seventies six China. You know, I
Speaker 1: was really holding out for that medieval European vending machine
Speaker 1: that you put in a coin and dispenses a piece
Speaker 1: of the true cross. Well, I mean there were certainly
Speaker 1: automatons throughout European history, I guess with the vending machine,
Speaker 1: especially the early days of the vending machine, you're looking
Speaker 1: very for a very particular type of automaton that does something,
Speaker 1: or rather not just does something, uh you know, but
Speaker 1: actually gives some sort of good in exchange, either you know,
Speaker 1: leaks out some sort of valuable lique it or gives
Speaker 1: you a candy bar in exchange for a coin. Because
Speaker 1: we have all matter of amazing automatons of showing up
Speaker 1: in European history and everything from pooping ducks to praying monks.
Speaker 1: But to what extent you have things that are actually
Speaker 1: facilitating an exchange of money for goods. All right, we'll
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then when we come back
Speaker 1: we will discuss more of the history of the vending machine.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So according to Segrave quote, nothing
Speaker 1: happened in the vending industry until the seventeenth century, UM,
Speaker 1: and that's when you had snuff and tobacco boxes pop
Speaker 1: up in England around sixteen fifteen. And these were definitely
Speaker 1: on our system devices, not unlike newspaper boxes and they've
Speaker 1: been They were just filled with various tobacco products instead.
Speaker 1: So it would be kind of like you pay for
Speaker 1: access to them, but you could take as much as
Speaker 1: you wanted, right, Yeah, like you you you pay your money,
Speaker 1: you fill your pipe and you move on. You don't
Speaker 1: fill your pockets, you can just fill your pipe and
Speaker 1: then you had you had other instances of early advancements
Speaker 1: in the use of vending machine technology. A couple of
Speaker 1: centuries later, eighty two, English bookseller Richard Carlisle tried a
Speaker 1: vending machine for books in order to avoid arrest for
Speaker 1: selling certain blasphemous publications. And uh wait a minute, Okay,
Speaker 1: so he's saying like, I didn't sell it, Yeah, a
Speaker 1: machine sold it. Nice. However, he was still held responsible
Speaker 1: and one of his employees was convicted for selling blasphemous
Speaker 1: literature via the machine. Uh. Now, it's unknown if the
Speaker 1: thing was truly automatic or this was basically another honor
Speaker 1: box system, but it is kind of one of these
Speaker 1: early examples of who is to blame when a machine
Speaker 1: sells something that is illicit. This is something that has
Speaker 1: fascinated me for a while. I can think of examples,
Speaker 1: not necessarily with selling, but uh, I think about the
Speaker 1: Ariman from several years back, the random Darknet shopper, which
Speaker 1: was this program that people came up with where you
Speaker 1: could load it with some some budget, give it some money,
Speaker 1: and then say go a little thing, just go out
Speaker 1: onto the dark web and buy randomly. So you know,
Speaker 1: then they got in trouble because obviously it bought drugs,
Speaker 1: bought whatever kinds of illicit materials. But then they could say, well,
Speaker 1: we didn't tell it to buy drugs. We just gave
Speaker 1: it money and released it into the wild, So how
Speaker 1: can you say we did something illegal? Now, more strides
Speaker 1: were made in the tobacco honor box arena. But the
Speaker 1: next area of exploration and patent in England happened to
Speaker 1: be stamps. Eighteen fifty seven, Simi and Denham applied for
Speaker 1: a patent for a quote self acting machine for the
Speaker 1: delivery of postage and receipt stamps. But it would be
Speaker 1: another thirty years before any real headway was made in
Speaker 1: this area. Now, the first U s patent for a
Speaker 1: vending machine was a liquid distribution machine that actually sounds
Speaker 1: a lot like like euros fabulous temple water distributor what
Speaker 1: kind of liquid though? Um, Well, it's interesting when we
Speaker 1: start looking at the like the early distribution of liquids
Speaker 1: in these machines, Like they're essentially fountains that are going
Speaker 1: to uh distribute drinking water such as cold drinking water,
Speaker 1: or later it's going to be things like beer. That
Speaker 1: makes sense. Now, by the early twentieth century, gum and
Speaker 1: candy machines began taking off. Now, one of the machines
Speaker 1: featured in Sagret's book is an amazingly creepy clown head.
Speaker 1: This thing is from hell, it is this very round
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's face. It looks kind of like
Speaker 1: an on e the Japanese only that kind of demon,
Speaker 1: but much worse, uh, much more kind of It's got
Speaker 1: these creepy, sleepy eyes that are like, when I wake up,
Speaker 1: I will come kill you. Well, it doesn't help that
Speaker 1: the coin slot is kind of protruding from one side
Speaker 1: of the four as if it's a devil with only
Speaker 1: one horn, right, yes, yeah, and asymmetric devil. And it's
Speaker 1: got this white ring around its mouth. Is just an
Speaker 1: absolute terror. Yeah, and then you pull the gum from
Speaker 1: its teeth of course, uh, like I was chewing that um.
Speaker 1: Welcome to your house tonight now. Already at this point
Speaker 1: there were designer concerns with the use of slugs and
Speaker 1: hairpins to cheat the machines. So the idea of a
Speaker 1: slug is what we mentioned earlier. It's like a weighted
Speaker 1: device that you put on a string or something and
Speaker 1: put it into the machine and activate the coin detection
Speaker 1: without actually paying. Yeah, I mean you get into this
Speaker 1: whole thing like it it's not like the machine is
Speaker 1: reading the coin. It's reading a coin shaped piece of metal.
Speaker 1: So if you have a coin shaped piece of metal
Speaker 1: that has no intrinsic value, then whammo, you got yourself
Speaker 1: a piece of gum, right right, you know, because it
Speaker 1: comes down to be basically, whatever kind of honor system
Speaker 1: works with a proper English pie, tobacco box or the whole,
Speaker 1: you know, the holy water for sale in the temple.
Speaker 1: A clown head that spits gum at the local train
Speaker 1: station is not going to benefit from the same holy reverence.
Speaker 1: You know, though, I do wonder if they're onto something
Speaker 1: here with the clown head, because this is personified, it's
Speaker 1: looking right at you, it's anthropomorphic, and I think that
Speaker 1: could play an important role in the relationship between the
Speaker 1: buyer and the vendor. When the vendor is just like
Speaker 1: a rectangular machine that you need to put a coin
Speaker 1: in it, would you be more less likely to try
Speaker 1: to defraud that machine then you would a machine that
Speaker 1: looks like a creepy, demonic entity that could follow you home.
Speaker 1: It's true, you know. You had another twist on this, though,
Speaker 1: is that you also saw charitable vending machines pop up
Speaker 1: in late nineteenth century France, which, when this seems like
Speaker 1: a decent way to invoke the honor system for machines
Speaker 1: that can't really defend themselves. You know, it's like, yes,
Speaker 1: you're buying gum or what have you from a crappy
Speaker 1: machine that you could probably defraud, but the money is
Speaker 1: going to charity. So how much of a monster are
Speaker 1: you really? You might be surprised. Now, speaking of defrauding machines,
Speaker 1: the earliest record of a vandalized machine, according to Segrave,
Speaker 1: comes from seven in England, three young men were convicted
Speaker 1: for using brass discs to buy cigarettes. And then there's
Speaker 1: also a St. Louis account where a man had a
Speaker 1: coin on a string and he was using it to
Speaker 1: score cigars out of a machine and it was creating
Speaker 1: quite a stir. People were coming around to watch him
Speaker 1: do it, like he was performing some sort of magic trick.
Speaker 1: And the judge in this case he wasn't even sure
Speaker 1: if this was larceny and ended up just finding the
Speaker 1: man for disorderly conduct instead. Again coming back to that
Speaker 1: same conundrum, how do I How do I punish a
Speaker 1: man for stealing from an inhuman entity? Yeah, stealing from
Speaker 1: a machine? Really stealing? Now, another concern, of course with
Speaker 1: all this is that today we have problems with vending
Speaker 1: machines not working properly. You know, you go to you
Speaker 1: put in your money, you expect to get a candy bar,
Speaker 1: and it like sticks to the side. Right. So obviously
Speaker 1: you had similar issues back in the day with these
Speaker 1: clumsier machines. I'd imagine even more often, right, Like you
Speaker 1: try to get the gum out of the clown's mouth,
Speaker 1: but instead it just kind of makes a grinding noise. Yes,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think one of the more I mean
Speaker 1: when when you look at the history of vending machines,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you see like the definite areas where
Speaker 1: people realize, yes, we're gonna use these to sell candy,
Speaker 1: we're gonna sell cigarettes. These are the obvious uses. But
Speaker 1: what I really loved about researching this was seeing the
Speaker 1: various areas where they were just throwing it ato everything
Speaker 1: to see what would stick. There was a real flash
Speaker 1: in the pan since too many of these applications stuff,
Speaker 1: some of the stuff generated attention but then didn't find
Speaker 1: a place in society. And yet you still see early
Speaker 1: versions of vending devices that we now take for granted
Speaker 1: gasoline pumps, water pumps, well maybe not beer spigots, but
Speaker 1: you also had these beer spigot feed put money into
Speaker 1: and then you fill up your your glass. I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's some pretty strange vending machines out there today, and
Speaker 1: it's it's still a developing field. Yeah, Like I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've read about like live animal vending machines, like they're
Speaker 1: live lobster vending machines and live crab vending machines. I
Speaker 1: did enjoy when I was in China several years back.
Speaker 1: I got to see a wine vending machine when you
Speaker 1: put your money, and it was very high tech too,
Speaker 1: you know, I had the computer interface, but ultimately you
Speaker 1: would get an entire bottle of wine out of it.
Speaker 1: Oh bottle. It wasn't like a spigot of no, not
Speaker 1: a bigot like. It was just it was distributing full
Speaker 1: bottles of wine. U Now. The eighteen nineties also saw
Speaker 1: the birth of the slot machine. Now not the gambling
Speaker 1: engine that would evolve from it and keep its name,
Speaker 1: but basic coin operated machines that sold various odds and
Speaker 1: end so cigarettes, stationary, et cetera. So early on there
Speaker 1: was a link between vending machines and gambling machines, and
Speaker 1: sometimes the blurring of that line would help you get
Speaker 1: around gambling restrictions. Yeah, I mean it reminds me of
Speaker 1: a whole episode. Maybe it was more than one episode
Speaker 1: that we did for stuff to able in your mind
Speaker 1: about the slot machine, about gambling and gambling psychology and
Speaker 1: gambling devices and an automated gambling. Yeah. And if there's
Speaker 1: a I mean, there's a clear history here. That's that's
Speaker 1: part of the legacy of vending machines, is the gambling machine.
Speaker 1: You would not have the gambling machine without these early
Speaker 1: vending machines. You know, we often see new technologies take
Speaker 1: on a kind of chic appeal, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: sometimes if you would have seen that in early vending machines,
Speaker 1: like when a vending machine became the new way you
Speaker 1: could buy an item in a place, Like what it
Speaker 1: would people come to think that an item bought from
Speaker 1: a vending machine as opposed to bought from a human. Uh,
Speaker 1: selling point would be cooler, would be better? Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the basic novelty attraction, right, Like, here's this new technology,
Speaker 1: this new way of doing this thing I was going
Speaker 1: to do anyway. I think one of the best examples
Speaker 1: of this, uh is the is the rise and ultimately
Speaker 1: the fall of automats. So I always think about that
Speaker 1: scene in Dark City with the Yes, there's a wonderful
Speaker 1: scene with an automat and Dark City. If you don't
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about, and or you haven't seen
Speaker 1: Dark City, we're talking about a restaurant in which the
Speaker 1: walls are lined with all of these these little doors
Speaker 1: with little windows, and behind each window you see a
Speaker 1: plate or dish, you know, some sort of food that's prepared,
Speaker 1: and you put your coin in and then you open
Speaker 1: that little door and then you take the plate. So
Speaker 1: it's like apple green jello sandwich. And these were real.
Speaker 1: This was this was something from Dark City that you
Speaker 1: can you can take to the bank. The first of
Speaker 1: these opened in Berlin in and uh, and you know
Speaker 1: it was it was true novelty because you'd be you'd
Speaker 1: be hard pressed to find a true automat today. A
Speaker 1: but the basic concept lives on and probably my one
Speaker 1: of my favorite restaurant innovations, uh, the conveyor Belt Sushi restaurant.
Speaker 1: If you've been to one of these jokes, no I haven't,
Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about it. Oh, it's it's marvelous.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend everyone go to one. Afterwards, you will
Speaker 1: feel cheated if a human brings you your food at
Speaker 1: a restaurant as opposed to a conveyor belt that has
Speaker 1: tiny little plates with the with like bubble canopies over them.
Speaker 1: So at the on the conveyor belt, how do they
Speaker 1: keep track of what food you have taken? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: they have a fabulous system. At least. The place that
Speaker 1: that I frequent because my my child loves it and
Speaker 1: I love it too, is that after you're done, you
Speaker 1: have to stick the plate into a receptacle and it
Speaker 1: counts the plates, so you're charged by the plate, and
Speaker 1: you're also encourage there's gamification here as well. You're encouraged
Speaker 1: to insert more plates because if you hit I want
Speaker 1: to say it's like fifteen plates, you get a little prize.
Speaker 1: It comes out lay up ending machine. So it's this
Speaker 1: wonderful collision of these different vending machine concepts into one
Speaker 1: food delivery system. Now, it's also worth pointing out that
Speaker 1: even though the automat went away in many ways, it
Speaker 1: lives on in just modern cafeterias. Yeah, And ultimately, I
Speaker 1: guess it comes down to the fact that you really
Speaker 1: didn't have to have the food behind all those little
Speaker 1: locked doors. You just had to have it in a wrapper.
Speaker 1: You just need to have it in some steamer trays,
Speaker 1: put up some sneeze guards, and have what one two
Speaker 1: humans around just to make sure you didn't do anything stupid.
Speaker 1: You can never really make sure, though, Robert, you never can.
Speaker 1: I've worked in the grocery store. I know what people
Speaker 1: do with food items. I guess it comes down to
Speaker 1: what do the vast majority of the of of the
Speaker 1: customers do with the food items? Right? The vast majority
Speaker 1: of people are very nice and very well behaved. It's
Speaker 1: not everybody sticking their arm up the cola machine or
Speaker 1: or trying to, you know, to to cheat it with
Speaker 1: little you know, disks of lead or something, or poking
Speaker 1: popsicle sticks down in there. That's when I tried, What
Speaker 1: was wrong with me? Why was I so into defrauding machine?
Speaker 1: You just wanted to It was just your rage against
Speaker 1: the machine, Joe, Fully, what was going on? It's kind
Speaker 1: of a little boy scout in other ways, like I
Speaker 1: never would have done that to you were a natural,
Speaker 1: buttal arian is where you were. I guess. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to take one more break
Speaker 1: and we come back. We're gonna talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about just the legacy of vending machine technology. Alright, we're back.
Speaker 1: So of course vending machines still exist, right, you know,
Speaker 1: they're all over the place, and they're now fully adapted
Speaker 1: to the modern economy, many accepting credit cards and so forth,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them have less cute mechanical tricks
Speaker 1: behind them. Now they're just sort of electronic, and you
Speaker 1: know that's that's fine. Yeah, I mean I like it
Speaker 1: when there's an arm, when there is some sort of
Speaker 1: robotic component, um like there's a uh. You can still
Speaker 1: find ice cream machines that do this where a little
Speaker 1: lid and a cooler will open hind glass and an
Speaker 1: arm will go down and and grab one of the
Speaker 1: uh the the ice cream pops and bring it out.
Speaker 1: And I love that because there's a sense of drama
Speaker 1: to it. Yes, will the claw be able to do it?
Speaker 1: Or will I be or I or will I have
Speaker 1: to call this eight hundred number on the side of
Speaker 1: the machine and inevitably talk to another automaton. Well that
Speaker 1: is one uh that that is one appeal of the machine, right,
Speaker 1: that there is an inherent delight in watching how some
Speaker 1: machines work. Most vending machines aren't really like this. They're
Speaker 1: they're not all that exciting. But these are these other ones.
Speaker 1: Things with arms like these are coming back to the
Speaker 1: automatons of heroes day and then medieval well, you know,
Speaker 1: wonder devices, the philosophical toys they were sometimes called. They
Speaker 1: put on a show. Yeah, they put on a show,
Speaker 1: and they made you think about what was happening. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't just a matter of yeah, I want an
Speaker 1: ice cream and I'll pay a dollar for it. But
Speaker 1: in terms of legacy, I do want to think about
Speaker 1: how the vending machine, even the early rudimentary vending machines,
Speaker 1: did kind of portend something even more significant thing about
Speaker 1: the the automation of the service economy in general, because
Speaker 1: you can, of course point to plenty of vending machines
Speaker 1: that still existing seven airports all the time and selling
Speaker 1: headphones and stuff like that. But in a way, you
Speaker 1: can also look at, for example, online commerce as an
Speaker 1: extension of the principle of the vending machine across time
Speaker 1: and space. It's shopping without the interaction with a human vendor.
Speaker 1: You make your selection from an automated display, you pay
Speaker 1: an automated cashier, and then you receive your item without
Speaker 1: having to meet anybody. Yeah, what is say, Amazon dot
Speaker 1: Com but the biggest vending machine of all time? Right,
Speaker 1: you can buy everything from it, But even in in
Speaker 1: person purchasing, there is there has been a push, at
Speaker 1: least in many cases, to try to automate aspects of
Speaker 1: the of the service relationship. Right Yeah, I think of
Speaker 1: grocery stores, gas pumps. I mean, basically, the sort of
Speaker 1: world that was predicted in early vending machine ventures is
Speaker 1: what we're living in today. We just managed to keep
Speaker 1: a few human action interactions around, uh, you know, for
Speaker 1: flavor and and or to enforce the honor system, and
Speaker 1: to provide flexibility that machines don't have. The human can
Speaker 1: be there for when something goes wrong or when someone
Speaker 1: has an unusual need or request, and to service the machines.
Speaker 1: Of course. However, I have to say I'm a little
Speaker 1: amazed that one particular vending machine designed didn't take off.
Speaker 1: This one is also mentioned in C. Gray's book Comes
Speaker 1: From And it's the back of the movie theater seat
Speaker 1: candy machine that is pretty brilliant. Yeah, like every seat
Speaker 1: in the theater and then you have a candy machine
Speaker 1: right on the back of your seat. Just imagine how
Speaker 1: how perfect and perfectly annoying that would be. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would hate that because I never buy candy at
Speaker 1: the movies. I would I would despise it Ben for
Speaker 1: that very reason. I'm surprised that it's not happening right now.
Speaker 1: I suspect that maybe the reason that didn't take off
Speaker 1: is that you want to get people out of the
Speaker 1: theater into the lobby so that they buy more. There's
Speaker 1: only so much you can sell through a back of
Speaker 1: the seat vending machine, right You could, by increasing the
Speaker 1: convenience of selling one popular item actually decrease overall sales
Speaker 1: if you just like make it too easy to get
Speaker 1: that one popular thing without people having to be tempted
Speaker 1: by all these other less popular things. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, some people are not going to want. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get up in the middle of the
Speaker 1: movie to go stand in line, or even not stand
Speaker 1: in line to buy food, but they're always telling you to.
Speaker 1: I know, but what if I could just buy, you know,
Speaker 1: a glass of wine and some twizzlers right there in
Speaker 1: my seat without involving any human interaction, which I clearly
Speaker 1: did not come to the movie theater for. What if
Speaker 1: you could just swipe your credit card and the ceiling
Speaker 1: would rain popcorn on? Well, that would work too hot, buttered,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, Robert picking up from this, I
Speaker 1: wonder In fact, I was about to ask you, but
Speaker 1: I don't have to ask you because I've been to
Speaker 1: one with you, these new school restaurant that have you
Speaker 1: order through an automated touchscreen menu rather than talking to
Speaker 1: your servers. Oh, yes, we encountered this at an airport Lardia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were at a restaurant. Every restaurant I've been to
Speaker 1: a LaGuardia in New York works like this. And what
Speaker 1: I wondered at that restaurant was do consumers behave in
Speaker 1: a measurably different way when they're ordering or buying through
Speaker 1: a machine than when they're ordering or buying through a person.
Speaker 1: And the data says in many cases, absolutely yes, people
Speaker 1: do behave different when they shop through machines versus when
Speaker 1: they shop through human gatekeepers. I wanted to call attention
Speaker 1: to a interview piece I read by A. Gretchen Gavitt
Speaker 1: and the Harvard Business Review with Harvard business professor Ryan Buell,
Speaker 1: who talks about this change in human behavior with with
Speaker 1: automated selling versus human selling, and so one very common
Speaker 1: trend is in food sales. Think about like the restaurant
Speaker 1: that's got the automated ordering path or online ordering apps.
Speaker 1: What what research has found is that people who order
Speaker 1: food through machines rather than people, tend to order more
Speaker 1: food and more customized food. So for example, there's no
Speaker 1: social barrier being a pain in the butt exactly. That's
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly. It's a Taco Bell. They had
Speaker 1: a digital app you could order through, so you didn't
Speaker 1: have to talk to a person, you just order in
Speaker 1: the app and then pick it up. And what they
Speaker 1: found was that orders were more expensive when ordered through
Speaker 1: the app than when people talk had to talk to
Speaker 1: somebody to order, mostly because people picked more add on
Speaker 1: ingredients in the app, so it's like, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to add sour cream, I want to add whatever. Also,
Speaker 1: Chili's apparently reported that more people started ordering desserts when
Speaker 1: they could order through self service computers that were stationed
Speaker 1: at their tables, and movie theaters have reported that self
Speaker 1: service kiosks mean people keep ordering more and more stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think another aspect of this might be
Speaker 1: situations where you are relying on memory while you're ordering,
Speaker 1: you know, in kind of at times, at least for
Speaker 1: you know, people like me, a high pressure social situation.
Speaker 1: You're at the front of the poke bowl line. You're
Speaker 1: trying to order your poke bowl and you're having to
Speaker 1: and people were looking at you, people were waiting on you,
Speaker 1: and you have to also remember all the things you
Speaker 1: just said and are saying, and also keeping in mind
Speaker 1: what you're about to order for your child or your
Speaker 1: or your you know, or somebody else who's you know,
Speaker 1: fetching drinks or what have you. There're a lot of
Speaker 1: moving pieces, and if you can externalize that process or
Speaker 1: part of that process onto a screen, then it's it
Speaker 1: is a calmer situation for all involved. That's why we
Speaker 1: write are we checked things off on a sushi menu
Speaker 1: as opposed to telling the server? Yeah, I think you're
Speaker 1: exactly right. There's there's less pressure, there's less of a rush.
Speaker 1: But I think it's also very important that there's less
Speaker 1: fear of less self consciousness. Because I want to talk
Speaker 1: about a couple of other studies. One was study that
Speaker 1: looked at liquor stores and they found if a liquor
Speaker 1: store switches over to self service, the market share of
Speaker 1: quote difficult to pronounce items increases more than eight percent.
Speaker 1: So people buy more hard to pronounce liquor products if
Speaker 1: they don't have to interact with a human when they
Speaker 1: buy them. So I won't be self conscious about trying
Speaker 1: to order Chartous chartroussa tros chartreuse. I think it's Chartrus.
Speaker 1: Sounds good to me, but I would be a little hesitant.
Speaker 1: I would say that that bottle that the one at
Speaker 1: the horse on it, Robert. Have you ever done the
Speaker 1: online pizza app ordering? No? I haven't, but I have
Speaker 1: the thing they do. Yeah, so, like I know Domino's
Speaker 1: does that. I think they all do, all the big chains,
Speaker 1: or maybe not all of them. Most of the big
Speaker 1: chains to do that now, and pizza chains that introduce
Speaker 1: automated online ordering find that people order higher calorie meals
Speaker 1: when they order through the app, and they also order
Speaker 1: with way more special instructions. You know, So if you're
Speaker 1: somebody who's like, I want the gluten free dough, but
Speaker 1: not as a crust. I want it chopped up and
Speaker 1: sprinkled as a topping that people are more likely to
Speaker 1: do that on the app than they are talking to
Speaker 1: somebody on the phone, because, yeah, you don't feel like
Speaker 1: you're inconveniencing anyone, right, you're ridiculously detailed order exactly. So
Speaker 1: it seems like a recurring feature is that people just
Speaker 1: might feel less self conscious when they order through a
Speaker 1: machine than when they order through a human And uh,
Speaker 1: the machine isn't going to judge what you eat, or
Speaker 1: how unhealthy what you're ordering is, or how complicated your
Speaker 1: special instructions are, or how you pronounce things. The machine
Speaker 1: doesn't judge, there's no fear. It just takes the order mechanically. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, this isn't without downsides. In this article, Buell
Speaker 1: points out that a lot of companies also lose business
Speaker 1: from attempting to institute self service kiosks and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because it might make customers feel like they're getting less
Speaker 1: value from the business, they're having to do too much
Speaker 1: work where they don't have the flexibility they would when
Speaker 1: interacting with a human agent. A lot of it probably
Speaker 1: has to do with how easy these things are to
Speaker 1: interact with, But I wonder how how much that whole
Speaker 1: thing can be extrapolated not just to I mean most
Speaker 1: of this is focused on food, but can be extrapolated
Speaker 1: to commerce as a whole. When you go to a
Speaker 1: vending machine, when you order something online, when you order
Speaker 1: through a little iPad or something at your table instead
Speaker 1: of talking to a human or having to look a
Speaker 1: human in the eye. When you do any of this
Speaker 1: buying purchasing behavior, how does that change how you spend
Speaker 1: your money and what choices you make with your life.
Speaker 1: And indeed, these are changes that certainly too many individuals like,
Speaker 1: we're not we're not even fully of aware aware of
Speaker 1: what's happening. While meanwhile, the companies that are rolling this
Speaker 1: out are often going to be hyper aware of what's happening.
Speaker 1: They're going to you know, it's like McDonald's. They know
Speaker 1: you're going to spend a dollar more, and therefore they're
Speaker 1: going to do the math that and and figure out
Speaker 1: that this is the way of the future, that you
Speaker 1: need to be ordering through the machine so you'll spend more.
Speaker 1: I absolutely understand this working, like at the level I
Speaker 1: have personally experienced feeling the freedom to order things I
Speaker 1: would be embarrassed to order out loud with my voice
Speaker 1: if I ordered them on an app, like ordering some
Speaker 1: kind of complicated request or request for extra stuff. And
Speaker 1: yet at the same time, like one thing that comes
Speaker 1: to mind is is really the domain of films? You know,
Speaker 1: obviously one can obtain any film you want pretty much,
Speaker 1: especially good films you can get through you know, digital means,
Speaker 1: and you can order a copy of it rented, etcetera.
Speaker 1: When you go into the right kind of video store. Think,
Speaker 1: I guess some people might be embarrassed to ask for
Speaker 1: certain titles, but there's also a pride in asking for
Speaker 1: certain titles. Like you want you want to be recognized
Speaker 1: for being the person that that wants to watch leviathans,
Speaker 1: you know, like you want to you do want kind
Speaker 1: of a social connection and you want approval for participating
Speaker 1: in this transaction. And you're not gonna get that from
Speaker 1: the machine. You're not gonna be judged, but you're also
Speaker 1: not going to be celebrated. Well, it just highlights how
Speaker 1: the social aspects of commerce or a double edged sword.
Speaker 1: Sometimes having a person there to react to you socially
Speaker 1: and engage with you socially is going to be a
Speaker 1: limiting factor in what you would do and how much
Speaker 1: you would indulge in all that because you're afraid of judgment.
Speaker 1: And other times it will be an empowering factor, or
Speaker 1: I don't know if the word is empowering, if it
Speaker 1: would be an encouraging factor, encouraging you to participate in
Speaker 1: this act of commerce because there's some kind of positive
Speaker 1: social benefit to it. And if nothing else, I just
Speaker 1: want there to be a conveyor belt, you know, right
Speaker 1: at least there needs to be a sense of wonder.
Speaker 1: There needs to be uh, some sort of spectacle going on,
Speaker 1: even if it's just a small one. You know. One
Speaker 1: last thing I was thinking about is I've never tried
Speaker 1: to cheat or defraud Amazon or anything like that. But
Speaker 1: I wonder, like if if my feeling from childhood is generalizable,
Speaker 1: that people, for some reason, while they would never try
Speaker 1: to steal from a human or physical brick and mortar store,
Speaker 1: would try to reach their arm up into the vending machine,
Speaker 1: does the same thing apply to these more modern worldwide
Speaker 1: vending machines like online commerce retailers or just normal stores
Speaker 1: that that delegate all of the selling functions to machines
Speaker 1: and apps and stuff like that. I wonder to what
Speaker 1: extent we attribute Amazon with a little more agency than
Speaker 1: we than that we would then we would give say,
Speaker 1: you know, Coca cola machine. Yeah, all right, So there
Speaker 1: you have it. Uh. That is the episode of Invention
Speaker 1: for this week. We do hope that you will check
Speaker 1: out invention pod dot com. That is where you'll find
Speaker 1: uh the existing episodes of the Invention Podcast. You'll also
Speaker 1: find links out to our social media accounts, and if
Speaker 1: you want to talk about this episode inside of a
Speaker 1: Facebook group, you should go to the Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind discussion module because that is where we are
Speaker 1: known to hang out and discuss episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. But we're also happy to talk about
Speaker 1: episodes of Invention. Huge thanks as always to Scott Benjamin
Speaker 1: for research assistants on this show, and to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer, Torri Harrison. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or
Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at invention pod dot com.