Japan Runs on Vending Machines. It’s About to Break Millions of Them.
Japan Runs on Vending Machines. It’s About to Break Millions of Them.
New yen notes set to be introduced this summer won’t be compatible with many machines that businesses like ramen shops rely on.
You would think it would be possible to just swap out the currency mechanism and not the entire machine. Seems like there's an opportunity there somewhere...
Alternately, get a bill exchanger. New bill goes in, old bill comes out.
In Europe, we changed to the Euro not that long ago. I was a student and I used to use a shared laundry machine. It was the day before returning to school. I was barely alone in the dorms. Let's do a laundry !
The machines were updated to get euros. There was another machine just to change the coins, especially since the washing machines only took one kind of coin (20 cents).
I put one fresh euro in the exchange machine, expecting to get 5 coins of 20 cents.
Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. <pause>... Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. <pause>... Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. Tching. <pause>...
What ?! The machine was buggy and would not stop. I grabbed a hoodie to put the coins in it. Soon, it was not enough. After what seems to be an eternity I was there with around 50€ and kilos of coins.
Reminds me of this vending machine that confused the amount of change it should give me with some error code it displayed in the high thousands, and went jackpot on me, spitting out all its coins.
These machines probably run on floppy disks.
In Japan tech is either cutting edge or ancient scrolls
Yeah this really shouldn't be that difficult. Pop the old bill reader out and swap a new one in. It seems like there's a pretty big financial incentive for someone to figure out how to implement that, at least for the most common vending machine models.
I was kinda surprised by the article since almost every vending machine I see takes credit cards. I’ve never used a vending machine in a Ramen shop though
Most vending machines take IC (the NFC-style top-up cards that Japan also runs on), but ALL vending machines take cash.
It should be possible to swap out the reader, but they might be built in such a way that the entire machine has to be taken away and cannot be serviced on-site for security's sake. I have never seen anyone servicing a vending machine in public.
This could be something that causes Japan to rethink its cash dependancy.
The insides are really crazy custom crap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzxW3B3_Pak
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I’m getting Y2K vibes,
It's funny you say that, because this scenario was how I explained it back in the day...
Imagine the US comes out with a shiny new quarter, it's super cool, but won't fit in any existing coin slot.
Upgrading one machine isn't too bad if you know what you're doing, but then doing every machine on a block, or a street, or a city, or a state? Suddenly way more complicated.
Oh, and they ALL have to be done by a specific date.
Depending on the age of the machine, you could maybe just update the firmware. I mean, what's it comparing the bills put into the machine to? Data hardwired into it or a file stored somewhere that can be changed?
We also assume the manufacturer still exists, which isn't guaranteed after 20 years
It's the cost of doing so that's their main worry. And the ramen now traditionally is ¥1000. Doing all the changes would mean raising prices above that number and they're afraid it would keep customers away.
Among the most reliant on the machines are ramen shops, which serve one of the Japanese working class’s favorite, most affordable meals.
Ramen, wheat noodles in a richly flavored broth, became an integral part of Japanese cuisine after being popularized in the 1980s as the country’s economy took off.
So after Japans economy took off, cheap affordable food for the working class became popular? Guess some
oneclass didn’t see those gains.This is the best summary I could come up with:
Among the most reliant on the machines are ramen shops, which serve one of the Japanese working class’s favorite, most affordable meals.
Ramen, wheat noodles in a richly flavored broth, became an integral part of Japanese cuisine after being popularized in the 1980s as the country’s economy took off.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, students from a nearby university filed in for a late lunch at Mr. Nishitani’s nine-seat shop, Goumen Maruko.
Analysts at Tokyo Shoko Research said that 45 ramen restaurants nationwide had filed for bankruptcy last year, the highest number since 2009.
When Japan released its last set of bills in 2004, modifying the vending machines and issuing 10 billion new bank notes cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
By the summer of 2023, only about 30 percent of drink vending machines could accept the 500 yen coins introduced in 2021, according to the Sankei Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper.
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