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Comment by bogomipz | Hacker News Reader

That hasn't been true in a very long time. A walk through any major airport shows otherwise. The Best Buy Express vending machine is 10 years old at this point and that is just one of many brands now that have similar offerings. See:

https://blog.bestbuy.ca/tv-audio/headphones-tv-audio/best-bu...

and

https://thepointsguy.com/news/things-sold-airport-vending-ma...

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Those are all uniform packages that meet strict requirements. Grocery stores, including Amazon cashierless stores, sell things like produce.

Picking an apple, banana, or bunch of grapes off a shelf is more difficult for a machine. The items are not uniform in size or shape. For a lot of produce, no mechanized handling system exists for quantities smaller than a bushel.

If you look at the photo at the top of the first link you can very clearly see that almost every single row has different size package footprints, not only from row but even between packages in the same row. There is no uniformity present. Further from the second link, there is no uniformity from machine to machine which is fundamentally no different the variation and shelf configuration from from shelf to shelf or aisle to aisle in a traditional brick and mortar retail store.

Having a package is a significant uniformity. Having a conveyable shape is a significant uniformity. Produce is often packaged only in bushel quantities, which are not the quantities that shoppers purchase.

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