Hacker News Reader

Comment by crooked-v | Hacker News Reader

There are many huge contextual differences between the US and Japan when it comes to vending machines, but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly that there's no guarantee that people will even be around your row of vending machines in the first place.

View on HN

> but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable

Big cities like Tokyo or Osaka are walkable; outside of them, Japan quickly devolves into very pedestrian-unfriendly urban sprawl (I know because I live in one such place). But somehow you still find plenty of vending machines everywhere, even besides a road in an otherwise empty field.

Vending machine in an empty field just reminds me of Japan's low crime rate.

It's not noticeably low when you're from a nice country. It'll be very noticeably low when you're from a nightmare place.

There are few places in the world where things won't be taken when left unattended.

Just curious, what nice country are you referring to ?

I agree, but in my very walkable european neighbourhood I don't see any vending machines either (except on the train stations, in waiting rooms, etc). Granted, there are small shops every corner, so vending machines don't feel necessary, but sometimes it would be useful to have some.

In Germany a lot of vending machines have appeared over the last ~10 years, and there are a lot more popping up all the time. And not just in the big cities. Nowhere as many as in Japan, but for example in my area there's a farmer selling fresh eggs in a vending machine, a meat packaging plant selling meat and sausages, an ice cream/frozen yoghurt vending machine (some local Ben & Jerry's competitor), a bunch of vending machines for CBD stuff, a pizza vending machine at the local university (it makes hot pizza), multiple old shops in pedestrian areas converted to house 5-10 vending machines, etc.

Especially the model of renting shops to fill them with vending machines seems to be getting popular. They regularly get into fights with the city whether they have to obey the legally allowed opening times for stores or can be open 24/7. That and farm shops putting up vending machines.

Which city is that? Here in the city center of Lübeck, I see none of those. And only one new-ish traditional vending machine.

I’ve lived in Berlin for the last 11 years and have never seen the phenomena you describe (I wish I had them in my neighbourhood!)

I think it has to do with available space, as other commenters have mentioned. Here in Valencia, Spain, there's a huge amount of unused "retail" space. Most of the city is 5-7 floor apartment buildings with the ground floor being designed for retail / parking / etc. There are many building, outside of the city center that were built years ago with their ground floors sitting empty since day 1. Many spots that were occupied at some point are sitting empty as well. It's pretty cheap to buy or lease a space. Anyways, in the last 5 years or so there has been a lot of spots being converted into vending machine spots. Basically a small area of retail space, no front door or wall, and maybe 4 or more vending machines in it. I've noticed sometimes even some cafes are carving out a little spot of their frontage to install a few machines.

In Slovenia local farmers started using vending machines for homegrown milk, eggs, pig fat and similiar produce. While they were very rare just a few years ago, now they are very commonplace, even in smaller towns.

NYC is arguably more walkable than anywhere in Japan outside of Tokyo, or in my opinion including Tokyo, but it doesn't have 0.1% of the vending machines as suburban Japan.

Also, what we would call non walkable suburbs or rural areas in Japan have more vending machines than anywhere in America as well.

Being from NYC, I'd prefer not touching a vending machine that's most likely got piss all over it.

From a trip to Tokyo, Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and NYC in a couple weeks -- that's mostly an NYC problem.

I get that you want to cram your pet issue into everything but that doesn't explain the dearth of product variety in places in places in the US where vending machines are located or the general rarity of them in walkable places in the US.

Everyone is complicating their answer. The answer is simple: In the US, these machines will get cracked and the ROI will be negative. Same reason why Amazon Go didn't work.

I assume there's something else going on, as outdoor vending machines are not a particularly common sight in most walkable cities in Europe, say.

>but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly

Japan is also extremely tiny compared to the US.

Japan is also something like ~70% mountainous where things cant even be built.

It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

> It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

Hahaha, now this is a good joke. Japanese cities are notoriously chaotic and urban planning is almost non-existant; my guess is that they didn't rethink anything, they just rebuilt everything in a hurry, and afterwards, shoganai.

I think you overcomplicate stuff, its just boil down to the culture

Any technical or laws difficulties is just the "easy" part

Reply on news.ycombinator.com