The ridiculous idea aside, I'm still amazed by how you managed to double-post this and get away with it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7918862
Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
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Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#32I actually never realized that quarters were needed for laundry. All the laundry machines I've ever used have been card-operated or free. I've _seen_ coin-op laundry machines at laundromats (just from walking by) but I assumed there would be a change machine installed inside... Kinda makes me wonder what other simple problems of the general population I've been oblivious to.
I've never seen a coin-op laundromat here in NYC that didn't have a change machine.
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#33So $15 for $10 of quarters a month. I can see how that would be worth it to save time on going to the bank. Not clear to me how near the range is where it saves enough time to be worth it to the person before they would just own a washer and drier rather then using a laundromat mat. It might make sense in high population density areas where space in an apartment is at a premium. Any one from a high population density…
It is fairly common to not have an in-house washer/dryer in apartment complexes in the various high-population-density areas I've lived in the US; but it is also pretty common for such apartment complexes to have a shared laundry room on the premises somewhere. These shared laundry rooms usually have a card system now where you can use a credit card to put value on a card that you insert into the washer/dryer to star…
Yep, shared laundry is very common in older buildings and multi-family houses, but I've never seen such a place with a card system. They all took quarters. Who's going to bother installing an electronic system when you have one set of machines and 3 apartments?
I had to deal with coin-operated in-building laundry for years (mostly in New England), and it's definitely terrible when you realize you _have_ to do laundry tonight but you're out of quarters and it's too late to go to a bank. Time to start knocking on doors or making friends with the guy at 7-11.
I definitely thought about (and searched for) a service like this, but as everyone else has said, paying a 50% premium on quarters is tough to swallow. I'd have paid 10-20%, though. (But now that I have in-unit laundry, I'll never go back to shared if I can help it.)
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#34There seems to be a lot of confusion about why someone would want a service like this. And that's understandable. Perhaps they have a nice bank in walking distance. Perhaps they don't work from 7am to 5pm, just in time for their bank to close. Perhaps their local stores don't sell rolls for a small charge (or feel silly going to the front desk to buy quarters - go to a bank after all!) I bet it'd be nice living in a…
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Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#35Welp, I'm gonna disrupt their business model by creating a laundromat operated exclusively by bitcoins.
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#36If somebody told you to mail them $13.50 and they will mail you back $10, you would think they were crazy. But in today's world this is a valid idea for a startup?
I love that the justification is that places won't make change. Three foolproof steps to successfully obtaining change from a convenience store (clerks hate him!): (a) make a purchase, (b) pay with a $20, (c) ask for a roll back instead of the $10 and the clerk will drop one out of the safe for you.
When 30 seconds of your time exceeds $7 in value, implying you make $7 million per year, buy a washer.
EDIT: Before you start relying on this shit, heed the founder's subtle hint that he's not going to operate this business for very long: https://twitter.com/calebrown/status/479814086537281536
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#37The website is indeed lacking SSL. The transaction is encrypted since it's using Stripe but if the host page lacks SSL, the browser shows no indication (nor should it since the majority of the page is unencrytped). This also struck me as an odd thing about Stripe... that they didn't have a redirect page you could use with its own SSL for businesses that wanted to use Stripe's in-browser checkout but didn't want to spring for an SSL certificate.
Also, I'm not really seeing the market for this. I've lived in NYC for years and I've never seen a laundromat without a change machine or someone at a desk to give you change... both with no surcharge. And my old university switched to card-operated laundry machines back in the 90s. Most new or renovated larger apartment buildings in NYC seem to operate this way now, too. And, as a fallback, you can always go to the bank and get change (there are 6 banks within 3 blocks of me... including 2 separate Chase banks across the street from each other... seriously).
Is there a large population of people somewhere outside of major cities with no access to banks and no washers and dryers in their dwelling or building but that has access to a reliable mailbox that people won't steal money out of?
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#38I don't live in a big city, but here in Dayton Ohio I've never seen a laundromat without a change machine. Further, those change machines don't skim off the top. The worst you're out is a $3 charge for an out-of-network ATM, and even that can be avoided with a minimal amount of forethought.
Am I missing something that makes this make sense?
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#39Why could you not have existed two years ago?! This was one of the biggest pain points in my life, and now I'm finally living in an apartment with its own washing machine.
Thank you so much, this is awesome.
Re: Washboard – Ships you rolls of quarters for laundry
#40There seems to be a lot of confusion about why someone would want a service like this. And that's understandable. Perhaps they have a nice bank in walking distance. Perhaps they don't work from 7am to 5pm, just in time for their bank to close. Perhaps their local stores don't sell rolls for a small charge (or feel silly going to the front desk to buy quarters - go to a bank after all!) I bet it'd be nice living in a…
Genuine question: why not drive to the bank once every 6 months and get $50 in quarters?
This is actually what I do. There happens to be a branch none too far from where I live, so I just withdraw a few rolls each month.