Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A vending machine, on the internet

threekindwords.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 92 posts

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#41

Post by isaacremuant »

xivzgrev wrote: post #5

Rock on man. The contrarian attitude reminds me of the “I Sell Onions on the Internet” guy https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-inter...

Why is it contrarian? Entrepreneurial spirit is well appreciated in popular culture even if most people don't have the ability to lose 10k without worries. Risk aversion might separate most people from entrepreneurs but it's not really a contrarian attitude, right? Maybe I've been interpreting the word wrong forever.

Would it be less contrarian if it was apples?

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#42

Post by latexr »

wruza wrote: post #39
ipsento606 wrote: post #29

> The machine was jammed. It wasn’t a big deal. I shrugged and moved on to buy my groceries. I resonate with the sentiment, but this is very far from my experience selling cheap software products. I had multiple people reach out to me because a software upgrade they paid $2 for 8 years ago stopped working. And they were, like, pissed about it.

I guess the idea is to not provide contacts and to explicitly claim this position in the user agreement. How much pissed they are may really depend on how much of it is allowed. Some can kick the machine, but in this case it will be their pc.

> I guess the idea is to not provide contacts and to explicitly claim this position in the user agreement.

Unfortunately, that is becoming increasingly harder.

https://developer.apple.com/help/app-store-connect/manage-co...

Before the inevitable victim blaming of “don’t do business with that platform/jurisdiction/whatever”, please remember to be empathetic and that not everyone has the same choices you do. I’m in no way defending this, just pointing out the state of affairs.

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#43

Post by yapyap »

I appreciate the article but if what the writer linked would not send one of the cards or even multiple I would chargeback, not on a crusade type thing but if you don’t deliver the service you promised it’s not a weird thing to do.

Also I’ve seen some people go mad over a vending machine taking their money and not spitting anything out, over the principle of it.

Just depends on the person and how they see vending machines.

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#45

Post by batch12 »

ipsento606 wrote: post #29

> The machine was jammed. It wasn’t a big deal. I shrugged and moved on to buy my groceries. I resonate with the sentiment, but this is very far from my experience selling cheap software products. I had multiple people reach out to me because a software upgrade they paid $2 for 8 years ago stopped working. And they were, like, pissed about it.

That sucks, but with the stakes as low as $2, I'd happily give the money back and move on.

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#46

Post by eightturn »

xivzgrev wrote: post #5

Rock on man. The contrarian attitude reminds me of the “I Sell Onions on the Internet” guy https://www.deepsouthventures.com/i-sell-onions-on-the-inter...

ha, onionman here : ) I also wrote an essay similar to this vending machine analogy... simple minds think alike I guess https://www.deepsouthventures.com/building-things-that-do-ju...

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#47

Post by [deleted] »

ipsento606 wrote: post #29

> The machine was jammed. It wasn’t a big deal. I shrugged and moved on to buy my groceries. I resonate with the sentiment, but this is very far from my experience selling cheap software products. I had multiple people reach out to me because a software upgrade they paid $2 for 8 years ago stopped working. And they were, like, pissed about it.

[deleted]

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#48

Post by Waterluvian »

I’ve been buying piano sheet music and I’ve seen the two extremes:

1. You look at a preview, buy it, get a PDF emailed to you. No account needed.

2. You look at a preview, you make an account, you buy, you get told your browser isn’t supported. You get told a PDF costs extra. You get told you can only try to print it once so be careful. You get told you have 24 hours to complete this.

As a developer the second one was incredibly offensive. As if business types who do not comprehend technology beyond smacking rocks together thought they actually could lock down and police consumption of the sheet music. I printed to PDF and then never came back.

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#49

Post by 3dsnano »

thih9 wrote: post #27

That was an interesting read, thanks for sharing! How does the postcard logistics work? I.e. is there a platform that offers sub $5 drop shipping with three different templates and on demand print? Or is the author sending the postcards themselves? Vending machine suggests automation, so the former; but I looked at some drop shipping options and couldn’t find anything like this.

there's a post about it here https://threekindwords.com/blog/building-a-postcard-vending-...

Re: A vending machine, on the internet

#50

Post by [deleted] »

wruza wrote: post #39
ipsento606 wrote: post #29

> The machine was jammed. It wasn’t a big deal. I shrugged and moved on to buy my groceries. I resonate with the sentiment, but this is very far from my experience selling cheap software products. I had multiple people reach out to me because a software upgrade they paid $2 for 8 years ago stopped working. And they were, like, pissed about it.

I guess the idea is to not provide contacts and to explicitly claim this position in the user agreement. How much pissed they are may really depend on how much of it is allowed. Some can kick the machine, but in this case it will be their pc.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN