It solves a few of the usability problems: there's a top ten most popular sakes list on the wall, you're buying it from a machine which removes any peer pressure, each sake has notes on the front about the type and acidity level, and they give you a cucumber to cleanse your palette in between drinks.
Someone in Japan tried to tackle the problem by setting up a sake tasting room with 120 vending machines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM8pMZrBGRI (Japanese video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxNRvfMihI0 (English video)
It solves a few of the usability problems: there's a top ten most popular sakes list on the wall, you're buying it from a machine which removes any peer pressure, each sake has notes on the front about the type and acidity level, and they give you a cucumber to cleanse your palette in between drinks.