News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:A $33K robot barista serves 120 cups of coffee an hour by notahacker on Thursday March 14, 2019 @09:15AM (#19388897)
This.

I keep making the point every time it gets raised in a "the robots are coming for our jobs" thread, but we had the technology to vend fast food to people putting coins in slots before we had McDonalds etc, whose laser focus on margins proved the business case for counter staff and killed off most of the Automats. Needless to say, the perception of a pleasant coffee shop offering good service worth paying extra for and superior quality coffee is more intrinsically linked to its staff than the fast food industry.

In terms of theatrics and novelty this super-expensive machine is a massive improvement on the vending machine and can probably justify a $3 coffee instead of a $1 coffee, but it isn't going to kill the traditional coffee shop either, because the novelty is directly proportional to how rare they are....

Re:A $33K robot barista serves 120 cups of coffee an hour by MagnumOpus on Thursday March 14, 2019 @10:15AM (#19389374)
> McDonalds etc, whose laser focus on margins proved the business case for counter staff and killed off most of the Automats

McDonalds is returning to vending machines - not for the burger manufacturing, but for the order generation and payment:

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/06/07/mc...

Re:A $33K robot barista serves 120 cups of coffee an hour by notahacker on Thursday March 14, 2019 @10:48AM (#19389675)
in selected stores, in addition to the staff, some of whom McDonalds has concluded it makes financial sense to redeploy providing table service. And this despite McDonalds being pretty much the extreme outlier in the food industry for perceptions of its staff being charmless! Your article also points to a poll that suggests the majority of people are substantially less likely to buy from a kiosk-only restaurant, which I'm sure McDonalds has more scientific data on...