The problem is that it's not an either-or.

Adding app operation alongside coin operation would have been an improvement in useability. Replacing coins with apps is just making it suck in a different way.

But then you have two problems: keeping the app going AND dealing with cash

It is an either or for some businesses. Coins in the USA are in a massive shortage the last few years. Change machines aren’t cheap and repairs can be costly. It makes financial sense to switch to these apps or people wouldn’t do it.

From the consumer perspective, probably. But from a laundromat's perspective, even if only a fraction of users use coins, they still need to deal with coins.

Once you're below some use threshold, a lot of places would prefer to ditch cash entirely.

It reminds me of the cycle of enshittification: once you have a captive audience, you start bumping the profits at the cost of the user experience.

It looks like something similar is in effect here: instead of meeting the different customers where the customers alrady are, it's the company's preferred way or the highway.

There is an in between. Our buildings laundry has a payment machine that takes credit cards and either gives you a credit card sized laundry card or recharges it. You tap the card to start that machine. You can also use the smart phone app, but I don’t think it’s used by many.

It works pretty well.

Parking meters are another thing that seems to be going the app route. I use one locally but when I travel it’s usually not the same network so its figure out how to do it.. (website, payment kiosk, another app…)

>when I travel it’s usually not the same network

Apps tend to be a pretty good solution for regular local users. They're less good when you're dealing with different apps/kiosks/etc., with different interfaces, and different ways of storing value in different cities.

'Parking meters are another thing that seems to be going the app route.'

Gone that way already in the UK, ironically in lots of places where there is very patchy or no mobile signal at all.

Yeah, getting quarters is a real problem, especially when all of the banks in your area are only open during business hours and not on weekends. That said, I'd personally prefer quarters over an app, since quarters are much more fail-safe. The system that I'd prefer overall though would be some kind of prepaid account and an NFC card. UCLA had this system when I was a grad student there and it was really easy to use. You just tap your card on the reader by the door and select what machine to use. Everything ran smoothly.