[neodypsis]

Perhaps I disagree on the following:

> There’s no customer support, chatbot, or extensive documentation.

I've seen many vending machines with customer support channels. If the machine takes the money but merchandise is not delivered, people will complain.

[autoexec]

Exactly! A website that takes people's money and doesn't deliver a product or provide customer service is basically just committing fraud. Some vending machines do get away with fraud for a time. The place hosting someone else's machine (like a shop or a restaurant) will often get complaints from people who run into problems and those shops will often refund customers without notifying the vendor every time.

After enough complaints they might remove the machine from their property or compel the owner of the vending machine to maintain it, but the fact that some amount of fraud happens via vending machines isn't an ideal that we should try to replicate on the internet, especially not because it's easier for the people who make webpages.

"I didn't know I was ripping people off because I decided it would be easier if I never checked and also decided not to give any of the people I stole from a channel to tell me about it." won't hold up very well.

I also got some bad vibes from :

> The stakes should be low. Whatever you’re selling, it’s gotta be cheap. And if things go awry? No one’s going to launch a chargeback crusade

"I hoped that because I was taking such a small amount of money that nobody would bother to do anything about it" isn't a good look either.

The most pessimistic reading of this post is "why shouldn't I provide a service as shitty and fraudulent as lazy vending machine owners do only on a far more massive scale"

That said, I really do agree that people can over complicate things and there's a lot to be gained by not allowing account creation, not asking for more data than you absolutely need, and not keeping data around any longer than absolutely necessary. Just please don't think you can get away with not providing any customer service or not keeping an eye on things to make sure customers are getting what they pay for.

[what]

This is probably all just marketing/seo for the service used to send the post cards. I’ve never seen a vending machine that tells you the price they pay for the product by linking out to their providers. $0.82 per card and charging $5 for 3.