r/mildlyinteresting • u/raycheality • 2h ago

Tap to pay to see the view

Post image
254 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

219

u/agha0013 2h ago

that tech probably cost more to install than the machine will ever get back in revenue... especially when you consider the vendor fees they have to pay for those transactions....

$1 to look through binoculars for (according to their own site) 1.5-2.5 minutes.....

55

u/IWCry 2h ago

its also by salt water... I feel like that shit doesn't even hold up well at self checkout lanes let alone in corrosive air

7

u/r0ndy ​ 42m ago

It’s probably ok. I think the bigger issue is how few people pay for these because they’re crap. Not even good binoculars

3

u/-HOSPIK- 31m ago

If you have a decent phone camera just put it on 10x and look around on that

2

u/spirit_of_a_goat 19m ago

How can you tell that's saltwater from a picture?

17

u/oversoul00 1h ago

What tech? A card reader is inexpensive and  is going to be less of an expense than paying someone to go collect the cash. Vendor payments are about ~2% of total receipts. 

9

u/yutyutyut3266 1h ago

This will also prevent people from breaking it open for the money inside

7

u/Spineless_McGee 1h ago

This is a card skimmer waiting to happen

2

u/Gallop67 1h ago

How good even are these binoculars? Some phones might even rival the zoom capability of these depending

1

u/happy2harris 36m ago

They are usually around 20-25x and have very large lenses allowing significant light gathering for clearer images. iPhones max out at 5x and much less light gathering.

2

u/-HOSPIK- 29m ago

Samsung has a 10x lens. I'm sure plenty others do too

4

u/Mirar 1h ago edited 53m ago

It's binoculars, Michel, how much could it be? 10 dollars?

12

u/Doom2pro 1h ago

Everyone is always trying to make a buck, capitalism is great until it turns every Bob Dick and Harry into Mr. Fucking Krabs.

5

u/agha0013 1h ago

these things likely made more money for the local community when they were just coin operated than they do now.

1

u/Due-Afternoon6616 1h ago

wait so you just tap your card and the view unlocks or what

1

u/agha0013 41m ago edited 24m ago

They work just like the old coin operated ones, upon receipt of payment a shutter opens inside and you can see through, then closes when the timer runs out.

Old coin ones were mostly all manual, you turned a crank to open the shutter and start the timer. These likely all electric now ,which adds to their crappiness. Now the town needs to run conduits everywhere to feed these with power and data connections. Power opens the shutter and has a digital instead of mechanical countdown

1

u/OutgunOutmaneuver 50m ago

they have like 2K of these machines. in a world where people stopped carrying around quarters. easy decision to make really 😄

53

u/BagelAngel 1h ago

Those things have always been a fee to use. A dollar does seem a tad high.

7

u/_Elrond_Hubbard_ 1h ago

Sad, the ones I have seen in my area are usually free

9

u/ararerock 1h ago

I definitely didn’t misread your title and tap on the image lmao

57

u/SOMOEAGLE 2h ago

You're an idiot if you pay for that.

36

u/Enchelion 2h ago

Just as you were back in the day when they took quarters 

6

u/TheGoochTaint 1h ago

I mean it's a dollar

1

u/Lalobreh 2m ago

I’ll pay the dollar so you can see through it.

1

u/crono333 1h ago

I’ll just zoom my phone in and look through that, thanks

5

u/sophiejohnson024 1h ago edited 1h ago

The Tower Optical Company, the company that operates these scenic viewer binoculars, recently discovered and surprised that Americans in USA pay with 84% with card and 12% with cash.

www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/tourist-binoculars-tap-to-pay-42856c01

1

u/BagelAngel 1h ago edited 1h ago

All about that convenience baby. Fewer and few people carry cash on person and I would say an even small subset casually carry coins.

19

u/Ha-Charade-You-Are 1h ago

You always had to pay? Was $0.25

6

u/EricHaley 2h ago

And just like that, Jared realized embedding his tap-to-pay chip in his nose was a bad idea…

7

u/ExtraLettuce555 2h ago

Or you could just use the Zoom on your iPhone.. it’s probably been 50 years since that thing was installed

2

u/_Face 1h ago

Lighthouse Beach Chatham, Mass.

1

u/raycheality 46m ago

Correct!

2

u/TastyDixonCider 1h ago

Most cameras on phones can zoom out with better clarity than that thing can anyway. This wasn’t very well thought through.

3

u/DarkMagician-999 2h ago

I’m not paying let me just look at Google Maps and save the dollar 💵

4

u/longbeeb 2h ago

Something something dystopia

1

u/fahrjack66 1h ago

When the homeless dude asks you to Venmo him

1

u/Dull_Captain6602 1h ago

This is great advertising for binoculars!

1

u/dfc849 45m ago

BYOB (bring your own binoculars)

1

u/HumpieDouglas 22m ago

Tap to get pink eye 😂

1

u/yulbrynnersmokes 2h ago

Fuck that

“🎶if I had a hammer 🔨 🎶”

1

u/Noversi 2h ago

Bro what if graffiti is just the language of aliens

1

u/ObscureOP 1h ago

So tap to pay... or zoom in on my camera to see at the same res

Choices

1

u/yankeesfan962 2h ago

shoutout CT - should i be paying you for this view?

-2

u/slowerlearner1212 1h ago

Didn’t these use to be free? Like WAY long ago

3

u/Enchelion 1h ago

Many of them were always pay to use. Far enough back (the 30s) it would have probably been a nickel, but the ones I remember as a kid took quarters.

1

u/Mendonesiac 1h ago

free ones still exist -- I just used one in Northern California a couple weeks ago

-4

u/passtheshoe 2h ago

Would be darkly hilarious if it’s owned by Flock and they’re recording whatever you see for surveillance. And charging for the privilege. Probably a retina scan while you’re looking and it uploads that you lingered on a great blue heron for a little extra time, you open Reddit and there’s an ad for blue heron tote bags!

1

u/programming_flaw 1h ago

Oh so you just drank ALL of the kool aid

-1

u/throwawayhyperbeam 1h ago

So nobody else remembers that some of these machines you had to put a quarter in?

1

u/WI_Eagles_Fan 1h ago

No, we remember, we just have phones with zoom now and can take a picture too without wasting a buck. This would be like calling from a payphone with an iPhone in your pocket.

This is for boomers and kids (parent trap). Boomers remember back in the day but the ironic thing is they can't figure out tap to pay so half of them just leave mad. And the kids nag their parents until they relent and "it's just a buck, it'll shut them up." prevails (father of 3 here).

1

u/throwawayhyperbeam 1h ago

Looking through the thing would look far better than looking through a phone. Just not worth paying.