this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
250 points (97.3% liked)
Technology
59370 readers
5608 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I saw one sitting out behind a retail store among other trash, so they haven't even bothered properly disposing of them.
The store doesn't want to pay for disposal because it's not their crap. And redbox isn't going to pay for it because they're bankrupt.
Stores need to start collecting a disposal deposit for these kiosks. Whatever it costs to dispose of the store should collect twice that and place in escrow and if the kiosk owner fails to remove it the store can get the money and dispose of it. I say twice the amount because depending on how long they stay there costs could go up and the trouble for making the store do it should get a bonus. If the kiosk owner removes it themselves then they get the deposit back.
Did the stores not profit off of the machines being there for all of these years?
I can't imagine redbox wasn't paying these stores some kind of rent or commission, otherwise why would the store let them just post up their business on their property?
Profit doesn't incur ownership or liability for property that's not theirs.
No, but any smart business would retain some of the revenue they got from the red box for scenarios where they may have to deal with shit they didn't expect.
In other words, the revenue they gained from having a red box on their property for 10 years probably more than covers the insurance claim they can file to get it taken care of.
Their profit from the device was all worked out ahead of time in the contract, and no business is going to freely lessen their return out of a contract. What the person you responded to was suggesting is making the removal of the equipment a non-issue instead of just assuming a business will throw away money.
I assume business would insure against scenarios like this, whether that's through securing cash as they suggested or if that isn't an option (which seems to be the reality of the situation) through things like, escrow accounts, insurance, and cash on hand.
You say the businesses wouldn't just 'throw away money' yet here we are, the businesses, by not 'throwing away money' are stuck with these machines to deal with.
I understand that the person was saying that the business should have collected a deposit, but they didn't, so my question is, why are these businesses caught out by this? Why didn't they prepare for the risk they assumed by subletting their property, if they didn't collect a deposit, they should have sequestered some cash to handle this scenario.