Too much choice.
My favourite local burger restaurant (#CrownBurger if you must know) recently installed a new soda machine. It's a Coke Freestyle. Now I love technology but this is taking the piss.
Rather than a row of dispensers, there's a single nozzle and a touch screen where you can choose one of 134 different drinks (133 flavoured, plus water). Getting just plain Coke or Diet Coke is actually pretty difficult.
First, you're faced with a screen with 19 icons - the different "base" drinks. Once you've found the one you want, you're presented with all the variations of it.
These are the ones you're offered for diet coke:
Diet Coke
Diet Coke lime
Diet Coke vanilla
Diet Coke orange
Diet Coke cherry
Diet Coke raspberry
Bear in mind you can have those flavours in regular Coke, Coke zero and caffeine-free Coke too. And Sprite with all its variations. And Fanta. And so on and so forth.
This is bad on all accounts. First, there's just too damn much choice, and getting a simple drink is no longer simple. Second, Americans, for the most part, when presented with this much choice, either can't make a decision, or decide that the exact combination they want isn't in the machine. Result: the line for the drinks machine is huge now. Third, people of a certain age haven't a fucking clue what the machine is, much less how to operate it. And fourth, because it all comes out of a single spout, it doesn't matter what you think you ordered, you're getting remnants of the last five people's drinks mixed in with yours.
Still - if you want some fun, press the 'water' button then look for the three water drops on the top-right of the display that form a triangle. Tap them in sequence, clockwise from the top, twice, and you'll get into the technician's service menu. From there, you really can have some fun .....
Rather than a row of dispensers, there's a single nozzle and a touch screen where you can choose one of 134 different drinks (133 flavoured, plus water). Getting just plain Coke or Diet Coke is actually pretty difficult.
First, you're faced with a screen with 19 icons - the different "base" drinks. Once you've found the one you want, you're presented with all the variations of it.
These are the ones you're offered for diet coke:
Diet Coke
Diet Coke lime
Diet Coke vanilla
Diet Coke orange
Diet Coke cherry
Diet Coke raspberry
Bear in mind you can have those flavours in regular Coke, Coke zero and caffeine-free Coke too. And Sprite with all its variations. And Fanta. And so on and so forth.
This is bad on all accounts. First, there's just too damn much choice, and getting a simple drink is no longer simple. Second, Americans, for the most part, when presented with this much choice, either can't make a decision, or decide that the exact combination they want isn't in the machine. Result: the line for the drinks machine is huge now. Third, people of a certain age haven't a fucking clue what the machine is, much less how to operate it. And fourth, because it all comes out of a single spout, it doesn't matter what you think you ordered, you're getting remnants of the last five people's drinks mixed in with yours.
Still - if you want some fun, press the 'water' button then look for the three water drops on the top-right of the display that form a triangle. Tap them in sequence, clockwise from the top, twice, and you'll get into the technician's service menu. From there, you really can have some fun .....
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