places are adopting DRM soda cups to prevent free refills at Coca-Cola Freestyle machines... I hate this

[BAD]

It's apparently been around a while and some say there's versions that use a scan of the bottom of the cup while pouring, while others say there's RFID cups too.

Supposedly the places that use this "feature" usually are cruise ships or places like Universal Studios and they have one cup that can be filled one time, and another version that allows free refills for a certain number of days.

I've never seen or heard of this and I think this is incredible. Though, people who ask for a water cup so they can steal soda caused this in the end.

https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedes...urce=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

 

[DJ_Lae]

I'm torn, because this can be easily abused by those who own the machines. But people stealing pop with their own cup does ruin it for others.

It's the same reason why Costco keeps the onions/sauerkraut behind the counter now, as people would scoop up the food court condiments into tupperware containers for themselves.

But I suppose this is (conceptually) less silly than something like the Keurig 2.0 DRM.

 

[Cocolina]

any actual information of the tech/process rather than some dude getting a generic error from a machine (although you could say that getting an error at all rather than a free pour is weird in itself)

 

[ILikeFeet]

this is what the dystopia looks like. not all those scenes the movies show you

 

[chandoog]

$4.19 soda

holy fucking fuck that shit !

 

[kvetcha]

Soda costs next to nothing and most of these places are probably charging way more than usual for the drink to begin with. Amazing.

 

[Chucker]

Disney resorts have had this for a good... 7 years?

You can buy a refillable cup at the hotel for like $20 and you can fill it up as many times as you want during your stay at the resort.

Edit: Here

 

[Wereroku]

Yep went on a cruise and they had this. It's an RFID chip in the bottom of the cup. You can find YouTube videos of people taking them out to put on other cups.

 

[WillRobBanks]

Disney World does it for their refillable mugs. If you buy one, unlimited soda for your duration. But they don't want people using old mugs on future trips for free soda. It allows refills, but like once every few minutes.
If you buy a regular cup, it's unlimited refills like a normal cup of soda.

 

[BAD]

any actual information of the tech/process rather than some dude getting a generic error from a machine (although you could say that getting an error at all rather than a free pour is weird in itself)

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Coke doesn't seem to advertise this to the public of course, but googling this I see results back to 2014

 

[Squarehard]

I'm torn, because this can be easily abused by those who own the machines. But people stealing pop with their own cup does ruin it for others.

It's the same reason why Costco keeps the onions/sauerkraut behind the counter now, as people would scoop up the food court condiments into tupperware containers for themselves.

But I suppose this is (conceptually) less silly than something like the Keurig 2.0 DRM.

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Costco would definitely be the last place to adopt this, as they will let people return half eaten hot dogs, partially eaten fruits, half eaten pies, almost empty milk cartons, and more, so I doubt they give a fuck about people getting free sodas.

 

[Landy828]

Soda costs next to nothing and most of these places are probably charging way more than usual for the drink to begin with. Amazing.

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This

The actual soda costs literal pennies per cup. You can buy off-brand 2 liter soda for .50-.85 at some stores....and they're making a profit off that.

There's no reason to limit people to no refills when it would take like 50 people a day stealing the soda with free water cups to kill profit from soda sales.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

On one hand, sucks people can't choose how much soda to get.

On the other hand, this is good for your health. People chug way too much fucking soda, and some limiter like cost or amount will make people think twice about dumping another 32g of sugar into their body. Drink some water instead.

 

[Deleted member 9479]

Disney World does it for their refillable mugs. If you buy one, unlimited soda for your duration. But they don't want people using old mugs on future trips for free soda. It allows refills, but like once every few minutes.
If you buy a regular cup, it's unlimited refills like a normal cup of soda.

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Yep, which is exactly what people did before the RFID. Some say refillable mugs were initially sold as "lifetime" but that would have been before I started visiting regularly in 2005.

 

[Astronut325]

I'm conflicted. This sucks, but less soda consumption is a GREAT thing.

 

[TaySan]

They had this when i was there last year. You can have re fills up to a certain date than it no longer recognize the cup.

 

[bye]

Honestly the less sugar we consume the better

 

[Chucker]

Yep, which is exactly what people did before the RFID. Some say refillable mugs were initially sold as "lifetime" but that would have been before I started visiting regularly in 2005.

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My wife and I used to bring our mugs back when we'd stay. The different resorts had different mugs, it was something fun to collect.

 

[WillRobBanks]

Yep, which is exactly what people did before the RFID. Some say refillable mugs were initially sold as "lifetime" but that would have been before I started visiting regularly in 2005.

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yep. The Disney community was up in arms when this started but unless you want to game the system, there's really no impact to anyone.

 

[Grym]

So basically the same thing Disney World has done at their resort hotels for quite awhile now

our last stay was 2016 and it was old news then so they've been doing it awhile.



Also I was mostly fine with it at Disney....though the catch was it was only refillable at the resort....not in the park which honestly is bullshit because you spend most of your time at the parks. I'd fill up with coffee at the resort when heading out in the morning. But once empty it was a worthless container to carry around the rest of the day.

 

[kvetcha]

I'm conflicted. This sucks, but less soda consumption is a GREAT thing.

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Yes, and if this were an opt-in for people to limit their own consumption I'd be fine with it. But that's not the case.

 

[jotun?]

Cruise ships??

So they'll put out all-you-can-eat dessert buffets, but they're stingy with the soda?

 

[SDBurton]

On one hand, sucks people can't choose how much soda to get.

On the other hand, this is good for your health. People chug way too much fucking soda, and some limiter like cost or amount will make people think twice about dumping another 32g of sugar into their body. Drink some water instead.

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Having dealt with 3 kidney stones, I cannot stress this enough.

 

[Doomsayer]

Unnecessary. Soda (especially from fountains) costs like 5 cents per half gallon.

I'm more in favor of having a reusable steel/tin cup that you can use at all fast food locations to cut down on waste/plastic/whatever else the cups are made out of.

 

[Deleted member 18502]

Cruise ships??

So they'll put out all-you-can-eat dessert buffets, but they're stingy with the soda?

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Yes, water, tea, and coffee are the only free drinks on board. Royal Caribbean sells an unlimited soda package, i'm sure most others do as well.

 

[TAJ]

So far I've only seen this at Universal Hollywood.

 

[Zulith]

The McDonald's not far from me installed this. I get it, because the store had huge problems with soda theft (large homeless population, and even saw people drive up in their car to fill up on free soda and then leave without buying anything), but it REALLY sucks for paying users.

The freestyle machines are fun because you can sample lots of different flavors to see what you want. and easily mix flavors. This is totally ruined with the barcode cups because sampling a drink will count as one of your refills. It's 100% bullshit.

You can easily mess up and the machine thinks you used all of your refills too. Happened to me on my first cup. The button wasn't working right and Ipressed it a few times in a row... and the machine thought I refilled my cup more than 3 times in the span of like 5 seconds. It's incredibly faulty.

cruise ships and resorts, I can understand them wanting to put reasonable limits on people who are staying there a long time from using way more than a typical person. But when you have to deal with this nonsense at every single fast food visit (which is likely to happen as they keep rolling these machines out all over the place) it's going to become real intolerable

 

[onadesertedisland]

Could these be spoofed with an Android phone? Also how cheap have RFID tags gotten?

 

[Drensch]

Two different things here. If you ask me if they are maybe overcharging for pop? Yes. If you're asking me if they have a right to keep people form stealing shit? Yes.



On Disney cruises, pop, tea, and coffee are included as is room service.

 

[Hippopuncher12]

Disney resorts have had this for a good... 7 years?

You can buy a refillable cup at the hotel for like $20 and you can fill it up as many times as you want during your stay at the resort.

Edit: Here

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Yeah, we got this when we went last year although the signage for it wasn't very clear that it was only for the resorts which kind of sucked since we didn't spend a ton of time there as opposed to the parks but it was still nice to have and well worth the $20 for the week we stayed.

 

[Deleted member 9479]

My wife and I used to bring our mugs back when we'd stay. The different resorts had different mugs, it was something fun to collect.

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Resort specific ones are cool but at least they now seem to change the designs every season or so. We almost always buy one, and a refillable popcorn bucket, when visiting during the Holidays.

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

The McDonald's not far from me installed this. I get it, because the store had huge problems with soda theft (large homeless population, and even saw people drive up in their car to fill up on free soda and then leave without buying anything), but it REALLY sucks for paying users.

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Wouldn't the easier solution have been putting the refill station behind the counter, and asking them for a free refill with your receipt as proof of purchase?

 

[Swiggins]

This is America, the land of unlimited refills.

We will not stand for this tyranny.

Sic Semper Diabetes

 

[Vapelord]

Cruise ships??

So they'll put out all-you-can-eat dessert buffets, but they're stingy with the soda?

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Yeah its probably their biggest hidden cost, most charge something like $40 a day for "unlimited soda". $90 a day or so for the alcohol and soda option.

 

[Nelo Ice]

I've only seen this at the Captain Cooks at Disney Worlds Polynesian resort. Was more surprised it hadn't spread when I first saw it 2 years ago.

 

[Zulith]

Wouldn't the easier solution have been putting the refill station behind the counter, and asking them for a free refill with your receipt as proof of purchase?

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that creates a lot more work for the staff and they'd also have to fit two big soda machines back there. those freestyle machines are big. probably they just didn't want to deal with those changes when it's way easier to just update the machine's firmware and enable the barcode feature.

self-serve machines mean the staff never have to fill a soda. also these days mcdonald's and similar establishments have tons of uber orders, which would be even more soda filling work for the staff. I don't blame the store, I blame the shitty design of the barcode system which is faulty as fuck and overly strict.

 

[onadesertedisland]

This is America, the land of unlimited refills.

We will not stand for this tyranny.

Sic Semper Diabetes

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What about chips and salsa?

 

[Krakatoa]

This is a good thing. The companies will think their profits will increase when in reality people will quit soda.

 

[adj_noun]

I've never seen or heard of this and I think this is incredible. Though, people who ask for a water cup so they can steal soda caused this in the end.

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Not to mention people who bought a refillable soda mug at a Disney property and decided that "refillable" meant free soda for life.

 

[KarmaCow]

I refuse to believe that the cost of implementing this is cheaper than people getting refills.

 

[AndreGX]

I refuse to believe that the cost of implementing this is cheaper than people getting refills.

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It's not cheaper than the amount of product they're losing (which yes, is negligible), but it's almost certainly cheaper than the loss of potential profit. It's doubtful Disney and others would have implemented it otherwise.

 

[Lothars]

SMH at the people defending this, what bs hopefully someone finds an easy way to crack it. It's just as unacceptable as theaters not allowing refills on drinks you buy there.

 

[Deleted member 48897]

Also I was mostly fine with it at Disney....though the catch was it was only refillable at the resort....not in the park which honestly is bullshit because you spend most of your time at the parks. I'd fill up with coffee at the resort when heading out in the morning. But once empty it was a worthless container to carry around the rest of the day.

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Yeah the fact that the mugs are only refillable at resort locations makes me question the idea of doing that at a theoretical Disney resort vacation I might take.

 

[msdstc]

These have been around for probably 10 years or so. They'ev used them at theme parks forever.

 

[Aine]

Woo, capitalism!

 

[Chucker]

I've only seen this at the Captain Cooks at Disney Worlds Polynesian resort. Was more surprised it hadn't spread when I first saw it 2 years ago.

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Now, since we're mentioning places. The winning move here is to take your refillable mug from the resorts to Captain Cook's and fill it up with pineapple dole whip.

 

[Elderly Parrot]

Yep been around forever at Disney. Workers don't care though they just gave me a new cup

Even a lawsuit was filed because of the limits and false advertising for unlimited soda.

https://www.wfla.com/news/florida/universal-orlando-guest-suing-over-deceptive-unlimited-soda-deal/

 

[Aurica]

That's bullshit. I'm so glad I don't like soda.

 

[Fliesen]

I'm torn, because this can be easily abused by those who own the machines. But people stealing pop with their own cup does ruin it for others.

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These soda machines have profit margins like crazy. It's literally 95% water.

The customers paying for $4-a-cup softdrinks are more than covering the tiny amount of people who sneak in their own cup or dare to get a refill.

this is entirely greed driven and not some kind of compensatory measure due to rampant, business ruining abuse of complementary drink refills.

 

[TitlePending]

It's the same reason why Costco keeps the onions/sauerkraut behind the counter now, as people would scoop up the food court condiments into tupperware containers for themselves.

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Wait, WHAT?!

In what universe would something that's remotely OK?