Everything must be a subscription service

Both probably give the same exact water at the same temp.

Oh yeah, Steve called the manufacturer about that, and they're supposed to be sending someone out this month. Maybe next. Our deepest apologies for the inconvenience.
No, the system won't allow us to discount or refund.
- That's my favourite line, "I'm sorry we can't do that because of how our system works."
  "But you're ripping me off and that's illegal."
  "I'm sorry, the system won't allow me to refund you."
  "So you're admitting that your company built a system that rips people off and breaks the law as a matter of policy? You realise that's worse, right?"
Or they warm the tap water
- If the water is cooled with a low-energy method like a Peltier cooler, the heat has to go somewhere.

Even if it was free, opening an app to get water is bullshit.

Edit: Let the record show, I was referring to the chilled water.

- It "clearly" says, "USE APP TO ACCESS", so no, you can't just push the button. It has to verify your subscription first.

Jokes on you; I torrent my water!

If this was downtown or at parks I can kinda see them providing something. Knowing this is likely at a university library or building its just removing access that was already there.

Fuck that. If it's downtown or at a park the fucking municipality can afford $1.99/mo
We need more public facilities. This privatization bullshit can kick rocks
- The heart of what you're saying is right, but it isn't 1.99, it's 1.99x whatever their expected ussage/power/maintenance metrics are.
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28specific+heat+of+water%29*12.8K*%281+gallon+*+water+density%29
200kjoules of heat must be removed from a gallon of water to cool from 55F to 32F (out of the ground down to pleasant drinking temperature).
Assuming a COP of 2 for your compressor (conservative), that's 100kjoules or 1/36 of a kWh.
High price for a kWh of electricity is $0.25 in the US. So for your $2 subscription, you can pay for 8kWh per month or enough to cool 288 gallons of water or roughly 9 gallons per day. More than anybody would rightly use.
What a fucking ripoff.
- Not to mention that, in a place like a public park, 55F water is totally fine. It isn't the coolest most refreshing drink of all time but it's damn good from a public fountain on a 90F day.
- You’re also paying for the installation of a refrigeration system right at the point where you want water.
- Take unlimited water and sell it
it's* just removing access
No it’s providing new access. Used to be, you had to take refrigerated water. Now you can have room temperature water which is superior because you can actually just drink it instead of having to sip it ultra slow.
- The fact that it adds access to room temperature water doesn't change the fact that it removes access to cold water

I feel that the majority of innovation occuring in modern capitalism is confined to two key areas:

Regulatory capture and market control.
New ways to mindfuck people into overpaying for goods and services.

Productive innovation ceases the moment growth has reached its peak. It is then replaced by counterproductive "innovation", such as finding new ways to nickel and dime your customers, reduction in quality or dismissal of employees. All in the name of simulating "growth" to please the shareholders.
The entire country has incentivized its top minds to developing ad tech bullshit. Like literally our astrophysicists are working at Stitch Fix instead of doing astrophysics.
- I help setup ad placement TVs for resort style businesses.
  Studied theoretical astrophysics and astro xenobiology as a double advanced major...
  My boss used to brag he managed to get the astronaut in his team so, I am useful for facts and puzzles.
  God I hate my existence.
- Like literally our astrophysicists are working at Stitch Fix instead of doing astrophysics.
  I'm honestly here wondering if this is some guerilla marketing for Stitch Fix or if there's some more story to this.
Don't forget the super fun B2B market where one business overcharges another business to outsource functions that really should be done in-house so then businesses can talk about "the cost of doing business increasing" when really it's that they have purchased too many services and those services are all at various states of enshitification
These days that's called "business model innovation"
So like video games, cars, slap bracelets, chicken fries, winnebegos, movies, music, none of that’s “innovation” under capitalism? Just the antisocial types? Nobody’s come up with anything interesting under capitalism?
- Most of those things were products of earlier times, when our economic system and industries were more regulated and had a larger number of competitive entities. "Innovation" now is just more cupholders in the RV to put your chicken fries in. All flash, no substance. Everything is an AI wearable tacked on to something else we've already had for years.
  EV battery tech, there's some decent work being done there. A few other niche cases like that. But the rest is one big fucking con game. It's all a race to find out how much money you can gouge out of people before the system just breaks.

Reefill.com isn't even a registered domain. I call horseshit.

You are right, it is not a current valid domain. It was an Indiegogo crowdfunded project though, and I am guessing it failed.
- https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/178262-56#overview
  Went under about two years after the crowdfunding. Guess people didn't want to pay $2 a pop for chilled and filtered tap water.
- Fair enough. I stand corrected.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/reefill-ditch-bottled-water-for-good#/
There are several articles about it and an indiegogo, if fabricated a lot of people bought it few years ago.

That's how corporations nickel and dime you. I resist subscription services almost completely (I pay for cloud backup storage for my phone in case of breakage/theft and that's it) because as well as being a constant financial drain they inevitably degrade and enshittify, often even removing things you paid for

"Your water subscription has increased by $1, thanks for being our customer. Reminder, creation of public fountains and bottle sharing activities are punishable by law!"
You sigh and delete the email. They send out the same message every month.
- Damn, Power And Water cracked down on bottle-sharing now? /s

I would rather take the tap water than trust the maintenance of whatever filter they put in there.

- In America, tap water is either "Fine, maybe a little odd if you're used to bottle water, but probably fine." to "It's not safe to drink this shit."
- I live in the Phoenix area. Our tap water won't kill you, but it tastes nasty. That's because aside from the hardness, it's so full of chlorine to kill the bacteria, amoebas, and fungus that might kill you otherwise, it's like drinking swimming pool water. Anyone who can afford it has a reverse osmosis filter for drinking water. Anyone who can't afford it buys bottled water, which is probably why they can't afford the filter...
But then you'll miss out on the extra microplastics!
- My balls are full, despite my best efforts.

Is it still a thing? The website doesn't go anywhere and I can't find the app. All I can actually find are a few articles talking about how ridiculous it is to have a $2 subscription service on water fountains.

All I could find were articles from 2017 and I haven't heard of it before, so I'm gonna say it's not a thing any more.
- Oh that's funny. I still see these things installed in some buildings but it's not like I ever saw anyone bother with the "premium water" but also now sodastream is getting in on it for I think a higher cost actually....
  Ugh. Please let this whole concept of selling tap water die.
I found this indiegogo link from 7 years ago which gives a little more background. Its not quite as horrible as the picture suggests, I think.
There's some FAQ and Comments that give some background, like this one:
Rier Esor 7 years ago I’ve been asked by a few people: why do we need reefill water stations when there are water fountains around NYC (if you look hard enough!) and we >all have tap water at home? What’s my best answer?
Patrick Connorton 7 years ago PROJECT OWNER We're also working with New York City and the Port Authority to map free public bottle filling stations around town -- these are usually in or near >parks but, unfortunately, need to be off six months a year to avoid freezing and can be challenging to maintain. Reefill is a natural complement to >these fountains, filling in the gaps in parts of town where it is impractical or cost-prohibitive to install a water fountain.
So it doesn't sound like these were replacing existing free water fountains, but instead offering free (and paid) water in places never offered before by generating revenue from the paid water to support the installation of any water (including new free water) in places that had none before.
It also looks like the project died in 2019.
- filling in the gaps in parts of town where it is impractical or cost-prohibitive to install a water fountain.
  As usual, if it's a gap in our public services, the answer is not "let a private company do it" it's "tax the fucking rich and use that money to improve our public services".
  Those water fountains didn't even need to be water fountains. This was basically just a bastardized version of what they do in the UK. There's a program over there called Refill, that businesses and public places participate in. You use a free app that shows you the locations of participating places, and those places have refill points, all for free.
  This person probably saw that and thought "let's ditch the free and the volunteer participation part, build unnecessary fountains in unsustainable areas, and try and make some money off that sweet public utility"

I'm not going to hate the company for trying, but if you're a building admin using these instead of Oasis or Elkay fill stations you're a huge fucking asshole.

But with all the money they're saving, they'll be able to renovate the admin building for the first time in two years, or have a nice dinner for the big donors, or give even more money to the football team.
Edit: assuming this is a uni. If not: won't someone please think of the investors?
I don't see why this kind of behavior should be excused if exhibited by a company vs. an individual. Would you also not fault your friends "for trying" to be an asshole to you in day to day life? Are humans not making the strategic decisions for that company?
- I mean people can develop and sell whatever product they want at the price they want. Usually I'd recommend voting with your wallet, but presumably this would be up to facility management to install these for a captive audience, who wouldn't have much choice in the matter.
- The company’s not trying to be an asshole it’s trying to make some money

Product designers are supposed to understand pareidolia and will often intentionally put faces into their designs. Some designs look happy, others like sports cars can be made to look aggressive.

The top of this design looks like some combination of angry, sad and disappointed, which I like to think is intentional.

- I'm sad that I'm buying.
- Dang, I miss those days of Homestarr Runner.
The fact that modern cars are intentionally designed to look like their headlights have angry eyebrows is honestly one of the funniest things I've ever learned.

Drill a fucking hole in that motherfucker and siphon it off. Or just drink tap water. It's fine. At least where I live. But still drill a hole in there to fuck with them.

Actually.... It's straight up not safe to drink from here.
- That feels like a boring dystopia in and of itself.

I am not often in favour of shooting people.

For legal reasons this concludes my statement.

Property damage of this is valid. especially if you can give people water for free next to it.

Open it and reroute the supply, as a prank bro.
- Based
  Though probably more complicated than that

when you see shit like this you are morally obligated to make them lose money

Yeah when someone offers you free drinking water, they deserve to be punished for it.
- The downvotes you got are the punishment for being illiterate

It's a failed crowdfunding campaign, their last tweet is from 2017

Yup
I wonder if they returned the $40K
Yeah this a meme. Thankfully common sense, common decency, and the market won out

Pay for the PRIVILEGE of not drinking contaminated water!

You think American tap water is contaminated?
- Not nesssicarily, but the "filtered" part of the premium water seems to imply that you have to pay to get cleaner water.

Why are people trying to justify this, the city can put in chilled water taps like those Elkay ones for super cheap. Then when shitty businesses like these go under, you aren't left with a useless machine with no other water source nearby. Relying on private entities for basic things like this is just objectively a bad idea if it can be at all avoided.

I am astounded by the amount of irrational hatred in here towards what is essentially a T-junction pipe...

It's the fact that they're charging for something that should be available at no cost.
- "Water is, of course, the most important raw material we have today in the world. It’s a question of whether we should privatize the normal water supply for the population. And there are two different opinions on the matter. The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means that as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution. The other view says that water is a foodstuff like any other, and like any other foodstuff it should have a market value. Personally, I believe it's better to give a foodstuff a value so that we're all aware it has its price, and then that one should take specific measures for the part of the population that has no access to this water, and there are many different possibilities there."
  Peter Brabeck-Letmathe served as Nestlé's CEO from 1997 to 2008
  What an asshole
:)

Here’s something that could be provided for free. Instead of innovating, I’m going to invent a shit version of this thing, give you free access to that, and then charge for the original version.

Cooling and filtering water is hardly free, nor is the added maintenance. I don't know the context here but it may be something the building should be paying for.

At that rate, I'll just go outside and drink from the hose.

Just let it flow for a minute or two to reduce the intake of those nasty hose chemicals.
- And flush out the earwigs
- Nah that hose taste hits different.

Is this real

The scary thing is that you can't tell anymore
- Yeah ☹️
It was. The company went under in 2019 and nothing of value was lost.
- I wonder why they went under. Wasn't that the same era as juicero? The bag squeezer

This is why we hack.

Certified Capitalism™ moment

Get absolutely fucked reefill

Kinda reminds me of paying to use the bathroom in Germany. Is that still a thing?

It was semi popular in the US in resort towns. I remember some beaches had dime machines to unlock the toilet stalls in the public bathrooms.
Not in general, never was. But in certain places definitely, like has stations along the Autobahn, train stations and some department stores.
- Never was a thing except where it is.

The best part about this is that the thumbnail makes the device like a face that's very fed up with this shit.

No Google Play or App Store?

Oh, I'm so sorry, no fresh water for you.

Anything that requires an app for payment is something I never use. No exceptions so far.

This product is going to fail.

It died in 2019.

REE!

but tbf that costs money.
cooling down takes a lot of electricity and filters need replacement pretty frequently and they're not cheap.
doesn't justify a fucking subscription tho, this shoud just accept like a coin per cup or something

Remember the fountains we had back in middle school? If I could pay 2$ a month to get water from a fountain that the grossest kids in school didn't stick their mouths around, I probably would

Smear something gross on the torment nexus button.

I honestly don't have a problem with this so long as the tap water is clean and drinkable. Everyone should have free access to clean drinking water. If it has to be filtered and chilled to a crisp cool temperature for you to drink it? Yeah, you can pay for that. That's a luxury.

Refrigeration takes energy and filters produce waste so I see it as fair charging a price for convenience.

Would genuinely break this on sight

Turn off the valve, service call them to bankruptcy.

I'm sorry, what?

REEEEEE

I don't quite understand the issue here. The tap water is still free and doesn't require anything, just press the button. They added an extra feature that is paid, which requires maintenance and power to run. I can see how it could be paid by the venue hosting this device, but you can't really blame the provider.

Personally it's the part where it requires an app and a subscription with no option to just insert a damn coin. Apart from being needlessly complex it also shuts out people who don't have a smartphone or don't want to install random crap.
- It is the app that makes them the sweet money. It will scrape your device for useful information (which you agreed was a-okay in the TOS simply by installing) and then sell that data multiple times over. This is why companies want an app for every damn thing.
- Sure, it's a fair criticism that they are trying to push a subscription. Coin is a little archaic, I personally never even have cash with me, but they could have an NFC tap for a single purchase.
  But their subscription approach also makes sense and would benefit some frequent visitors. I assume it means you can use the subscription on all of their machines. And there's simply no easy way of doing that other than using an app. Could be a web app with QR code, I suppose.

Those who buy into this shit lose their right to complain that they can't afford to live.

Honestly, I expect nothing less than perfection. On drugs? Death. Playing xbox? Death. $2/mo water filtration? Death. If they just had more willpower, then they wouldn't be homeless!
The guys who replaced public water fountains with plastic bottles are cool though.

Yes the capitalist dystopia is when some company provides free water to people, so they can make money on a refrigeration upsell.

The horror.

"Provides free water to people" is an amazing way to pretend they're doing something valuable instead of inventing drinking fountains with a subscription.

You know what's beautiful about capitalism?

You, the consumer... you can control the producer. How? By NOT investing into their products and services.

Until next time!

Nothing about capitalism is beautiful.
In the real world, some wealthy, work shy scrounger, born to wealth, will decide that they like the idea of gouging people as much as possible for water. As such, they'll lobby the government to make sure its the only product available. Or, they'll buy out all the competitors, making it the only product available.
Thats because capitalism ruins everything it comes into contact with.
- The issue then is lobbyist / money in politics.
You know what's even more beautiful about capitalism?
When national (and multinational) legislation sets extremely high standards for drinking water providers. So high, in fact, that tech bros just go "you know, I have no idea how to improve on that". So they don't launch their shitty product here in the first place.
Until next time!
This doesn't work because humans are pathetic. Impossible for them to take a stand on principle.
- I can definitely agree with that.

What an asshole