Slashdot Mirror
Super-ATMs Being Rolled Out
News.com has an article up looking at something I find interesting and somewhat confusing. The Vcom ATM is an attempt to make people's lives more convenient by adding unexpected functionality to the standard Teller Machine. Besides dispensing cash, new ATMs can fulfull the roles of PayPal (by sending money to people), bank (by cashing checks on the spot), and cellphone store (by selling Verizon services). From the article: "The Circle K and Exxon Mobil machines are far more basic than 7-Eleven's Vcoms, which have been called overengineered. Several dozen customers polled informally outside a 7-Eleven in Winter Springs, Fla., recently said that they had never used the Vcom inside, and one woman who said she did use it once to withdraw cash complained that it was 'confusing' and 'complicated,' and added that she would not use it again. 'There were just too many steps,' said the woman, Peggy Baker, who teaches French in Winter Springs. 'And the $1.75 transaction fee was too much--it was painful.' She said she was not interested in the other Vcom features, which require users to enroll and enter a Social Security number on a touch screen."
ATMs are the MacDonalds of the banking world.
MacDonalds don't offer slow food.
Making an ATM offer slow services is not a good move; they just won't be used, in exactly the same way that very few people would buy a burger from MacDonalds if it took twenty minutes to cook.
I don't see how they can be considered "super-ATMs". I'm from Portugal, which isn't a tech superpower, and in here the regular ATMs offer that kind of service since the early 90s.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
Mind you, that would be the only thing banks provide free these days.
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