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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I can't say I really hate this. If a company is willing to maintain this so there is always free water alongside a purchase option, it doesnt seem so bad.
Because frankly a portion of my world looks like this right now: The corporations squeeze to get everything out of me, and a good portion of the populous want to make sure I can't have nice things by fucking everything up. A public fountain? Oh yeah that shit will get destroyed or stolen within a week.
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
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.
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.