A fun story of trying to buy one small black coffee at Starbucks the other day. Normally this is one $5 transaction at the register, 5 seconds at the drip, done. But this Starbucks store (for some reason, covid?) was only taking online orders. There's a QR code to get started.
Now I really wanted my coffee but braced for what was to come. I unlocked my phone, scanned the QR code, went to the site, am told to download the app. So I download the app. Now I'm told I have to create an account. So I create an account. Now the app is asking my location.
Err, deny location privilege, of course! I scroll through the USA map all the way to the store I'm at, tap on it to select it. I scroll through the entire menu trying to find my simple small black coffee. I add it to the cart. Check out. Luckily, looks like I can Apple Pay!
But for some reason when Apple Pay comes up I can't click the "Pay" button. When I click it nothing happens, it doesn't respond. I Google the issue for a bit before giving up. I come back to the app and decide to add my Visa card instead.
But wait, I can't just buy the coffee. It turns out I have to instead "reload" my Starbucks balance, with the amount of $25. So now my purchase is $25 instead of $5, but okay I guess. The Visa card goes through; I finally make the purchase.
Now the app tells me that the ETA to my coffee is in 10 minutes. Which makes no sense because the employees right in front of me are chatting with each other, it's not busy at all. I awkwardly stand there wondering what to do for a while.
Finally one of them notices that an order came in, reads it, fills my cup of coffee in 5 seconds, and places it on the counter.
So about 30 minutes, $25, a new annoying app on my phone, 3 mailing lists I was almost definitely added to, and a totally stupendous amount of intermediate technology infrastructure that got activated on the behalf of my silly little order later,.... I got my coffee! The End :)
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