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?"
It's just finger pointing to avoid liability.
"Oh no, that's not our fault! It's these guys who did it, so talk to them!"
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.
Jokes on you; I torrent my water!
I just cry myself a river.
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
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=%28specific+heat+of+water%2912.8K%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.
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.
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.
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.
I would rather take the tap water than trust the maintenance of whatever filter they put in there.
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
when you see shit like this you are morally obligated to make them lose money
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.
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