Waaaaah?

This video gets so many things wrong it is truly cringe-worthy.

The country has been covered by vending machines since the 1960s--long before there were problems with an aging population and birthrates. The primary reason for vending machines being installed everywhere is, surprise, convenience! Who wants to go to the store and stand in line to buy a drink when you can just go downstairs from your apartment and grab one from outside your front door?

Another thing to consider is that Japan late at night basically completely shuts down--even in major cities like Tokyo the trains stop running around 1AM or so and won't start again until 5AM. Nowadays their are 24-hour convenient stores on practically every other urban street corner but back when vending machines first started getting installed nothing was open late besides bars. If you caught the last train home from work and wanted to buy a coke or something on your walk back from the station you were SOL. Vending machines helped solve that problem.

Which brings us to another point--VERY few Japanese people in urban areas commute by car. Mass transit is fast and efficient and a huge number of people just walk/bike everywhere. Since there is so much foot traffic vending machines make total sense, especially in the summer when temperatures are going to rise into the mid-90s (30+ degrees Celsius) with high humidity and people who are walking/biking are going to get thirsty pretty damn quick.

Another thing he gets wrong is that retailers are not the ones primarily profiting off of vending machines: land owners are. Either they purchase and stock the machines themselves (thereby keeping all the profits) or they make a contract with the retail company in which the company stocks and services the machine but compensates the landowner for use of the space.

Oh, almost forgot something not mentioned in the video--the low crime rates. Another reason for the proliferation of vending machines is that whoever puts them out can be reasonably sure they won't be damaged, defaced, or robbed.

Finally, while he is right that credit cards are not as big here as in, say, the U.S., e-money is huge. And all of the newer vending machines produced in the last few years will take either cash or e-money, such as Suica or Pasmo cards.

By the way, all of this information that I've posted here is available from a simple Google search and there have actually been several articles written on vending machines in Japan over the last couple of years. It's like this guy just came over here and tried to guess why there were so many vending machines around....

Well, it is Vox

The business card video shows how well prepared he was for Japan (spoiler: Not at all).

It would've been nice if he'd linked the article he referenced.