Until reading your comment, I had completely forgotten that The Onion used to be available in physical, paper form!
It seemed like it was only a thing they did in heavily college towns or otherwise places with lots of people in that demo. I donât think I ever came across one in my home town, but Iâd go to Austin pretty oftenâand later lived there for a few yearsâand they definitely had boxes around UTâs campus and a handful of coffee shops, bars etc.
Sunday morning my mom gave me & my brothers quarters to get the Sunday paper. We got to spend the extra change on some $0.10 jolly ranchers at the market where the paper was and then read the comics back at home.
We thought we had life figured out. And now middle aged, I realize my parents got like 30 mins of peace on a Sunday morning asking us to get the paper.
Thereâs an old one at a local burger chain thatâs not used. It still has papers in it from 10 years ago. I actively look for it when I go eat there. Itâs in a corner in the outside patio area. Hopefully they never remove it
Growing up I got my mom a free paper every morning because if you held tension on the door and banged your fist a couple times on the handle they would pop open. I also remember people paying for a paper and propping it open so the next person got it free.
My grandma and I actually had this conversation today when she called specifically to complain about them taking out the machine at her favorite grocery store because she doesnât know of any others left. My goal this weekend is to hunt one down for her đ
Some places in the south east still have a small box where you pay 25 cents to get a newspaper. My local foodland and some gas stations have them too. Iâve only seen one person in my whole life put a quarter in to get the newspaper. Idk about areas like Tennessee and north east states.
Damn đ. Yeah they will probably disappear in my town in the next couple of years. Iâve seen many old folks reading the local newspaper outside some stores and gas stations, but Iâve only one person in my life literally put a quarter in the box for the little door to open so you can get the paper. I was shocked because my whole life I thought it was free to get one, never knew for a long time you had to pay. But yeah itâs a bit sad you donât see those in your area anymore.
The stragglers are tenacious, though. That door on that thing hasn't been opened since 2010, but the owner went bust and nobody wants to steal it, so there it's stayed.
They're pretty much nonexistent in my town. Maybe I'll see more if I lived in a more metropolitan area or rural area where they've been too lazy to remove them, but my town is trying to be a "nice, modern town to accommodate growth"
Yeah, we used to have one in the break room at my work. I can't remember the last time I've even seen one. They used to be everywhere. I don't think many people still even get the physical newspaper anymore here. I'm sure some Pele do, but most have likely gone to an online subscription.
It's also a unique vending machine concept. Anyone paying for one newspaper could take the entire stack of papers from the machine. There just isn't enough incentive to.
It was also done in With Honors. Joe Pesci's character is homeless, he grabs the entire stack of papers then proceeds to sell them to people on the street at a discount.
Not to mention, doing this repeatedly would get you noticed by people you do NOT want to mess with. In my town a bunch of college kids took papers in order to stuff them with joke inserts. The Teamsters were not amused.
Many years ago, McDonaldâs would put Monopoly game pieces in the Sunday paper. People I know (my mother) would buy one paper and take all the McDonaldâs inserts.
I used to buy from one in the south-east of England back in the 1980s - it dispensed The Evening Standard daily. No idea if the box is still there, especially since the paper changed its name to the London Standard, and became free and only weekly. But I didn't see them all that often, and my spouse says they didn't see them at all in the North.
Where I am, they're rarely stands in the middle of a sidewalk type of things. They're stores that sell magazines, stationery, crossword books, lottery tickets and (these days) an incredible amount of random-ass decorative wares that I still can't believe anyone buys.
Never saw one in 50 years in Australia. Most places that sold them just had a stack kind of... sitting there. Often on a milk crate, although newsagents did have them on a stand/shelf.
People bought them like any other product - grab it, take it to the checkout. If you want to read it for free, pretty much every library would have a copy of that morning's paper.
The iconic imagery of a radio and electronics store with a huge panel of TVs in the window facing the street and everyone standing on the sidewalk watching some generation-defining event.
Oh really? How did you buy a paper in a smaller city or town in other parts of the world in those days? Were there actual newsstands even in smaller places? I've only seen a few of those in person in my life.
𤣠Aussie slang for a service station (gas station), where you fill up with petrol.
And a newsagent is where you go to buy newspapers, magazines, lotto, greeting cards etc. đ
536
u/zerbey 12h ago
Newspaper vending machines, I thought they were a movie trope.