How? They're just using the same machines to fill up your drinks and not letting you have access to them for refills. They're not getting rid of soda fountains.
The change is about theft, but I've seen kids fill their cup to the point of submerging the nozzle, then do it again when they go for a refill after drinking it. Self-serve should never have been a thing.
Soda has almost no nutrients, and is acidic and high in sugar. This is not only bad for your health, it's also bad for bacteria's health, so it's practically impossible to get bacteria to reproduce in spilled soda or on the soda nozzles.
Makes no sense, because labor dominates, as it always has. But every so often, some executive has a fit about a single, isolated cost statistic and this kind of thing is the result.
It's the equivalent to the mat shot term in mixed drinks, which is a mix of ostensibly spilled ingredients into a new drink. In practice, it's not usually a mix of everything but is a mix of multiple syrups that go well together.
