You still sometimes see this. My understanding is that it's usually against merchant credit card contracts however. You also used to see cash only stations but that's almost certainly vanishingly rare these days.
based on experiences with vending machines, could you imagine the nightmare of cash only pay-at-the-pump? <shudder> we'd have gas lines like the 70s not because of shortages, but just from people trying to pull their bills along the corner of the pump to flatten them out.
psst, look up. over your head was a joke. nothing to be taken seriously. we have cashierless grocery stores, hardware stores, and every other store. why would you think a late night 24/7 gas station wouldn't go cashierless too?
Need to work on your jokes. ;) The reason is that a significant amount of the profit is in the convenience store. Also security reasons... someone to call the police.
have you honestly never seen a cashierless gas station? you suggest that convenience store is profit center, but as you say, those have to be staffed. what do the numbers look like if it's just gas with cashless pumps and no staff? then, raise the rates of the fuel because "shortages", and I can see it being profitable for less headache. i can think of at least 3 of these stations within 20 miles of me. potentially faster turnover as you don't have people parking at the pump while they spend 15 mins inside. there's a lot of interesting positive aspects to this, and it seems that more are willing to try it.