How is this different from a vending machine?
A vending machine sells consumables and ends there. This also lends durable goods and takes them back, which is a different operation entirely.
The overlap is the retail half, and it is the less interesting half. Both sell snacks, drinks and small essentials from a machine in a building.
What vending does not do
It does not lend. The whole operational weight of a convenience hub is in the return: the item comes back, and somebody has to check it, clean it, charge it, confirm it is complete and put it back into circulation. That is a service business rather than a restocking route.
The second difference is the selection
Vending routes are optimised across many sites for margin per slot. A convenience hub is stocked for one building, which is why what it carries in a student residence and what it carries in a workplace are almost entirely different lists.
The third is the resident relationship
A vending machine has no idea who you are. An app-based hub has an account, a rental history, a way to reserve something for Saturday and a way to say the steamer was missing a part.
Where a vending machine is simply the better buy
If the need is snacks and drinks and nothing else, buy vending. It is cheaper, the operators are excellent at it, and you will not be paying for a lending operation you never use.
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