Automation replacing mandolins?

In the early 20th century, New York saloon owners were trying to cut expenses by eliminating musicians (is there anything new under the sun?). "After 1911, more and more saloon owners and managers bought electric pianos fitted with coin-slot attachments and placed them in their backrooms. And not only pianos, for they also installed slot harps, slot organs, player pianos with mandolin attachments, and at last one 'German band orchestrion'." Of course the customers paid directly for this music; one proprietor said that the slot instrument paid his rent.

Information and quote from:

Cockrell, Dale. Everybody's Doin' It: Sex Music, and Dance in New York, 1840-1917. NY & London: W.W.Norton, 2019, p. 192.

Progress! You tell me.
I stop listening to music as soon as I detect the use of a synthesizer.

I enjoy seeing and hearing these old orchestrions and the like. There are quite a few at the MOMI in Phoenix, AZ—I remember more than a roomful. Also, there is a museum of coin-operated machine at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco also worth visiting. Some do have mandolin sounds incorporated.

Bet it can’t make the mistakes I can.