Only Japan can pull it off. In Europe I pretty much never used vending machines as they are so gross and dirty. Even in "clean" countries like Austria or Germany they are like that.
As they became more popular I started seeing them on gas/petrol stations, rail stations and many other places.
However, the kind of machines I talk about always dispense cold cans, sweets, crisps, sometimes packaged yoghurt, but never hot stuff.
Any time I encounter a hot vending machine they are always within some establishment like a gas station where you're supposed to pay first, you get a cup and then you go to the vending machine. The staff of the place is responsible for keeping it clean. However in busy places sometimes there is trash around them (people dropping sugar packets on the floor etc). So perhaps you meant this kind.
You can have a lot of nice things when you have a government (and a society) committed to law and order.
Anecdata, but a vending machine at the local rapid transit station (one of those two-sided hot drinks / soups and snacks combo machines) had its output chute filled with (very visible and smellable, probably human) feces for a week after(!) calling the service number and only then the owner cleaned it. Mhhh. Didn't inspire confidence in their general cleaning routine, for me.
I have no idea how our machines stack up against the ones from Japan or other parts of the world in the vandalism department, though, in practise and outside of city centres. They might face similar problems, I don't know.
Alternatively, if a company operates for decades, they can make a very, very stable product. Only bugfixes. I'd imagine some of these vending machines are manufactured like that.
Which means, a weekly drive by is enough to inspect, refill, drive on. I used to deliver meats to very rural locations, 10 deliveries over a 300+ km circular route from/back to the packing plant. At 80km/hr, the stops are the big slowdown.
Another way to think of it, is that remote often means little traffic, fewer stop signs, and higher speed limits.
I live 8km from a large city. It's often far faster for me to drive 15km to a corner store in a small nearby town, because I can do 120km/hr the whole way there almost, on my rural road, with no stop signs or lights.
Drive to the city, there are 5 stop lights before the first corner store, that's each way, so chances are high to hit a light. And even one light is 2 or 3 minutes delay.
So rural servicing and deliveries can be quite fast and efficient.
I wondered that myself, after seeing some unlucky porter hauling cases of tea up to the vending machines at the top of some mountain temple (maybe Nikko?) on foot.
It was like something out of Death Stranding. It defied physics, looked absurd and would have killed him if he slipped on moss.
I think the core issue is that vending machines outside of Japan lack variety...there's not much in them.
That said in Europe (not really the UK though) you can always find little vending machine "nooks" filled with machines containing alcohol, drinks, medicines, condoms etc. I think the negative perception is because of these - they seem to get left dirty and homeless/general public just mess up the spot.
But when you think about it, that's less vending machines and more Japan's culture of cleanliness and lack of public disorder. Outside of Japan, well, people don't really give a crap unless it's their own property...
It's nowhere near as common as in Japan but you will often find them in train stations or highway rest areas.
https://x.com/yannseznec/status/1492105643649601552
(I don't even want to tell you about the tvattstuga. It's better you don't know.)