> Is there a law mandating realtime reporting, or something
Not real time in WA, but all records are public and reported fairly consistently. See https://www.topshelfdata.com for an example of that.
> or are there just limited number of POS providers and they all have realtime API(s)?
This is Headset who is probably the largest retail POS provider (amongst other offerings on the producer/processor side and more) for legal marijuana sales. I'm assuming the data presented here is exclusively from their POS platform. I don't know of any public sources for real time sales data.
> I bet the dashboard doesn't have Johnny from my street corner's transaction...
Yes I'd also bet Johnny doesn't report his sales to a central database/platform.
Who cares? This person is telling a story about their lack of access to cool new tech, and what projects like this one have provided them.
Split hairs all you want but giving less privileged people access to funsies that eventually turn to deeper technical interest and (I assume) a higher earning career is the overarching message and I’m all the way about that. The weird dissection of an uplifting & cool comment like OPs is classic HN & definitely unnecessary.
Edit: And their reply resonates with me. Not fronting like I couldn’t have those things, but I dug deep into retro gaming (via emulation) in my early teens and my career can be traced back to that original interest & deep diving.