1. The setup doesn't remove the custodian label. It's, after all, a machine that custodies money. The company is, therefore, offering custodial services.
Yes, at least in the original setup that is the case.
Now however we could imagine also a setup where two machines are connected:
- First machine checks the money people deposit for counterfeit and is operated by company A.
- Second machine contains only the lockers. It is operated by company B. The lockers are not explicitly for cash, but for any item; they guarantee the value for up to a limit (which shouldn't be too high, let's say something like $1000 or $2000).
- All the communication with the P2P exchange is operated by an open source application, with no company involved.
Taking into account your response about the shop, I could imagine this combination of two machines indeed be located inside a shop or restaurant. This shop could guarantee that the money checked by the first machine is indeed placed in the lockers (which could also be an automated mechanism), but not be in charge of the custody itself (i.e. not guaranteeing that nobody steals the money).
Perhaps an option is for P2P platforms to tie up with businesses that don't belong to the financial sector, say, coffee shops, concept stores, drop-off pick-up centers, and the like where you can either leave your cash payment or claim it.
Yes that's a good idea too. I could imagine that for low payments that could work. But the shop would be the custodian, so at least for high amounts it's possible they would also be affected by KYC/AML regulations.
Everything mentioned by Darker45 makes sense, and this idea is really possible. But the only difficulty here is the regulators, especially these days.
KYC/AML regulations are always there to make sure that this non-custodial Bitcoin ATM will not be used in any illegal transactions or activities. If this is not the issue, life could be easy with this, and it really serves the purpose of Bitcoin and the freedom.