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The Doorman's Fallacy in action

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Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#61

Post by gwern »

fmajid wrote: post #55
epolanski wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never make the mistake to go to places with qr codes twice in my life. I can live with giant tablets in fast foods, but there's no chance I go to qr code restaurants ever. As the article points out, it's super inconvenient and absolutely breaks the mood for the night and cheapens and ruins the experience. Even worse one of my favourite steak houses has removed phone booking and implemented a super slow and inconven…

No web form can ever be worse than doing stuff over the phone like we’re still in the 19th Century. I had a Korean colleague who remarked how backward the US is, you have to do everything over the phone, and you lose signal in elevators.

> No web form can ever be worse than doing stuff over the phone like we’re still in the 19th Century.

Yes, it can. Last year I challenged a Zoomer to try to order from the local ramen place for pickup. They were in and out in well under a minute, including looking up the phone number on Google Maps, whereas Uber Eats would still be loading... and scrolling... Sorry, updating, please stay tuned... Would you like to sign up for Uber Unlimited? ... [do I need to keep doing the gag] ... selecting... wait where did the list go... wait did the one selection take ... ordering ... you have rewards! ... confirmation ... etc They were shocked how much better the experience was. As compared to [paste number, wait 10s] 'Hello?' 'X Ramen, how can I help you?' 'I'd like A ramen and B ramen and C to go, please, name, Alice and Bob.' 'OK. Goodbye.' Even counting the register swipe on pickup to pay, it's night and day. And that is how a web form can be way worse than doing stuff over the phone, because a web form can just get worse and worse and worse - and they do.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#63

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

fmajid wrote: post #53
ralferoo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My supermarket has the handheld scanners and they are a game changer. They fit handily into the trolley if you want and you just scan stuff as you go. If you want 8 of something, you can just tap the item and increase the quantity, none of the having to scan each one and add it carefully to the bagging area, etc... And best of all, at the end you just scan a self checkout screen (and they have special ones as well wi…

And usually they have a dedicated checkout aisle so you don’t have to wait for the Boomers in front of you to pay in pennies or whatever it is they do to snarl a queue up.

Eh. This "Boomer" uses his Apple Watch, usually. I tend to blow through in about five seconds. I usually have the stuff paid for, before the cashier stops ringing them up.

I deliberately use the manned checkout, because I'm human, and I believe in helping out other humans. That seems to be a "quaint anachronism," these days, but it's the way this old fogey was raised.

I know that someday, I won't have a choice (Home Depot only has cashiers for contractors, nowadays, so I'm forced to use the auto-checkout), but, where one is given, I take the human.

Sometimes, I chuckle, as I go through fairly quickly, and see the long line, waiting for the auto-cashiers.

It's obvious that the only benefit comes to the company. If you aren't just getting a candy bar, then the auto-cashier tends to be slower (mainly because I am a lot slower at that stuff, than the cashier).

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#64

Post by arrrg »

cactacea wrote: post #24

> But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued. I'm guessing the author has never worked as a server themselves... Is there any part of the world you can have a six top with individual checks when you didn't tell them up front to split the bill? As an American this just seems obvious to me but maybe the expectation is different in Dubai.

In Germany (where this happens frequently and many people expect to be able to pay separately – I don’t like it and we generally don’t handle it that way with friends, but when I’m in the restaurant with coworkers even I wouldn’t dare to stray from orthodoxy) the payment systems seem to be set up for it and enable this in a relatively frictionless way. I remember it being more complicated for everyone involved.

Basically, waiters have a list with all the items in front of them and you tell them what you had and they pick them. They can then just initiate a normal payment process and leave the rest of the table as is.

More time consuming and finicky than just someone paying everything all at once, sure, but a well worn and designed user journey you seemingly don’t have to torture those devices into making possible.

In fact, I will often be extremely apologetic when saying I want to split the bill but have noticed no eye rolls or complaints from waiters. It’s just smooth sailing. I do honestly think that was different when waiters had to do math and cross out things on bills and stuff (which I distinctly remember from my childhood/youth in the 2000s).

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#65

Post by EvanAnderson »

Aside re: restaurant technology:

In a restaurant a year ago with "pay via your phone" service. Server gave us a receipt w/ a QR code. I scanned the code, copied the URL to my clipboard, and looked it over. There was a base64 blob on the URL. I decoded it (because Termux and I'm a nerd) and saw obvious parameters I could fuzz. I changed the check ID (incremented it), left the store ID alone, re-encoded it, and found I could access somebody else's check. Not a super exciting vulnerability (since all I could do was see what they ordered and pay their check) but I thought it was still pretty rotten that I could even do that.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#66

Post by aaulia »

gwbas1c wrote: post #11

When a restaurant pushes me to a QR code I now outright say that I find them "insulting." Granted, where I live e-menus generally haven't taken off in sit-down restaurants, so it's very easy to push back on nonsense like this.

At first I thought you meant QR for payment, which is weird because most people (at least in SEA, where I lived) consider less friction and more convenient than cash or cards.

But it turns out you meant QR for menu, yes, hate them. Flipping through the menu is better experience overall. Opening menu on a phone is a chore, not to mention most menu web/app is crap. Lots of them are just link to pdf on google drive.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#67

Post by hoherd »

varispeed wrote: post #59
TheGRS wrote: post #41

If anything the prompt from your phone that your meter is expiring is a huge plus against forgetting about it and getting dinged with an outrageous parking ticket. I'd much rather go through the brief stress of that reminder than a ticket any day. A parking ticket will put me in a sour mood for the rest of the day easily.

Such feature is designed to catch people who might not pay attention. Innocent looking money grab. Some better parking apps simply let you start the meter and then stop when you get back to your car, so you don't have to worry you miss it and get a fine.

If you forget to pay when you get back to your car, are you charged the max? That's how it works with other systems like this that I've used.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#68

Post by irjustin »

I am on the other end of the spectrum.

I enjoy QR ordering. I dislike talking to people. Upselling me is not a thing. I can take as long as I want. I don't have to flag/bother someone. No one screws it up except me. I see exactly what's on my bill.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#69

Post by sublinear »

darth_avocado wrote: post #16
rwmj wrote: post #5

What the article misses is that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. It's the same thing with sending parcels, where I must now sit on my computer at home filling in a complicated online form and printing out my own labels. This takes me like 30 minutes, but saves time and money for the Post Office (not for me!) There's no downside for the company here, especially when they ar…

> that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. And somehow things are more expensive than ever. Self checkouts, order at the counter, bussing your own table, assembling your own furniture, filling out your or your pet’s medical history at a hospital, shipping labels (you mentioned this) and so much more. It’s a form of free labor that somehow society is okay with.

When I hear arguments like this I feel compelled to point out that the people running these businesses live in the same world as you.

I don't know how old you are or if you remember, but the examples you gave used to be the most common sources of complaints, delays, refunds, etc. when the employee would do a shitty job (fairly often). The world of the past really was objectively worse.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#70

Post by DanHulton »

rwmj wrote: post #5

What the article misses is that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. It's the same thing with sending parcels, where I must now sit on my computer at home filling in a complicated online form and printing out my own labels. This takes me like 30 minutes, but saves time and money for the Post Office (not for me!) There's no downside for the company here, especially when they ar…

> What the article misses is that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user.

What? No, you're making the Doorman fallacy here, explicitly.

The company THINKS they're saving money by pushing the work to the customer/end user, but there's more to wait staff than just taking orders and payment - they provide the ability to smooth over any difficulties experienced during the meal, they signal status, etc, which would theoretically allow the restaurant to charge more than if they force customers to do all this work themselves.

Not to mention, if I had an experience this miserable at a restaurant, I wouldn't be back, which is a direct loss in revenue.

Restaurants aren't monopolies, except in really extreme cases.

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