Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

Post by namdnay » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 10:15 AM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #25

fsckin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we can't have nice things. On the topic of scalpers, Louis CK apparently hired [0] scalpers to help build some anti-scalper checks (I assume it is similar to fraud detection rules: multiple purchases from the same IP, out of town billing addresses) that runs on his website where he now sells all of his tickets. If you get flagged by a rule, the ticket goes to will-call, so you have to show ID and the cred…

> The venue has a perverse incentive allowing scalpers to buy every last ticket they can get their greedy little hands on. As long as a ticket gets sold, they don't care. Screw the fans. Everything I've seen trying to explain the scalping phenomenon appeals to the idea that this is completely backwards from true. Specifically, the theory is that the venue's incentive is to fill seats, which is why tickets are so dram…

Post by zbowling » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 10:25 AM UTC

Aloisius wrote: post #23

jbigelow76 wrote: post #19

You folks don't actually think that opentable/urban spoon reservation availability is representative of a restaurant's entire table inventory on a given night do you? Pick up a phone (dirty little secret, restaurants segment customers too).

Restaurants typically hold back inventory from online reservation systems for two reasons. They either think they can fill seats and they rather not pay the per cover fees OT and UrbanSpoon charge or they want to hold seats for walk-ins. Well three if you count timing seating to keep the front of the house and kitchen from being overloaded. State Bird Provisions however has so much demand that there is a line for wal…

Post by mgkimsal » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 10:46 AM UTC

namdnay wrote: post #61

sien wrote: post #2

This is remarkable. Concert tickets are also being bought this way by bots for scalpers. Ebay sniper bots are commonly used. High Frequency trading is the high end this. Perhaps it is unavoidable, perhaps other means for selling things online should be sought out, text messages with semantic replies required or something?

I really don't get the outrage against scalpers. They're just buying commodity futures, taking a bet on the future value of the tickets. If the value goes up, they make a profit, if the band suddenly become unpopular or whatever they lose. We're in a capitalist system, the price you pay the scalpers is the "real" price of the concert: it's the law of supply-and-demand. Now, if scalpers win every time, this is an issu…

Post by theorique » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 11:15 AM UTC

grinich wrote: post #30

jbigelow76 wrote: post #19

You folks don't actually think that opentable/urban spoon reservation availability is representative of a restaurant's entire table inventory on a given night do you? Pick up a phone (dirty little secret, restaurants segment customers too).

Or walk in and slip them a $20. It's the old school hack.

Post by jlgreco » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 11:30 AM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #32

thaumasiotes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that's one kind of restaurant. I've never heard of anyone trying to get a reservation there, though, and I'm pretty sure there's a direct relationship between the lack of demand for reservations, and the restaurant's ability to scale.

If they only had one restaurant, over 99 billion wouldn't have been served, and a good fraction of them would probably be on the waitlist for a reservation.