Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF • Hacker News Board

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#121

Post by tomkarlo » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 4:55 PM UTC

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #36

But surely this is a good thing - people will have to take part in an auction for a table. Want to eat at $POPULARRESTAURANT - you set a bid min and max and off you go. Its allocating scarce resource at the most efficient level.

You're assuming restaurants look at it as a one-time transaction. But most good owners put a lot of focus on repeat, neighborhood customers, because those are the folks that will come in and dine on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening and help keep you afloat (Friday / Saturday will book out anyway if you're doing ok.) Bourdain said he used to put the interesting specials on weekdays, and save the easy / no-brainer stuff for weekends, partially for this reason.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#122

Post by wizzard » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:37 PM UTC

paolomaffei wrote: post #37

seanlinmt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One could always use a Captcha to stop bots if it became a problem.

A service that solves captcha for you can cost as low as $2/1000 captcha

Yes, but the services utilize human interaction to solve the captcha and that would almost certainly prevent all the openings from being taken in <1 minute.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#123

Post by Fuzzwah » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:38 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #109

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just raise the price" is an appropriate response to demand for a commodity, but it's an inappropriate response to these scenarios. For example: PAX is trying to build a community event. The target demographic is not "wealthy people who love games", it's "people who love games" Changing the price results in a different convention. Similarly, a popular $20 restaurant can't double their prices to keep demand manageable…

I don't understand why the solution, at least in PAX's case, is not to ban bots. That would open up purchasing to regular human users, and since PAX is a ridiculously popular event, tickets would still sell out.

How do you ban bots with out implementing an arcane, clunky, painful, expensive manual system?

PS: your answer isn't allowed to be captcha.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#124

Post by jdmichal » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:40 PM UTC

onebaddude wrote: post #80

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I stopped buying things via auctions and stick only to "buy now" solutions. Sniper bots combined with friends bumping up prices on auctions means that a typical auction is a waste of money (price bumped up) and time (you can't win with 10 sniper bots aiming for the very millisecond the auction ends). Yeah, playfield got leveled because now everybody and their dog can use snipers (hey, where's the reward fo…

>Sniper bots combined with friends bumping up prices on auctions means that a typical auction is a waste of money This doesn't make sense, really. You enter the price you're willing to pay in an auction; what everyone else bids is irrelevant to you. If you are getting outbid, it's because someone is willing to spend more money on the item, bot or not. Don't bid low trying to get a deal. Bid what you are willing to pa…

Agreed. My bigger problem with auctions is that you can rarely get a deal that's worth the added risk.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#125

Post by Fuzzwah » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:42 PM UTC

wizzard wrote: post #122

paolomaffei wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A service that solves captcha for you can cost as low as $2/1000 captcha

Yes, but the services utilize human interaction to solve the captcha and that would almost certainly prevent all the openings from being taken in <1 minute.

Here's the thing though: you've got two people who are eagerly waiting for the purchase / booking of something to become available. One of them is going to do it all manually. The 2nd person has a bot to do all the form filling in leg work but will manually solve the captcha.

Who wins?

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#126

Post by michaelochurch » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:56 PM UTC

Do people actually use "foodie" unironically? I thought that was something people invented to stereotype suburbanites who'd caught on to "gourmet" meaning absolutely nothing; I didn't know until now that people actually called themselves "foodies". Wow, it's a weird world out there.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#127

Post by __david__ » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

Fuzzwah wrote: post #123

enraged_camel wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why the solution, at least in PAX's case, is not to ban bots. That would open up purchasing to regular human users, and since PAX is a ridiculously popular event, tickets would still sell out.

How do you ban bots with out implementing an arcane, clunky, painful, expensive manual system? PS: your answer isn't allowed to be captcha.

You don't. I'd much rather suffer through a captcha than have the tickets/reservations sell out in seconds.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#128

Post by robk » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 5:58 PM UTC

How are the bot owners flipping these reservations? I imagine there must be some commercial value via secondary market (or direct to concierges, offline), as bot-writers probably aren't actually using all these reservations themselves (or their friends). The more sane solution is to require full name when booking and ask for ID at the door. A name change has to be manually handled by the restaurant or would require rebooking. That would stop transfers and any market for these bookings.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#129

Post by mkehrt » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 6:01 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #126

Do people actually use "foodie" unironically? I thought that was something people invented to stereotype suburbanites who'd caught on to "gourmet" meaning absolutely nothing; I didn't know until now that people actually called themselves "foodies". Wow, it's a weird world out there.

Yes, definitely, people use it unironically.

Re: Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

#130

Post by ryanklee » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 6:04 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #100

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how the rational, clear-headed solution to economic problems always turns out to be "fuck poor people."

Rational perhaps, but not clear-headed. It assumes that people's dining behavior is a relatively linear, simple relationship heavily based on price, in a perfectly efficient market filled with perfectly efficient agents who have perfect information. This is sort of like estimating the weight of a cow by assuming it's perfect sphere with a radius. But this isn't entirely surprising. It's a common sentiment on Hacker N…

> Until the day where all food becomes standardized, commoditized, and we can treat our restaurants like we treat our nuts-and-bolts supplier, it will remain like this.

And after this, the minute someone opens a restaurant where food is not standardized, commoditized and that can't be treated like a nuts-and-bolts supplier... a market is (re)born.