Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Security checkpoints are the primary point of delay for getting into venues, and places that have rolled these out process people through about 95% faster. It's a huge difference. I assume expediting peak crowd throughput at low labor cost is the primary, if not entire, value of the device. I hate that it's being marketed dishonestly but I also assume most concert venue buyers know (or suspect) it probably doesn't…
> get more bodies per minute into the venue at lower cost while appearing to conduct security checks sufficiently 'real' enough to act as a deterrent Or they just need to convince most of their customers it will be safe to attend, while covering their ass by following "best practices" if something slips through, people get hurt and they get sued.
Apparently, you've never met my Aunt Sue. She has a graduate degree in innumeracy with a minor in illiteracy and a specialization in worrying about whatever the media tells her to worry about. However, she always votes.
More seriously, it's not cost-effective to "convince most customers it will be safe enough to attend." The game theory around fallacious public perception makes it a losing proposition for a politician or company to ever appear to reduce security requirements because as soon as "rare bad thing happens", they will be blamed - even though their reduction in pointless measures had no bearing on it.
Most independent experts agree that securing cockpit doors in 2002 made subjecting every passenger to the TSA's increased security measures unnecessary and, objectively, a very poor ROI in both cost and disruption. However, the TSA will never, ever go away - even though it could and should. Not only is reducing security politically costly, the TSA is now a multi-billion dollar federal bureaucracy, paying hundreds of vendors with lobbyists and employing tens of thousands of unionized workers spread across the most populous congressional districts. Yes, this is frustrating.