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The Doorman's Fallacy in action

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Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#221

Post by leoedin »

wodenokoto wrote: post #105

I live in Dubai and in my experience the main reason why they want you to pay with QR is because the QR company pushes a service fee on guests and some times even a default tip (tipping is not common here, but I’m sure staff is underpaid because every service company that uses an app pushes you to leave a tip) that they can’t charge if you pay directly to the restaurant. Just ask the staff to bring the CC machine. As…

Is it a Dubai thing that everyone's parking expires unexpectedly in 2 minutes? I didn't really understand that - perhaps a lack of local knowledge.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#222

Post by duskdozer »

michaelmrose wrote: post #145
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.

The prompt is a fix for an imaginary problem produced by senselessly aping physical limitations. A meter fed with quarters forces you to prepay a particular amount whereas a digital service which has at minimum your credit card could simply charge you the correct amount.

It's not exactly "senselessly" but rather "shrewdly" ensuring that you're incentivized to pay for more time than you'll actually need so that you don't risk getting a ticket or needing to make a trip back to the meter.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#223

Post by another-dave »

gcanyon wrote: post #200

I'll be the contrarian and take the opposing position: this story -- the doorman fallacy itself, ignores the obvious counter-narrative: - physical menus are hard to update - physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency, or they are book-sized and hard to navigate. - physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you'…

I find physical menus much easier to search personally - I can "time slice" switching my attention around different parts of the menu fairly easily and home in on which I might want.

It's clear how much menu there is to sort through. If I want to pick something for someone else (e.g. my daughter), there's clear sign posting to what's available.

Often the digital menus I get linked to are either just a PDF of the paper menu (in which case, I'm viewing it at phone window size rather than full A4) or it's a website with nesting in different ways, so you're not sure if you've seen everything or not.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#224

Post by jmye »

gcanyon wrote: post #200

I'll be the contrarian and take the opposing position: this story -- the doorman fallacy itself, ignores the obvious counter-narrative: - physical menus are hard to update - physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency, or they are book-sized and hard to navigate. - physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you'…

These are absurd positions, invented solely for the purpose of being contrarian and not because any of them make any sense or add any value to the conversation. I'm so tired of this thoughtless, tired crap passing as legitimate discussion.

> physical menus are hard to update

It is not hard to print a few sheets of paper off a word document.

> physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency, or they are book-sized and hard to navigate.

None of this is solved in an online menu, and no one is concerned about server "efficiency", whatever that means. Have you ever eaten out?

> physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you're touching everything the server touched, and the three people before you.

They are often wiped down, but it's interesting you think your phone is cleaner.

> physical menus don't scale: if the restaurant is busy, you might have to share.

Of course they do. You just... print more.

> physical menus require more human time for the host/server to provide them to you.

What? In a normal restaurant, someone is seating you, anyways. Putting 4 menus on the table is not adding time. If they are not seating you, you are ordering at a counter. If neither of those are true, leave a handful of menus with the napkins.

> physical menus aren't searchable.

The browser patten for finding things on my cell phone is so deeply unintuitive that this is as silly as pretending that a menu isn't literally designed to help you find what you want. Do you think menus are just a bunch of ingredients printed at random on the page? Do you think you are the only person who's ever considered UI?

> Does the author really think getting the server to split the bill is easier?

It is vastly easier for the user/customer. How is this a question?

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#225

Post by mrweasel »

Telaneo wrote: post #199
mrweasel wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actively refuse to use self checkout. A number of stores have reported customers to the police for incorrect scanning. These are honest mistakes and you're now "a know shoplifter". I primarily work with companies that require a clean record, that includes "No shoplifting". Self checkout is taking away cashier jobs, annoying to use and comes with an uacceptable risk to me as the customer.

> A number of stores have reported customers to the police for incorrect scanning. These are honest mistakes and you're now "a know shoplifter". I primarily work with companies that require a clean record, that includes "No shoplifting". This sounds more like a 'horrible store' and 'authoritarian police' problem than a self-checkout problem.

Sadly it's happening in a number of stores, so I'm not taking the chance. One issue might be that so many are actually using the self checkouts to steal, that the stores just assume that's the reason and not leaving much rooms for honest mistakes.

It's not a great lose, almost every time I see someone try to use the self checkout, they need to get a hold of staff anyway, because of items that fail to scan or discounts not being applied.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#226

Post by stephen_g »

mgkimsal wrote: post #99

I've never been to a place where you order by QR code where somehow the bill is joined together in one order for the table. Everything I order on the phone I pay for before they bring the food. A couple places near me have QR codes for seeing a menu, but you still place an order with a person. If I order via QR code, payment is tied to me as a person, not the group. Never (yet?) seen it any other way.

I’ve mostly seen it at Asian cuisine restaurants where you normally order several dishes and order more as the meal progresses. So it builds up a tab and then you pay at the end.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#227

Post by duskdozer »

olsondv wrote: post #187
godelski wrote: post #52

To clarify, the Doorman Fallacy is about the Doorman doing more than their job actually seems. The Doorman isn't just a greeter, but they are checking that the right people are coming in, they are going to report issues that patrons pass onto them, they check that the UPS guy is actually from UPS, they're the first to notice damage to the property, they call the police if they see a crime happening in the area, and s…

Taking the restaurant ordering app, it’s certainly better than a server. Each individual picks what they want and pays for what they got on their own bill. It removes any chance of communication error between the customer and the kitchen. Appetizers to share easily split across who wanted them. No bill splitting discussions. OP just had to use a bad implementation.

In theory yes, though as time has gone on I've found they're becoming increasingly aggravating for one reason or another. Either broken pages and functions for no discernible reason, ever more aggressive marketing and behavior manipulation, or other things that maybe other people like but I do not (for example, forcing me to log in with a "magic link" that magically seems to fail half the time), which has made me just give up instead of finishing and not go back.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#228

Post by Telaneo »

mrweasel wrote: post #225
Telaneo wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A number of stores have reported customers to the police for incorrect scanning. These are honest mistakes and you're now "a know shoplifter". I primarily work with companies that require a clean record, that includes "No shoplifting". This sounds more like a 'horrible store' and 'authoritarian police' problem than a self-checkout problem.

Sadly it's happening in a number of stores, so I'm not taking the chance. One issue might be that so many are actually using the self checkouts to steal, that the stores just assume that's the reason and not leaving much rooms for honest mistakes. It's not a great lose, almost every time I see someone try to use the self checkout, they need to get a hold of staff anyway, because of items that fail to scan or discount…

Understandable in your situation.

> It's not a great lose, almost every time I see someone try to use the self checkout, they need to get a hold of staff anyway

I don't think I've needed to call staff for when using the self-checkout in years (ignoring the random spot checks, but those are rare and very quick), so this also sounds like 'horrible store' to me, with them opting to use dogshit hardware or software that makes it so people need help all the time. Then again, I don't buy tobacco or alcohol, and outside of that I probably end up in a happy median with my shopping, where I don't trigger any safety and security limits, so my experience might be overly positive just because the system never suspects me.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#230

Post by jiaosdjf »

This is also the "can be shit - will be shit" fallacy.

Everyone knows that digital restaurant experiences are crap and most people do not pick a restaurant based on the digital experience.

All restaurants use the same few white label solutions and the decision is based on cost. White labels rarely break new ground because despite having many clients to experiment / gather data on, they just can't get good being everything for everyone.

This of course doesn't count giants like McDonalds who have the incentive and position to be defined by that digital experience.

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