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Bot wars - The arms race of restaurant reservations in SF

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

#71

Post by shrikant »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #53
asperous wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a whole market of "notify me when (plane tickets get cheap, apartments look good, tickets go on sale, etc)"

If Amazon had a notification when product X dropped below price Y then not only would it allow people to track that something was now affordable to them, it would allow Amazon to feed back to manufacturers that they could sell N items if they dropped their price to Y.

I work for an online retailer, and every once in a while, we get an email from a customer asking if we could add a feature on the website to notify them when prices drop on items.

Maybe we should start trial runs of this feature..

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

#72

Post by namdnay »

mgkimsal wrote: post #66
namdnay wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To the average fan, the comparison between a ticket to see Act X on a specific date in their town is nowhere near the same as pork bellies or orange juice. They're called 'commodities' because they're interchangeable. Tickets are extremely specific to a single date and location and act.

Good point, I guess tickets would be "infungible commodities"... But the fact that you can take market bets on them doesn't change

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

#73

Post by blawson »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #53
asperous wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a whole market of "notify me when (plane tickets get cheap, apartments look good, tickets go on sale, etc)"

If Amazon had a notification when product X dropped below price Y then not only would it allow people to track that something was now affordable to them, it would allow Amazon to feed back to manufacturers that they could sell N items if they dropped their price to Y.

Something like this? http://camelcamelcamel.com

:)

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

#74

Post by ronaldx »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #65
spellboots wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…

"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…

The result of pricing too low for demand is ticket touting, e.g.: http://www.ebay.com/bhp/pax-tickets

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

#75

Post by Erwin »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #65
spellboots wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…

"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…

There's this thing here in Copenhagen: http://www.goldentable.com/restaurants-copenhagen/

A number of top restaurants (otherwise booked, on a Saturday night, for 2 weeks) auction off a single table, where 50% of the proceeds go to the restaurant, and the rest to a foundation for gastronomical research.

Another approach is to require a credit card and charge almost the price of a full dinner if you don't show up. The 41 in Barcelona goes one step further and makes you pre-purchase the entire meal.

Some guests will spend another $300 on an expensive bottle of wine. I think it's fine to let some people pay extra in advance to be guaranteed to get a table.

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

#76

Post by Ecio78 »

AndrewDucker wrote: post #53
asperous wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's probably a whole market of "notify me when (plane tickets get cheap, apartments look good, tickets go on sale, etc)"

If Amazon had a notification when product X dropped below price Y then not only would it allow people to track that something was now affordable to them, it would allow Amazon to feed back to manufacturers that they could sell N items if they dropped their price to Y.

I've used this service in the past: https://pricenoia.com/ it can notify you of price change on Amazon AND allows you to compare prices between different countries's Amazon local sites

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

#77

Post by Ecio78 »

just as information, I use the free service http://www.changedetection.com/ to send me email when webpages change (i.e. jobs opportunities). Unfortunately you can't automate the procedure of logging in and/or posting to searches, and I think the scheduling is once-a-day, so it wouldn't have been very useful for the OP cron case

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

#78

Post by stephencanon »

theorique wrote: post #68
grinich wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

also see: be a regular and a good tipper. (only works in places where you are a regular and a good tipper)

(but it works amazingly, wonderfully well in those places where it does work).

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

#79

Post by laumars »

spellboots wrote: post #60
rndmize wrote: post #3

Soon - "Auction Sniper now supports urbanspoon! First 3 reservations are free!" There's something frustrating about reading this. Perhaps its that a technological advancement that was supposed to make life easier is being capitalized on by a small group of technically competent people, shutting out the average user. I was thinking of going to PAX next year a few hours ago and decided to do a bit of research. For this…

Yes, in todays technological society, people who understand technology have advantages. I don't see why that is surprising, given the website you're commenting on. Ultimately this is not about technology, it's about economics. Surely the restaurant should raise their prices until not enough people want to book 2 months in advance to make bots and make this an issue. Or PAX should raise their prices so they don't sell…

...or adapt the site so it's not bot friendly instead of raising prices just to punish people.

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

#80

Post by onebaddude »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #54
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?

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 pay, and it works every time. It's a very efficient system.

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