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The Doorman's Fallacy in action

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Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#91

Post by darth_avocado »

sublinear wrote: post #69
darth_avocado wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that money is saved for the company by moving the work to the customer / end user. And somehow things are more expensive than ever. Self checkouts, order at the counter, bussing your own table, assembling your own furniture, filling out your or your pet’s medical history at a hospital, shipping labels (you mentioned this) and so much more. It’s a form of free labor that somehow society is okay with.

When I hear arguments like this I feel compelled to point out that the people running these businesses live in the same world as you. I don't know how old you are or if you remember, but the examples you gave used to be the most common sources of complaints, delays, refunds, etc. when the employee would do a shitty job (fairly often). The world of the past really was objectively worse.

Ahh yes, having someone to wait tables at a restaurant, someone to scan and bag groceries, someone to take your medical history, having furniture already assembled etc. was really objectively worse.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#92

Post by Kirby64 »

wdrw wrote: post #86
chowells wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're describing an interaction with a good server at a good business. (Off of peak hours, if you can take hours and they don'thave anything to say about it.) What do QR codes add except for technical issues? I honestly cannot recall the last time a server tried to upsell me with even as much as a "do you want a dessert?". But... I suppose that's selection bias. I only go to restaurants that don't require servers to…

I would not be at all comfortable, with a human server, making them wait while changing my selection multiple times (no I want it with the ginger sauce... no, without... no actually the sesame sauce... no actually I don't even want that dish, I'll take the other one), googling 10 different unusual ingredients while I make these changes, etc. And especially if I'm part of a larger party that shares food, or with kids,…

> I would not be at all comfortable, with a human server, making them wait while changing my selection multiple times (no I want it with the ginger sauce... no, without... no actually the sesame sauce... no actually I don't even want that dish, I'll take the other one), googling 10 different unusual ingredients while I make these changes, etc.

You would have to do all of this anyways if you ordered via an app. It’s also not zero cost, especially if you’re having to look up ingredients. A good server could explain what ingredients are without you have to look them up, as well.

I agree that it can be convenient in that you don’t have to wait for a server to show up to put an order in, but the issues of indecision while ordering are all something you can do before that interaction…

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#93

Post by dbdoug »

ralferoo wrote: post #19
devindotcom wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget self check out at the grocery store. I don't mind personally (I find ways to make it worth my while..) but it's a version of the same thing. Shifting labor under the guise of convenience. Like all the other versions of this, the savings are absorbed by the company, not passed on to the consumer. It's rare that the opposite happens.

My supermarket has the handheld scanners and they are a game changer. They fit handily into the trolley if you want and you just scan stuff as you go. If you want 8 of something, you can just tap the item and increase the quantity, none of the having to scan each one and add it carefully to the bagging area, etc... And best of all, at the end you just scan a self checkout screen (and they have special ones as well wi…

> you just drop everything you picked up into the box, it scans all the RFID tags and makes sure the weight is correct, and it's all done.

Well, not exactly. I saved a bundle of money inadvertently in a Decathlon in São Paulo. I read the instructions, but didn't understand the Portuguese completely. I dumped a ton of purchases into the bin, watched the screen scroll through the items, and paid the bill. When I got home I realized that I'd only been billed for about half the items. Next time I was there, I read the instructions more carefully and discovered that they said to put the items in the bin one by one

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#96

Post by saulpw »

senordevnyc wrote: post #77
saulpw wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming this individual for 'accelerating the descent' is like blaming a hobo for catching a ride on a runaway train going downhill. The ensuing trainwreck is already inevitable, at least you can get part of a ride out of it!

The trainwreck is only "inevitable" (which, incidentally, it isn't, but put that aside for now) because of individuals making choices that benefit them personally at the expense of the common good.

I agree with everything you're saying, except it's a handful of individuals. The top .000001% are responsible for 90% of the acceleration of the train. You can hardly blame someone for not paying for a tomato.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#97

Post by alex43578 »

EvanAnderson wrote: post #65

Aside re: restaurant technology: In a restaurant a year ago with "pay via your phone" service. Server gave us a receipt w/ a QR code. I scanned the code, copied the URL to my clipboard, and looked it over. There was a base64 blob on the URL. I decoded it (because Termux and I'm a nerd) and saw obvious parameters I could fuzz. I changed the check ID (incremented it), left the store ID alone, re-encoded it, and found I…

That’s such a benign vulnerability that it doesn’t even feel like one. Per your description, the worst thing an attacker can do is see the food ordered to a check number (in a public restaurant) and pay a bill that isn’t their own?

On the flip side, some services go absolutely overboard trying to secure low-blast-radius things, or don’t properly scale security to the risk of an activity. I have a service provider that requires an absurd login flow for their website, continually trying to force passkeys, short session timeouts, etc; when the worst an unauthorized attacker could do is pay my bill (the horror!).

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#98

Post by madrox »

I've never heard of the Doorman Fallacy before. I like it.

That said, not everything changes because some businessman wants to cut costs. Splitting bills has always been a pain, and while a lot of apps suck, at least it's consistent. I can't tell you how many times I got dirty looks from wait staff when asked to split a bill. In pretty much every story the author talks about I would rather fail forward than go backward.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#99

Post by mgkimsal »

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.

Re: The Doorman's Fallacy in action

#100

Post by senordevnyc »

saulpw wrote: post #96
senordevnyc wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trainwreck is only "inevitable" (which, incidentally, it isn't, but put that aside for now) because of individuals making choices that benefit them personally at the expense of the common good.

I agree with everything you're saying, except it's a handful of individuals. The top .000001% are responsible for 90% of the acceleration of the train. You can hardly blame someone for not paying for a tomato.

I don’t believe there’s any evidence whatsoever for that, and I refuse to adopt that kind of loser mindset, where the agency of 99.999999% of people don’t matter at all to how our culture and civilization develops.
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