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- Hacker News
- 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 so on. These are things that aren't obviously in their job but things the doorman will actually do.
But I generally agree with the OP here. We have these "high tech" solutions that actually just complicate things. I'm upset that our community pushes for "good enough" and "no elegance". Everyone's definition of these things are different so they're just thought terminating cliches, not some beneficial insights. They're just mindless parroting.
I think part of the problem is engineers aren't being engineers. For some reason engineers are focusing on the monetary value of the thing being built rather than the actual utility to the user. There needs to be a firewall between marketing and engineering. Engineers focus on utility (utility over value) while marketers focus on the inverse. The contention is a feature, not a bug. But now we don't implement single line solutions that solve annoyances that millions of people have because "what's the value?" People are just being killed by a million paper cuts. It's unbearable. We seem to have forgotten that one is the great beauties of computing is scale. This action might cost a customer 1 second, but if you have a million users that's sure a lot of seconds. Seconds they're using on your servers and devices. Those seconds add up, especially as it's not just one program that's adding an extra second, it is a hundred.
We waste a lot of time and money because we don't look at the whole picture
by godelski - > engineers are focusing on the monetary value
A friend of mine passionately believes engineers need an equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath to guide our morals and principles about what we should and shouldn’t build.
- 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.by olsondv
- I'll be the contrarian and take the opposing position: this story -- the doorman fallacy itself, ignores the obvious counter-narrative:
The Doorman Fallacy in general presents only one side of the issue, which is perfectly reasonable for the creator of the fallacy to do, but puts on us the requirement of considering the other side:- 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're touching everything the server touched, and the three people before you. - physical menus don't scale: if the restaurant is busy, you might have to share. - physical menus require more human time for the host/server to provide them to you. - physical menus aren't searchable. - Difficulty scanning the QR code *will* get better over time, obviously. - Having to take turns is a user issue: it ignores how QR codes work (you don't have to be that close) and people will get used to it. - (edit to add) issues with divvying up the bill are software issues that will get better over time if demand is there. Does the author really think getting the server to split the bill is easier?
That's enough contrarianism for this morning...- Having "a doorman" means having someone less than 1/4th of the time, or staffing 5 people (more like 6 since with 5 someone has to schedule/supervise). - When the doorman takes a break, no one gets in? - Some doormen go above and beyond, and are truly a joy to have around. Others are less so. Counting on the doorman being awesome is unfair to doormen in general. - An automated system is on 24/7 -- maybe not in the early days, technology isn't perfect, but how many people here remember the early days of cell phones, when you *called support to get refunds for dropped calls*? - An automated system can add or remove people from the authorized list easily and remotely, and not make mistakes.by gcanyon - 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?
by jmye - You make some good points but some are, excuse me, cringey-wrong.
> physical menus are hard to update
How often does a restaurant update a menu? Those that need to update frequently already solved that by having a chalk board.
> physical menus are often too simple, requiring asking the server questions they've answered a dozen times before already, hurting their efficiency...
How does a digital menu solve this? All online menus I've used have basically the same amount of information as a printed menu, with some being marginally better. The marginally better ones are the online menus for food delivery because they have a bit more flavor text, pun intended. This is however offset by restaurant-owners' tendency to put unrepresentative stock photo to go with the item and they just put a disclaimer about the photos somewhere.
> physical menus aren't cleaned between uses, so you're touching everything the server touched, and the three people before you.
Ok but please wash your hands after you order at the earliest and before you touch your food at the latest.
> physical menus aren't searchable.
Fair but only thanks to `Ctrl + F`, the best menu search interface by a mile.
> Difficulty scanning the QR code will get better over time, obviously.
I'm starting a prediction market if this will happen before or after Tesla FSD.
> it ignores how QR codes work (you don't have to be that close)
Uhhh...what? The farthest I could scan a QR code is about two handspans away. This was from the original Google Pixel! It was remarkably good at catching QR codes, I have no idea why. I thought it was the moment scanning a QR code has finally gotten better(!) so imagine my disappointment when my subsequent phones (even one Google Pixel 3a) couldn't live up to it. The 3a was still better than others. Even with flagship models, you gotta be pretty close to scan QRs not to mention wait for the exposure and focus to adjust.
(Whoever tells me "cameras can zoom now dummy" has never actually scanned a QR code from afar with the camera zoom lens. When you zoom, the exposure changes AND it becomes _super_ motion sensitive which is, obviously, not great for scanning things.)
> Does the author really think getting the server to split the bill is easier?
I am not the author but yes I do think so. Server has the table's bill in front of him and a calculator, each tells him what they had and pay in turn. Et voila.
Splitting the bill inconveniences comes down to a couple of factors IME:
1. the customers know what they had but don't know the price so they have to leaf through the menu again to calculate.
2. the table is provided with only one copy of the bill so the group has to scramble over one measly piece of paper, talking over each other, to compute their share.
Both can be solved by centralizing all that complexity on the waiter.
To be fair, I think the author's bad experience was due to wanting to keep the apple crumble gesture a secret. That is such a bizarre complaint, bro. It doesn't make sense to me either! You're all in a restaurant, everyone knows all the food will be paid for by someone! Why keep it a secret that you paid for the apple crumble?
That's enough HN for the rest of the week.
- * the primary vector of contagion is unfiltered air circulation, not touching tables and menus (which are wiped down).
* I want you to go and tell another human being, in person, that paper menus cannot possibly 'scale'. Your brain has been deeply addled by SV culture.
* HUMAN TIME IS THE POINT AT A SIT DOWN PLACE, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?
* YOU HAVE YOUR HUMAN EYES FOR 'SEARCH'
* QR CODE SCANNING IS NOT "GETTING BETTER" WHAT DO YOU EVEN MEAN BY THIS ASSERTION??
* OLDER PEOPLE AND PEOPLE WITHOUT SMARTPHONES WILL NOT "GET USED TO IT"
* "if demand is there" IT IS, HOW CAN YOU ACT LIKE IT IS NOT, DO YOU NOT HAVE DINNER WITH FRIENDS?? ARE YOU NEW TO THIS PLANET?
Are you daft? I've entered hundreds of buildings in NYC with varieties of automated systems from the 70's to the 2020's and 95% of them are dogshit and there's no sign they are 'getting better'. Most are nigh impossible to use on bright sunny days because of the glare obscuring the addresses. Many are broken. Your 'contrarian' arguments are just counterfactual to anyone who has lived on this planet for a number of years.An automated system is on 24/7 -- maybe not in the early days, technology isn't perfect, but how many people here remember the early days of cell phones, when you *called support to get refunds for dropped calls*?
Deeply, hilariously fallacious. Tell someone you love that 'automated' systems 'never makes mistakes' and see how much traction that argument gets.An automated system can add or remove people from the authorized list easily and remotely, and not make mistakes.by lkey - Most of these points are never a real issue. Don't be contrarian just for the point of being contrarian. Have real contrary issues.by nkrisc
- I agree with a lot of this. Sometimes it is easier to scan a code, zoom until the text is at the desired level, and scroll around the menu rather than opening a large leather book with tiny writing in a dimly lit restaurant.
Going to PAY with the QR code feels a little worse. I went out with some friends and I planned to pay cash, the waitress came over to tell us all that we should pay using the QR code on our receipts - missed me, and I had to wait 5 minutes to let them know I was using cash. My friends didn't have much trouble, but we're all younger folks so we are used to pulling up Apple Pay or whatever. I imagine some people do not enjoy that experience.
I will say that there is this inherent disdain towards automated systems, and I feel it's warranted - to a degree. Some experiences are improved with automation, others are stifled. Sometimes we just want to talk to other people who understand our problems.
- 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.
by another-dave - If you remember that hotel chain Sonder which went bankrupt last year, they had a zero-local-employees model: no front-desk, outsourced maintenance and housekeeping. I think they made the same mistake. Your typical interaction with the hotel receptionist is extremely formulaic. Many other hotels have replaced the sign-in process at least with a machine. That's most prominent in your mind, so its easy to assume that's where most of the value comes from.
- I had a particularly bad experience with a hotel in Silicon Valley that had outsourced the front desk duties to remote workers. I was stuck outside in the rain, fighting a bad internet connection, trying to check-in. Probably saved them the space taken up by a front desk inside the hotel but I made a mental note never to use that hotel chain again.by kj4211cash
- I've stayed at the same Sonder hotel (in NYC) multiple times, and there was absolutely a front desk person.by H1Supreme
- I've been to staffless hotels (numa) that were good and noticeably more affordable than their neighbors. I don't know if the housekeeping was outsourced though, I imagine that, without at least some local management staff, conditions would deteriorate rapidly.by Tarq0n
- A lot of hotels nowadays automate check-in and check-out completely. I stayed at Henna Hotel in Japan which genuinely has nobody at the front desk (although it does have an animatronic dinosaur which bows to you), and wondered how I would have them hold my luggage prior to check-in. They'd thought of that - they had a bunch of free lockers in reception.by rjh29
- Yeah. Usually I don't need the receptionist, but part of the value of a hotel is that I know I could go to the receptionist and get any problems sorted out, if I had to
If I wanted a no-touch experience with no other human in sight or on standby, I'd just get an airbnb
by wongarsu - At least in the UK, Sonder also wasn’t cheap and some of their properties left a bit to be desired. Plus there were often people (staff) sat in the reception anyway, so I don’t really understand what they were doing or there for, or where the supposed benefit of their no-reception model comes from.
I’d far rather speak to a real person and have some interaction when I’m travelling than mindlessly do everything through my phone and an app. I actively seek that. What we perceive as “the future” in terms of our phones as the interface undoes the basic social fabric that has developed over thousands of years. I’ve had some of the best conversations with random hotel receptionists - and isn’t it these secondary connections over the course of our days with people we’re unlikely to meet or socialise with again that can really help us feel better connected to society?
- My company recently hired a concierge. At first I thought it was unnecessary and just meant to give someone's friend a job.
But the guy is really good at it. He organises groups of people who show up; he knows everybody, so he can quickly point people to where they should go; and overall he just makes the reception a welcoming place.
by forinti - I cannot recommend Rory Sutherland's book Alchemy enough.
It is up there with great book for me like Taleb's Incerto series when it comes to deeply interesting ideas I would not have noticed if they hadn't been pointed out to me.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26210508-alchemy (the subtitle of this book seems to be different in different countries)
by scoofy - > But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued.
Hasn't that been a fact of life ?
If anything, apps made it barely made easier through splitting either the whole bill equally or offer a bit by bit checking interface.
Otherwise on the role of QR codes and online menu, it actually helps a lot for allergies as everyone can check their for each individual item and adjust accordingly.
Of course one can ask the waiters, but many aren't just competent (ask for wallnut allergy, and they'll come back explaining there's no peanuts). And doing the back and forth on which menu has what allergy is also a PITA, with all the other guests just waiting for it to end.
by makeitdouble - I was a bit surprised by the way the payment is being made here.
Do people pay it separately like this? In general, if it isn't a prepaid restaurant, then just one of us makes the whole payment, and we pay our share to that person.
Don't people follow that generally?
by shibaprasadb - A good waiter by the time it comes to payment will know the dynamic of the group and help them organize quickly.
- > > But when 6 people simultaneously tried to pay their share of the bill, chaos ensued.
> Hasn't that been a fact of life ?
I remember having to split bar tabs at the end of the night before phones. No calculators. Drunk people trying to do math is a spectacle to behold. Everyone throwing random cash amounts in the centre of the table, taking their own change, and one person attempting to reconcile the total then asking for more contributions if we were short.
Electronic bill-splitting is superior in just about every way.
by pards - The only times I've had splitting bills become a problem are with unreasonably large tables (10+), and at that point, you should be upfront about it before you place any orders, since that fixes the problem.
I assume it's a hard problem to solve if you don't have POS system keeping track though. If all you've got is pen and paper, it's probably better to just split the bill equally, assuming nobody had 6 40 USD cocktails. Or just have someone pay for the whole thing and settle it all in post.
by Telaneo - In my experience, waiters tend to be quite good at splitting bills. I feel like many of them remember what people had, maybe they get good mental maps of seating or person <-> meal type just like taxi drivers used to get good mental maps of London before GPS.
(And printed menus tend to have allergy info too, just like online menus sometimes don't.)
- Right. Many restaurants won't do a split check beyond 3 or 5 people.
This place in Dubai doesn't sound that bad. It can get much worse. Two of us went to a restaurant in Cupertino, near Apple HQ, where the table had a QR code. But it didn't just bring up the menu in a browser. It wanted the customer to install their app. Then the customer could order through the app. That's going too far.
The restaurant was mostly cooking for pickup and delivery. Delivery people were going in and out constantly, but few people were eating on site. So on-site eating was made a special case of remote ordering, with a really short delivery trip.
Never went back there. The food was mediocre.
All this apparently works better in China, where WeChat took over and standardized customer interaction and payment. Of course, the Third Department knows where you ate dinner, and with whom.
by Animats - My favorite version of this is robotic and drone-based package delivery. In many ways it could be useful and add efficiency to a congested system. But then you find out just what it is that delivery people actually do, the variety of security systems, steps and walkways, exceptions to rules, and so on and realize that what drones and robots automate is not really "the job" at all.
The last mile, in logistics, hospitality, retail or elsewhere is not just a mile, it's an interdependent series of several distances each with its own rules and restrictions. Tech-based solutions tend to solve an idealized, abstracted version of these and end up being only a very limited solution if they solve anything at all.
by devindotcom - last mile in software is real too!by whateveracct
- if we had a standardized way to deliver packages like we do mail (the heavily regulated mailbox!) this would not be a problem, it's a phenomenal waste of human effort to navigate this uniquely for every location
it's not like a doorman where there's useful social interaction
by Palomides - Conversely the last step to the door is as complicated as it is since till recently there was no plausible middle ground. You would always be sending out couriers so no real improvements in cost could be made.
But if you can get a drone or a robot most of the way there, that changes incentives.
I would personally love there to be a regulated, standard design for parcel drop off: but there isn't one. Not yet, and no human delivery will use anything I devise properly.
But if nonhuman delivery would, well now everyone looking at new motivation.
by XorNot