News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by mbollier on Saturday August 30, 2014 @04:10PM (#8247444)
I imagine at some point we will see this happen, as society stratifies even further. You can already pay to skip lines at places like Disney.
Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by to3m on Saturday August 30, 2014 @08:20PM (#8247993)
I'm surprised they don't let you bid to get to the front of the queue. This scheme would practically market itself.

But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised people don't think of this, what with them not loving their family enough, etc.

Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by SocksCanClose on Saturday August 30, 2014 @10:16PM (#8248242)
Hi to3m -- do you have a few minutes to chat (gChat?) about this? currently working on a platform for this type of thing, would love to get your feedback. josh at mptonight dot com
Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by gpvos on Sunday August 31, 2014 @10:24AM (#8249354)
I don't understand how you make the connection between a money-making scheme and loving one's family. Could you explain?
Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by to3m on Sunday August 31, 2014 @01:25PM (#8249797)
Sorry, that comment was perhaps needlessly gnomic, and it's a throwaway line anyway :) I just imagined that the obvious way of marketing this would be (in addition to emphasising the convenience aspect) to somehow imply that if you love your family enough then you'll outbid other people, allowing you all to jump the queue.
Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by afafsd on Saturday August 30, 2014 @07:36PM (#8247906)
(a) Society is currently less stratified than pretty much any point in recorded history, so if you don't like stratification then don't complain.

(b) On the other hand, popular and in-demand restaurants already have schemes for letting rich and/or important people get reservations ahead of the plebs. When I went to French Laundry (after a six-month odyssey to get a reservation) the waiter mentioned that only about half their tables are actually open for reservation by the ordinary scheme, the others are reserved for booking by other means. If you're a rich dude who likes to bring clients there and always buys the expensive wine, you'd better believe that they're gonna give you the number for their secret reservation hotline.

Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by bulletsvshumans on Saturday August 30, 2014 @08:07PM (#8247962)
> (a) Society is currently less stratified than pretty much any point in recorded history, so if you don't like stratification then don't complain.

In terms of the share of U.S. income going to the top 10% or 1%, the data would seem to imply that the U.S. is currently the most stratified it's been in over 80 years [1].

[1] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/the-rich-get-ri...

Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by obstacle1 on Saturday August 30, 2014 @08:18PM (#8247990)
>(a) Society is currently less stratified than pretty much any point in recorded history, so if you don't like stratification then don't complain.

Terrible, cringe-worthy logic.

If stratification still exists, whether or not it is of a lesser degree than in the past is irrelevant. It exists, and you can complain about it. In fact, if you don't complain about it, that may be misconstrued as implicit acceptance. So complaining is actually the better move, provided you actually want said stratification eliminated.

Think.

Re:Why Don’t Restaurants Charge for Reservations? by Hello71 on Saturday August 30, 2014 @09:49PM (#8248182)
this argument would be just as accurate after a replacement of "stratified" with "misogynist" or even "starving".