3 ms·
This is changing which is exactly why you have the whole discussion about minimum wage. It basically affect how employers can make money and it will be the ver
by ThomPete 11y ago
This is changing which is exactly why you have the whole discussion about minimum wage.
It basically affect how employers can make money and it will be the very reason why you would se an even bigger move towards automation of the actual service.
You keep using history as if it's any indication of the future even though the very underlying premise why have been how they have historically is changing.
It's ok you don't want accept this but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Anyone who sits u little further up than the people who work on the floor will tell you that there are in fact plenty of plans to reduce the work force to be able to keep competing by keep making it cheaper.
Ignoring that problem won't make it go away.
- notahacker 11y agoFast food restaurants with no human servers existed decades ago, but the Automats were actually killed off by the more profitable franchise outlets that used people rather than technology. And there's nothing remotely new about the fast food industry's investment in process optimization, or indeed their lobbying against minimum wages "This time it'll be different" is never a good argument, especially not when deployed with condescension in lieu of evidence.
- ThomPete 11y agoYou are missing the key point here. The chains have no other way to go than to reduce the cost of their staff. It's not a this time it will be different argument it's this is the only way they can survive in the market argument.
- notahacker 11y agoI don't think they've been keeping on their staff all these years out of charity, or that the repeated failure of vending machine based stores - including experiments by major fast food chains - to survive in the US market is an indication that this will be a good survival strategy.
- ThomPete 11y agoNo because tech havent been cheap enough now it is while wages are potentially going up. You are basically arguing against the numbers here.
- notahacker 11y agoThe numbers show that McDonalds beat earnings forecasts three quarters in a row after putting wages up. Fast food is not a struggling industry. Vending machines have always been cheap, but they've never been popular. Which is why the fast food giants, each with large teams of analysts armed with all the relevant numbers, have experimented very little with them, and generally cancelled the experiments after very short periods.
- ThomPete 11y agoFastfood is a competitive industry. I never said it was struggling. You are trying to establish strawmen no one is talking about. That's my signal to get out of a conversation. Believe what you want, reality speaks for itself.