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> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Chri

> The McDonald's touch-screen self-order kiosk takes 27 clicks to get a meal. They try to up-sell you 3 times. Just let me pay for my fucking burger, Jesus Christ. The product manager, the programmer, the executives. None of these people care. I was working in this space! And I got fired for refusing to work on more upsell features for clients like Coca Cola and such. I don't want to work on adding fucking ADS into checkout. That is fucked up.

dgfitz 2y ago
My spouse bought us kindles recently, and it popped in my head today that at some point e-books are going to have ads interspersed…
- culi 2y ago
  There are kindle alternatives. Luckily the technology isn't that advanced and any/all of them pretty much MUST support a general PDF (or whatever other similar format). You might have to manage your own library a bit but that means you can just use these devices completely offline I think e-readers are not that high on the list of technologies most at risk to be taken over by ads
- roland35 2y ago
  Kindles already can have ads on the sleep screen! Unless you paid for the ad free version.
  - dgfitz 2y ago
    Oh my…I’ll have to ask, I bet they did. Unreal.
    - whycome 2y ago
      So far, Kobos are the way better option in my opinion. No ads, and it's much easier to add your own books. It's (currently) a much more open system. But, not without fault. They've shut down some older readers for no good reason.
      - Uvix 2y ago
        "Easier to add your own books"... it depends. Yes, if you have ePubs and want to transfer files to the reader via USB, Kobo is marginally easier. But Kindle is easier for wireless delivery (regardless of format), and supports it on all of their models instead of just a limited subset.
        whycome 2y ago
        There are some awesome independent tools to get files on the device via the web. Try https://send.djazz.se/ https://send.djazz.se/ But you’re right. Via email is easy. And I’m mostly thinking of epubs/mobi — but drm free.
        TheFreim 2y ago
        I have KOReader on my Kobo device, with a couple taps I can connect to my desktop instance of Calibre and transfer books in a flash. https://koreader.rocks https://koreader.rocks
      - barnabee 2y ago
        The Onyx Boox readers have a feature called BooxDrop which runs a web server on the device when you enable it that provides file management and upload. It simple, wireless, and works great. The readers work perfectly fine without an account and the Poke 5 I have is a fair bit smaller than the last Kindle I had with the same size screen. It runs Android and I also use Termux plus a bluetooth keyboard with it for a rather nice minimal writing experience.
        dspillett 2y ago
        I've been tempted by their products in the past, but unless they've improved their stance on their use of GPL covered code in a non-compliant manner I don't want to support their business.
        barnabee 2y ago
        It's a fair point and since hearing about that I've been in two minds as to whether I could buy another device from them.
    - warner25 2y ago
      If you put them into the Kindle Kids mode you get a much cleaner, more streamlined, ad-free experience without paying extra. I've seen a few adults say that they prefer it to the full-featured mode.
  - internet_points 2y ago
    i sent an email to have them removed. it was a thing some years ago at least (though I don't know if US-ians are allowed to do that or if it's just in the EU)
  - raphael_l 2y ago
    I actually recently purchased my first Kindle, as well as an gift upgrade for my partner. I researched and talked to a friend of mine who owns one. At first I was determined I would purchase the ad-free version (I think the price difference was like ~20€), but after talking to my friend they kind of convinced me that the ad version is not so bad. 2 points on this: 1. The ad appears only on the lockscreen of the device, so you see it once and then never again until you reopen it. The ad is also only for a book in the Kindle store, never anything else (this might seem trivial, but I think one of the negative aspects of advertising is being blasted with stimuli about so many different things you don't care for) 2. The ads are personalized on books you bought and therefor a sort of recommendation engine. Both my friend and my partner told me they got some inspiration from those ads to find books they liked. So all in all while I despise ads, I gave this one a try. Personally (and yeah, I know – subconciously) I have never looked at the lockscreen apart from the first time I launched it. It's a relatively non-intrusive ad about a book that I don't even need to engage with. And in case something relevant is on there, it leads to a good outcome for me. This is advertising done well for me at least.
- spc476 2y ago
  I've found books that had ads inserted into them [1]. It seemed to be a thing from maybe the 1960/1970s. The ad page was a different type of paper, and no text from the book was on it (that is---the ad wasn't on one side and book text on the other). [1] One example: https://boston.conman.org/2002/12/31.1 https://boston.conman.org/2002/12/31.1
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    There was a post, here, some time ago, about how many paperbacks had ads actually woven into the story. Apparently, it was quite common practice, at one time. Sort of an obnoxious “product placement” thing. I think the author had nothing to do with it.
  - cbsks 2y ago
    My dad has some old sci-fi books with full color cigarette ads in the middle. Crazy!
    - dspillett 2y ago
      Sometimes ads end up in the actual text, without the authors permission or even knowledge: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/q1wbie/the_time_terry_pratchetts_german_publisher/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/q1wbie/the_time_te...
  - wantoncl 2y ago
    https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publisher-inserted-a-soup-ad-into-his-novel/ https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...
  - Animats 2y ago
    That was so unpopular that it died out. Paper magazines still have "blow ins", though - advertising cards that are injected into the magazine with compressed air after printing. They're not bound in. They fall out.
- shae 2y ago
  My swedish books from the 1800s have ads inside.
culi 2y ago
if you don't, someone else will. Maybe you could've introduced a "bug" that makes it so it usually doesn't work except when a member of the QA team is looking at it :P
- azeirah 2y ago
  Well.. I did implement most of the framework. The good thing is that I'm waaaayyyyy detail oriented, and I made an extremely sophisticated system for it. Maybe a little bit TOO sophisticated Not my proudest _engineering_ achievement, but as an R&D project? I consider it a success. Ethical outcome? Success.
  - xigency 2y ago
    Good on you for sticking to your guns. I hope karma rewards it somehow.
- benjijay 2y ago
  Volkswagen already had this idea... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal
maxerickson 2y ago
Yeah, there's always the "No thanks" button but not the "No, fuck you" button.
- wat10000 2y ago
  Or in online spaces, the ever more common “maybe later.” No means no, maybe go jump in a lake of fire.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Silicon Valley is like a creepy and terrible suitor, never knowing what "no" means or letting its counterparty express "no". It's always "ask me later".
  - darkteflon 2y ago
    The iOS app “Calendars” recently starting showing a modal on launch trying to up-sell something - I don’t give a shit what it was - the “no” option was labeled “Thank you”. I had to click “Thank you” to dismiss it so that I could use the fucking app I pay a yearly subscription for. Or in this case: paid. The cheek of these people.
    - akoboldfrying 2y ago
      That "Thank you" button just raised the bar on cheek, I think. I'm actually chuckling at it -- just the sheer passive-aggressive childishness of its attempt at shaming users. I mean, what did they think writing that on the button would achieve? It has literally no effect except to infuriate people who were already going to opt out. Labelling it "I suck" would have been better.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  because that 2nd one requires a "No, fuck YOU!" button and so on ad infinitum.
- whycome 2y ago
  I hate that the options when faced with a location permissions request is "block" or "allow". why isnt ignore an option?? Block adds the site to a discrete local list which i dont need recorded on my computer...
agumonkey 2y ago
and decoupling order taking with service makes for "funny" times. since mcdonalds installed the tablets i regularly wait 10 minutes while looking at confused / avoidant employees not knowing what to do, even if there's nobody else waiting. i can almost feel the meeting where someone managed to sell this idea to shareholders... "decouple everything, more efficient !"
- LeafItAlone 2y ago
  That seems more indicative of just bad management. It’s been over a decade since I’ve been in (specially) a McDonalds, but I used to frequent them easier in my life. The ones I went to were well run and efficient. But still as seemed as decoupled as kiosk ordering. The cashier would take the order and put it into the computer. The food preparers would prepare the food and put it on the trays where the packagers would subsequently take it and put it on your tray or in your bag. There was 0 communication between the three groups in 99% of the cases. Often I would make small talk with the cashiers or packagers if there was nobody behind me. I don’t see how kiosk/tablet ordering would change that significantly.
  - agumonkey 2y ago
    it's pretty obvious, there's no more tension in the job, the cooks still have a list of things to do, but people serving customers have no idea who ordered what beside a number. they have no real relationship with any of us waiting and quite often I see them roaming around aimlessly, not sure if I've been called or not
- seabird 2y ago
  This is a result of Taylorist management brain rot drive to reduce drive thru wait time metrics at the expense of anybody not in the drive through. Watch the shot clock near the drive through window (they're highly visible at Taco Bell) and observe that drive thru customers almost never wait more than 60-80 seconds.
listenallyall 2y ago
This seemed like a poor example for the author to choose, of "not caring." Annoying, sure. But these extra upsells originate from someone who definitely cares about increasing revenue and is aggressively exploring multiple avenues to achieve it.
- wat10000 2y ago
  Companies don’t care about you, they care about your wallet, extraction of money from. The most pleasant companies to deal with are the ones who have found a niche where customer satisfaction helps with the goal of wallet, extraction from. But at best it’s a means to an end, and McDonald’s is definitely not one of those companies.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - listenallyall 2y ago
    The article was about not caring at all, as in total apathy. Not "we're going to work really hard to purposely create anti-patterns."
    - wat10000 2y ago
      I understand that, but it included this particular example which doesn’t fit. I guarantee the people at McDonald’s in charge of the kiosk design care a great deal about wallet.
      - listenallyall 2y ago
        ...which is why I started out by calling it a poor example!
ryandrake 2y ago
Lately, the number of times (across different businesses/industries) where I've found myself thinking "Will you please just fucking take my money and stop bothering me?" is too damn high.
- amatecha 2y ago
  Yup, it's not good enough that you're already a paying customer- they have to try their best to manipulate and coerce you into spending even more. It's insulting, abusive and honestly pathetic. These thirsty lamers have to try every trick in the book to eke a few more cents out of me? Embarrassing. Modern tech/business does not have a shred of pride or dignity, as per TFA.
  - bruce511 2y ago
    Businesses aren't in business to prioritize the customer point of view [1]. They are not in business to prioritize the employees point of view. They are in business to maximise revenue, and profit. If you work for a business, your job is to work on their priorities. By all means object or quit if you don't agree with them. (And yes, assume you'll be fired for refusing to do their tasks.) If you're a customer, and you font like their behavior stop being their customer. You have agency. Use it. [1] good customer service, good customer experience, are all good for revenue. Happy customers are the ultimate success. But maximizing the revenue from those happy customers is very much the business goal.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      That’s nonsense. Some businesses exist purely to fund the ability to do exactly that thing as well as possible. Making money is a means to an end. It’s just that they always seem to lose to those that optimize for money.
      - bruce511 2y ago
        I think some small businesses start because the owner wants to do something well. Sometimes this aligns with some group of customers and it's sustainable. Most small businesses fail of course. Usually because while they do a task well, they're bad at the business part. Once you get large (McDonald's in the parent thread) the focus is necessarily on the business part. At that scale it's not "doing the thing as well as possible " - it is "making money as well as possible". Clearly lots of people use McDonald's. So they provide customers with satisfaction. But that doesn't mean they aren't out to maximize revenue.
amrocha 2y ago
Respect for standing up for what you believe in
Animats 2y ago
I recently went to a gas station where the pump worked right! No affinity cards. No car wash offer. No asking for a ZIP code, since I'd been there before. No screen with ads. Press card against RFID reader, select octane, pump gas. I went inside and complemented the worker on their pumps being so easy to use. I go back there occasionally, even though the station with the ad screen is cheaper.
- boredumb 2y ago
  I went inside and complemented the worker on their pumps being so easy to use, He. Did. Not. Care.
- _sys49152 2y ago
  nah - gas pumps that ask for phone numbers for savings card id's are great opportunities to save cents at the pump. 555-555-5555 always works everywhere and half the time gets you savings.
  - brantonb 2y ago
    Enough people use 867-5309 as their grocery loyalty card's phone number that it's often got savings available at the gas pump. Use the local area code. It works great for filling up rentals while traveling, too.
- willis936 2y ago
  I go to a gas station that blares ads at an ear piercing volume. I now keep duct tape in my driver's side door.
s-video 2y ago
I feel like this reveals some sampling error in the OP rant. When you see something negative get made that makes you think "nobody cares", you're not seeing the people who did care and left.
- michaelhoney 2y ago
  Which relates to the linked incentives piece: when you create incentives, you think you're changing people's behaviour. Actually you're selecting for people who respond to the incentive.
aaron695 2y ago
McDonald's touch-screen were only profitable because users ordered more. Possibly Covid and processes to get costs down have changed this, but not to begin. I feel like your comment falls under "Nobody cares" I love the touch screens and having the time to order what I want. I used to rush my order at the checkout and never got exactly what I wanted. If you did a start-up 'ethical ordering' you'd care, made money, and probably forced McDonalds to change it's touch screens. In South Korea it asks the user are you sure, here's the extra kJ, when it does an upsell.
- azeirah 2y ago
  I was working so hard to change the internal culture for this. I did not succeed. It's ran by business people who want to make money. Not by philosophers.
  - kmarc 2y ago
    Same here. Also, TFA sounds like something I could've written. Anyway, besides other anecdata, I don't have anything to add. But I wanted to thank you, azeirah, that at least you tried
    - azeirah 2y ago
      I left impressions where it matters. The young engineering talent is not interested in working there.
- maeil 2y ago
  > In South Korea it asks the user are you sure, here's the extra kJ, when it does an upsell. Really? I guess I've just never taken up such an upsell, but I'll try to remember it next time I go just to see the UI. Barely ever go there now that ironically Lotteria has more veggie burger options here (1) than McDonalds (0), and their chicken burgers are imo worse than KFC's.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Even Costco gives you a pop up trying to upsell you on a cookie.
jl2718 2y ago
I have an interesting anecdote about that. I was consulting for a very large tech company on their advertising product. They essentially wanted an upsell product to sell to advertisers, like a premium offering to increase their reach. My first step is always to establish a baseline by backtesting their algorithm against simple zeroth and first-order estimators. Measuring this is a little bit complicated, but it seemed their targeting was worse than naive-bayes by a large factor, especially with respect to customer conversion. I was a pretty good data scientist, but this company paid their DS people an awful lot of money, so I couldn’t have been the first to actually discover this. The short story is that they didn’t want a better algorithm. They wanted an upsell feature. I started getting a lot of work in advertising, and it took me a number of clients to see a general trend that the advertising business is not interested in delivering ads to the people that want the product. Their real interest is in creating a stratification of product offerings that are all roughly as valuable to the advertiser as the price paid for them. They have to find ways to split up the tranches of conversion probability and sell them all separately, without revealing that this is only possible by selling ad placements that are intentionally not as good as they could be. Note that this is not insider knowledge of actual policy, just common observations from analyzing data at different places.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  One thing you know about ad guys—they are really good at tricking people into spending money. I mean, it’s right there in their job description. For some reason their customers don’t seem think they’ll fall for it, I guess.
  - chgs 2y ago
    The average “smart person” thinks a trillion dollar industry can’t brainwash them.
    - dspillett 2y ago
      In terms of the people with products to advertise being crewed over by the ad industry, I think it is more that they don't see the similarity between the ad industry brain-washing us and the ad industry brain-washing them. Perhaps the disconnect happens because they want to interact with the ad industry, so get their stuff hawked to us, but we'd usually rather not. Another interesting disconnect is that sometimes a person is both the “us” and the “them” in different contexts. i knew someone who would complain about some of it on other sides but when pointed out that his site used some of the same tricks he'd respond with “yeah, but I need that because …”.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
lqet 2y ago
> That is fucked up. Yes. Our local IKEA recently started doing this. During self-checkout, you have to click through hot dog, ice cream, cinnamon buns and drink offers, and the inevitable offer to get an IKEA family card before you are actually able to pay for your furniture. Seeing this after waiting in line for 10 minutes, navigating a sluggish, unresponsive touch screen terminal and unsuccessfully trying to scan slightly bend bar codes while 10 people are watching you doesn't exactly increase my desire to return to this store. I really think a huge part of the problem is that there isn't a direct interaction with a human anymore. If IKEA would ask their cashiers to advertise all this crap to customers before accepting their money, they would revert this after a single day because many customers would very, very strongly complain, and the cashiers would care and threaten to quit. But you cannot complain to a self-checkout-terminal, which makes this even more frustrating. As another comment has pointed out, there is just a "No thanks" button. I want a "I am seriously offended that you try to milk me like a brainless cash-cow, you should be ashamed to even advertise this to me after I bought a couch for 1,400 EUR, and I will not return anytime soon" button.
- kevincox 2y ago
  Last time I went it was only one food upsell. But it is still really annoying. Before this they had basically a perfect self-checkout, fast and easy to use. But now it is adding crap and I fear that I'm going to have to stop shopping there like many of the other self-checkouts around me.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  Next time go to the cashier instead, and complain to them about the self-checkout terminal ??
poisonborz 2y ago
Just want to thank you for standing up for your values at your workplace. I wish more SWEs would have morals like this.
pards 2y ago
At the dominant pharmacy/convenience store in my area (Shoppers Drug Mart), it can take up to 12 clicks to self-checkout, depending on what garbage they're upselling on the day. I counted them. I refuse to use them, and (annoyingly, I know) let the cashier know why each time as they're checking me out. I feel bad for the poor cashier but unfortunately for them, they're my only interface to the company.
zzzeek 2y ago
you can't say "they don't care" though, the folks making these screens are obviously pretty motivated to keep squeezing out more profits and care a lot about that. if they "didn't care" they'd have told you "ok fine, im going for break"

dgfitz 2y ago

My spouse bought us kindles recently, and it popped in my head today that at some point e-books are going to have ads interspersed…

culi 2y ago
There are kindle alternatives. Luckily the technology isn't that advanced and any/all of them pretty much MUST support a general PDF (or whatever other similar format). You might have to manage your own library a bit but that means you can just use these devices completely offline I think e-readers are not that high on the list of technologies most at risk to be taken over by ads
roland35 2y ago
Kindles already can have ads on the sleep screen! Unless you paid for the ad free version.
- dgfitz 2y ago
  Oh my…I’ll have to ask, I bet they did. Unreal.
  - whycome 2y ago
    So far, Kobos are the way better option in my opinion. No ads, and it's much easier to add your own books. It's (currently) a much more open system. But, not without fault. They've shut down some older readers for no good reason.
    - Uvix 2y ago
      "Easier to add your own books"... it depends. Yes, if you have ePubs and want to transfer files to the reader via USB, Kobo is marginally easier. But Kindle is easier for wireless delivery (regardless of format), and supports it on all of their models instead of just a limited subset.
      - whycome 2y ago
        There are some awesome independent tools to get files on the device via the web. Try https://send.djazz.se/ https://send.djazz.se/ But you’re right. Via email is easy. And I’m mostly thinking of epubs/mobi — but drm free.
      - TheFreim 2y ago
        I have KOReader on my Kobo device, with a couple taps I can connect to my desktop instance of Calibre and transfer books in a flash. https://koreader.rocks https://koreader.rocks
    - barnabee 2y ago
      The Onyx Boox readers have a feature called BooxDrop which runs a web server on the device when you enable it that provides file management and upload. It simple, wireless, and works great. The readers work perfectly fine without an account and the Poke 5 I have is a fair bit smaller than the last Kindle I had with the same size screen. It runs Android and I also use Termux plus a bluetooth keyboard with it for a rather nice minimal writing experience.
      - dspillett 2y ago
        I've been tempted by their products in the past, but unless they've improved their stance on their use of GPL covered code in a non-compliant manner I don't want to support their business.
        barnabee 2y ago
        It's a fair point and since hearing about that I've been in two minds as to whether I could buy another device from them.
  - warner25 2y ago
    If you put them into the Kindle Kids mode you get a much cleaner, more streamlined, ad-free experience without paying extra. I've seen a few adults say that they prefer it to the full-featured mode.
- internet_points 2y ago
  i sent an email to have them removed. it was a thing some years ago at least (though I don't know if US-ians are allowed to do that or if it's just in the EU)
- raphael_l 2y ago
  I actually recently purchased my first Kindle, as well as an gift upgrade for my partner. I researched and talked to a friend of mine who owns one. At first I was determined I would purchase the ad-free version (I think the price difference was like ~20€), but after talking to my friend they kind of convinced me that the ad version is not so bad. 2 points on this: 1. The ad appears only on the lockscreen of the device, so you see it once and then never again until you reopen it. The ad is also only for a book in the Kindle store, never anything else (this might seem trivial, but I think one of the negative aspects of advertising is being blasted with stimuli about so many different things you don't care for) 2. The ads are personalized on books you bought and therefor a sort of recommendation engine. Both my friend and my partner told me they got some inspiration from those ads to find books they liked. So all in all while I despise ads, I gave this one a try. Personally (and yeah, I know – subconciously) I have never looked at the lockscreen apart from the first time I launched it. It's a relatively non-intrusive ad about a book that I don't even need to engage with. And in case something relevant is on there, it leads to a good outcome for me. This is advertising done well for me at least.
spc476 2y ago
I've found books that had ads inserted into them [1]. It seemed to be a thing from maybe the 1960/1970s. The ad page was a different type of paper, and no text from the book was on it (that is---the ad wasn't on one side and book text on the other). [1] One example: https://boston.conman.org/2002/12/31.1 https://boston.conman.org/2002/12/31.1
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  There was a post, here, some time ago, about how many paperbacks had ads actually woven into the story. Apparently, it was quite common practice, at one time. Sort of an obnoxious “product placement” thing. I think the author had nothing to do with it.
- cbsks 2y ago
  My dad has some old sci-fi books with full color cigarette ads in the middle. Crazy!
  - dspillett 2y ago
    Sometimes ads end up in the actual text, without the authors permission or even knowledge: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/q1wbie/the_time_terry_pratchetts_german_publisher/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Fantasy/comments/q1wbie/the_time_te...
- wantoncl 2y ago
  https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publisher-inserted-a-soup-ad-into-his-novel/ https://lithub.com/the-time-terry-pratchetts-german-publishe...
- Animats 2y ago
  That was so unpopular that it died out. Paper magazines still have "blow ins", though - advertising cards that are injected into the magazine with compressed air after printing. They're not bound in. They fall out.
shae 2y ago
My swedish books from the 1800s have ads inside.

culi 2y ago

if you don't, someone else will. Maybe you could've introduced a "bug" that makes it so it usually doesn't work except when a member of the QA team is looking at it :P

azeirah 2y ago
Well.. I did implement most of the framework. The good thing is that I'm waaaayyyyy detail oriented, and I made an extremely sophisticated system for it. Maybe a little bit TOO sophisticated Not my proudest _engineering_ achievement, but as an R&D project? I consider it a success. Ethical outcome? Success.
- xigency 2y ago
  Good on you for sticking to your guns. I hope karma rewards it somehow.
benjijay 2y ago
Volkswagen already had this idea... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_emissions_scandal

maxerickson 2y ago

Yeah, there's always the "No thanks" button but not the "No, fuck you" button.

wat10000 2y ago
Or in online spaces, the ever more common “maybe later.” No means no, maybe go jump in a lake of fire.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Silicon Valley is like a creepy and terrible suitor, never knowing what "no" means or letting its counterparty express "no". It's always "ask me later".
- darkteflon 2y ago
  The iOS app “Calendars” recently starting showing a modal on launch trying to up-sell something - I don’t give a shit what it was - the “no” option was labeled “Thank you”. I had to click “Thank you” to dismiss it so that I could use the fucking app I pay a yearly subscription for. Or in this case: paid. The cheek of these people.
  - akoboldfrying 2y ago
    That "Thank you" button just raised the bar on cheek, I think. I'm actually chuckling at it -- just the sheer passive-aggressive childishness of its attempt at shaming users. I mean, what did they think writing that on the button would achieve? It has literally no effect except to infuriate people who were already going to opt out. Labelling it "I suck" would have been better.
PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
because that 2nd one requires a "No, fuck YOU!" button and so on ad infinitum.
whycome 2y ago
I hate that the options when faced with a location permissions request is "block" or "allow". why isnt ignore an option?? Block adds the site to a discrete local list which i dont need recorded on my computer...

agumonkey 2y ago

and decoupling order taking with service makes for "funny" times. since mcdonalds installed the tablets i regularly wait 10 minutes while looking at confused / avoidant employees not knowing what to do, even if there's nobody else waiting. i can almost feel the meeting where someone managed to sell this idea to shareholders... "decouple everything, more efficient !"

LeafItAlone 2y ago
That seems more indicative of just bad management. It’s been over a decade since I’ve been in (specially) a McDonalds, but I used to frequent them easier in my life. The ones I went to were well run and efficient. But still as seemed as decoupled as kiosk ordering. The cashier would take the order and put it into the computer. The food preparers would prepare the food and put it on the trays where the packagers would subsequently take it and put it on your tray or in your bag. There was 0 communication between the three groups in 99% of the cases. Often I would make small talk with the cashiers or packagers if there was nobody behind me. I don’t see how kiosk/tablet ordering would change that significantly.
- agumonkey 2y ago
  it's pretty obvious, there's no more tension in the job, the cooks still have a list of things to do, but people serving customers have no idea who ordered what beside a number. they have no real relationship with any of us waiting and quite often I see them roaming around aimlessly, not sure if I've been called or not
seabird 2y ago
This is a result of Taylorist management brain rot drive to reduce drive thru wait time metrics at the expense of anybody not in the drive through. Watch the shot clock near the drive through window (they're highly visible at Taco Bell) and observe that drive thru customers almost never wait more than 60-80 seconds.

listenallyall 2y ago

This seemed like a poor example for the author to choose, of "not caring." Annoying, sure. But these extra upsells originate from someone who definitely cares about increasing revenue and is aggressively exploring multiple avenues to achieve it.

wat10000 2y ago
Companies don’t care about you, they care about your wallet, extraction of money from. The most pleasant companies to deal with are the ones who have found a niche where customer satisfaction helps with the goal of wallet, extraction from. But at best it’s a means to an end, and McDonald’s is definitely not one of those companies.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- listenallyall 2y ago
  The article was about not caring at all, as in total apathy. Not "we're going to work really hard to purposely create anti-patterns."
  - wat10000 2y ago
    I understand that, but it included this particular example which doesn’t fit. I guarantee the people at McDonald’s in charge of the kiosk design care a great deal about wallet.
    - listenallyall 2y ago
      ...which is why I started out by calling it a poor example!

ryandrake 2y ago

Lately, the number of times (across different businesses/industries) where I've found myself thinking "Will you please just fucking take my money and stop bothering me?" is too damn high.

amatecha 2y ago
Yup, it's not good enough that you're already a paying customer- they have to try their best to manipulate and coerce you into spending even more. It's insulting, abusive and honestly pathetic. These thirsty lamers have to try every trick in the book to eke a few more cents out of me? Embarrassing. Modern tech/business does not have a shred of pride or dignity, as per TFA.
- bruce511 2y ago
  Businesses aren't in business to prioritize the customer point of view [1]. They are not in business to prioritize the employees point of view. They are in business to maximise revenue, and profit. If you work for a business, your job is to work on their priorities. By all means object or quit if you don't agree with them. (And yes, assume you'll be fired for refusing to do their tasks.) If you're a customer, and you font like their behavior stop being their customer. You have agency. Use it. [1] good customer service, good customer experience, are all good for revenue. Happy customers are the ultimate success. But maximizing the revenue from those happy customers is very much the business goal.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    That’s nonsense. Some businesses exist purely to fund the ability to do exactly that thing as well as possible. Making money is a means to an end. It’s just that they always seem to lose to those that optimize for money.
    - bruce511 2y ago
      I think some small businesses start because the owner wants to do something well. Sometimes this aligns with some group of customers and it's sustainable. Most small businesses fail of course. Usually because while they do a task well, they're bad at the business part. Once you get large (McDonald's in the parent thread) the focus is necessarily on the business part. At that scale it's not "doing the thing as well as possible " - it is "making money as well as possible". Clearly lots of people use McDonald's. So they provide customers with satisfaction. But that doesn't mean they aren't out to maximize revenue.

amrocha 2y ago

Respect for standing up for what you believe in

Animats 2y ago

I recently went to a gas station where the pump worked right! No affinity cards. No car wash offer. No asking for a ZIP code, since I'd been there before. No screen with ads. Press card against RFID reader, select octane, pump gas. I went inside and complemented the worker on their pumps being so easy to use. I go back there occasionally, even though the station with the ad screen is cheaper.

boredumb 2y ago
I went inside and complemented the worker on their pumps being so easy to use, He. Did. Not. Care.
_sys49152 2y ago
nah - gas pumps that ask for phone numbers for savings card id's are great opportunities to save cents at the pump. 555-555-5555 always works everywhere and half the time gets you savings.
- brantonb 2y ago
  Enough people use 867-5309 as their grocery loyalty card's phone number that it's often got savings available at the gas pump. Use the local area code. It works great for filling up rentals while traveling, too.
willis936 2y ago
I go to a gas station that blares ads at an ear piercing volume. I now keep duct tape in my driver's side door.

s-video 2y ago

I feel like this reveals some sampling error in the OP rant. When you see something negative get made that makes you think "nobody cares", you're not seeing the people who did care and left.

michaelhoney 2y ago
Which relates to the linked incentives piece: when you create incentives, you think you're changing people's behaviour. Actually you're selecting for people who respond to the incentive.

aaron695 2y ago

McDonald's touch-screen were only profitable because users ordered more. Possibly Covid and processes to get costs down have changed this, but not to begin. I feel like your comment falls under "Nobody cares" I love the touch screens and having the time to order what I want. I used to rush my order at the checkout and never got exactly what I wanted. If you did a start-up 'ethical ordering' you'd care, made money, and probably forced McDonalds to change it's touch screens. In South Korea it asks the user are you sure, here's the extra kJ, when it does an upsell.

azeirah 2y ago
I was working so hard to change the internal culture for this. I did not succeed. It's ran by business people who want to make money. Not by philosophers.
- kmarc 2y ago
  Same here. Also, TFA sounds like something I could've written. Anyway, besides other anecdata, I don't have anything to add. But I wanted to thank you, azeirah, that at least you tried
  - azeirah 2y ago
    I left impressions where it matters. The young engineering talent is not interested in working there.
maeil 2y ago
> In South Korea it asks the user are you sure, here's the extra kJ, when it does an upsell. Really? I guess I've just never taken up such an upsell, but I'll try to remember it next time I go just to see the UI. Barely ever go there now that ironically Lotteria has more veggie burger options here (1) than McDonalds (0), and their chicken burgers are imo worse than KFC's.

lotsofpulp 2y ago

Even Costco gives you a pop up trying to upsell you on a cookie.

jl2718 2y ago

I have an interesting anecdote about that. I was consulting for a very large tech company on their advertising product. They essentially wanted an upsell product to sell to advertisers, like a premium offering to increase their reach. My first step is always to establish a baseline by backtesting their algorithm against simple zeroth and first-order estimators. Measuring this is a little bit complicated, but it seemed their targeting was worse than naive-bayes by a large factor, especially with respect to customer conversion. I was a pretty good data scientist, but this company paid their DS people an awful lot of money, so I couldn’t have been the first to actually discover this. The short story is that they didn’t want a better algorithm. They wanted an upsell feature. I started getting a lot of work in advertising, and it took me a number of clients to see a general trend that the advertising business is not interested in delivering ads to the people that want the product. Their real interest is in creating a stratification of product offerings that are all roughly as valuable to the advertiser as the price paid for them. They have to find ways to split up the tranches of conversion probability and sell them all separately, without revealing that this is only possible by selling ad placements that are intentionally not as good as they could be. Note that this is not insider knowledge of actual policy, just common observations from analyzing data at different places.

bee_rider 2y ago
One thing you know about ad guys—they are really good at tricking people into spending money. I mean, it’s right there in their job description. For some reason their customers don’t seem think they’ll fall for it, I guess.
- chgs 2y ago
  The average “smart person” thinks a trillion dollar industry can’t brainwash them.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    In terms of the people with products to advertise being crewed over by the ad industry, I think it is more that they don't see the similarity between the ad industry brain-washing us and the ad industry brain-washing them. Perhaps the disconnect happens because they want to interact with the ad industry, so get their stuff hawked to us, but we'd usually rather not. Another interesting disconnect is that sometimes a person is both the “us” and the “them” in different contexts. i knew someone who would complain about some of it on other sides but when pointed out that his site used some of the same tricks he'd respond with “yeah, but I need that because …”.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

lqet 2y ago

> That is fucked up. Yes. Our local IKEA recently started doing this. During self-checkout, you have to click through hot dog, ice cream, cinnamon buns and drink offers, and the inevitable offer to get an IKEA family card before you are actually able to pay for your furniture. Seeing this after waiting in line for 10 minutes, navigating a sluggish, unresponsive touch screen terminal and unsuccessfully trying to scan slightly bend bar codes while 10 people are watching you doesn't exactly increase my desire to return to this store. I really think a huge part of the problem is that there isn't a direct interaction with a human anymore. If IKEA would ask their cashiers to advertise all this crap to customers before accepting their money, they would revert this after a single day because many customers would very, very strongly complain, and the cashiers would care and threaten to quit. But you cannot complain to a self-checkout-terminal, which makes this even more frustrating. As another comment has pointed out, there is just a "No thanks" button. I want a "I am seriously offended that you try to milk me like a brainless cash-cow, you should be ashamed to even advertise this to me after I bought a couch for 1,400 EUR, and I will not return anytime soon" button.

kevincox 2y ago
Last time I went it was only one food upsell. But it is still really annoying. Before this they had basically a perfect self-checkout, fast and easy to use. But now it is adding crap and I fear that I'm going to have to stop shopping there like many of the other self-checkouts around me.
BlueTemplar 2y ago
Next time go to the cashier instead, and complain to them about the self-checkout terminal ??

poisonborz 2y ago

Just want to thank you for standing up for your values at your workplace. I wish more SWEs would have morals like this.

pards 2y ago

At the dominant pharmacy/convenience store in my area (Shoppers Drug Mart), it can take up to 12 clicks to self-checkout, depending on what garbage they're upselling on the day. I counted them. I refuse to use them, and (annoyingly, I know) let the cashier know why each time as they're checking me out. I feel bad for the poor cashier but unfortunately for them, they're my only interface to the company.

zzzeek 2y ago

you can't say "they don't care" though, the folks making these screens are obviously pretty motivated to keep squeezing out more profits and care a lot about that. if they "didn't care" they'd have told you "ok fine, im going for break"