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I resent the idea that someone who genuinely wants a dinner reservation but has to write a bot in order to get one isn't an "honest" diner. How is that any wors

by krstck 13y ago

I resent the idea that someone who genuinely wants a dinner reservation but has to write a bot in order to get one isn't an "honest" diner. How is that any worse than refreshing all day waiting for a spot to open up?

danso 13y ago
It's probably frowned upon in the way that slipping a $20 to the bouncer to skip the line is. Or hiring someone on Craigslist to stand in line for a cronut. It creates an arms race for access, which some people find annoying.
mfringel 13y ago
One involves a human requesting a reservation in real time. The other does not.
glesica 13y ago
I think it's because only a limited number of people have the ability to do so. There are probably a number of other methods of "cheating" in similar situations that would also be viewed poorly for the same reason. A few examples off the top of my head: hiring a handicapped person to let you skip lines at Disney, hiring a homeless person to hold your spot in line, bribing an employee, having your assistant spend all morning mashing F5 while you go about your day, and certainly many others. The ones I named would be seen by many people as unfair because they are options that are only available to people with a great deal of money. Other strategies (like calling in a favor) are only open to those with influence and special personal connections. In this case, we have a strategy that is only open to individuals with highly technical skills. Note that I'm not saying it is unfair to use any of these strategies. I think reasonable people could disagree on many of them and they are sensitive to circumstances. In some sense, though, this can be seen as a market distortion. For you or I, writing a bot to do this might be pretty simple. Since we don't have to "pay" very much for the reservations, we would be likely to over-consume them, that is, to make more reservations than we intend to keep. We might even double-book ourselves so we have options (e.g. this morning I felt like steak, now I feel like seafood). This is obviously bad for the restaurants, but it is also bad for other customers who might have wanted the reservations more than we did, but were unable to build a bot to get them because, years and years ago, they chose to study things other than computer science.
- krstck 13y ago
  Totally agree that using this to book reservations that you don't intend to keep is unfair and harmful. I see this, though, less like hiring handicapped person to jump the line and more like having your friend save you a spot. I agree with the people that say charge a convenience fee. That would discourage the unfair behavior and still let people who actually intend to keep their reservation secure a spot.

by krstck 13y ago

danso 13y ago

It's probably frowned upon in the way that slipping a $20 to the bouncer to skip the line is. Or hiring someone on Craigslist to stand in line for a cronut. It creates an arms race for access, which some people find annoying.

mfringel 13y ago

One involves a human requesting a reservation in real time. The other does not.

glesica 13y ago

I think it's because only a limited number of people have the ability to do so. There are probably a number of other methods of "cheating" in similar situations that would also be viewed poorly for the same reason. A few examples off the top of my head: hiring a handicapped person to let you skip lines at Disney, hiring a homeless person to hold your spot in line, bribing an employee, having your assistant spend all morning mashing F5 while you go about your day, and certainly many others. The ones I named would be seen by many people as unfair because they are options that are only available to people with a great deal of money. Other strategies (like calling in a favor) are only open to those with influence and special personal connections. In this case, we have a strategy that is only open to individuals with highly technical skills. Note that I'm not saying it is unfair to use any of these strategies. I think reasonable people could disagree on many of them and they are sensitive to circumstances. In some sense, though, this can be seen as a market distortion. For you or I, writing a bot to do this might be pretty simple. Since we don't have to "pay" very much for the reservations, we would be likely to over-consume them, that is, to make more reservations than we intend to keep. We might even double-book ourselves so we have options (e.g. this morning I felt like steak, now I feel like seafood). This is obviously bad for the restaurants, but it is also bad for other customers who might have wanted the reservations more than we did, but were unable to build a bot to get them because, years and years ago, they chose to study things other than computer science.

krstck 13y ago
Totally agree that using this to book reservations that you don't intend to keep is unfair and harmful. I see this, though, less like hiring handicapped person to jump the line and more like having your friend save you a spot. I agree with the people that say charge a convenience fee. That would discourage the unfair behavior and still let people who actually intend to keep their reservation secure a spot.