3 ms·

Maybe the restaurants could enjoy higher margins if they made great websites which let you bid for last-minute reservations?

• usefulcat 12y ago
  Because talking to a human for 30 seconds is that much of a chore when making a reservation? And how, exactly, would that do anything to prevent reservation scalping without adversely affecting the user experience of making a reservation or making life even easier for reservation scalpers? Probably it will be easy to use and easy for scalpers to screen scrape, or the UX will be a some kind of CAPTCHA-filled monstrosity. Now that I think about it, forget about restaurants and reservation scalpers; if you could develop a truly superior CAPTCHA replacement, that would be orders of magnitude more valuable.
  • Andys 12y ago
    OK, how about prepaid meals?
  • icebraining 12y ago
    Because talking to a human for 30 seconds is that much of a chore when making a reservation? In my experience, the problem is not the 30 seconds call, it's the minutes of waiting to get someone free to answer. Most restaurants can't exactly afford a call center. There was a story recently on HN of a restaurant who did just that successfully: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7853786