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The restaurant probably gets about the same amount of money on average, if not slightly more. It's easy to say that the jerk that uses this kind of app leaves l
by benatkin 12y ago
The restaurant probably gets about the same amount of money on average, if not slightly more. It's easy to say that the jerk that uses this kind of app leaves less of a tip or takes up table space longer without spending more but on closer examination I don't see why this would be the case. They likely just pay more overall, and the app gets the extra.
- saurik 12y agoYou missed the part where these reservations are being held with risk of not succeeding in selling the spots: it isn't that the person who is sitting at the table is less profitable for the restaurant, but that a bunch of reservations are made that might in the end not ever succeed in being sold by the website. Assume for a second that the restaurant also charged for reservations and had cancellation fees for no-shows (which arguably they should, but the economics and expectations works out that most normal customers would be turned off by this): then the risk of the no-show transfers from the restaurant to this website, and it is more clear why this business is just a parasite.
- benatkin 12y agoAh yes. I thought about that but forgot to mention it. I think this could be mostly solved by some combination of a) canceling reservations (if the place is busy these would often be replaced by a waiting list or walk-ins), b) avoiding excess inventory, c) using unused reservations themselves or having friends use them