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Comment by blamazon | Hacker News Reader

Humans are, in many ways, in many places, the best, least expensive robot. To me the bottleneck is not technology, it's the labor market.

Basic human labor planetwide is generally not expensive enough for full automation yet. This is not lost on an HR-heavy company like Amazon that employs over a million humans.

Such an equilibrium is a long way away too. We are systemically undervaluing the life energy of our species, en masse.

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There are a ton of things that, if labor were arbitrarily expensive, it would be replaced with some combination of:

- Robots/automation

- Self-service

- Poorer service

- A lot of people collectively deciding they just just don't need $X if it's going to cost that much

Compare the US overall to many places in southeast Asia for example. There is generally a lot more personal service and staffing overall where the labor is cheaper.

I've heard tell that in some cities with low labor costs, it's cheaper for a disabled person to pay someone to carry them up and down stairs than to rent an apartment with an elevator. That particular robot has been around in more or less its modern form for at least 100 years.

> A lot of people collectively deciding they just just don't need $X if it's going to cost that much

A lot of people decide that it's their God-given right to enjoy a certain service at a certain price, even if it requires exploited labour to achieve.

They will actively support legislation that enables this sort of exploitation, because again, this service is too nice to pass on.

It's interesting to consider how basic income if implemented, could potentially greatly speed up the development/rollout of robotics in industry.

I moved to singapore just as the covid measures were loosening last year. Most restaurants are still using QR code menus and web apps to make orders. Each time we get our food, the waiter has to guess which drink and meal belongs to who, or they just leave it on the table and expect you to take it. The apps also make it harder to ask for exceptions to the menu (no tomatoes, more hot sauce, etc). Of course, the restaurants also hire just one waiter, who now runs around like a headless chicken fulfilling orders, so it's not like automation is making the individual worker's life easier. But management gets to things to look nice on their spreadsheet with less labour costs so they keep the changes.

I really don't think consumers like automation. There are some cases where's it's convenient (vending machine) and times where it isn't (dining in). But it's being forced en mass because vendors can get away with it, not because there's demand but because suppliers like it.

I went to a restaurant recently that did the QR menu thing. It was a long list of terrible UX on my phone. I'll never do that again. If a place can't give me a menu, I'm walking out and finding another place to eat.

You must not have gone out to eat much recently then. I'm on the road a lot and I'd estimate that over 50% of all restaurants I visit have a QR code menu.

In palo alto, I have not seen a QR only menu anywhere.

It certainly hasn't hit the US as much as it has hit elsewhere.

I saw it here and there during the pandemic in the US but not especially common.

At least 50% if not higher here in the Midwest US.

Correct, I rarely eat out now. I've seen the QR code menu's before, but the place still had regular menus as backup. This most recent place did not.

This should be illegal as it really discriminates against elderly. My 75 year old dad has an old shitty phone that he can barely use... what is he supposed to do? I could barely read the menu on my iphone 13 pro max...

Same here. Ordering is a hack, usually with some silicon valley schmuck trying to insert themselves between me and the business, the prices are outlandish, and the service and quality is usually abysmal (the Mexican restaurants here in Ohio are great..probably due to the workers all being from the same culture).

Every time I go out to eat now I have buyers remorse. Except the Mexican restaurants...they feel pre-pandemic still.

I recently ate at a Brix. Before the pandemic it was solid, great quality and reasonable prices (wood fired everything, craft beers). If I didn't feel so bad for the old decrepit workers I would have cussed them all and ran out. Cost a fortune. Never going back.

Funny enough, this was a Mexican restaurant that I used to go to as a kid that was amazing. I had such good memories of going there. It was eventually sold to another company that remodeled the whole place and changed the name.

In addition to the dumb menu thing, the food was terrible... to the point that the rice tasted like plastic. The prices were off the charts, but I'm used to that at this point. To add insult to the whole experience, tips were auto calculated on top of tax on the receipt (which was even noted on the receipt), just to boost it up higher.

So yea... lesson learned. I wonder if there are any statistics around post-covid return rates for restaurants. I bet it is terrible.

>I wonder if there are any statistics around post-covid return rates for restaurants. I bet it is terrible.

There's probably more takeout and you have to take into account the effect of inflation on dining as well. But the number of people dining out in the US is broadly back to pre-pandemic levels although people are eating out somewhat less frequently.

I'm more referring to the concept of buying food at a restaurant multiple times. Takeout and/or in-dining, not about the frequency of doing such things.

Interestingly, the place I went to last, was packed full in the late afternoon (~3pm), on a monday. The large bar seating was full.

My experience so far is that the quality of nearly every dish I've eaten has gone down significantly to the point that I keep trying new places and almost never repeating.

It could be that now that I cook more at home, I'm just not used to the amount of butter/salt that is being (ab)used in restaurants, as well as the quality of the ingredients (I mostly buy/eat "organic", whatever that is worth...).

I can't say I've noticed a real change in food but it's a small sample size as I don't eat out on a very regular basis.

In terms of the percentage people who dine in or get out at least sometimes numbers seem to be pretty much back to pre-pandemic levels.

Not everything you dislike should be illegal.

Very true!

That said, we do have laws in the US around accessibility for handicapped and disabled people and this could easily be added as an extension to that.

Had this been a place where there were no servers and you could only order and pay by phone (which also exists), then that brings up the question of exclusion of people who don't embrace technology or can't afford a phone. I've seen this one come up a lot on HN in the past too.

Not being able to afford a phone is not a protected class in the US. It’s legal to discriminate there.

For old people you would need a plan though, like printed menus.

Depends on the consumer, I'd far rather order in my own time on my phone. You want to pay more to employ someone to serve you then fine.

Have you ever considered that you pay the same amount and management keeps the change while not employing anyone else? I don't notice my bill being cheaper.

And thus competition pushes those prices down.

Either way I'd personally pay more to use an app, so win-win for me.

> or they just leave it on the table and expect you to take it

what is wrong with that?

I was more of saying what happens than that I care.

>I really don't think consumers like automation.

It depends.

I like depositing checks by app rather than having to go to an ATM--much less a bank clerk.

And I'm generally OK with self-service checkout if I just have a few items and everything is barcoded.

But, yes, there are many cases where automation (e.g. chat bots) and self-service save the business money at the cost of making the consumer experience worse.

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