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Comment by tyoma | Hacker News Reader

The restaurant issue I'm somewhat conflicted about -- I don't know enough about the business so some of my thoughts maybe impossible for various reasons. If people are willing to buy reservations, why not just charge more for the food until there is no waiting list? Or just charge for reservations (or at least those at preferred times) and keep the money for the restaurant? Whats the inherent reason that reservations have to be free with no charge to cancel?

As for parking, the sooner cities get rid of hidden car subsidies the better. Artificially low priced street parking and building codes mandating garages are some of the more insidious subsidies that make everyone pay for those who drive. If the spots went for market rate, these apps wouldn't exist and the extra money could be used to improve public transit.

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Right - what I get from the parking stuff is just how undervalued parking actually is, and just how poorly cities deal with it.

The restaurant one is dodgy though. I could approve of a system where they've paid the restaurant in order to sell on a reservation (so the restaurant gets something even if there are no takers) but as it stands it's just a con.

Parking isn't undervalued. People just pay in time, not money. Better to say that it's inefficiently priced. Shoup's "The High Cost of Free Parking" is the bible on that: http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-Edition/dp/1...

It's totally undervalued. Ask the average person if they think the price of parking is right and they'll probably claim it's outrageously high, when the existence and apparently enough-to-be visible success of this app prove the opposite is true.

You're making the same mistake I pointed out above. Ask people how they feel about getting a good parking spot and you'll clearly hear that they value it. Or measure the amount of time they spend driving around looking; it's a clear demonstration that they value parking.

They do, however, expect it to be free. It's not a normal market.

Note that the same is true about love and sex. Most people value those things highly, but you won't discover that by looking at what they pay for it.

> Note that the same is true about love and sex. Most people value those things highly, but you won't discover that by looking at what they pay for it.

That's a great analogy in general, thanks!

> If people are willing to buy reservations, why not just charge more for the food until there is no waiting list?

Because a restaurant with a long waiting list for reservations gives the place a cachet of popularity, which can be more important than optimizing available reservations.

> If people are willing to buy reservations, why not just charge more for the food until there is no waiting list?

I don't really like the idea that restaurant owners should be forced to raise their prices just to avoid being screwed by clever startups. What if you just want to keep your prices affordable even though you have a lot of success? I guess you can always ask for an ID and check if it matches the reservation, but I'm not a great fan of that either.

That restaurants very well might have to start doing this should be an indicator that this startup is making jerkware.

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