After Automating Order-Taking, Fast Food Chains Had to Hire More Workers (theatlantic.com) 234
An anonymous reader quotes the Atlantic:
Blaine Hurst, the CEO and president of Panera, told me that because of its new [self-service] kiosks, and an app that allows online ordering, the chain is now processing more orders overall, which means it needs more total workers to fulfill customer demand. Starbucks patrons who use the chain's app return more frequently than those who don't, the company has said, and the greater efficiency that online ordering allows has boosted sales at busy stores during peak hours. Starbucks employed 8 percent more people in the U.S. in 2016 than it did in 2015, the year it launched the app...
James Bessen, an economist at Boston University School of Law, found that as the number of ATMs in America increased fivefold from 1990 to 2010, the number of bank tellers also grew. Bessen believes that ATMs drove demand for consumer banking: No longer constrained by a branch's limited hours, consumers used banking services more frequently, and people who were unbanked opened accounts to take advantage of the new technology. Although each branch employed fewer tellers, banks added more branches, so the number of tellers grew overall. And as machines took over many basic cash-handling tasks, the nature of the tellers' job changed. They were now tasked with talking to customers about products -- a certificate of deposit, an auto loan -- which in turn made them more valuable to their employers. "It's not clear that automation in the restaurant industry will lead to job losses," Bessen told me.
James Bessen, an economist at Boston University School of Law, found that as the number of ATMs in America increased fivefold from 1990 to 2010, the number of bank tellers also grew. Bessen believes that ATMs drove demand for consumer banking: No longer constrained by a branch's limited hours, consumers used banking services more frequently, and people who were unbanked opened accounts to take advantage of the new technology. Although each branch employed fewer tellers, banks added more branches, so the number of tellers grew overall. And as machines took over many basic cash-handling tasks, the nature of the tellers' job changed. They were now tasked with talking to customers about products -- a certificate of deposit, an auto loan -- which in turn made them more valuable to their employers. "It's not clear that automation in the restaurant industry will lead to job losses," Bessen told me.
Of course they had to hire more "workers" (Score:2)
They keep running out of "workers" [akamaihd.net].
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They keep running out of "workers".
Maybe their best selling food is Soylent Green, making workers their most demanded ingredient, as well.
Meaningless statistic (Score:5, Insightful)
"Starbucks employed 8 percent more people in the U.S. in 2016 than it did in 2015, the year it launched the app..."
Employees per store is the only valid statistic to support their contention. Otherwise, it's factoring in new employees in new stores.
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Actually, the number of stores also increased that year by about the same percentage, indicating that automation did not reduce their rate of hiring, as might have otherwise been predicted.
It's a completely bogus statistic, and means nothing, because if true, everyone who replaces employees with automation will have to hire more people. That isn't possible.
Somehow in there, if we automate everything and have zero employees, we'll also have full employment with more employees needed in the world. I guess itdepends on how you look at it. Sounds like Schrödinger's Restaurant.
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It may have escaped your attention that you saying that something "isn't possible" has no bearing on whether or not it actually happens.
Which is kind of funny, because it does.
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if true, everyone who replaces employees with automation will have to hire more people. That isn't possible.
Look, nobody is claiming that ALL automation increases employment, because that is clearly false. For instance, automation of agriculture drastically reduced agricultural employment.
Nobody is even claiming that ALL restaurant automation increases employment. For instance, there is no evidence that automatic french fryers increase employment. Why would they?
They are only claiming that automation of order-taking (using kiosks, apps, or webpages) creates more jobs than it eliminates. Although that claim ma
Job growth from automation (Score:2)
For instance, automation of agriculture drastically reduced agricultural employment.
Not quite as simple as that actually. Total employment in agriculture in the US increased dramatically [ourworldindata.org] from 1850 to 1900. It has fallen since then but the total number of people employed in agriculture has only in the last 20 years or so fallen below the number employed in 1850. In 1850 about 3.5 million people in the US worked in agriculture. It wasn't until about 1970 that the number fell below 3.5 million again. In 2000 the number was around 3.1 million. Per captia numbers in agriculture have been
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Actually, the number of stores also increased that year by about the same percentage, indicating that automation did not reduce their rate of hiring, as might have otherwise been predicted.
It's a completely bogus statistic, and means nothing, because if true, everyone who replaces employees with automation will have to hire more people. That isn't possible.
Somehow in there, if we automate everything and have zero employees, we'll also have full employment with more employees needed in the world. I guess itdepends on how you look at it. Sounds like Schrödinger's Restaurant.
Err, not everyone that automates hires more people (see coal for instance.) And not everyone that implements automation hires more people linearly to the costs of automation (see those industries that increase traffic by adding kiosks and automated cash registers.)
When companies increase traffic and find they need to improve customer quality, they do need to hire more people (or retrain their existing ones to be more customer-oriented.)
Shit ain't a zero-sum game ya know?
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Re: Meaningless statistic (Score:2)
Re:Meaningless statistic (Score:5, Insightful)
In terms of employed humans, you also have to include statistics for coffee shops that shut down when a Starbucks popped up.
Just because Starbucks is employing more people doesn't mean the industry as a whole is doing so.
Re:Meaningless statistic (Score:5, Insightful)
"Starbucks employed 8 percent more people in the U.S. in 2016 than it did in 2015, the year it launched the app..."
Employees per store is the only valid statistic to support their contention. Otherwise, it's factoring in new employees in new stores.
You are correct once market saturation us achieved, as there can only be so many stores per a given area. After that market saturation point is passed, further automation will result in fewer employees when the area in question has enough stores to serve the available market.
As long as more stores are being added within an area/market, the store chain *as a whole* is employing more total workers within that area/market.
Strat
Wait for step 2. (Score:2)
FFS, what happened to critical thinking?
Step 1 is to get everyone used to ordering and paying automatically.
Step 2 is to produce and deliver the goods automatically.
At Step 2 is when all the jobs go!
Its just the same plan Uber is playing - why do you think they are happy to run at a loss now? They are just planning to be the standard when self-drive cars reduce the other half of the operation to close to zero cost.
Come on people, this is pretty obvious.
Re:Meaningless statistic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Meaningless statistic (Score:4, Informative)
You can thank ObamaCare for that, people that donâ(TM)t work full time donâ(TM)t need their employer to pay (as much) for health insurance. Many companies have dropped hours to avoid insurance costs. At least we now have higher taxes, a state sponsored healthcare system, more people are employed and we now get the 30 hour work week, just like Europe.
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And instead of accepting that automation is the future and working on a potential solution for the inevitable problem, republicans choose to blame anyone but themselves, while trying to pass a tax bill that lets the ultra rich take one last pass at scraping every cent they can from the poor before they die and let their children deal with the ultimate collapse.
Who cares about saving the planet when I'll be dead before destroying it in the name of profits actually causes me
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"Starbucks employed 8 percent more people in the U.S. in 2016 than it did in 2015, the year it launched the app..."
Employees per store is the only valid statistic to support their contention. Otherwise, it's factoring in new employees in new stores.
Unless the app made Starbucks more profitable and led to more stores being opened.
Of course you'd need to compensate for job losses from competing stores.
But at the same time you might try to capture secondary benefits from the whole coffee-ordering transaction being made more efficient.
Things get complicated quickly.
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Incorrect. You are ignoring two factors mentioned in the SUMMARY, let alone the article.
Lowered costs and higher demand are both key factors that business people take into account when they decide whether or not to open a store.
I won't open a store at the corner of Busy St and Office Avenue unless costs are less than the estimated profits. If automation allows me to hire fewer people in that particular store, and also allows me to offer people coffee on the way to work WITHOUT a 10 minute wait, then I wi
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"Starbucks employed 8 percent more people in the U.S. in 2016 than it did in 2015, the year it launched the app..."
Good thing Starbucks stopped building new store fronts since 2014, so we have no other possible reason for the increase in their workforce...
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Even that's not valid. Projected employees per store is the only valid metric. And if you really want to see whether more jobs were created, compare that with employees in the same markets for non-Starbucks coffee.
Jevvon's Paradox in Action! (Score:5, Informative)
Jevons Paradox, which has been around since the 1800s, says that the more efficiently a resource is used, the more demand there will be for it. Thus, the more efficiently human labor is used, the more demand there will be for it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Jevvon's Paradox in Action! (Score:4, Interesting)
They're called "vending machines."
The coffee in a can is equivalent to starbucks, except cheaper and in a lot more locations.
Why the fuck don't we have that here already?
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In Taiwan during the cold (for them) winters I would often go to the 7-11 and purchase a can of coffee or ovaltine which was kept in a heated box. Just crack it open and you have a hot beverage.
Re:Jevvon's Paradox in Action! (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree about the coffee quality. However, Starbucks isn't really in the business of selling coffee. They sell space. You really buy a break in a pretty comfortable, relaxed environment; a living room for rent. The overextracted cardboard mug of coffee is just a bonus.
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Equivalent? No... (Score:2)
The coffee in a can is equivalent to starbucks, except cheaper and in a lot more locations.
I won't pretend Starbucks coffee is amazing but to claim that coffee in a can is equivalent is only valid in the sense they are both coffee. Pretty much nothing else about them is equivalent. Both are fine but they are vastly different in too many ways to bother enumerating here.
And there will be even more jobs lost elesewhere (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is meant to say that "automation creates jobs", it is an utter fail. What happens instead is that those that automate get more business, a) showing that automation works and b) accelerating automation and c) job-loss in late-comers to automation will be even larger.
Are people really too stupid to see this? Because it is blatantly obvious.
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The rise in orders is probably just a spike from those techheads that refuse to buy anything unless there's an app for it. Once others have apps, or they go out of fashion, the demand will drop off.
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And that is also a very real possibility. So longer-term, there may not even be more jobs at this company.
Re:And there will be even more jobs lost elesewher (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt many people take away that the important bit here is there will maybe somehow be more need for coffee artists. The interesting part is that demand goes up from robots.
A more interesting, accurate conclusion would be "Evidently, people DON'T get coffee at Starbucks or food at McDonald's to talk to employees! WE ACTUALLY ALL HATE INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE IN THAT CONTEXT! WHO KNEW BESIDES EVERY SANE HUMAN BEING!?!"
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If this is meant to say that "automation creates jobs", it is an utter fail. What happens instead is that those that automate get more business, a) showing that automation works and b) accelerating automation and c) job-loss in late-comers to automation will be even larger.
Are people really too stupid to see this? Because it is blatantly obvious.
Yes, people are that stupid. If a store has to hire more employees bacause of an uptick in business, it does not follow that every store that automates will have the same uptick in business. Hard to imagine anyone would think so, but here we are with the same sort of logic that created the housing bubble.
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Indeed.
Growing the pie (Score:2)
Yes, people are that stupid. If a store has to hire more employees bacause of an uptick in business, it does not follow that every store that automates will have the same uptick in business.
Of course not. But automation demonstrably can and does make industries grow faster overall. There will be winners and losers but the size of the overall economic pie can be grown larger through automation and that often means more jobs overall - albeit doing different things.
Hard to imagine anyone would think so, but here we are with the same sort of logic that created the housing bubble.
That was a different phenomena and isn't really a great analogy. First there is no evidence of a bubble but if you are going to compare with one a better analogy might be the dotcom bubble. New automation technology created a bubbl
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It seems to be alive and well in my local Post Office. They've got two automated machines where you can supposedly do all the necessaries to get your parcel or letter sent however you'd like it to be handled. Then they've got the traditional queue-up system with a handful of windows and a "please go to window 2" machine.
I took a look at the machines, and bearing in mind I'm a sysadmin, thought "how hard can it be?" (pff! most of the people in the line are pretty old, maybe it's too complicated for them!). T
which in turn made them... (Score:4, Funny)
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Ford didn't ensure that his employees could afford his prod
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What? (Score:2)
What is it with people these days and their lack of logic sense and understanding what they are talking about. Can't this guy see that he's proving exactly the opposite with his comment?
"It's not clear that automation in the restaurant industry will lead to job losses"
You make a service more convenient with automation, which attracts more costumers and whatnot. Sure. But how can you reach the conclusion that it won't lead to job losses stopping there? Are you some sort of idiot?
Here, let me complete to you.
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Here, let me complete to you. Those costumers are often choosing your restaurant over others because of convenience. As they are going there because they don't want to interact with regular human employees, this means they are choosing automated services, which might hire more people for overhead in your business, but it'll also be killing other businesses that don't have automated services.
What's more, they only need more humans in their store to make bread and hand it to customers right now. Those jobs are going to be automated away eventually as well, and the funding that will make it happen is being generated right now... it's enabled by the combination of their kiosk and internet sales, and the additional human workers they've hired on right now. This is like cheering for the trucking jobs created by companies working on automating truckers out of existence. I'm all for cheering for the a
More served by fewer. (Score:2)
So to balance the equation two things may happen:
1. People eat out more because perhaps it will get cheaper to eat out since labor is the largest cost in the restaurant business; or
2. Competition will drive out of business the (usually smaller) less competitive restaurants resulting in job losses as competition increases for the static level of consumers.
Both of these could happen together or to varying degrees.
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So to balance the equation two things may happen:
1. People eat out more because perhaps it will get cheaper to eat out since labor is the largest cost in the restaurant business; or
2. Competition will drive out of business the (usually smaller) less competitive restaurants resulting in job losses as competition increases for the static level of consumers.
Both of these could happen together or to varying degrees.
The people who lose theior jobs will eat out every night of the week because they'll have more time on their hands to spend their money.....
Innovation (Score:5, Informative)
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I used to hate going to starbucks because it took 5-10 minutes of waiting in line just to order a cup of drip coffee. My time is too valuable to piss it away doing something like standing around. Now i place my order from my phone as i am rolling out of the drive way in the morning. 7-9 minutes later when i get there it's on the counter with my name on it. They didn't need a person to take my order and no one had to wait. This is the what innovation is all about folks. On a side note, when i go into starbucks to get my drink now, there normally isn't even a person working the register. Everyone is making drinks for mobile orders and the drive thru. Much more value added use of resources.
Doesn't make up for the fact that StarBuck's coffee tastes moldy and muddy. But hey, some folks like it that way.
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They didn't need a person to take my order and no one had to wait.
I'm guessing when you say "no one had to wait" you actually mean "I didn't have to wait". From what I've seen, Starbucks prioritizes mobile orders. My personal experience has been that walk-ins now wait longer because the service personnel keep getting interrupted by new mobile orders.
But, in any case, I don't go to Starbucks as much as I used to. There's this other place - Specialty's Cafe and Bakery [specialtys.com] - that's right next to the Starbucks at Seattle's International District station. The coffee is better, the
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Not efficient for the customer (Score:2)
They didn't need a person to take my order and no one had to wait.
I'm guessing when you say "no one had to wait" you actually mean "I didn't have to wait". From what I've seen, Starbucks prioritizes mobile orders. My personal experience has been that walk-ins now wait longer because the service personnel keep getting interrupted by new mobile orders.
But, in any case, I don't go to Starbucks as much as I used to. There's this other place - Specialty's Cafe and Bakery [specialtys.com] - that's right next to the Starbucks at Seattle's International District station. The coffee is better, the baked goods are amazing (and mostly made on premises!), and walk-in service is incredibly fast. Hmm, maybe I shouldn't be encouraging more customers...
Ah, yes, Specialty's. They've been doing automated ordering for several years now. And it's awful. Maybe not for the restaurant but placing an order on their Ipad's is painfully awkward and slow. It is a much worse experience than waiting to give an order to a human. Placing the order online from a real computer with login already setup is not as bad and any extra time is offset by overlapping travel time with food prep time. If I arrive at Specialty's without an order already placed, I would rather l
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I'm guessing when you say "no one had to wait" you actually mean "I didn't have to wait". From what I've seen, Starbucks prioritizes mobile orders. My personal experience has been that walk-ins now wait longer because the service personnel keep getting interrupted by new mobile orders.
>/quote>
have you ever watched them make the drinks at Starbucks? They literally have a printer that prints out one label after another and the grab the bottom most label and start making that drink. What you don't realize, because you can't see them, is that those people placed their order before you and therefore were prioritized over you because their drinks could already be completed. And it's not always sunshine for the mobile orders, either. I used to travel a lot for work and had dozens of free drinks built up from expensing morning coffee at Starbucks. When that all ended, I decided to start using my free drinks while I was walking my dog in the mornings. I would place my order when we were 10 minutes away. This Starbucks was incredibly busy and the 5-7 minute drink queue was never that optimistic. Sometimes I'd wait 15+ minutes for the drink I had already paid for, only to see that people who were coming in after I had already arrived were getting their orders. It turned out that their queue would get so long that sometimes a label would touch the floor before they got to it and stick there. When that happened you had to interrupt someone and make them look on the floor so they could see they hadn't fulfilled your order. It was very irritating.
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I used to hate going to starbucks because it took 5-10 minutes of waiting in line just to order a cup of drip coffee. My time is too valuable to piss it away doing something like standing around.
Now i place my order from my phone as i am rolling out of the drive way in the morning. 7-9 minutes later when i get there it's on the counter with my name on it. They didn't need a person to take my order and no one had to wait. This is the what innovation is all about folks.
On a side note, when i go into starbucks to get my drink now, there normally isn't even a person working the register. Everyone is making drinks for mobile orders and the drive thru. Much more value added use of resources.
I bought a nice espresso machine for $300 (that's ~60 Starbucks drinks). Now i place my order in my own mind as i am rolling out of the bed in the morning. 7-9 minutes later it's on the counter with my name on it. I didn't need a person to take my order and no one had to wait. This is the what innovation is all about folks.
Re:Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
> My time is too valuable to piss it away doing something like standing around.
Written browsing Slashdot.
Front-end Automation So Far (Score:2)
News flash: front-end automation can lead to more orders being sent to the back-end. The next step is back-end automation "to keep up with increased volume", and then the employee count will be fully reduced. Fast food is intended to be cooked precisely according to an algorithm already, so I expect cook-bots will be ordered shortly afterward.
You get what you measure (Score:5, Interesting)
McDonald's corporate is apparently putting a brutal amount of pressure on franchisees to force customers to use the "self serve" kiosks they've force all the stores to install (and considerable expense), and they apparently measure what percentage of sales are rung up on those kiosks.
One local McDonald's just stopped manning the registers as much, and the service there sucks donkey balls. The other one, clever bastards that they are, simply station a cashier at the kiosk and use it as a cash register. They even had somebody build a little wheeled cart for drink cups. The only difference between that and the other registers is that they don't take cash there - you have to go to the regular counter register to pay.
No difference to the customers, no difference to the employees, corporate is happy, it's win/win/win.
Be careful what you measure, because that's what you'll get.
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No difference to the customers
Yeah except the DIY being faster and letting employees focus on preparing food. Of course they will entice you to using it. That doesn't mean the end result is worse. It is only worse for those stubborn people who insist on lining up* when there's 5 empty self-serve kiosks behind them.
The only time I ever line up at a McDonalds nowadays is when there is no self serve kiosk.
No difference to customers, other than having eliminated queues, put the full menu on display right in front of them, showed complete co
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The mistake they made was not putting in an interface at each table, thus eliminating the milling mob in front of the pickup counter.
Imagine if you walked into McDs, sat down and ordered, and then a staffer brought the completed tray to you when the order was filled.
You could have the computer tracking how long people sit before ordering, how long they take to eat, and how long it takes staff to confirm the table is cleaned after they go. (I'd give employees cards to scan at the terminal to confirm they che
Never (Score:2)
Although each branch employed fewer tellers, banks added more branches, so the number of tellers grew overall. And as machines took over many basic cash-handling tasks, the nature of the tellers' job changed. They were now tasked with talking to customers about products -- a certificate of deposit, an auto loan -- which in turn made them more valuable to their employers.
I've never talked with a bank teller about a certificate of deposit or an auto loan - ever.
I love how the authors gloss over changes in the banking industry, attributing all changes to the influence of atms...
If I have a job at the local bank, and lose it when the bank automated, on a personal level, I take no solace in the bank i used to work for opening a new branch on the other side of town and creating a new position there - it may balance the score as far as job loss/creation goes, but I'm left unemplo
Better service increased sales (Score:2)
So instead of saving money by getting rid of people, they ended up hiring more and making more money?
Yes, that is true, but it doesn't mean that overall hiring increased. It means customers prefer automated ordering and spent more of their money at Panera as opposed to competitors. Since Panera most likely required less workers than competitors who don't have automated ordering, overall employment likely dropped.
Re: Better service increased sales (Score:2)
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And History isn't on your side of this debate.
History is absolutely on my side of this debate.
First off, when you look back on hundreds of years of history it is easy to think 20 years passed by in a blink of an eye, but if you are living through times of massive change that can be an entire generation lost during times of progress. Even if more jobs are created than destroyed, if history repeats itself you will have tens of millions of people who will never catch up.
Second, humans have always found a way to stay useful in the economy regardless of tec
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Define "hiring more"...
This jumped out at me in the synopsis:
online ordering allows has boosted sales at busy stores during peak hours
They have conflated kiosks with on-line ordering - it is unclear if adding kiosks or allowing on-line ordering was behind the increase in hiring. Common sense would tell you that adding kiosks would reduce the need for counter help, and could lead to more kitchen help, but it could be a wash. On the other hand, it's easy to imagine that on-line ordering could drive greater sales, as it removes the need to visit the store to make a purchase.
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Kiosks may drive greater sales as well. As an Aspie, I would be more willing to go to a restaurant where I could place my order without human interaction.
Many others likely feel the same. When I am buying groceries, I will wait in the self-check-out line even when human checkers are available. I am usually not the only one waiting.
Transaction efficiency (Score:2)
On the other hand, it's easy to imagine that on-line ordering could drive greater sales, as it removes the need to visit the store to make a purchase.
Think of it this way. My wife HATES standing in lines and is introverted so she also hates talking to people needlessly. Buy Starbucks came out with an app that allows her to place her order and then just walk in and pick it up without having to talk to anyone or stand in any lines. They eliminated a frictional transaction cost so now she goes to Starbucks MORE often than previously as a result. Enough people like her and Starbucks will have to add workers because of the positive effects of automation.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:2)
The economist seem to be right, again! (Score:2)
Who would had thunked it! People who specialized in an area of study are able to understand how the economy really works.
So when they say efficiency positively affect the economy. They are not blowing smoke or just pandering to some political party.
What will we find out next? Increase workforce with higher salaries creates more customers? And kicking out people from your country will have a long term negative affect.
But some guy who happens to have a lot of money told us differently. Just because someone i
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Oh please, cut the political crap. Both sides only listen to the 'experts' when they happen to agree with them and only choose the experts they agree with. If Democrats were about economic efficiency you'd be able to pump your own gas thought New England.
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They seem to be saying that the streamlined ordering process led to more sales which needed more workers to process. They may have less people taking orders but more fulfillers now and are making more money.
That said, the bit about more bank customers and ATMs is flawed. My guess would be that the technology that has driven more people to banks is direct deposit which is almost universal now (do people even get paychecks now?) rather than ATMs. I wonder how the rise of a cashless society with every place
Re:Win win, I guess? (Score:5, Informative)
But handling more orders means that others handle less orders, because there's only a limited amount of customers. When those workers go away, it's not a net win in amount of workers for the restaurant industry. It will likely be an overall loss for the industry, because the restaurant workers now laid off elsewhere and their families will have less money to spend at restaurants.
Re:Win win, I guess? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, that didn't actually happen. Instead people bought more socks than ever before because people had long wanted more socks than were capable of being produced. Just like hundreds of years ago with socks, what happens when you increase productivity and you can create more of something, consumptions tends to increase because people wanted more, just not at the previous price. People will keep on wanting more shit even as we find ways of making it ever more quickly and at lower costs and probably will until we find some way to alter our brain chemistry.
Re:Win win, I guess? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, that didn't actually happen. Instead people bought more socks than ever before because people had long wanted more socks than were capable of being produced. Just like hundreds of years ago with socks, what happens when you increase productivity and you can create more of something, consumptions tends to increase because people wanted more, just not at the previous price. People will keep on wanting more shit even as we find ways of making it ever more quickly and at lower costs and probably will until we find some way to alter our brain chemistry.
I'm sorry, but that's the manufacturing industry, which operates on a different basis than the service industry. It certainly doesn't hold true for the restaurant industry, because there is only so much people can eat (Americans being evidence to the contrary). You can't sell people five dinners a day, even if you can ramp up production to make it affordable.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but that's the manufacturing industry, which operates on a different basis than the service industry. It certainly doesn't hold true for the restaurant industry, because there is only so much people can eat (Americans being evidence to the contrary). You can't sell people five dinners a day, even if you can ramp up production to make it affordable.
Yes, you can only eat so much at a given meal but it still holds for the restaurant industry. In the not so distant past, eating at a restaurant was a treat. Now, many people eat out multiple times a week but even today very few people consume the majority of their meals at restaurants. Some of this is time constraints and some of this is price. Call ahead ordering can reduce both.
Win... then lose, then social change (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it most certainly isn't.
Order-taking is half the interface with the customer. In many restaurants, it involves the customer waiting to have their order taken. Automating this part of the process provides a real feeling of getting things going much faster than waiting in line or at a table without having yet gotten anything done. Then there's the issue of the order-taker having gotten the order right.
For example, McDonalds curbside / online ordering allows you to "favorite" items you like to order, including custom variations like no mustard, extra pickles, etc. This further streamlines the ordering process, reduces errors, and (of course) pleases customers. You can also have the order ready to go, drive up to the curbside slot, and send it immediately, further reducing friction.
Reducing friction — or even apparently reducing friction — at this juncture tends to lead directly to higher customer satisfaction. That in turn leads to more sales.
Right now, that leads to more work. That won't last, because all of these jobs will eventually be automated away. The kind of automation we're talking about here isn't the kind of automation that is the real concern. This phase of the process has simply changed from the employee driving it to the customer driving it: they moved the interface to the customer in a way that actually works and makes them happier.
As the actual food delivery to the store, inventory management, prep, delivery, cleaning and maintenance fall to automation, that is when you'll see human employment in these restaurants fall. We're simply not there yet.
Best not to confuse the one process with the other.
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Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you make 150$/hr, and it takes you 4 hours to shop, travel, prep and package your week of food, you cost yourself $600 on top of your grocery prices."
Often quoted, but never holds in real life. It doesn't matter if you make $10/hr or $50/hr or $150/hr. What matters is whether or not someone will pay you that amount for that period of time.
A lot of people have jobs with salaries, and "saving" four hours by not cooking doesn't "cost" me $600, since my company isn't going to pay me more money for that time anyway.
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It certainly doesn't hold true for the restaurant industry, because there is only so much people can eat
On average, Americans eat out 4.2 times per week. That is 20% of the 21 meals. There is huge potential for growth.
In some cultures, eating out is so common that apartments often have no kitchen.
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In some cultures, eating out is so common that apartments often have no kitchen.
But usually in those cultures even the smallest street kitchens found on every corner can provide better quality and more variety than the run-of-the-mill american chain restaurant that microwaves the same slop from coast to coast.
(and you should probably schedule a week to get your body used to both local spices and local microbiological environment found in those cultures...)
Menu size versus quality (Score:2)
But usually in those cultures even the smallest street kitchens found on every corner can provide better quality and more variety than the run-of-the-mill american chain restaurant that microwaves the same slop from coast to coast.
Better quality I could believe but you're going to have a hard time finding any restaurant that has more variety than a place like TGI Fridays or The Cheesecake Factory. Those places have menus the size of phone books and have something from just about any category imaginable. None of it particularly good mind you but plenty of variety.
Personally I like restaurants that have small menus and do whatever they do extremely well. Any menu larger than a page with more than around 20 items on it is probably go
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I was referring to variety between small street kitchens and not within the same.
TGI Fridays is boring and not variety as the menu will be the same in every location. (and to be honest: one category like "disgusting and microwaved" would be enough)
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You can convince a lot of people to never make their own food at home again. And you can sell them progressively more useless food -- say, $5 colored water -- on the basis of convenience and marketing.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:3)
The change here is that fast food restaurants are transitioning from a âoeserviceâ industry to a âoemanufacturingâ business in order to satisfy the large increase of orders.
What I find interesting is how it affected banks. ATMâ(TM)s have replaced many tellers for the mundain tasks of handling cash deposits and withdrawals. But, banks are shifting towards providing other services and products that can, for now, be handled by a person.
Given time, Facial and expression recognition, voi
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Instead people bought more socks than ever before because people had long wanted more socks than were capable of being produced. Just like hundreds of years ago with socks, what happens when you increase productivity and you can create more of something, consumptions tends to increase because people wanted more, just not at the previous price. People will keep on wanting more shit even as we find ways of making it ever more quickly and at lower costs and probably will until we find some way to alter our brain chemistry.
True for socks, but sad but true for fast Food restaurants. Indeed, People had long wanted to stuff themselves with even more junk food at McDonalds that they have been able to so far.
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People will keep on wanting more shit even as we find ways of making it ever more quickly and at lower costs and probably will until we find some way to alter our brain chemistry.
This is very true. The things you own end up owning you and it's the basis for modern sales and advertising. We just can't flock to these things fast enough due to fomo. We, as a species, are largely deranged. We wonder why we live in such a way that we have little or no freedom and are obligated to spend most of it doing shit we would never choose to do and we don't realize we are the enablers of the system that causes this...
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Which explains why people are getting so obese. They're eating at Panera more and more often...It will only get worse as McD's automates.
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But handling more orders means that others handle less orders, because there's only a limited amount of customers
That's not true. There are a limited number of POTENTIAL customers, but increasing restaurant sales is not a zero-sum game between competitors -- not 100% of potential customers are going to a different restaurant without the automated ordering and higher efficiency; Many will do the next best thing which is to do something like make their own sandwich at home and bring it to work.
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That's not true. There are a limited number of POTENTIAL customers, but increasing restaurant sales is not a zero-sum game between competitors -- not 100% of potential customers are going to a different restaurant without the automated ordering and higher efficiency; Many will do the next best thing which is to do something like make their own sandwich at home and bring it to work.
Then the grocery industry loses sales, and jobs are still lost somewhere else.
Unless you're a primary industry, or a secondary industry that create a new non-competing market, you're just shifting where the money goes.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:2)
The job is "preparing the food" and it increased. The food presumably still came from the grocery store or something similar. Basically, call ahead ordering allows someone to pay someone else to prepare their meal for them. Something that otherwise because of cost or time constraints they would have otherwise done themselves. It's not a zero sum game. For the last hundred years, service jobs have been steadily increasing. If the price is right, many people would gladly hire other people to do jobs
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This is not a zero sum game, if there is increasing automation involved.
If starbucks has money to spend it will next be spending it on increasing automation and delivery, and now all of the new jobs, and many of the old jobs go away.
There can be a temporary win from removing customers labour, but the sustainable position in this case is not 'someone else doing that
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:2)
People are spending more year over year in restaurants and food places. There has been a 2-5% growth every year. Automation has a little to do with that; orders come out faster, inventory gets tracked automatically etc. restaurants have gotten more efficient and especially smaller places have sprung up everywhere to the point there is now a shortage of food workers.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:3)
How is there a limited amount of customers? If I could get my orders faster I would go more often.
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Let's be honest here. Restaurant workers are already not the people who can afford to buy daily $3 coffees and the like. Even McDonald's is quite expensive compared to a grocery store. It's mostly busy middle class business types who buy fast food, and the deciding factor for them is how quick and painless you can make the experience. Making sure they don't have to deal with people if they don't want to
Real life in the industry (Score:2)
Restaurant workers are already not the people who can afford to buy daily $3 coffees and the like.
I think you are under the delusion that restaurant workers are all living hand to mouth and barely making a living. While there are cases where this is true, there also are plenty of people in the industry doing just fine. Waitstaff at a decent restaurant can make a VERY decent salary.
Even McDonald's is quite expensive compared to a grocery store.
That depends on what you are buying. You can't even buy the meat for less money than a basic McDonalds hamburger costs (currently ~$1 including bun and condiments) unless you buy something really sketchy or mass produced.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:2)
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:3)
As a customer I'm also able to pick what I really want without the stupid assumption that I want fries and ice in my soda.
Re: Win win, I guess? (Score:5, Funny)
Even McDonalds doesn't put fries in soda. You need to go to a better class of restaurant.
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Re: First wave, second wave. (Score:2)
We are on probably the 7th wave.
There are probably still at least another 7 waves left before we hit the singularity.
Automation/AI is nowhere close to being able to properly prepare a meal or even clean up after it. Jobs like maid, plumber, electrician, cook, or any job where you have to come in and access the situation are still a long way from being automated.
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Why would they have humans pick, fill and load customer orders? Amazon's been making significant progress in getting robots to do that.