
App pays users to line up outside new restaurants - mhb
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/innovations/wp/2017/08/16/see-the-hipsters-lined-up-outside-that-new-restaurant-this-app-pays-them-to-stand-there/
======
reaperducer
Buying a crowd is old school. Politicians and unions have been renting mobs of
protesters since at least the 90's, when I first became aware of it. Probably
longer. The only thing new here is getting the gig through an app instead of a
flyer on a telephone pole.

~~~
kmill
Or in the arts, the claque:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claque)

~~~
GoatOfAplomb
"Although the practice mostly died out in Europe during the mid-20th century,
it has continued in Russia, most famously with the Bolshoi Ballet,[4] and US
presidential speaking engagements.[5][6]"

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FooHentai
>They’ve even been hand-picked by a casting agent of sorts, an algorithmic one
that selects each person according to age, location, style and Facebook
“likes.”

>They may look excited, but that could also be part of the production. Acting
disengaged while they idle in line could tarnish their “reputation score,” an
identifier that influences whether they’ll be “cast” again.

Oh boy, it's happening!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosedive)

~~~
nicpottier
Off topic, but man, I feel like the "Black Mirror" series is required viewing
for anybody working in technology. Depressing yes, but also a good warning of
what is coming.

~~~
rubatuga
Hopefully it stays in China.

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mherdeg
The logical next step here is to write an app that lets you sell your place in
line at a trendy restaurant. Take 50%.

There is a natural base of sellers (the people who are waiting in line) and
buyers (assuming that paying people to wait in line actually works at creating
demand).

Something like this business has been manually tested -- see
[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creativityrulz/200908/t...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creativityrulz/200908/the-5-challenge)
:

> One group identified a problem common in a lot of college towns—the
> frustratingly long lines at popular restaurants on Saturday night. The team
> decided to help those people who didn’t want to wait in line. They paired
> off and booked reservations at several restaurants. As the times for their
> reservations approached, they sold each reservation for up to twenty dollars
> to customers who were happy to avoid a long wait. As the evening wore on,
> they made several interesting observations. First, they realized that the
> female students were better at selling the reservations than the male
> students, probably because customers were more comfortable being approached
> by the young women. They adjusted their plan so that the male students ran
> around town making reservations at different restaurants while the female
> students sold those places in line. They also learned that the entire
> operation worked best at restaurants that use vibrating pagers to alert
> customers when their table is ready. Physically swapping pagers made
> customers feel as though they were receiving something tangible for their
> money. They were more comfortable handing over their money and pager in
> exchange for the new pager. This had an additional bonus—teams could then
> sell the newly acquired pager as the later reservation time grew nearer.

It would be easy to do business development -- you could just target the app
at exactly the same restaurants who are using Surkus. Everyone wins.

~~~
yoz-y
This is actually common practice in China. You pay people to wait for you in
queues. However, there is a more sinister side to that as well. Highly
demanded and free spots are grabbed early and then ransomed for money. This
happens for example in Apple store Genius Bar appointments. Basically the same
problem as with concert tickets.

------
cm2187
What I don't get is that there is nothing that puts me off going to a bar or
restaurant more than a long queue. And if I know of a place that
systematically has a line in front, that's the one place I won't even
consider.

~~~
austinjp
Years ago I remember walking past a club in a very busy party of town at like
10pm. There was a huge queue of people. My friend said, "Let's go there!"
Surprised, I asked why. "It must be really good, look at that queue!"

It really does happen.

But yep, like yourself, if there's a queue I have zero interest. I put it down
to impatience and disliking noisy crowds in general.

Maybe extroverts are drawn to queues?? Too simplistic, I'm sure.

~~~
cm2187
My dislike of queues has to do with my own comfort. I can queue to receive
money. But I am not going to queue to spend money somewhere!

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ringaroundthetx
San Francisco: "If there's no line outside then don't go there"

~~~
tj-teej
+1 - San Franciscans love to wait in line. EDIT: getting downvotes, not saying
all of SF, but its definitely a "thing" \- if you live here you've seen it

~~~
zippergz
I've come to believe that San Franciscans love pain and inconvenience.

~~~
Agathos
Explaining why they moved to San Francisco in the first place?

~~~
notyourwork
I recently moved here, I am not experiencing pain. Inconvenience is strictly
in the eye of the beholder.

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nkrisc
I think the last point about a comedian using it fill an audience is very
interesting. Even though they are paid to be there, comedy and humor is a very
natural response and not all that easy to fake or disguise. It's like focus
group testing for standup comedy.

~~~
swrobel
It's quite expensive for a comedian to do this on a regular basis though.

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overcast
So essentially the entire chain is fake now. It's basically the sign of the
apocalypse.

~~~
tajen
The entire chain: the facebook likes are fake, the hipsters, the customers,
even the press release? Do those restaurants even exist in reality ;) ?

~~~
ethanhunt_
I tried to think of a realistic scenario where someone would be inclined to
fake the existence of a restaurant: to make real estate look more appealing?
If a RE developer built a development with several dozen houses, it could
boost the values of houses enough to make it worth the cost of faking a few
trendy bars/creameries/restaurants next door.

~~~
zu03776
Money laundering. Also works with dry cleaning.

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pgeorgep
Nice, it's just like you 'seed the tip jar'. Nothing more contagious than
social proof (reference -
[http://jonahberger.com/books/contagious/](http://jonahberger.com/books/contagious/))

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khc
Download the Android app because of curiosity. Asks for my Facebook password,
uninstalled.

~~~
sabujp
it uses information about what you like, what your friends like etc to
determine if it wants to hire you for a gig

~~~
kevinwang
Why not just use Facebook oauth flow though?

Edit: or is that what parent comment meant by "asks me for my Facebook
password"?

~~~
khc
Nope, it opens up a fake Facebook login screen, themed to look like Facebook

~~~
swrobel
How do you know it's fake?

~~~
khc
To be fair it probably isn't fake, but apps should not be asking me for my
Facebook password.

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whymsicalburito
The app requires you to always allow them to track your location. It seemed
like an interesting app till I found that out. I probably won't open it back
up until I hear that they change this.

~~~
TheSpiceIsLife
Is there anything from stopping someone having a backpack full of phones and
pretending to be the whole crowd.

Okay, they'll probably work that out pretty quick and ban you. But three or
four accounts you might get away with?

~~~
throwaway91111
Mostly backpacks full of phones likely cost more than each phone could net
you.

~~~
rjeli
Most bitcoin mining rig costs more than it mines (per day? week?)

~~~
herpdorplarp
You should probably count your blessings if the asymptotic behaviour is better
than break-even.

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BadassFractal
Joke's on them, I only exist at home or at the office, and I move between
locations by Uber while staring at my phone. Not going to see any of this.

~~~
aluhut
Then you are probably not the target group in the first place.

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clamprecht
Whenever I watch the Apple WWDC keynote, and I hear the handful of
enthusiastic screams from the audience when Tim Cook announces some new
feature, I always wonder if those are genuine or not. They just don't seem
real. Like 99% of people watching, I've never attended in person, so it's hard
to tell.

~~~
quux
The front rows at Apple's keynotes are usually reserved for Apple employees
and often this includes the teams that built the products that are being
announced. So the excitement is genuine, but from Apple employees, not random
attendees.

~~~
sbisker
I showed up very late to an Apple keynote about 10 years back, and was grabbed
while walking in by some staffer to sit in a third row seat. I had no
affiliation with Apple; I assume I was picked because I "looked the part"
(which was, apparently, a college aged nerdy computer science student).

So yeah, I'm sure it's mostly Apple employees, with randoms like myself thrown
in here to make the crowd shots less homogenous.

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nafizh
I downloaded the app, and it seems you can only login with Facebook. Deleted.

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jpster
Something about this app reminds me of Ben Bernanke's idea for throwing money
from helicopters as fiscal stimulus. [http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/bernanke-
helicopter-money/](http://fortune.com/2016/04/12/bernanke-helicopter-money/)

------
sabujp
Not just restaurants but to go to clubs also. You get payed more if you're hot
than if you're not, i.e. if you're a woman.

~~~
sabujp
don't all downvote me all at once for the truth :
[https://www.bradsdeals.com/blog/earn-money-with-
surkus](https://www.bradsdeals.com/blog/earn-money-with-surkus)

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stretchwithme
All, you have to do is offer half off on something and people will stand in
line for an hour to buy it.

The item must be worth at least a dollar though.

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honestoHeminway
Well im off to collect a bet - i always predicted faked consumers.

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hathym
next app: get notification when the line is over

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shayna_walsh
Not all that different from the 18th century "claque," when theater owners or
playwrights would pay groups to attend their performances and applaud loudly.
A variant was paying a group to boo and hiss a rival production.

A line doesn't make me want to go to a place. I prefer someplace that's not
super crowded, though obviously not totally empty.

~~~
jwdunne
That sounds a lot like how many sitcoms use a laugh track. I remember when I
was young and naive, I thought "that can't possibly be funny. He only answered
the bloody door", thinking it was real people.

I now know that laughter stimulates laughter so it kinda makes sense. You can
make a show funnier by pretending an audience is laughing.

In this sense, a queue out of the door shows high demand. Generally, people
want things in high demand.

Would people want to wear diamonds if they were as cheap as glass and the
price reflected that?

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nicholas_stamm
It's pathetic if you base your dining decision on a line outside. I would
never stand in line so I dine only at restaurants that accept reservations or
call ahead to see if there is a wait. This app is for goofy hipsters who have
zero gravitas and don't know it.

~~~
teekert
No. Those hipsters also have a fb following and tweet and instagram pictures.
This may be a solid investment for a place, akin to asking in a well know food
critic to come to their place and eat... presumably for his following. Ok, so
maybe it doesn't work on you, it will work on others.

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dsfyu404ed
This type of marketing would probably be more effective in the former USSR.

