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Comment by e_d_e_v | Hacker News Reader

When I worked in the movie box, that was not at all true. People would come in and ask about the movie. How long was it, whether it was any good, should they see another one instead? We gave them real answers. Just because you have a minimum wage job doesn't mean you're a bump on a log. If you've lost sight of the value of basic human interaction with anyone not baked into your caste, I pity you, even if you are in the majority. Also, 99% of movies today are crap, so there's not much to talk about.

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Like I said in my original comment, even if the people are great, they are usually doing a very boring repetitive job. And even if they aren't a "bump on a log," many employers these days honestly want them to be. (liability, efficiency) They really want a robot that is cheaper, not a person. There are so many rules about what an employee can and should do now, especially for lower level jobs. What they can say, how they can say it, what abilities they have to resolve customer problems, if they should interact with the customers at all, etc.

I honestly think the whole demise of customer service is the result of this. People feel in a double bind because they aren't allowed and aren't supposed to help customers. Or if they can, they aren't rewarded for it and take a greater risk by doing it. People can do much greater things, be more helpful, be more friendly, and generally add value - if their employer would allow and reward it. But most are just looking at profit, and speed from entry to exit, and a lot of customers are too.

I'd argue that those companies that have squeezed the humanity out of their workers are the first ones getting dislocated by the market. E.g. Blockbuster being bankrupt and our local independent video store doing just fine. Or McDonald's vs Waffle House.

If you play was "we can provide a worse service for less" then yes, you're going to get steamrolled by automation. If your business is run around adding value (like informative parent of yore in the ticket booth), then your value is going to increase until strong AI (if that ever happens).

Assuming people like talking to humans. Sometimes I wonder about the HN crowd...

I think you hit it on the head - it depends on the service being provided, and how the people relate to providing it.

Some people like talking to humans, some don't. It often changes as well. But for incredibly basic mundane transactions, I'd lean on the "I don't like talking to humans." But it's also slower to talk to humans, and generally there is a line, making it again slower. If I have to add travel time in there, that's a factor. So if the person at the end doesn't add at least some positive value (other than just doing what I need done), I'd rather go the faster way.

Also, if a company is squeezing the workers and not the market, that probably means that company is having trouble no matter what the workers are doing.

A major point of data missing in your example is all the many, many cafes, diners and other eateries which Mc Donald's itself wiped out.

The point being that lots of independent and service focused restaurants have died, and automation, consistency and efficiency has decimated the alternative.

I look at it in terms of competitive advantage. (And I'm not authoritative on any of the following, so don't take me as gospel)

Imho, McD and the first wave of franchisee stores leveraged price and consistency as their advantage. Their logistic chains were more efficient, and they could standardize their operation (benefit to efficiency and customer).

The market did decide that their prices (which were nationally set afaik) and consistency won over the qualities independent chains brought to the picture.

However, I think in the intervening years there have been a few developments.

Firstly, Sysco and the national food suppliers as intermediaries. So aside from volume discounts, everyone's sitting on the same logistics backing now.

Secondly, consistency as a commodity. Whereas before this was a competitive advantage (because it distinguished them from Local Dairy Freeze 283), now it's the market average.

I see it as, as you noted, McD's and the like put everyone else out of business... but we're now in the future past that where they have become the model that's ripe for disruption.

Maybe that looks like Chipotle and Five Guys (limited menu, better product, slightly higher price), or maybe it looks like a return to local service, now backed by automation and turnkey logistics chains.

I can't see a future with McD's where it isn't a fully-automated, human-less burger factory though. Unless they basically toss out their existing business model.

> 99% of movies today are crap, so there's not much to talk about

So it's true now, then.

> If you've lost sight of the value of basic human interaction with anyone not baked into your caste, I pity you, even if you are in the majority.

This seems a bit extreme. I assume you don't use ATMs, auto-bill pay, or automatic check deposit then either? Because you clearly value human interaction at all possible avenues?

Perhaps people's "need" for interaction as they go about their day is somewhere in the middle.

I would find this super annoying while waiting in line to buy tickets.

If that's a service that makes sense to have theaters can always keep it. One staffed line for people that want to chit chat and automated kiosks for people like me who just want to buy a ticket.

My local big theater has exactly that

Doesn't every theater have automated ticketing kiosks now?

There was probably a nicer way to make that point without attacking the parent's awareness of "the value of basic human interaction."

For what it's worth, I didn't infer any value judgement about caste in the comment.

I did and think the reply's tone was perfectly reasonable given the parent comment's dismissiveness.

Yeah I do like interacting with people. Even "minimum wage workers" who last time I checked were still people.

That's fine. Some of us are already maxed out on our low budget of human interaction and craze cold, mechanical, impersonal efficiency. Dealing with error-prone, chatty human beings is not fun for some of us, when they simply serve as an obstacle to what we need.

Sure, but my point is that he never said they're not people. I believe you're reading something in it that isn't really there. It feels like you're unfairly mischaracterizing what was actually said, which was rather neutral.

Some people (myself included) appreciate minimum wage workers as humans and still want the efficiency that comes with automation. It's a mixed bag. When I'm at CVS I would rather have actual cashiers. At a movie theater I'd rather have a ticket machine.

> 99% of movies today are crap

Survivorship bias. They always have been.

"Things are always the same" fallacy.

No, there are periods that are artistically more fruitful and interesting that others, and the history of art knows and documents several of them.

> there are periods that are artistically more fruitful and interesting that others,

Sure, but the claim was just that there have always been bad movies.

Here's a test: If there's some year you know of where bad movies were exceptionally rare, let us know. Then we'll see if we can provide counterexamples.

My pick for year is 1878. I'd love to see your examples.

But really, how do you quantify good? Taste is subjective. The original Transformers move is a great example. I didn't like it. but i believe 14 year old me would have absolutely loved it.

It's similar to the statistics about Word users only use 5% of the functionality of Word. But everybody uses a different 5%.

I guess if you want to go by money, i'm going to pick 1939. I'd guess about $18,000,000 in production expenses, and about $240,000,000 in box. [1] (arbitrarily assigning 1,000,000 to the unlisted numbers, but keeping the box at $0 for unlisted numbers) Seems like a pretty good ROI. (although i think of, Gone with the wind, Mr Smith goes to washington, and the Wizard of Oz as subjectively good. 25% is a pretty good percentage)

Kind of a fun exercise poking through the years. 1997 was a standout, but everything i looked at had memorable and fun movies. I don't think any year would hit that 25% mark though.

[1] http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/year/1939

> My pick for year is 1878.

Very funny.

> I guess if you want to go by money, i'm going to pick 1939.

You listed several great films, but I'm not disputing there were years with several great films, that's a completely separate point.

> But really, how do you quantify good? Taste is subjective.

I will concede that if we adopt a radical skepticism towards all aesthetic values then the claim "every year has bad films" collapses.

However, if we agree to make that move... the original claim that "everything in the theater now is terrible" is also false. Or "there's something special (and bad) about the quality of film at this very moment" also collapses.

So I'm good with this move. I accept the gambit.

Oh, for sure. We agree "Everything I the theater is terrible" is false.

>But really, how do you quantify good? Taste is subjective.

That's why I don't use random individual tastes as a measure, but informed (from decades of studying movies and moviemaking) and argued critiques (by movie critics, other directors, and everyone with similar expertise).

The same way most will agree that Citizen Kane is a great movie, even if 16 year old John, from Buffalo, Indiana finds it "boring and gay".

That said, I also don't believe that just because something is fuzzy (like "what's a good work of art") and can't be defined with numerical precision, it's also impossible to reason about at all. So, in that sense, I'm satisfied with a general "expert consensus" on whether a movie's great and don't expect to have some absolute quantification of that.

So, to agree with my opinion, one should probably also be OK with fuzzy, not totally quantified inquiries (incidentally the inverse is something the climate deniers use for their advantage: they say that because the scientific community can explicitly give a specific number on the impact of human activity on the climate, it is bogus: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157823678756/tucker-carlson-ind... ).

Given that there are now like 7 billion people on the planet AND we can make indie movies cheaply, home movies, etc. probably at least 99.9999% of movies today are crap.

It used to take a lot more resources and know how to make a movie. Today, any hack can do so. Gawd.

Reduced costs of creative production (or distribution of same) means that more low-quality crud will be produced and/or distributed.

Which makes filtering all the more critical.

Herbert Simon. Alvin Toffler. James Gleick. Ted Sturgeon.

That's not true. The economics of movies and TV has shifted overtime. (What are the distribution avenues? What sort of projects get funded? Etc.)

Movies today are much more likely to be high budget, rehashed/sequels, most common denominator, etc.

TV, on the other hand, has been in a golden era for the past decade. Netflix/HBO/etc. has allowed lots of interesting more niche pieces to get produced.

> When I worked in the movie box, that was not at all true. People would come in and ask about the movie. How long was it, whether it was any good, should they see another one instead? We gave them real answers.

Your smartphone gives you all of these answers now.

Perhaps it's a matter of trusting the person behind the counter over your smartphone.

Why trust one random person (who may not have even seen the movie you are interested in, share your preferences, or be particular insightful) when you can have the aggregate wisdom of everyone who has seen the movie and cared enough to rate it?

Why trust the waiter over Yelp?

Oh yes. BaaB - blackmail as a business.

Side question... Is there anything better than Yelp?

Knowing people in real life.

This.

Talk to some locals and you'll quickly learn the atmospheres of various locations, times to go, where to avoid, etc. As long as their preferences are fairly similar to your own the suggestions will always trump what a generic review site will offer. This also sidesteps the problem of paid reviews and the like.

That dive down the road may not be as terrible as it seems. Provided you're looking for a specific type of experience. Avoid the food, stay for the local brew, sweaty 20 somethings and stumbling down alleys with some new friends.

>Worked in the restaurant industry for a few years

Doesn't work very well when the people you know in real life (and whose judgment you trust) can only rarely afford to eat out.

The American Express concierge service.

Friends. I completely avoid yelp.

Because yelp is horrible.

You argument is much stronger as "Why trust the waiter over meaningful online reviews?"

That argument is much stronger and I can only attack in niche markets like very high end restaurants.

Because it takes more work to extract useful information from Yelp.

Because, frankly, I don't give a shit about aggregate "wisdom". (It's aggregate opinions, no wisdom to be found there).

Many movies are polarizing. In aggregate, they're OK. Talking to a single person whose opinion I trust is much more helpful than getting an average from 1,000s. Look at Yelp ratings - everything is pretty good by now, and the recommendations are mostly meaningless. They don't fit my needs, if my needs go beyond "I need edible food in a certain price category".

It turns out experts trump the crowd when it comes to opinions, because the opinion of a crowd is almost always indifferent.

I disagree with you on almost every, but so much of it is soft and nebulous so lets you are correct for most of your comment. I just want to pick on tiny part:

> Talking to a single person whose opinion I trust

Why should we trust the person at the ticket counter?

They have no special knowledge or insight. It seems likely to me they will have below average insight otherwise they wouldn't be working an easy to automate job.

The point is expertise.

If a consideration in employing someone at the ticket counter is that they have well-founded opinions or suggestions to offer on films, then, by way of their expert status, you've cause to believe them.

Otherwise, this collapses to a general critique of the upstream assertion: that "low-value" positions, such as box-office worker, see no labour value add, whilst simultaneously a certain set of positions, say, white-linens restaurant waiter and/or somnlier, do.

I don't see both arguments being valid simultaneously.

The person behind the counter in a movie theater is usually a high school aged teen.

Their opinions as to what constitutes a good movie are almost certainly wildly at variance with my own.

That said, Yelp-type reviews aren't much better.

About the best you can do is find a professional movie or restaurant reviewer whose opinions match yours and go with that.

I'd applied a specific conditional to my response. You're disregarding it.

That doesn't address the case where the condition is satisfied.

You mean this?

"If a consideration in employing someone at the ticket counter is that they have well-founded opinions or suggestions to offer on films, then, by way of their expert status, you've cause to believe them."

I'm disregarding it because it's observably not true.

People are employed at theatre ticket offices because they are teens who are willing to work nights and weekends for minimum wage, not because they're film experts.

Expecting a ticket booth employee to be Roger Ebert is about as reasonable as expecting a Radio Shack employee to be a qualified electrical engineer.

They have seen a ton of movies. (One of the few perks of that job). They certainly have opinions on them. And while they might not align with my opinions, I can calibrate for that. But "expertise" or no, they hold information I don't have - how did they experience the movie. They likely have seen it. I haven't. Talking to them increases the amount of information available to me.

I can't calibrate for the averaged-together soup of opinions on online forums. Because everything is average, nothing matters.

Actually it's the opposite of asking a random person a question, which is what aggregated opinion really stems from.

The person behind the counter, for example, has likely seen the movie given the folks I've known who work these jobs. As well, they might tell you something like "the people leaving the movie are always talking animatedly" or some other insight that a random movie-goer likely couldn't assert themselves.

I was just pointing out that people have different preferences and that there are many reasons one might trust a single person behind the ticket counter over whatever information they might derive from their smartphone.

That this is so controversial is amusing to me.

A person will be more reliable than your phone regarding these basic information? Give me a break.

We've banned this account for repeatedly posting uncivilly and ignoring our many requests to stop.

Those smartphones answers are full of paid shills and scores made up of fraudulent votes. Even people who aren't on HN (and likely at least know this, if they haven't literally done it) are starting to catch on to that these days.

The person in the booth is literally employed by the movie theater

The ratings and reviews on my smartphone are often paid for or are artificially inflated by anyone willing to pay review sites or reputation management firms.

I think you just need to learn to interpret the numbers. For a big Hollywood movie, anything sub-8.0 on imdb in the week after release (where the shill votes still aren't outweighed by the general population votes) is bad. Just for this week, this rule of thumb tells me for example that the "Alien: Covenant" is probably not worth watching, and "The Circle" is a disaster.

> I think you just need to learn to interpret the numbers.

I'm not sure how I can learn to interpret something that's been manipulated by people with vested interest to promote their product or put down a competitor's.

The value from these sites stem from actual consumer ratings, not bots or the services themselves changing ratings.

It's like the (independent) bookstore employee. They probably make minimum wage but they are interesting to talk to, are up to date on the latest great books, and really do add to the value of the store.

When and where did that happen? Every time I've been to a movie theater in the last fifteen years, it's had a ten-person line and everybody was in get-in-get-out mode. I can see value in moving the people in the box sideways into a reviewing-and-recommending role, but that's a sideways move as a result of the current role disappearing.

Was this in planet Earth or somewhere else? I've been to over 1000 movies and have never seen it happening with me or anyone else.

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