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Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

So, this is a refutation of one of the author’s points: either you differentiate, or is is unskilled labor (and the iron law of wages is nipping at your toes).

It’s possible to differentiate purely on marketing and not just food alone, too. But it’s madness to expect to make your money on volume in the restaurant biz and make any significant money without double-digit location counts and significant capital reserves; too many other giants can squeeze you without a thought (eg the McDonalds $1 value menu the author also cites).

Nobody’s “in” to paying >$10 for döner kebap. You have to differentiate a lot more than that; unlike me (and edge case) most people will not pay $25 to scratch the itch of the intense periodic lust for dönerfleisch.

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"either you differentiate, or is is unskilled labor"

I don't think this assertion holds up, especially if you look at other industries.

A car mechanic doesn't have much room for differentiation beyond "I can service more car brands" and "I'm cheaper" or "I'm faster". Anyone can match your offering as long as they can balance the trade-offs involved (sufficient resources, etc). That doesn't make being a car mechanic unskilled labor - doing car repairs properly and efficiently requires a lot of practice and training.

Similarly, if I'm a bank there's only so much differentiation I can offer. Different financial services and interest rates or stuff like that, sure, but at the end of the day I just store people's money in accounts and provide loans. That's basically all I do, and any other bank can do it. A bigger bank has the ability to do it better (due to their resources and regulatory capture) no matter how much I differentiate myself, and since it comes down to policy in many cases another player can just come in and copy all of my policies. None of this means that working in banking is "unskilled labor".

The tendency to call people like chefs or line cooks "unskilled labor" is disgusting. Being a line cook or a chef in a high-pressure restaurant environment is REALLY HARD and takes tons of practice and training.

> The tendency to call people like chefs or line cooks "unskilled labor" is disgusting.

I don't think this is disgusting. I don't believe it's meant to imply what I believe you think it implies. It sounds to me as if, in your life, this term "unskilled labor" may be used as a slur --- is this the case? It is not the canonical intent behind "skilled/unskilled labor" terminology.

"Unskilled labor" means you don't spend years on preliminary education before you can even enter the job market. It means you can hire a person with no prior training or pertinent education and expect them to be able to succeed given a reasonable training program and work ethic. Compare this to "skilled labor" where entry into the field is gated upon higher education (or perhaps apprenticeship).

I'm not disparaging line cooks. As you say, it's very high-pressure, and experience and drive are critical to competency in such an environment.

PS. I do also agree that "differentiation" and "skilled/unskilled labor" are orthogonal concepts.

Regardless of their skill, they're competing with the general, unskilled population, who are overwhelmingly capable of, if disinclined towards, cooking their own food or eating packaged food.

Sorry, I was totally unclear. Either you differentiate, or you can expect to be paid like unskilled labor (which is what undifferentiated cooking results for sale pays), which is always very close to zero (thanks to the iron law of wages).

Simply expecting people to pay more for what amounts to an undifferentiated near-commodity product is a pipe dream so long as anyone out of work can be taught to work a grill in a couple days.

The iron law of wages was based, among other things, on Malthus' demographic theory. Modern economists are highly critical of it. Supply and demand are sufficient to explain the wages of cooks and dishwashers: anyone can be trained in a couple weeks to be a minimally competent cook or dishwasher. The labor supply is roughly equal to the number of people who need any kind of work.

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