Hacker News Reader

Comment by haswell | Hacker News Reader

> Well this sticking to the rules no matter what is where you lose my sympathy

Cash-only places are less common than they used to be, but there are still some really popular places to eat near me. And they’re popular for a good reason: they provide excellent food/service, and delivery services can’t insert themselves into the business model. It means I have to pass an ATM that day, but it’s a perfectly viable model.

If I’m going to a place called no screens cafe, I’d personally appreciate the complete commitment to the endeavor. If nothing else, it’s an invitation to ponder the frictionless ways we part with our money almost everywhere else.

Comparing “cash only” to “aggressive TSA” seems like a rather stretched analogy.

View on HN

It's cash only because pay terminals have screens, and his inflexible TSA-like adherence to the rules don't allow screens.

Imagine a potential patron to this (afaik still hypothetical) cafe has a hypothetical medical device attached to her that has a monitoring screen. Should she be allowed in, or not? Cut-and-dry no, easy enough, right? Who needs to be flexible?

OP's idea of no screens is so people aren't glued to digital entertainment, it's not like a pay terminal screen (or a medical device's status display) is digital entertainment..

I would frequent such a place for one of the same reasons I go camping. To fully disconnect from technology and to experience an environment entirely devoid of digital devices. A return to the current moment.

Such a place may not be for everyone and to me that seems fine. Camping is also not for everyone and that is also fine.

A cash only stance makes sense because paying for things will happen all day, every day. If your goal is no screens and that goal is in your name, that’s an impactful step to take.

If someone has a hypothetical medical device with a screen (do you have one in mind?) I’m sure the owners of such an establishment would seek to find ways to accommodate. It’s an edge case and not likely to impact the overall atmosphere.

But to your point, this is hypothetical. I’d rather that such a place exists and then learns how to deal with edge cases than not exist at all.

> If someone has a hypothetical medical device with a screen (do you have one in mind?) I’m sure the owners of such an establishment would seek to find ways to accommodate. It’s an edge case and not likely to impact the overall atmosphere.

I have a relative who has heart rhythm anomalies that uses an iWatch with an upgraded band (Kardia) for monitoring.

Prior to that it was a smart phone that had some ekg sensors that did a phone home/hospital if there were any anomalous readings and reporting periodic summaries (there was an occasional anomaly that was detected in an unrelated hospital stay but they didn't know how frequently this anomaly occurred - 1/week its a "be aware and continue to monitor" to 1/hour its a "go to the hospital and have some surgery - but it has to be done while the nerve is doing its thing").

The thing is that smart watches and phones are being used for real time monitoring of medal issues and they have screens.

Or even for a less problematic situation, I have my iWatch set to alert me if the decibel level is above a threshold. While a cafe is less likely to get above that level this is still something that I pay attention to and have occasionally found that a pub that I go to can get louder than I had otherwise realized.

Yep. I agree we should accommodate medically necessary exceptions. Also, anyone can step out of the cafe to use their screen (medically necessary or not) at any time.

> To fully disconnect from technology.

I feel like there are still compromises. Especially for a cafe. Did you walk to the camp site, or drive 95% of the way there? This cafe will probably have electricity and clean tap water and machines to heat up the water and make coffee. Sure someone else might attempt an even more Amish cafe (even some Amish use electricity, AFAIK), or one run by a hippie might avoid having a microwave because they think microwave-heated-food are as harmful as nuclear radiation.

Honestly if he wants to make it cash only with the excuse that digital payments are so painless you don't even notice your spending, I could sign on to that. But if it's because "pay terminals have screens", then that's a level of zealotry that I'd be wary of. Imagine if he can only get microwaves with LCD screens for his cafe, so they have to work around that as well...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com