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Comment by donatj | Hacker News Reader

This seems like vastly unnecessary legislation to me. There are far more important issues to worry over, but some politician failed to get a reservation and decided "there aught to be a law".

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The "less legislation" mindset is fundamentally flawed in the US. Most people who espouse it do so because good societies ostensibly don't have tons of legislation. But legislation is a symptom, not the problem. If this legislation isn't present in other countries, it's because they don't have this problem.

You’re saying “less legislation” in more words.

When you write something like that, you probably want to add what are "far more important issues to worry over" and why pursuing this legislation would cause delay on that issues. And just in case you're not aware of, "far more important issues to worry over" is usually much harder and more complex to gather consensus across stakeholders and passing this kind of minor legislations doesn't really have any impacts or delay there. This is more of "spare time" stuff.

This is not an actual problem that needs to be solved in the first place. It's a total waste of tax dollars.

It it apparently _is_ an actual problem, which is why an attempt at solving it is being made. A black market for reservations is bad not just for customers, but for the establishment that loses out on business if the reservations aren't actually sold, and therefore nobody shows up.

they should go after ticketmaster and livenation which is a far, far bigger issue except of course they lobby hard while black market reservation folk don’t. they need to unionize or something and then lobby hard too :)

It's not a problem at all. Cook at home or go to another restaurant. These legislators should be put on a strict diet of water and bread for a few years until they learn.

You may think in that way, but in order to make a such strong statement you probably want to do your homework first, like searching up the discussions and its rationale. Usually there is a good reason to pass a law if it's almost universally voted for.

Exactly. How is this so called problem even possible without the restaurants allowing it? If they don't like it, stop allowing it. If they don't care, then why should the public care?

We're capable of caring about more than one thing at a time.

Spoken like someone who doesn't live in NYC

Or someone who has no idea how legislation works. The idea that all the "more important issues" take the same amount of time and effort to tackle is invalid; this is an achievable goal and one relatively easy to gather consensus.

The flipside complaint would have been "why are we waiting so long to fix this simple thing." Government can't win.

If the offenders don't even live in New York, or even in the US, the goal hasn't been achieved at all. This is a "we passed something to feel good about ourselves" moment.

First world problems. People who live in NYC should quit expecting government to solve every minor inconvenience for them and just go eat at another restaurant. Lots of good restaurants in NYC, and many don't even require reservations.

So the NY government shouldn't be trying to solve problems for NY residents? Make it make sense.

A restaurant has a fixed number of reservations possible. How do you suggest allocating them when demand exceeds supply? One way or another, some will not be able to get a reservation.

This seems unrelated. The problem is not lack of supply, which is natural, but rather how the supply is consumed. Similar to scalping.

Both are inevitable consequences of supply and demand. You cannot repeal the law of supply and demand, this new law will be yet another failure.

This is reductive.

There are many things that are beyond supply and demand: love, sex, children. Why should restaurant reservations be any different?

> There are many things that are beyond supply and demand: love, sex, children.

Those are most definitely connected to supply and demand.

High status men get high status women, and vice versa. What do you think drives the price of a hoe? And how many children one has is often the result of willingness to pay for them.

> Why should restaurant reservations be any different?

And indeed, they aren't.

My mistake for not reading who I was responding to. Forget I said anything.

Sorry, what were you referring to?

You just have a reputation. I cannot engage further. I'm annulling my original response.

> Why should restaurant reservations be any different?

Because they are absolutely constrained by supply. Restaurants have limited space and supplies to cook.

What you are suggesting is prima facie ridiculous. Can you suggest how you could make restaurant supplies unlimited?

I'm having trouble understanding where this emotion is coming from. The problem is annoying and unfair, but not the end of the world. Likewise, maybe we'd rather not reach for legislation, but such a small piece of legislation has little negative impact, and is not the end of the world.

Why the insults over this?

If you can't afford your dinner reservation maybe you shouldn't live in NYC, right?

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