We Don’t Need No (Paid) Reservations

We are interrupting daily programming with a brief public service announcement. An app called ReservationHop promises to be “Coming Soon” to our city. Philadelphians must band together to resist it.

ReservationHop burst onto the scene over the summer with its proposal to improve the way reservations work—by selling them. A guy named Brian Mayer built an app that would basically snap up coveted tables and sell them on the open market.

Because don’t rich dildos have it hard enough, without having to compete with the rest of us schlubs for dinner reservations?

The magnanimity of Mayer’s business model was demonstrated by what he figured he’d do with unclaimed reservations: cancel them with 4 hours notice.

Because why should a restaurateur feel entitled to plan more than 4 hours in advance?

Now, there is still hope that the world hasn’t totally been taken over by self-aggrandizing tech-enabled squatters. Overnight, Mayer became the self-professed “punching bag of the entire tech industry.”

But that only encouraged him to come up with the next big idea: cut restaurants in on the paid-reservations action.

Because why would diners object to that, seeing as a paid reservation system would “increase fairness for customers”?

If that claim confuses you, just take it from economics professor Tyler Cowen, who reminded us in the New York Times that “[m]oney is ultimately a more egalitarian force than privilege, as everyone’s greenbacks are worth the same.”

Set aside the flimsy notion that a millionaire’s greenbacks are worth the same—to their owner—as an ER nurse’s are to theirs. Philadelphians know that its all men, not all dollars, that are created equal. And none of us should stand for this.

How I Became The Most Hated Person In San Francisco For A Day [Brian Mayer]