Went into *two* restaurant+bars recently & was told "we have no paper menus due to COVID; use your phone to get the web menu". It's disturbing that a B&M business just assumes everyone has a smartphone & they're willing to marginalize those who do not. One of the bars outsourced to a site that outsourced to #Cloudflare so the online menu discriminated further against Tor users.
@jayrope it's bizarre that someone at these places didn't think of laminated menus, soap, and water, or sanitizing wipes.
@resist1984 Well, no reason to worry about, if you cook for yourself (also super to invite friends and have a good time at home!)
@resist1984 When that happened to me and I said, "neither of us have smartphones" they did manage to produce a paper menu...
@meejah The restaurant should want customers to get paper take-out menus & they also shouldn't want the menus back. Like giving out business cards, it could lead to repeat business. In one case I pressed the matter & they were helpless on the food menu, so I shared a phone w/someone (not good during #COVID).
@resist1984 @meejah This! Doesn’t every family have a dedicated “menu drawer” in their kitchen? 😂 Lots of Asian food places have done the “include a paper menu with your order” for forever, so we’d always have a couple copies in the kitchen menu drawer, a few at work, give em to friends and family, keep one in the car glovebox, etc. Free advertising!
@resist1984 Restaurants are being pushed or tricked into datafication. See the company innerspace.io and their video showing how they can identify each diner from their phone's WIFI ID. Doordash is aiming to be the Amazon of restaurants, turning their literal cash registers into PII they can abuse and use like Amazon does. Many small restaurants do not realize the trap and will be gone in a few years. I refuse to use my phone to order food and will only pay cash.
@krock wow that's eye opening. I sacrifice the airmiles to pay cash as well, because we need people to fight on the cash side of the #WarOnCash. You inspired me to look for a way to randomize Android MAC addresses. There's an app but sadly it needs root (and the app has been abandoned): https://android.izzysoft.de/repo/apk/com.moosd.netghost
@krock If I'm with plastic-only people, I either pay the whole bill in cash or I insist on separate bills, just to ensure that my portion of costs are paid in cash. #Visa offered a $10k award to small businesses that go cashless a few years ago, so it's important for restaurants to have metrics that show a portion of sales reliant on cash.
@resist1984 #Grapheneos has Mac randomization built in and has WIFI and Bluetooth scanning off by default. I need to research more on latest WIFI standards before being comfortable not keeping my phone in a faraday sleeve all the time. Damn the world we live in sometimes..
@resist1984 Not to mention that aerosols are a *vastly* bigger COVID-19 risk than fomites, as it turns out.
@resist1984 You name it. Especially elders are hard hit by this, though that isn't corona-specific (worth a deeper thought, elsewhere). On a second, not less important note it makes much more sense to cook your own food :)