A while back Emp Lemon posted a video on "fake convenience." This idea has stuck in my head for a while, especially since it was similar to what I had said about "Future Chic" vs. intentional technology use. That is, both of us are talking about places where technology is used because it is more "modern", but where the end result is not necessarily any better than using a lower tech alternative. The example of his that sticks in my mind the most is using QR codes for menus. The point he focuses on is that often takes a long time to properly focus in on the QR code for it to work, where all the restaurant is really doing is having you open a link. So they could just print the URL to that website and you could enter in that in about the same amount of time. Hell, these days your phone should be able to read the text from the link and follow it, but that's less "futuristicy."
But of course even having it on your phone isn't any more convenient to begin with. Your phone is going to be smaller than the menu, and taking out your phone and messing with it is going to take longer than being handed a physical menu (or looking at one on your table or the wall.) I will add some more points beyond what EmpLemon said: since you are at a restaurant, your fingers are going to get dirty, so you probably aren't going to want to get your touch screen dirty. On top of that the electronic menus are often just image files which are not properly sized for your screen and are a huge pain in the ass to navigate. Even when they are a proper webpage they never do anything fancy with the amount of interactivity possible. It's very rare to even see basic hyperlinks to different parts of the menu, and I've never seen something where you can have everything update as you build your order of a pizza or burger or whatever. It's just the same content as the physical menu, in a harder to navigate format and on a tiny screen. It's worse in every way, but the future chic way is viewed as more convenient because it's "newer." Even though at this point this phone menu crap has been around for at least a decade.
I in particular started thinking about this after going on a short vacation. I won't get into most of the details for privacy reasons and whatnot, but suffice to say, it was a road trip with a few other people where we only had a vague idea of where we would be each day, and so frequently changed our plans and didn't decide on our hotel rooms until 3-7PM each day. Normally I don't like doing this for long trips, since I hate getting screwed over by a bad hotel room or getting lost. I tend to plan things out with actual maps and reservations. But since we have smart phones (or at least other people do) we can just use them for anything. Now I want to stress that I'm aware that you can look up things on the internet through smart phones, use reservations for apps, etc. I've done that stuff in one way or another for years, though I've never really liked it. But I'm thinking of this now because on this particular trip, things kept going poorly.
I don't think that we had a single reservation that took less than 10 minutes to make, and sometimes it took almost an hour. There were always problems with the apps, often being very poorly arranged to be used on a small touchscreen despite smart phones being commonly used for almost two fucking decades at this point. The apps crashed several times. Even when they did work we were frequently hit with reservations that had a surprise $50-$100 charge right at the end, meaning that we had to try a different hotel after spending at least 10 minutes on the previous one. Or we would get to the end and discover that the room available was not what was advertised (ex. only one bed in the room instead of two). There were times when the travel apps pulled up hotels in a city with the same name in a completely different state. One time we even gave up and had to call in, which was delayed by needing to find the correct phone number. In the past this is where you would start and the whole reservation process would take maybe 5 minutes unless there was no one to take your call, in which case you had them call you back or you made a registration somewhere else. Now instead the call went to an overseas call center. Luckily the representative actually could speak English properly (a rarity) and was helpful. However, at the end the system automatically sent us to a "survey" which was really a timeshare like presentation for entering a rewards program. So another waste of time.
It made me to think of road trips growing up, where we either would register by phone (which would work quickly since that's how people expected things to work) or we would use a travel guide to find the hotel and register when we got there. Worst case scenario we would run into a hotel with no vacancies, at which point they would suggest another hotel. The new app based approach theoretically allows us to not plan things out as well, but all that benefit was wasted by how long things took and how often things broke. It's not like this approach is anything new at this point; there have been years to work out the kinks. But people just accept the pain as "part of the process" which is necessary to do things the "new" way.
The concept of "fake convenience" may be a little different from "future chic" in that "future chic" is mainly about aesthetics. Things have to "look" futuristicy. If you take the same "smart" thermostat but give it a segmented LED display in a rectangular box rather than a full color display in an apple inspired case it would chase away many of the users despite the functionality being the same. In contrast fake convenience often doesn't look that futuristic (at least not by 2020's standards) but is often presented by "giving you more control" or somesuch, despite actually making your life more of a pain. An example I can think of that is what happened to a local Chick-Fil-A. I occassionally went there since the food was good and the staff was friendly. But it is a small one in a "high traffic" area, so they made it an "express" location which means getting rid of the clerks and replacing them with kiosks. The menu system you use is essentially the same one that the clerk at the register used to use, meaning that you have to go through long menus to modify orders to specify toppings, sauces, etc. There are ways to automatically do common choices, but they aren't obvious. Clerks had to be trained to do this stuff, so as a customer of course you have a learning experience.
Now previously you could just order a sandwich, say you want it as a meal, and then specify "everything on it is fine." Then the clerk would enter everything as necessary and you'd get your order. Now you have to figure it out yourself. I used to order drinks like tea so that they'd be half full of ice. To do that I'd just tell the clerk what I wanted and he'd fill up the drink that way. Now I have to figure out how to specify that order in the kiosk system. If I want to pay in cash I have to hit something to call the clerk over and have him transfer things to anotehr station at which point we basically are doing things the old way with a huge delay as I set things up myself. I can see that if you have extreme social anxiety that all of this rigamarole might be better than simply stating your order, but from every other perspective it's a huge step back. It doesn't even really feel "futuristicy" since I used kiosks almost exactly like this at least as far back as 2012. It's literally just the work of employees being pushed off on customers and treated as a "convenience." Self check out lines at grocery stores or pharmacies are often very similar, especially when they break down and require an employee to come over anyway.
Since this article mainly is anecdotal complaints anyway, here's one: this took place at a CVS. I needed to check out a few things at a slow time, and went up to the counter. There was an employee behind the counter but he was working on something else and said "we just have people do the self check out now." So I went over to the self check out and scanned my three or so items. But I was given a message that there was a scanner issue. The employee said to try again, and I did, but the same thing happened. So he went over and eventually discovered that someone had stuck a clothes hanger behind part of the machine. He took that out, reset the system, and then had me scan my own items again and finally I was allowed to check out and pay. Now in the grand scheme of things this wasn't the worst thing in the world; I've certainly experienced worse injustices. However, if the employee had checked me out himself, the whole thing would have been done in literally a minute or two, with not much stress for either of us. In reality it took closer to ten minutes, with both of us getting very frustrated. There was definitely no convenience on my end, though that is how the policy was presented. And of course this isn't the only time in my life where self check out has been frustrating; I'm sure we've all had experiences of these things requiring you to constantly rebalance things so that the weight sensors check out, or where it claims that you didn't pay even though you did, or where something is scanned as the incorrect item, etc
Of course the reality of the situation is that fake convenience is usually just about making things better for the company while pretending like it is making things better for the consumer. This can easily be seen in the number of appliances with "companion apps." For example I have seen dish washers that only allow you to do a basic cycle using the actual buttons on the dish washer. To change cycles you have to scan a QR code on the dish washer and use a companion app. The advantage to the company is getting tons of user data, and gaining the ability to sabotage the functionality of your dish washer in the future (so that you have to buy another one.) What advantage is there to the consumer? In theory you can use your dish washer when not being directly next to it... but when would that ever be advantageous? Who fully loads a dishwasher and decides "nah, I'm not going to wash the dishes until later." The only real scenario I can see that happening in is if you want to be physically present in case something goes wrong with the process, but in that case you are there and don't gain any benefit from the app. The downsides are obvious: first of all, you need a phone. You need to have it with you, so if you are doing dishes and have left your phone in a different room (very possible at home) you need to go and find it. You need to scan the QR code and install a program. There is no way that this can possibly be more convenient than just turning a dial and hitting a button like on my smartphone app-less dish washer. And as previously stated, the company now has the ability to remotely kill off most of the functionality of your dish washer (and the app will likely be programmed in such a way that it needs to connect to a server every timne, meaning that you are also screwed if your internet goes down.) Unlike a fancy smart thermostat or touch screen on a car, none of this even feels that futuristicy since dish washers have been around for ages and haven't really changed their mode of operation. It's just an annoyance sold to you as a convenience.
Of course, there are always nefarious motivations possible. For example, some stores are moving away from cash. Now on a base level I can see the argument that swiping a card or tapping a phone is more convenient than dealing with physical currency. Personally I like cash for a variety of reasons, but I will also use a card for actual convenience as well. However, the "no cash" businesses tend to become a "smart phone only" business, and not even in a "tap your smart phone to pay" but rather "install our app on your phone to pay." This is again advertised as "convenience." You see, you can save your orders to reuse in the future, qualify for loyalty rewards, etc. But at minimum they are using this to track your purchasing habits, and it is very likely that they are mining other data off of your phone as well, either to use themselves or to sell to data brokers. The second a required app install enters the picture we have also become less "convenient" than other payment options. It just takes longer to mess around on your phone to complete an order (especially with required installation and updates) than it does to tell a clerk what you are ordering and to either hand over cash or swipe a card. Again, the convenience is really just for the company, not for you.
There's a movement among younger people against "convenience," and there's even a message board called reject convience. But when I look at what people are saying, it's very rarely rejecting actual convenience but rather this fake convenience. For example, take the 90's movie theater experience. At this time it was almost unheard of for many movie theaters to have websites, and many in smaller cities didn't even have phone numbers to check showtimes at. So you really had two options: 1.) find a newspaper and look at the showings (which could be a huge pain if you had misplaced the newspaper, or already threw it out.) 2.) Just drive to the movie theater and hope for the best. If what you want to see is showing great, if not either settle for something else or find a way to kill time until the movie you want is playing. This was highly inconvenient, especially if like me the movie theater was a half hour drive to get to in the first place. I've never seen anyone say "I long for the classic movie experience, including having a hard time figuring out when I'm supposed to go." This is just pure inconvenience, and everyone likes being able to look up the times or to at least call in for them. However, there are plenty of people who don't like having to deal with the Fandango app to reserve tickets now, because that's not actual convenience, just fake convenience.
There's a lot of overlap here with the last essay on physical media. There what people wanted was not really physical media, but the culture that came along with having physical media be the default. With convenience what people want is not really inconvenience, but rather to not be screwed over while being told that this is more convenient. Basically people want honest practices that benefit the consumer, and they can see that the modern trends are in the complete opposite direction.
July 27, 2026