Technology

lmao, nobody cares when it's big companies silently manipulating the results like this to the benefit of influencers, but once regular people become enraged enough to poison the data, now it's something to talk about and totally represents how dystopian everything has gotten!

And while this is far from being a dangerous attempt to manipulate search results or AI algorithms, it does highlight the pitfalls of Google results becoming dependent on content generated by users who could very easily have intentions other than providing helpful information

Thanks for joining us in 2009, ArsTechnica. Hang on, I'll grab my "Three Wolf Moon" t-shirt.

https://www.theregister.com/2009/04/17/time_top_100_hack/

Time Magazine's poll of the 100 most influential people has been hacked by a motley band of online troublemakers who have managed to manipulate the top 21 names so their first letters spell "marblecake, also the game."

Remember on reddit when we used to upvote an image with a completely unrelated word because we thought it'd be funny if the image popped up in a google search?

I've heard people are starting to do this on TikTok as well. I think it says more about us a civilization than anything. This is a clear scarcity/enshittification issue. Everyone wants good value and good quality products. Unfortunately a lot of mom/pop shops that produce those products don't want to expand and if they do end up franchised capitalism's ever growing desire for increased gains ensures that the franchised products only become worse over time.

It's a clear shame to see capitalism pitting people against each other in this fashion.

Ten years into the future "Why are all my favourite restaurants closed?"

ML: they are taking my job!!

Keep forgetting, I need to upload a slightly AI'd profile picture to LinkedIn.

Often thought of this before leaving an Amazon review, why, if I really enjoy a product, would I wish to make the manufacturer and reseller hike it's prices, when I just ...... not leave a 5 star review, thereby driving interest in the product

It's definitely douchey as hell to try to hurt your favorite restaurant's chances of success just so you might have lower waits.

Apparently, some London residents are getting fed up with social media influencers whose reviews make long lines of tourists at their favorite restaurants, sometimes just for the likes.

As Gizmodo deduced, the trend seemed to start on the r/London subreddit, where a user complained about a spot in Borough Market being “ruined by influencers” on Monday:

"Last 2 times I have been there has been a queue of over 200 people, and the ones with the food are just doing the selfie shit for their [I]nsta[gram] pages and then throwing most of the food away."

So, I don't know what the situation is in London.

But COVID-19 really clobbered a lot of commercial establishments, and particularly eateries. I'm guessing that at least some traffic might be a return of the public to restaurants, with the supply of restaurant capacity at a low due to having gone through hard times over the past our years or so.

kagis

Ah, right. This is Europe, and while the US got hit by higher energy costs too, the Ukraine invasion really dicked up energy prices in Europe for a while. And then you have the hangover from the COVID-19-related spending happening, as inflation bites, and reducing spending on restaurants is an easy thing to cut on one's budget. And this points out that restaurants are a labor-intensive industry, and Brexit has driven labor costs up by cutting the labor pool.

https://www.ft.com/content/a36ad5fd-db20-4ba8-89ea-e185838c8aa0

UK restaurant sector hit by cost of living and Covid legacy

Stuart Devine thought his chain of fish and chip restaurants in Aberdeen had survived the worst when the UK government lifted Covid-19 lockdowns for good in spring 2021 and customers returned to enjoy the classic British meal.

But before the Ashvale could fully recover it was dealt another blow, when Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 disrupted global supply chains and sent energy and food prices soaring.

Devine’s struggles are shared by roughly 40 per cent of UK restaurant owners, who are operating at or below break-even point, after the sector was hit by a perfect storm of pandemic shutdowns and the cost of living crisis, according to data from UKHospitality.

The trade body estimates that up to 30 per cent of businesses in the sector have closed since Covid struck. About 1,169 restaurants shut in the past year alone, equivalent to more than three a day, according to UKHospitality and consultancy CGA by NIQ.

“The money coming from the front door is just not enough to offset the significant cost of doing business that the restaurants are facing,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality.

While energy prices have fallen from their peak over the past 12 months, restaurants continue to bear the brunt of elevated food costs. The particularly labour intensive industry has also struggled with staff shortages, worsened by Brexit, and to keep pace with the statutory minimum wage. It stands at £10.42 an hour and will rise to £11.44 in April.

Devine said “the hardest thing is that the only thing you can do is put your prices up”, noting that there was a limit to how much lifting prices could help at a time of already weak consumer confidence and tight household budgets.

So the combination of all those things would tend to have squeezed the supply of restaurants, and it might be that if there's enough demand to consistently fill restaurants in London, expand existing or open new ones, that things will tend to return to a more-normal state.