[HN Gopher] How bad the pizza box is
___________________________________________________________________
How bad the pizza box is
Author : kimnamjoon
Score : 58 points
Date : 2023-01-13 17:46 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| paulpauper wrote:
| Sorta off topics but it's funny or amusing how people continue to
| eat highly fattening food like pizza despite the consequences of
| obesity being well publicized. What can explain this.
| technotarek wrote:
| A $40 pie?!?!
| jrockway wrote:
| You can definitely spend $40 on pizza in NYC, once you add some
| toppings, delivery fees, and a tip. For me, ordering pizza is a
| "special treat" because it's so expensive.
| dublinben wrote:
| You could make pizza at home from scratch for only a few
| dollars, and it would be even fresher than anything
| delivered.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Nobody is surprised by the fact that cooking at home is
| cheaper than ordering food. I don't know why you think you
| need to point it out.
| jrockway wrote:
| Oh I do. The point of ordering food is that you have been
| working on something for 20 hours and do not feel like
| cooking.
| bell-cot wrote:
| At least one "Gourmet" pizza place I know of (Ann Arbor, MI)
| has a load of $46 to $54 pizzas on their menu.
|
| It's not bad pizza...but when I could have a 14oz. NY strip and
| drink at a very classy old local restaurant for less? "Sorry,
| not interested."
| jakub_g wrote:
| Could someone summarize the article please? At 8 screens of text
| it seems a bit long but I'm curious what's so bad about it.
| mhb wrote:
| Forget it. It's not even worth the tldr.
| georgebcrawford wrote:
| Steam bad - softens crust, ruins cheese.
| gumby wrote:
| Ultra trivial, but props to the author for understanding the
| world (emphasis mine):
|
| > Since the introduction of this corrugated vessel, humanity has
| landed on the moon, _rolled out the internet_ , created
| cellphones,
|
| OK, technically the idea of the existence of an Internet dates to
| the mid-late 70s in a couple of papers from Cerf et al but the
| ARPANET was its natural progenitor, and Lick and Taylor's effort
| was contemporaneous with the corrugated pizza box.
|
| It always jars me when people write that the Internet (or worse,
| "the internet") was "invented" in the 90s, or simply assume that
| the www and the Internet are completely coextensional.
| post_break wrote:
| I'm frustrated that Dominos proudly proclaims RECYCLE ME written
| on the box. Except for most people you cannot recycle cardboard
| like pizza boxes.
| Tagbert wrote:
| We just put the boxes in the compost bin in our area. Along
| with any remaining pizza bones.
| valarauko wrote:
| > Except for most people you cannot recycle cardboard like
| pizza boxes.
|
| I thought grease stained paper/cardboard can't usually be
| recycled, but your comment makes it sound like cardboard itself
| cannot be recycled, which I don't think is the case.
| sciclaw wrote:
| I'm genuinely curious... If the pizza box is greasy, I tear off
| the bottom (some boxes are perforated to make this easy even)
| and toss that in the green bin, which is allowed where I live.
| I assume anything not greasy/dirty can be recycled. Am I doing
| it wrong?
| sokoloff wrote:
| Our municipal recycling is clear that pizza boxes with grease
| staining _can_ still be recycled. Other places are equally
| clear that cardboard has to be free of grease, so you 'll
| have to check with your local waste collection to be sure.
|
| https://www.cambridgema.gov/Departments/publicworks/getridof.
| ..
| TillE wrote:
| As always, check with your municipality. But yes generally
| heavily stained paper should not be recycled, but the rest
| can.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| This journalist doesn't get it. Delivery pizza isn't competing
| against someone who can make pizza in a $1000 purpose-built home
| oven. Delivery pizza is cheap, tasty enough and convenient. For
| $20 or so you can have a pizza delivered with zero effort. Also,
| if you get a pan-style pizza, the degradation in quality is
| minimal.
| hammock wrote:
| No mention of the PFC "forever chemicals" that pizza boxes are
| soaked in. Not great
| karaterobot wrote:
| I wouldn't call it a tragedy. Delivery pizza is fine. The best
| part is they bring it right to my house.
|
| > We can construct better pizza boxes, and we already have. The
| real issue is cost.
|
| Okay, here's an idea they can just have for free: a restaurant
| buys 500 of the more expensive boxes, but continues to stock the
| cheaper ones. They give delivery orders the option to spend more
| money on the improved box, and tell them all the advantages. If
| they don't want to spend the extra money, they get the regular
| box. See how that goes.
| Spivak wrote:
| That's not a fair comparison because your observation will be
| heavily weighted to the status quo. Construct a parallel
| universe B where the norm is the more expensive boxes and
| introduce the cheaper ones. I put my lot in with the result
| that in both cases people don't switch.
|
| In universe A people will be averse to the increase in price.
| In universe B people will be averse to the decrease in quality.
| The only thing the experiment will show is humans weigh losses
| that come as a result of change heavier than gains.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Do any franchises encourage owners to do small-scale
| experiments like this and then copy the successful ones
| throughout the enterprise?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yes, especially with menus. The Big Mac was invented by a
| franchisee.
| trynewideas wrote:
| > And yet, the pizza box hasn't changed much, if at all, since it
| was invented in 1966. Then, boxes were shallow cardboard squares
| with flaps to lock them into place. Today, boxes are shallow
| cardboard squares with flaps to lock them into place. You'll see
| the same design both in dinky spots for drunken college students
| and in the country's most sought-after Neopolitan joints. Since
| the introduction of this corrugated vessel, humanity has landed
| on the moon, rolled out the internet, created cellphones, and
| invented combination air fryer-instant pots. But none of that
| matters: Ye olde pizza box refuses to die.
|
| ...
|
| > We've gotten a couple of pizza-delivery innovations in the past
| few decades: the insulated heat bag--that ubiquitous velcroed
| duffel used to keep pies warm on their journey--those mini-
| plastic-table things, and ... well, that is mostly it. No pizza
| box in widespread use today is significantly better at keeping a
| pizza fresh than the one Domino's invented all those years ago.
|
| ...
|
| > Your life is different from your grandparents', but this is
| quite literally your grandparents' pizza box--and also Elon
| Musk's pizza box, and Joe Biden's, and Oprah Winfrey's.
|
| The Atlantic, 11 years ago: https://archive.ph/K1uJq
|
| > But that's not to say that there hasn't been any innovation in
| the pizza box space. FAR FROM IT!
|
| > Inside most pizza boxes now, right in the center of the
| container, you'll find a plastic tripod often shaped like a mid-
| century modern table. It holds up the center of the pizza box to
| avoid cardboard smashing down on the cheese on the top of the
| pizza.
|
| ...
|
| > It was one of a number of tweaks to the pizza box (venting
| configurations, say) that have improved upon the old designs.
| Now, some boxes designed for easier recycling, or come with
| holders for dipping sauces, or transform into plates. Like
| everything else, pizza boxes have gone niche and they can be made
| to order for very specific food transport situations.
|
| ...
|
| > The pizza sleeve designs _around_ that constraint. Some
| designer (who probably worked for Domino 's) said, "Let's
| separate out the heat retaining and moisture battling components
| of the box." Vent to your heart's content to control moisture,
| but keep the pizza in an insulated sleeve, so that the heat stays
| in. The pizza and the box stay the same, but the system of
| delivery changes. That's brilliant.
| mberning wrote:
| This completely misses the boat on pizza, which is funny coming
| from a self-described pizza aficionado. Nobody gives a shit if
| their papa johns or dominoes pizza would be imperceptibly better
| were it transported in a better vessel. That's not why you order
| pizza delivery.
|
| Not satisfied with ruining beer, bourbon, barbecue, and many
| other formerly enjoyable "every man" staples, now people have
| moved on to ruining pizza with a completely unnecessary level of
| snobbery.
| tempsy wrote:
| did you read the article? it made the same conclusion so why
| are you mad?
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >Nobody gives a shit if their papa johns or dominoes pizza
| would be imperceptibly better were it transported in a better
| vessel. That's not why you order pizza delivery.
|
| I don't know where you live, but where _I_ live, we can order
| better pizza than those two horrid chains for delivery.
| figurenagit wrote:
| [dead]
| jahnu wrote:
| > Not satisfied with ruining ...
|
| Nothing has been ruined. Mediocre mass produced food and drink
| is still as widely available as it ever was. This sort of
| reverse snobbery puzzles me as much as regular snobbery does.
| Let people enjoy what they enjoy.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| I used to be able to buy a handle of Weller 12 for $30.
| mberning wrote:
| Those were the days...
| dylan604 wrote:
| gasoline used to be $0.99/gallon when i was learning to
| drive, and it was only $0.05/gallon for my dad. so what's
| the point? inflation is shocking?
| selectodude wrote:
| Weller 12 retails for $40 now (inflation) but is
| impossible to find and is now like $300+ on the secondary
| market.
| dylan604 wrote:
| that's like blaming RPi for how expensive they are even
| though RPi has not changed prices. it's also like blaming
| the band because the scalpers are charging so much for
| their ticket prices. it's not the band's fault nor the
| maker's fault someone buys them all up in bulk and then
| resells them.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| Who blames the maker? We blamed snobs and then you came
| in blazing with this completely inane comment about
| inflation.
|
| You can stop doubling down now.
| dylan604 wrote:
| right, and i just spun it back to being inline with your
| reselling complaints. nobody doubled down.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Why is it so cheap on the primary market? Why are liquor
| stores/distributors not marking it up to a market
| clearing price?
| bradleyjg wrote:
| The distillery doesn't want to set market clearing prices
| for PR reasons. They also forbid authorized retailers
| from charging market clearing prices. So liquor stores
| either break the rules or "allocate" the bottles to their
| best customers.
| mberning wrote:
| It absolutely has ruined the market for these things. 10
| years ago decent bourbon was very accessible from a price and
| availability standpoint. Now people wait in line on Friday
| morning just for the chance to see what the distributor
| brought, and if there is anything decent, it is snatched up
| to hoard or sell on the secondary market. Of course, this has
| done nothing to the accessibility of the bottom shelf swill,
| but few people cared about 10 years ago and few people care
| about it now, so nothing has changed in that regard.
| juve1996 wrote:
| There are plenty of good bourbons available off the shelf
| that aren't "bottom shelf swill." Talk about snobbery...
| bradleyjg wrote:
| They are getting younger and younger. Lots of no age
| statements out there, lots of fake brands that don't
| distill anything. There are still some decent options out
| there, but I'd hardly say plenty.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| It depends on where you are in the Country. When I was in
| Tennessee in the fall people were asking us to bring
| Whiskey from where I live (Northeast US, NJ).
|
| We are also getting odd outages, like Fancy Feast cat
| food selling out? But only the gravy lovers variety....
| klik99 wrote:
| I am honestly confused by what you are saying here. It
| sounds like you're saying more people like the good stuff
| so it's gone quicker? But earlier you said Bourbon was an
| "everyman" item being ruined, which presumably means it was
| popular before. Is what was in the market now harder to
| find, because in my experience there are now more options
| available.
|
| (EDIT): Oh I see Weller 12 is now incredibly expensive, and
| this article I'm about to read is about bourbon prices:
| https://www.pastemagazine.com/drink/whiskey/bourbon-
| whiskey-...
|
| Well, good for these smaller distilleries that people are
| now recognizing how good the product they make are. And
| there seem to be a like more smaller bourbon distilleries
| popping up to replace the price point that Weller 12 and
| similar drinks used to live in.
| mansoon wrote:
| It's called hollowing out the middle.
| njarboe wrote:
| I does sort of suck when what you like gets popular and
| then it gets expensive. But that is a constant of life.
| Hiking gets popular, the trails you used to hike now have
| crowds and permits. A decent bottle of scotch doubles in 10
| years. Decent bourbon prices go up. You have to adapt, find
| alternatives and look on the bright side. Small batch
| bourbon selling for more lets more people live their dream
| of running a small distillery. Find a local one you like,
| get to know the owner, and get discounts on case lots.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| So what you're actually saying is that capitalism has
| caused the asymmetric distribution of financial resources
| to the point where too many people can act as speculators
| in the market for all kinds of products, thus driving up
| prices and limiting availability to the "ordinary folk",
| and that further, this behavior has been expanded because
| of a media culture of fetishizing the curation of vaguely
| artisanal production?
| mberning wrote:
| I don't know about the first part, but the part about
| media culture seems manifestly true. I wonder how many
| bourbon channels there are on youtube that have over 100k
| subs. Quite a lot I'd have to guess. I think this
| cultural aspect fuels people to buy things up with little
| regard to their personal preferences. I know lots of
| people that picked up "bottle x" based purely on hype,
| not whether they like it or not.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _I know lots of people that picked up "bottle x" based
| purely on hype, not whether they like it or not_
|
| There is a pizza place down the road, "State of Mind",
| which has all sorts of crazy slices. Mostly, they look
| good, with taste seemingly taking second place to cool,
| or wow factor.
|
| I am convinced that the people ordering there, do so for
| appearances.
|
| I think this makes sense, as a lot of people really have
| poor taste buds. They often, as in your example, cannot
| tell the flavour differences betwen burbons, but, want to
| get the good stuff.
| tedunangst wrote:
| So everyman bourbon has been ruined by every man trying to
| drink it?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I think this poster's literally just sad the thing they
| like got popular. Everyman bourbon _is_ the cheap swill,
| this is the good stuff, the difference is that more
| people know about it now.
| vidanay wrote:
| And very very few people could tell the difference between
| Pappy and Buffalo Trace in a blind taste test
| mberning wrote:
| Very true. Around where I live the worst is Weller (all
| variations) and Blantons. Nice bottles, but nothing out
| of this world. You could easily find them on the shelf
| years ago. Nowadays it is unheard of to see them for
| sale.
| pwthornton wrote:
| I find this very hard to believe if they are drunk at a
| sipping strength. A lot of bourbon comes at cask
| strength, which is good for mixers but is too strong to
| be drunk straight. The recommendation is to add a little
| water to get it to the proper alcohol percentage. I don't
| doubt that people will struggle to tell the difference if
| they are given cask-strength whisky, as the alcohol
| concentration can be overwhelming when consumed neat.
|
| As for me, the highest I will go neat is 46%, and that's
| only for certain scotches.
| dannyphantom wrote:
| My brother accidentally broke (more like destroyed but oh
| well) my nose as a kid when playing baseball and as a
| result I lost a lot of ability to discern smell and
| taste. I've tried so many wine, liquor, beer, and many
| more food tastings but it never really registers beyond
| what you'd expect when you lose that ability: salt, fat,
| the cool sting of liquor, fizzy, etc (if that makes
| sense).
|
| I've bought some high priced liquors before and while my
| friends have been able to denote special things about
| them I just can't seem to; so, since I usually drink for
| a buzz anyway I've just settled on buying a 1.75L of 190
| proof Everclear and water it down to 3L since it's
| essentially a more economic exchange anyway.
|
| Silver linings... _I guess_.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I like sipping bourbon and rye whiskey, neat with maybe a
| splash of water.
|
| My sense of smell is undamaged; I can taste some
| differences but a $75 bottle is not necessarily "better"
| than a $25 bottle to my taste. So I usually just buy the
| cheaper stuff.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| The notion that snobbery "ruins" the category seems like an
| expression of drama. There is, as there has always been, an
| uncountable amount of non-"snobby" beer, bourbon, barbecue, and
| pizza (even for each individual's definition of "snobby").
| Additionally, if you are anything like the many people I know
| who hate "snobby" things, you may be lumping some just-plain-
| good things under that description simply because of a focus on
| imagery and identity.
| version_five wrote:
| As a counterpoint, there times when I'm in a city traveling
| for work and I'd like to get a normal meal (burger, pizza,
| comfort food, etc) but all I can find is an overpriced
| hipster modern riff on said meal, or a really shitty chain
| version.
| neets wrote:
| I feel like this is a reaction trying to take advantage of the
| Andrew Tate / Greta Thunberg fight that happened on twitter.
| r0m4n0 wrote:
| Personally having Zume pizza in MTV deliver our pizzas at our
| office on a regular basis, I can confirm that the futuristic
| pizza box they used did not help them make pizzas that taste
| good. Honestly their pizza was terrible... but I suppose
| sogginess was not on the list of adjectives I'd use to describe
| them so I guess we can't confirm or deny their box tech.
| Zababa wrote:
| Focusing on the pizza box seems to be the wrong way of looking at
| the problem. Since we have insulated bags, pizzas don't spend too
| much time with the pizza box being the only thing standing
| between the pizza and the outside. What about making the
| insulated bag some kind of "keep warm oven" that can keep the
| pizza warm and control moisture? Make the pizza boxes that can
| still stack in that over but are way more open, use lots of fans
| to make the air circulate. This way the cost of the individual
| pizza box doesn't change, but you can still have a better
| product.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _Even Apple--that Apple--has patented its own round pizza box
| exclusively for its famished Cupertino office workers._
|
| This is what happens when you have an army of patent lawyers at
| your disposal.
| colpabar wrote:
| http://archive.today/TlJGc
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Is this content marketing for those ever so trendy at-home pizza
| ovens?
| HWR_14 wrote:
| According to the fine print, while the Atlantic has content
| marketing, it is marked by tags missing from this article. So
| almost certainly not.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| With the blitz in anti-gas stove commentary this week, I wonder
| if there will be fallout for the home pizza oven market.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Trendy? Nah, meeting pent up market demand of all the people
| who wanted a high-temp oven but not enough to build a janky one
| outside or spend thousands of dollars on a commercial one.
|
| Granted, I haven't sprung for one yet, but it's probably just a
| matter of time. The price and/or inconvenience were the reasons
| I was holding out before, and they've solved those. I can't
| believe how cheap the options are now. I'd probably spend more
| building one of those crappy landscaping-block DIY ones, now,
| while before that was by far the more budget-friendly option.
| georgebcrawford wrote:
| Is "ever so trendy" a pejorative? Because the Ooni he mentions
| is _amazing_. Three of my brothers (two of them chefs) have
| them and they make a huge difference.
|
| I'm sure there's plenty sold to people who can't make a decent
| pizza with or without them, but in the right hands they're
| fantastic.
|
| While I can't think of any right now, there are parallels in
| other markets - great tools that many have diminishing returns
| depending on the operator. Maybe espresso machines?
| fishtoaster wrote:
| As with many simple ubiquitous consumer products from pizza boxes
| to mouse traps, the answer to the question "why hasn't someone
| invented a better one of these?" is "they have, but it it's more
| expensive."
|
| Many things in life could be better. The reason they're not is
| the same reason airplanes are uncomfortable and broadcast TV has
| obnoxious ads: the revealed preferences of consumers for those
| things is the cheaper version, not the better version. The same
| is true for pizza boxes.
| mindslight wrote:
| > _the revealed preferences of consumers for those things is
| the cheaper version, not the better version_
|
| I really hate the framing that puts this on consumers as if
| they're just stingy. The reality is that we have an economy
| that strongly discourages most people from choosing any option
| besides the cheapest. When someone comes up with a less
| expensive way of doing something, the Fed interprets this as a
| _problem_ and creates enough new currency to make sure the cost
| of living gets more expensive regardless. So rather than a
| choice between less expensive and more expensive, what
| consumers are actually confronted with is a choice between
| slightly more expensive and much more expensive.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I made the same argument recently when someone repeated the
| line "air travel is bad because consumers will always choose
| the cheapest option." I'm pretty skeptical that almost any
| "race to the bottom" scenarios are easily attributed to
| consumer behavior, except perhaps in cases of commoditization
| where consumers reject attempts to differentiate products
| based on things like branding.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > I'm pretty skeptical that almost any "race to the bottom"
| scenarios are easily attributed to consumer behavior
|
| I'm not.
|
| Most consumers are fickle, irrational, and often price-
| sensitive. They buy the $20 blender from Walmart that has a
| motor that will release the blue smoke in 6 months rather
| than the $50 blender that will last 5 years of frequent
| usage. Sometimes this is because of the whole "being poor
| is expensive" thing, but many times it's not.
|
| > except perhaps in cases of commoditization where
| consumers reject attempts to differentiate products based
| on things like branding.
|
| I think this applies to airlines.
|
| I roll my eyes when someone says "I will never fly
| Delta/United/Alaska/etc again" because if you joined in
| every person's boycott because of one or two bad
| experiences they had, you'd never fly. They all will have
| delays, cancellations, and lost luggage.
|
| I have absolutely zero loyalty or avoidance to any airline.
| I just go to Google Flights and pick who has the cheapest
| itinerary that doesn't suck too bad.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Walmart could stock two or three price-differentiated
| models. With internet shopping available now (and catalog
| shopping in the last century and a half) Hobson's choice
| is less of a factor, but it's still a factor.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Part of the trouble with these is that, due to companies
| desiring to maximally exploit price discrimination or
| because of lack of economies of scale or whatever, the
| better thing is often _unreasonably_ more expensive, so you
| don 't really get a signal of what people would want
| without that price-gouging or other price-increasing
| effects.
|
| Take refrigerators. There are a few little things they
| could add to every single fridge that'd make them nicer,
| probably for $20 or so per unit, call it $100 by the time
| it hits retail. So your $1,100 fridge could be $1,200 but
| quite a bit nicer. Instead, you can't get that stuff unless
| you spring for the $2,000+ fridge (think: things like
| rollers on drawers and shelves, slightly nicer finishes,
| that kind of thing). Do consumers not "want" that since
| only a tiny minority buy fridges with those features? No,
| of course that's not the case. But because there is no
| "cheap, but with all the cheap bonuses included, so just
| slightly more expensive" option, it looks that way.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I agree with that, and I think it aligns with the claim
| that customer preferences ought not be blamed.
| gumby wrote:
| Tying this insight back to a popular and insightful HN trope:
| https://dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
| TradingPlaces wrote:
| The perfect pizza box has been invented, but Apple hoards that
| IP, and keeps it from The People.
|
| https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/78/74/d5/3374ac3...
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| In typical Apple fashion, this pizza box only holds perfectly
| round pizzas, churned in a factory to all look the same,
| ignoring the work of craftsmen and artisans that make non-
| round pizzas.
| microtherion wrote:
| For the benefit of readers who may not realize you're
| joking, it may be worth pointing out that this box was
| designed for use in Apple's cafeterias, which serve
| artisanal pizzas baked in wood fired ovens:
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa784v/sources-apples-
| pizza-...
| trynewideas wrote:
| https://designawards.core77.com/Packaging/62804/Zume-
| Pizza-P...
|
| Zume, which pivoted from kitchen robotics and IoT to pizza:
| https://archive.ph/TP9nb
|
| To food packaging: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-zume-
| become-packaging-inn...
|
| Zume no longer lists the Pizza Pod in their catalog:
| https://docsend.com/view/gxeeruv7mi3mbg4p
|
| There are knockoffs going for $1.25/unit (uline's equivalent
| traditional square cardboard box is $0.78/unit, Pratt sells
| square cardboard boxes custom-printed for $0.84-$1.48/unit):
| https://www.goodstartpackaging.com/pizzaround-pizza-
| box-12-1...
| danaris wrote:
| Until 2029, when the patent expires and anyone can make
| one...
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| This is also the same reason why so many newspapers and
| magazines are filled with fluffer BS articles such as this one
| instead of real investigative journalism: these types of
| articles are much cheaper and quicker to produce than
| investigative journalism. These empty complaint type articles
| are basically the website doing the minimum to fill space and
| get clicks.
| xg15 wrote:
| Fully agree except for the "the consumer wants it that way"
| take.
|
| The consumer "wants" this in the same way they "want" ad
| breaks, sugar-swamped food or addictive phone apps: It's the
| most shitty version of a product that a sufficient part of the
| population is still willing to pay money for, likely because
| there are _other_ advantages that just so make up for the
| shittyness (or in the case of addictiveness because the product
| just manages to hack the consumer 's brain).
|
| This is all about serving the lowest possible quality for the
| highest possible price, nothing about that has to do with
| "preferences".
| savanaly wrote:
| >This is all about serving the lowest possible quality for
| the highest possible price, nothing about that has to do with
| "preferences".
|
| Competition leads to the opposite, and I don't see any
| tangible argument for why it would be otherwise in this case.
| Like with the cranks you run into online who claim they've
| discovered flaws in the paradigms of physics, it's the burden
| of the internet commenter to provide evidence alongside their
| claim, in my view.
| danaris wrote:
| Competition leads to the opposite _in an idealized free
| market_.
|
| What we have is not a spherical market cow in a vacuum; it
| is a real live market with all kinds of non-ideal aspects
| to it. The biggest one of those is the gradual transfer of
| wealth from the poorest among us to the richest over the
| past several decades. This means that the poorest X% of
| consumers are _vastly_ more price-sensitive than they would
| be if the productivity-to-wage ratio had remained the same
| since the mid- '70s.
| rizzom5000 wrote:
| > This is all about serving the lowest possible quality for
| the highest possible price, nothing about that has to do with
| "preferences".
|
| I'm trying to follow this logically. Are you saying that if
| there were two options for a burger right next to another;
| say a McDonald's and a 5 Guys - the choice to buy a
| cheeseburger from 5 Guys instead of McDonald's has nothing to
| do with my preferences? I can come up with at least a dozen
| criteria for which the 5 Guys burger is objectively superior
| to the McDonald's offering, but choosing to pay more for that
| objectively superior product does not reveal preference?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| You gonna pick McDonald's instead because the Five Guys
| burger box is cheaper and doesn't function quite as well?
| Should we take your still choosing Five Guys as a sign that
| you prefer that box?
| kuboble wrote:
| Yes. exactly. Quoting GP:
|
| > the revealed preferences of consumers for those things
| is the cheaper version, not the better version.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, with non-diversified commodities, in a market with
| instant arbitration and universal complete knowledge
| about the products the Econ 101 models work.
|
| On the real world, they don't.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| No, you _cannot_ pick out the preference for one
| component of the offering that way. If there 'd been a
| 5-cents-higher option with the better box, they might
| have chosen that. You can only compare the entire
| offerings--convenience, quality of all components
| combined, cost, customer service, and so on, and say that
| that _entire bucket_ was what they preferred to the other
| _entire bucket_.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| This reminded me of the 1/3 pounder burger. The actual
| preference of consumers was for a larger burger (or cheaper
| relative to size). The so-called "revealed preference" is
| that half of the consumers were bad at fractions.
|
| https://culinarylore.com/food-history:aw-1-3-pound-burger-
| fa...
|
| "The firm conducted a focus group and found that around
| half of the people surveyed thought that the A&W 1/3 pound
| burger was smaller than McDonald's 1/4 pounder! "Why should
| we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we
| do for a quarter-pound of meat?" they said."
| _tom_ wrote:
| And all of the problems he talks about with the pizza are the
| result of this process applied to the pizza itself, not the
| box. Ingredient quality has plummeted, and the amount of
| sugar added is unbelievable. Some chain pizzas smell more
| like donuts that pizza.
| fishtoaster wrote:
| Ah, I was using the term "revealed preference" which has a
| slightly more nuanced meaning[0].
|
| In the colloquial sense, yeah, we all have a preference for
| "good pizza" and "cheap pizza." But those two things are
| generally a tradeoff: better pizza costs more. There exists
| some equilibrium point in the middle where either making the
| pizza better + more expensive _or_ making the pizza cheaper +
| worse will reduce sales (within a given population), and
| pizza shops will tend to coalesce around providing pizza at
| that equilibrium.
|
| The position of that equilibrium point is the "revealed
| preference" of a population. We might _say_ we want better
| pizza than is currently being provided, but when we vote with
| our wallets, we (collectively) tend towards pizza that costs
| as much as it does and is as good as it is.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference
| setr wrote:
| But we can also pay for good, or expensive pizza, and we
| will find the box remains the same. If it were simply
| consumer preferences, then we'd expect this to no longer be
| the case as we enter more price-agnostic tiers of
| consumerism.
|
| Unless of course no one cares about the box, so the
| increased cost literally does nothing, but that just means
| the improved boxes are not actually an improvement.
|
| More specifically, don't look at the market as a single
| unit, but as various buckets with various equilibriums. We
| expect Mercedes to target the equilibrium point... but not
| of the entire market (that's what Jettas and Camrys are
| for) but rather their niche.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > "and broadcast TV has obnoxious ads"
|
| Did consumers truly have a choice here? Yes, in many cases
| revealed preferences caused a slippery slope, but in other
| cases consumer choice is effectively non-existant - it's all on
| the producers.
| waltbosz wrote:
| Semi-related, this is an excellent song about the woman who
| invented the pizza table to prevent flimsy pizza box lids from
| falling into the cheese:
|
| https://soundcloud.com/otterintheflightdeck/carmela-vitale
|
| originally mentioned on HN in 2016
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13163970
| EarthLaunch wrote:
| I'm more worried about PFAS in pizza packaging [0]. It's used to
| make papers more water-resistant. Including some pizza boxes, or
| the paper they put between the pizza and the box.
|
| My favorite places use thin aluminum foil instead of oil/water-
| resistant PFAS infused papers. This is particularly important to
| me given the volume of pizza I consume...
|
| 0: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/23/pfas-
| everyda...
| contingencies wrote:
| _After smoking a lot of weed, I have come up with a lot of ideas
| for a better box," said Bellucci_
|
| Poor journalism to include this quote without a summary of the
| ideas engendered.
|
| _John Correll, a pizza-packaging inventor with 43 patents_
|
| https://patents.google.com/?inventor=John+Correll with his most
| recent box patent at
| https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/94/5f/ba/91947c3...
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Maybe the weed induced ideas weren't worth the effort?
| contingencies wrote:
| Indeed. In all seriousness, in my reading so far the patents
| largely relate to vaguely inferred logistical and
| manufacturing process efficiencies which are difficult to
| fully grasp without a background in packaging design and
| manufacturing (I have a few years of experience but am no
| expert). Specific economic benefits are not discussed,
| probably a purposeful exclusion. Ballpark it seems the
| patents are talking about what will probably amount to
| roughly single digit percentage gains in material cost,
| manufacturing and shipping at most. Yet total box cost is
| such a small factor in each transaction that the gains are an
| invisible rounding error for all but the very largest
| operator (Dominos). From a design perspective, it seems that
| once you have flatpacked your boxes, if you require
| effectively untrained staff to perform assembly operations,
| the maximum complexity threshold for design (largely due to
| assembly process speed, training and error-potential) becomes
| the limiting factor.
| Oxidation wrote:
| I do so love patent language:
|
| > However, it is essentially non-functional when incorporated
| within a box that has slanting, or obliquely-angled, walls. In
| this situation, the cup-holder strap assumes an abortive-
| looking non-level disposition within the corner section of the
| box....
| sokoloff wrote:
| I bought a pizza delivery bag (holds two large pies in boxes) and
| that seems to help quite a bit to cover the pizza for the five
| minutes from the local pizza joint to the kitchen counter.
|
| I will sometimes have pizza delivered, but far prefer to go pick
| it up myself and make sure that I'm paid and ready to drop the
| pizzas in the bag the minute they're ready, so we can be eating
| well inside of 10 minutes from when the pizza came out of the
| oven. The article talks about "after 45 minutes, [the pizza has
| deteriorated]". Well, no shit...that's not the box's fault.
| InCityDreams wrote:
| >a pizza delivery bag (holds two large pies in boxes)
|
| It took me a few seconds, but i guess where you're from they
| (pizzas) are called 'pies'.
| bbarnett wrote:
| They're called pies everywhere (pizza pies), but as with many
| things, the pie part is now unspoken.
|
| Such as gas for gasoline, and so on.
|
| EG, it's not an alias, but the dropped, rest of the name.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| "soda pop" is an interesting one. Some regions dropped the
| soda, others dropped the pop. Some dropped neither and
| still use "soda pop".
|
| And then some Neanderthal regions decided to drop both and
| use "Coke" as a generic term for carbonated soft drinks.
| unwind wrote:
| US English speakers consider pizza to be a kind of pie, yes.
|
| It"s quite confusing for the rest of us (or at least to me)
| but that's how they talk. :)
| _tom_ wrote:
| It's regional. Most of the country does _not_ call pizza a
| pie.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I once volunteered for a political campaign in rural
| Kansas (Senate campaign, IIRC, this was just a local
| campaign office) and they brought in some young New York
| political consultant and he called pizza "pie" (it came
| up because he was ordering some "pies" for the
| volunteers). The first time he did it everyone looked at
| one another and started laughing--not to be mean, it was
| just so unexpected that no-one could help it. I felt
| kinda bad for him, seemed really taken aback. NOBODY says
| that in rural Kansas. You don't order a pie, or a pizza
| pie, you order a pizza.
|
| For most of us in the room it was the first time we'd
| heard someone in real life call a pizza a pie, except
| when doing a bad Italian accent and talking about "a
| pizza-a pie-a" as a joke.
| tshaddox wrote:
| I wouldn't say that American English speakers actually
| consider pizza to be a member of the same pie family as
| apple pie. We will refer to pizzas as "pies," but without a
| very clear context of pizza, "pie" is almost always going
| to be interpreted as the family of sweet round desserts.
| unwind wrote:
| Aha, thanks, that's even more confusing! :) Also
| interesting (from a sibling comment) to learn that it's
| regional; I guess I'm suffering from some kind of
| confirmation bias; whenever US folks who do not call
| pizzas pies write about pizza online, I don't notice. :)
| tshaddox wrote:
| I think in practice any English speaker even at like an
| A2 level wouldn't get confused, because the context has
| to be extremely clear in order for "pie" to be used in
| reference to a pizza. In any conceivable case I can think
| of, pizza is either going to be explicitly named
| immediately before saying "pie," or the context will be
| undeniable (like when you're ordering from a pizza
| restaurant). There would never be a case where someone
| would ask "what do you want to eat?" and someone would
| respond with "pie" when they mean pizza.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > "There would never be a case where someone would ask
| "what do you want to eat?" and someone would respond with
| "pie" when they mean pizza."
|
| Friends or colleagues who are used to eating a pizza
| together excepted. Maybe rarely someone could say
| "pepperoni pie" or "cheese pie" without being confused,
| but as you said the context makes the case in these
| examples.
| jcampbell1 wrote:
| Pie and slice are units of measurement for the concept pizza.
| Much like you don't order "two pastas" saying "two pizzas"
| sounds stupid to people in the parts of US famous for pizza.
| Bread works the same way, it comes in loaves and slices. You
| don't buy "two breads" without sounding stupid.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > saying "two pizzas" sounds stupid to people in the parts
| of US famous for pizza.
|
| This definitely isn't true. Pizza pies are what they are,
| but it's fine to call it a pie (in obvious context), and
| most people call them pizzas. You wouldn't dare accuse My
| Very Educated Mother of being stupid for Just Serving Us
| Nine Pizzas.
|
| And I'm a Chicago pizza guy, where pizza _looks_ like a
| pie.
| moloch-hai wrote:
| The correct conclusion is that Chicago is not among the
| cited "parts".
| mansoon wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCgYMFtxUUw
|
| Sir, you are in violation of the ontology. Chicago pizza,
| while erroneously linguistically linked to the
| categorical foodstuff, is not, in fact, pizza.
| MrFantastic wrote:
| You would get a better result popping your pizza into your oven
| at home.
|
| The steam in the pizza bag probably softens the crust.
| rwha wrote:
| I enjoyed the linked 1949 article introducing pizza more:
|
| https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1949/10/184-4/132...
| kimnamjoon wrote:
| lol yes
|
| "plural pizze but no one ever uses it"
| pg_bot wrote:
| Why can't we just poke a few holes in the existing box to let the
| steam escape?
| brk wrote:
| Some of them do have vents in the lid, which works for personal
| carry-home in your car. But for delivery, the driver usually
| has 3 or 4 pies at a minimum, in an insulated bag, so nowhere
| for the steam to go.
|
| The obvious solution is a pizza oven on a vehicle chassis,
| where the pie is cooked en-route and delivered to you literally
| as it comes out of the oven.
| contingencies wrote:
| _Zume_ (died) tried that and _Wonder_ (fleet of 500 vehicles)
| just ~failed ( "Layoffs. Phasing out trucks. Searching for
| cost-efficient operating model."). _Stellar Pizza_ (2-3
| vehicles or so) is apparently still trying, their capex seems
| to be around ~$250K /unit.
| prepend wrote:
| This is what my local pizza place does and the pizza arrives
| pretty good.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-01-13 23:02 UTC)