Home Cooking Is Killing The Restaurant Industry!
from the something-must-be-done dept
For many years, whenever people insisted that the ability to download movies would kill the movie business — including the box office revenues — we’ve made the analogy that just because people can prepare food at home (for much lower cost!) it hasn’t changed the fact that sometimes people still go out to dinner. It’s an apt analogy. People go out to dinner for a variety of reasons, despite cheaper (and potentially healthier) fare at home. Basically the overall experience makes it worthwhile as a social experience. That applies equally to movies and eating out. I was reminded of this recently. A whole bunch of you sent over Gizmodo’s post about the old Dead Kennedys cassette tape mocking “Home Taping is Killing Music” by leaving the second side blank so “you can help”:


Filed Under: analogies, cooking, home taping, moral panics
Comments on “Home Cooking Is Killing The Restaurant Industry!”
Yeah!
“Yes, folks, home cooking is killing the restaurant industry. Why won’t Congress and the USTR deal with this pernicious problem?”
Hell yeah! And let’s not forget those that are REALLY responsible. Yes, I’m talking about that most evil person who hides behind that age old lie, “But I’m not DOING the home cooking, I’m just SHOWING them how!”
Yes, folks, I’m talking about Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray….oh, and that goofy guy that just randomly yells BAM! at people. Can you imagine how much less delicious home cooking would threaten our very way of life if these women, these evil, vile cookerists weren’t plagueing us with their garbage?
Which is why we are introducing a new bill, US Bill: Return Eating To American Restaurants, Dammit, otherwise known as RETARD. Included in the language of RETARD supporters everywhere is 3rd party culpability placed on this crocheting Martha Stewart, this Rachel Ray with here nonsense about Dunkin Donuts coffee being good, and….christ, what was the BAM! guys name again? It doesn’t matter, RETARD will take him down too!
And here’s the key: we can grow the restaurant business everywhere! All we the US Trade Org. has to do is make this an international treaty / executive order! That way we can make sure that our trade partners are every bit as RETARDed as we are!
You mark my words. RETARDs will have their day. In the meantime, I’ve got a lovely cut of bacon on the stove….
Re: Yeah!
This had better not be implemented in Canada. We already have a levy applied to all food items which is given to a collection society – they then split it amongst all restaurants (after they take their 80% overhead of course!).
Re: Re: Yeah!
Actually you’re wrong: the levy is on non-stick cooking implements only, and makes up 90% of their cost. As such it is completely legal for us to make home-cooked meals using a Teflon saucepan, but if we do so using stainless steel, cast iron or aluminum then we could be in trouble, since those tools don’t have levees on them.
It is not yet clear whether it’s okay to use stainless steel during the process so long as we serve our meal from a non-stick. That’s for the courts to decide.
Re: Re: Re: Yeah!
There’s also pressure from various US lobby groups to plug the “wooden hole” and force everyone to upgrade to silicon cooking utensils. Even though wooden utensils are sometimes grainy and usually technically inferior to their silicon (or even plastic) counterparts, many people still rely on them during their daily cooking.
Re: Yeah!
Well. Done.
I couldn’t help but think that it took you hours to come up with R.E.T.A.R.D., but the way you put this post together makes me think you’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity to share it 🙂
Re: Re: Yeah!
Nope, took all of about 15 minutes in total.
Sometimes the gems just hit me….
Re: Re: Re: Yeah!
You should see the emerald-shaped bruise on DH’s forehead.
Re: Re: Re:2 Yeah!
But… the Helmet… Paradox incoming
Re: Re: Re:3 Yeah!
The helmet is his head!
breathing on our own is killing the Oxygen biz, The Gov needs to step in and stop this madness.
The whole concept of “synchro dubbing” was created to allow copying cassette tapes. I’m amazed the RIAA never sued Sony or JVC or whoever came up with that concept. At one time probably half my tape collection were pirated from somebody else’s. But I will reiterate the concept that piracy isn’t always bad: a buddy of mine made a copy of Depeche Mode’s “Music for the Masses” for me. Within a year I had most of their albums on cassette and later when I converted to CD I got pretty much their entire catalogue. So had I not pirated the tape I never would have bought all their albums.
Re: Re:
There are about a million perfectly legal reasons that one might want to copy a cassette tape.
Re: Re: Re:
All similar to the million perfectly legal reasons why one might want to copy your DRMed DVD, or transmit a file using BitTorrent.
It seems to me that “legal” and “left alone by the **AA” are two separate concepts.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Oh I know… I’m just pointing out to AC that it’s not fair to equate “copying cassette tapes” with “piracy”
Re: Re:
I think what you’re missing here is that “syncro dubbing” would not allow a person to have mass distribution of the work. Dubbed cassettes, if sold at all, were relegated to swap-meets and flea markets. I think that RIAA realized that dubbed cassettes were no threat to the genuine article due to quality and limited distribution.
Fast forward 20 years.
Now we have a means where a single person, with a single copy of a work, can pass exact copies to every other person in the world. That’s what has them scared. RIAA has not figured out how to give an incentive to buy. And since there is no real reason to buy any more, many people don’t.
Re: Re: Re:
And since there is no real reason to buy any more, many people don’t.
There is still a good reason to buy. It is the same reason that has been there all along.
Reason to buy …
If you don’t then your musical taste will not be catered for in future.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Reason to buy …
If you don’t then your musical taste will not be catered for in future.
Uh, logic fail. Whether I buy music or not doesn’t affect who makes music that I like – since I can’t afford to spend thousands of dollars a year on music, and that, at a minimum, is what it would take for me to have such an effect. Either there are bands out there making music I like, or there are not (there are).
There are reasons to buy things, and IMO even reasons to buy things that could be had for free, but the idea that there won’t be any music I like if I don’t is not one of them.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Reason to buy …
If you don’t then your musical taste will not be catered for in future.
You’re not implying that musicians only make music to make money are you? That if a musician doesn’t make any money off of the music he creates then he will just stop making music (or at least that style of music)? I’d wager that the vast majority of musicians make music solely for the love of it. I want as many people as possible to listen to, and hopefully enjoy, what I create because I love what I do. I don’t sit in my practice space with my bandmates pouring over the latest demographic information for our target audience so that we can carefully craft the next hit. I make the music I do because it’s what comes naturally.
I know this is somewhat off topic but I felt the need to address that particular comment. There is a virtually limitless wealth of music out there. Certain genres or styles may become more difficult to find because the music industry doesn’t deem it popular anymore so they don’t push it into your face 24/7 but it’s there.
Re: Re: Re:
I think that RIAA realized that dubbed cassettes were no threat to the genuine article due to quality and limited distribution.
Huh? Just exactly what part of their whole HOME TAPING IS KILLING THE MUSIC INDUSTRY campaign would make you think that?
Re: Re:
The whole concept of “synchro dubbing” was created to allow copying cassette tapes.
Actually, I seem to remember the record industry being quite upset about dubbing decks.
Heh.
“But I’m not DOING the home cooking, I’m just SHOWING them how before I sue them for copyright infringement on my recipes!”
There. Thought that would drive the point home a little better.
😉
California Über Alles!
I love the dead kennedys.
permission to quote that darkhelmet
THATS PERFECT
ROFL
mod up of the year
Re: permission to quote that darkhelmet
Permission granted….
another thing...
Don’t get me started on what marital sex is doing to the brothel industry.
Re: another thing...
Martial sex is a lie….unless it’s with a mistress.
Re: Re: another thing...
Martial sex?
Like Martial Arts!!?
Shazaam!
That’s just awesome!
Wait, what? It’s a lie?
I’m sad now… ;'(
Re: Re: Re: another thing...
AC is a Kung Fu** master. AC has a latex belt.
Re: another thing...
Exactly!
When will that evil institution wake up and give the customers what they really want!! It’s because the industry won’t wake up and CtF/RtB that it’s doing so poorly.
THIS is why so many customers are turning to the brothels for what they need! No amount of restrictive DRM like “vows” will keep customers tied to an industry that that just won’t deliver what the customers want!
Re: another thing...
Probably nothing.
welp
something awful already has a thread about this – it’s called “the worst kitchen mistake you’ve ever made”
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2998734
Simple Answer
“Why won’t Congress and the USTR deal with this pernicious problem?”
Becuase there is no unified lobby bribing them to care.
"Why won't Congress and the USTR deal with this pernicious problem?"
because they are RETARDed and don’t know what “pernicious” is? OR how to home cook or how it works?
AND what about takeout and delivery?
THINK OF THE GAS COMPANIES
we must keep them yacht building programs in order now.
Re: AND what about takeout and delivery?
“THINK OF THE GAS COMPANIES
we must keep them yacht building programs in order now.”
Perhaps THAT’S why we hear so much opposition against pier to pier sharing?
Re: Re: AND what about takeout and delivery?
You’re on a roll.
Re: Re: AND what about takeout and delivery?
*groan* On a roll today DH!
Time to sue all of the grocery stores, after all they are inciting people to cook at home. If we could just shut down all of the grocery stores we could stamp out cooking at home.
Two birds, one stone
Just give all home cooks only one ingredient to cook with. In fact, we can make it a green initiative by recycling while we set this up. I know, Soylent Green FTW. Saves the restaurant industry, AND helps free up cemetery space for the death industry too!
I wish you guys would stop giving the various industries ideas. It has been pretty obvious for a long time that a total ignorance of economics and marketing was a prerequisite for becoming a modern CEO. However, a lesser know qualification is being totally humor challenged. CEO’s are not likely to recognize sarcasm unless you are using the $1.99 sarcasm flag.
The various industries you mentioned are at this very moment buying another congressman and preparing press releases that will be published without question in prestigious newspapers around the country.
It's the children
Everyone knows a child gets better food and a macs than at home. I mean a big mac or 2, order of fries, coke, upsize please, is much better than macaroni and cheese or a peanut better sandwich. Please America, grow out.
@Designerfx
damn some of that post(link) was funny others just like UH huh you stupid awards LOL
Stupid
That is the stupidest analogy I have ever seen. Really Mike, you really shouldn’t post every dumbass thing that crosses your inbox.
@Alex Hagen
WRONG. ITS about as DEAD on as a YOU can get. ONLY
a RETARD would not see the value in it and the truth in it.
ONLY a retard got it. YOU figure out what i’m saying?
HE is showing the absudity of what and how the copyright industries are in fact there own worst enemies by making such RETARDed wishes and CLAIMS —>( Clueless Lawsuits And Idiot Mainstream Suits )
let teh anagrams BEGIN
Re: @Alex Hagen
“BEGIN”
Bigwig Entitlements Grow In Numbers?
Re: @Alex Hagen
Ive used this befor but none caught it.
The epitome of corporate
Arrogance, Ignorance, Greed
AIG
Home sex
As someone said it before: home sex is killing prostitution. We need laws aginst that. Police should be in every bedroom to avoid that illegal activity!
Perfect analogy.
and of course all restaurants have copyrighted menus, so they can sue each other if they have any duplicate items…
some said
Stupid awards why not the Techdirt annual Moronic awards.
who would you nominate.
RIAA
MIAA
Peter Mandelson
The Auatralian Government
would be on my list.
Also
Home faucets are killing the bottled water industry!
GO add on to it now
OH and when you see and actor or musician just gigle and point and snicker YOUR a R.E.T.A.R.D aren’t you?
haha
make sure you of course are carrying a baseball bat and a baseball ( the ball to indicate you really are going to play baseball not wack a M.O.L.E )
MOLE= ( Musician on levy Entitlements )
Re: GO add on to it now
Irony.
Er...
I’m slowly beginning to regret my first post….
Well they can't stop home cooking......
Well they can’t stop home cooking but but they can add some DRM that says the food isn’t really yours. You merely only have a license to digest it at that time but it could be taken away with notice. Also if the server the gave out the DRM was to shut down you can only look at the food. More importantly is the fact you can’t share the food with anybody!!!!! that would be stealing.
Re: Well they can't stop home cooking......
and you can only eat with a dinner fork, not a dessert fork and only in your diningroom, not your livingroom…
But to follow the theme
Face to face conversations is killing the cell phone companies
Video is killing the radio star!
Re: Re:
Nope its Clear Channel that is killing radio.
Re: Re:
THAT wins the Stupidest Post Award.
Libraries?
Are libraries killing the printing industry?
Infinite material
Grand prize goes to Simon for noticing that marital sex is killing the brothel industry. But there’s an infinite supply:
We already know that libraries are the biggest copyright infringers and are killing the publishing business.
Camcorders are killing the movie industry.
Toothpaste is killing the dental industry.
Apples are killing the doctor industry.
Homes are killing the hotel industry.
Going to work is killing the welfare and government dependency industry.
The humor in this column is killing the comic industry (or not).
Eating Rights Industry
They need a special non-profit group to watch people going into and out of grocery stores and then sign them yearly licensing fees so they can look after those poor starving cooks that are trying to make a living and feed their families. Who in turn will also have to pay fees to eat.
Mel said it best . . .
All industries die, but not all industries really live.
W must stop ths marital sex problem by...
…making it illegal.
That way, when marriage is outlawed, then only outlaws will have inlaws!!!
Stop home farming!
After watching Food Inc., it seems to me that personal farming will be illegal soon. You will be infringing on Monsanto patents, not to mention killing poor farmers who won’t sell farm products and finally the restaurant industry when you cook your own grown food. No, this isn’t going to end well.
I picture the NSA scanning millions of HiRes satellite images looking for small growing fields of fruits and vegetables and sending in SWAT teams with RoundUp, oops, I mean shovels to dig up the small plots of land, then taking away your house because the land it’s on was used to illegally grow food. Fertile imagination?
Re: Stop home farming!
SWAT teams with RoundUp, oops, I mean shovels to dig up the small plots of land, then taking away your house because the land it’s on was used to illegally grow food. Fertile imagination?
Next you’ll be dreaming up scenarios where they’re doing that to people who grow their own “herbs” too. Get real. That could never happen in the land of freedom.
The New Analogy
Time to update the cooking analogy. I nominate drinking!
“…the analogy that just because people can [drink] at home (for much lower cost!) it hasn’t changed the fact that sometimes people still go out to [get plastered]…”
Re: The New Analogy
Okay, all joking aside, they try to take away my doG given right to sip Irish whiskey in a dark corner of my room while I write (yes, I normally drink while I write, it frees up the creative juices), then I’m starting a militia….
Re: Re: The New Analogy
Learn new things every day at Techdirt.
First off, it’s Thursday around noon, and Hitler’s posterboy is drinking Irish Whiskey instead of Hefeweizen.
*facepalm*
Re: Re: Re: The New Analogy
“Learn new things every day at Techdirt.
First off, it’s Thursday around noon, and Hitler’s posterboy is drinking Irish Whiskey instead of Hefeweizen.
*facepalm*”
Facepalm indeed. Couple of questions:
1. Is it Thursday around noon everywhere?
2. Did I say I was drinking my Irish whiskey now?
3. Honestly, Hitler’s posterboy? What in the sweet hell did I ever say that gave you THAT impression? I’m about as antiprejudicial as it gets, friend….
Re: Re: Re:2 The New Analogy
Wait, so you’re not starting a militia? Normally, I’d chalk that up to a comment someone inebriated would make.
I fear what watch lists you’re on!
Re: Re: Re:3 The New Analogy
Now I’m really confused.
A. No, not starting a militia, because the rights I was speaking about aren’t being attacked….
B. Starting a militia = posterboy for Hitler? No wonder the British had such a hard time fighting the colonies….
All store-bought food is soon to be equipped with DRM (deliciousness rights management).
the packaging will be covered in FBI warnings, and be mixed with at least 5% dogshit at the cash register to ensure that no-one touches it.
Of course shoplifters won’t have that problem, but its hardly the fault of the store if their mixing dogshit with donuts causes all of their customers to suddenly start wanting “stolen” dogshit-free donuts is it?
Reason #342 why I love the Dead Kennedy’s.
A better analogy than I thought.
At first I was a little skeptical of comparing cooking at home to restauants, but then I thought a little bit about it:
-There is a community of content creators (cooks and chefs).
– They create works for the actual consumption of the public.
– At home, one is capable of creating their own tasty content.
– Worst of all there is a network of information available to most that can allow people at home to not only create their own content, but often the same content! (cookbooks and recipe sharing websites)
– In a 2005 study 60% of restaurants fail within three years.
Coincidence? I think not!
Let the discussion on CwF + RtB for restauranteurs commence!
Re: A better analogy than I thought.
Okay, now you’re just pandering.
But let’s say Cwf-(RtB) “Trollin’ Time!” works, wouldn’t it then qualify as a theorem?
corn farmers!
I bet The Corn Farmers Association would support such a protectionist program!
if you don’t want to eat out, you can always cook at home.
but if you don’t want to watch a movie in the theater, do you make one at home? no, you merely take a copy of what someone else has made.
i don’t see how the analogy holds.
Re: Re:
but if you don’t want to watch a movie in the theater, do you make one at home?
No, but you don’t “make” a movie at the theater either: you watch it. And that ‘s what you do at home: you watch it.
Re: Re: Re:
how is that a rebuttal?
you go to a theater to watch something someone else made.
you go to a restaurant to eat something someone else made.
if you don’t want to go to a restaurant, you can stay home and cook (where “you” make what you want to consume).
but if you don’t want to go to a theater, do you create your content? you still buy someone else’s creation, which is why this analogy is flawed.
if theater = restaurants, then watching at home = eating takeaway food at home, not cooking at home.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
The point is that “pirating movies” (recreating the content you would be getting externally) is equivalent to cooking the same meal that one would buy in a restaurant.
When you eat takeaway at home, that’s equivalent to RENTING a movie.
Delivery = streaming??
wow
sure seem to be a lot of people on this site who like to throw around the word retard. what’s with that? I didn’t see any other slurs like the N word, so why do you give the word retard a pass. maybe because you think that people with special needs don’t count. They totally get when you’re mocking them. Enough already.
Home Cooking killing restaurants
Great work, Mike.
If the restaurant business would adapt, the “problem” would tend to go away.
My wife and I like to eat out, but because it is almost impossible to find out what you are being fed (and when you are told, you can’t always trust it, because it is oral, and the restaurant cannot be held to what they say), we now eat at home.
On those rare occasions where we find a restaurant that will commit IN WRITING to what they are feeding us, we will consider eating there, but they normally use massive amounts of salt or MSG or other “unfriendly” additives.
I think as people realize how much they are being “poisoned”, the trend may be to do the same thing we do.
Sex is killing the cloning industry. Nope, no “fair use” either. Just stop it, before the layers get here.
fun but stupid
Typical argument – state a premise that the other side actually wouldn’t make, and then attack your own premise as stupid. In fact, artists are saying “if you want to make movies at home, great! If you want to start your own restaurant, great! Just don’t ask me to do all the work for you and then claim you have a right to what I did! You didn’t slave away in the kitchen – you’re just stealing food and telling me i should be happy.”
The movie industry is saying don’t take food from restaurants without paying for it.
Should chefs work for free? (you aren’t saying that chefs are only in it for the money are you??) Or do you just have the superceding “right” to have someone make your dinner for you? If you don’t like the terms to watch movies, then go out and make one of your own.
fun but stupid
Typical argument – state a premise that the other side actually wouldn’t make, and then attack your own premise as stupid. In fact, artists are saying “if you want to make movies at home, great! If you want to start your own restaurant, great! Just don’t ask me to do all the work for you and then claim you have a right to what I did! You didn’t slave away in the kitchen – you’re just stealing food and telling me i should be happy.”
The movie industry is saying don’t take food from restaurants without paying for it.
Should chefs work for free? (you aren’t saying that chefs are only in it for the money are you??) Or do you just have the superceding “right” to have someone make your dinner for you? If you don’t like the terms to watch movies, then go out and make one of your own.
fun but stupid
Years later the analogy is still going strong. You lost, boy.
When families eat at home they know everything that has been added in their meal and know the cleanliness of their own kitchen. Moreover, they know if the food was washed and cooked well. At home they know that the cook has washed his/her hands. And for this you just need to buy a grill and enjoy homemade food. If you do not know what criteria to choose for the best model of the grill, then visit the site https://bestgrill.reviews/tailgate-grills/ to make sure that this model is safe. Here are 6 Best Grill For Tailgating