[zomglings]

I'm not sure everyone in a country "knowing" to drive on the same side of the road is an example of a Schelling point -- drivers are trained to do this.

Also not sure if fads, like "everyone orders a flat white", are instances of Schelling points, but that seems more reasonable as a Schelling point than driving on the same side of the road.

More generally, didn't really understand the point of this article. I guess the author is trying to say that as technology improves, people are gaining the ability to customize their experiences. Framing this as "anti-Schelling points" doesn't make sense to me - what shared game is being played? At its most game-like, you could say that people are just trying to maximize their own utility without worrying (or having to worry) about shared economy of scale.

[tedunangst]

The point is you can talk about game theory if you make everything about game theory.

[ano-ther]

> I'm not sure everyone in a country "knowing" to drive on the same side of the road is an example of a Schelling point -- drivers are trained to do this.

The driving side is usually also the walking side. When I travel to a country with another orientation, I bump into people on the sidewalk or corridors a few times before adjusting. Same on the way back, all without driving a car myself.

[zomglings]

Although the driving side isn't a Schelling point, the walking direction matching the driving direction is.

[Suppafly]

> the walking direction matching the driving direction is.

Not really though since that's also dictation and not something that naturally occurs. In fact you usually have to teach children to walk with vehicle traffic, because the natural inclination is to walk against it so that you can see the cars coming and move out of the way vs walking with traffic and hoping they maintain correct distance from you.

[harrison_clarke]

in the case of drink orders, there's a slight benefit to ordering something unique (at least unique within the queue you're standing in). you don't have to remember your place in line, or negotiate with someone else about who was there first

the space of possible drink orders isn't so large that you'll be collision-free by default (like UUIDs), so there's some incentive to guess what other people will order, and adjust your order to avoid collisions

[thaumasiotes]

> in the case of drink orders, there's a slight benefit to ordering something unique (at least unique within the queue you're standing in). you don't have to remember your place in line, or negotiate with someone else about who was there first

A normally-functioning vendor would call out the completed order by order number, so this problem just can't arise. You can't take someone else's order identical to yours any more than you can take someone else's order for ten times as much food as you purchased.

[harrison_clarke]

i don't think i've ever seen a cafe do that (unless you count mcdonald's as a cafe). even the starbuck's thing of using your name is rare, but others have picked it up

most cafes i've been in, the queue is usually short enough that the barista knows who ordered what. at peak times, they can't keep track of it, though, so the customers keep track themselves and it usually works well enough that nobody is going to optimize it

[Suppafly]

> at peak times, they can't keep track of it

They usually have FIFO system anyway, so even if everyone was ordering the same thing, it wouldn't matter. I suppose a situation where you have multiple baristas and some work faster than others or some people have simpler orders might force customers to keep track though.

[brookst]

“I have a flat white for Steve” is comedy gold at a crowded starbucks.