Comment by dividefuel

Does this really demonstrate what the author thinks it does? Other than menus, none of this was really easier before technology.

- Parking meters: you'd have to remember when yours would expire and manually check your watch (if you brought one!) regularly. If you needed more time, you'd have to leave the table to go to the meter to extend it... or leave your event early.

- Splitting a bill: this is notoriously difficult with medium groups [0]. Servers generally dislike split bills, even if you go to the trouble of listing the exact amounts to charge per card. It's also not just a tech problem, but a social problem as well.

Yes the technology involved could be better -- ideally you can easily extend a parking meter from your phone, ideally the app for splitting the bill works well and supports more complicated (but common) scenarios.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p8mhQ9wINI