British advertising executive Rory Sutherland coined the term “doorman fallacy” in his 2019 book Alchemy. Sutherland uses the concept of the humble hotel doorman to illustrate how businesses can misjudge the value a person brings to the role.
To a business consultant, a doorman appears to simply stand by the entrance. They engage in small talk with those coming and going, and occasionally operate the door.
If that’s the entirety of the job, a technological solution can easily replace the doorman, reducing costs. However, this strips away the true complexity of what a doorman provides.
The role is multifaceted, with intangible functions that extend beyond just handling the door. Doormen help guests feel welcome, hail taxis, enhance security, discourage unwelcome behaviour, and offer personalised attention to regulars. Even the mere presence of a doorman elevates the prestige of a hotel or residence, boosting guests’ perception of quality.
When you ignore all these intangible benefits, it’s easy to argue the role can be automated. This is the doorman fallacy – removing a human role because technology can imitate its simplest function, while ignoring the layers of nuance, service and human presence that give the role its true value.
That’s like muscle atrophying from lack of gravity. The gravity was the importance of such nuance for, well, making money. In this analogy.
Where did it go - well, to picking the right advertising and promotion system, the right platform. Good or bad attention is more important now than reputation.
One could foresee this when the Web, consisting of web directories, web rings and people talking about things in small communities on forums and in groupchats, with their ICQ number being their main identifier, was defeated by Google. It was the first indication that reputation loses to discoverability.
So, why are they cutting this - because this level has become subject to a higher level of competition. Where the specific business going bad doesn’t matter.
Taken broadly; literal management might be correctly optimizing shareholder returns for next quarter (cut costs at all costs), as the incentives encourage. The goal is no longer to keep having a business next year.
That actually … really hits the nail on the head with a lot of things in the modern era.
Really illustrates how fucking dumb businesses and business management has become.
That’s like muscle atrophying from lack of gravity. The gravity was the importance of such nuance for, well, making money. In this analogy.
Where did it go - well, to picking the right advertising and promotion system, the right platform. Good or bad attention is more important now than reputation.
One could foresee this when the Web, consisting of web directories, web rings and people talking about things in small communities on forums and in groupchats, with their ICQ number being their main identifier, was defeated by Google. It was the first indication that reputation loses to discoverability.
So, why are they cutting this - because this level has become subject to a higher level of competition. Where the specific business going bad doesn’t matter.
Taken broadly; literal management might be correctly optimizing shareholder returns for next quarter (cut costs at all costs), as the incentives encourage. The goal is no longer to keep having a business next year.