restaurants are fine. the problem is capitalism

like i don't get why people are so obsessed with socialism or anarchism as this like, platonically ideal rugged individualist fantasy where you live off the land but somehow your neighbors are still nice enough to give you a cup of sugar when you need. newsflash: when everyone is atomized and hyper individualized you're not getting your cup of sugar without being able to provide something in exchange for it

individualism benefits capital because it becomes all about "what can you do for me" and nothing at all about just helping each other because we can. it rewards doing things for the material value you can extract from that regardless from whether its a moral good or not

also this might just be personal experience clouding my perception but i feel like we lost the concept of restaurants being like, community meeting spots or just places for friends to hang out at some point. like even before covid there was a marked difference in how restaurants felt conceptually compared to the way they're portrayed in like, seinfeld

to be fair, wages have been stagnating for a while as prices have risen so the concept of going out to eat as a social thing has slowly eroded anyway

@CyclopsCaveman restaurants doing shit like imposing time limits became a thing in the last decade