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The story
ITmedia reported that while more restaurants are getting customers to order via smartphone using QR codes, a striking number of them don’t provide free Wi-Fi for customers to use — and the story sparked a reaction on 5channel’s News Express+ board. In the thread, some pointed to the running costs restaurants want to avoid by skipping Wi-Fi, and others said they actually welcome ordering on their own phone over touching a shared tablet for hygiene reasons — but others argued it’s unreasonable for restaurants with poor signal to make customers foot the data bill. Opinions split between the store-side logic of cutting costs and customer frustration over having to cover their own data costs, over whether QR-code ordering is really justified.
Why Do Restaurants Make You Order via Smartphone but Skip the Customer Wi-Fi? (1/2) – ITmedia NEWS
Published: September 28, 2026, 7:00 AM
Updated: September 28, 2026, 10:59 AM
Source: itmedia.co.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Places with bad signal would go out of business doing this lol
That's exactly like a place near me.
With one bar of signal it keeps freezing up, like something's wrong, and you have to reload the page.
I avoid places with tablets sitting out too — phones and tablets are dirtier than socks.
By that logic, aren't menus dirty too?
Sounds like you're the type who brings your phone or tablet into the bathroom at home.
could get flooded with fake orders from outside
though that would count as obstruction of business.
To prevent that, requiring LINE registration is becoming the standard.
If it's just that much, the restaurant should provide a dedicated device.
I've got unlimited data, so I don't bother connecting each time.
People like that are a tiny minority.
…just kidding.
You'll just get charged for it via the otoshi fee (the mandatory small appetizer charge at Japanese izakayas).
So you're gonna keep reloading the menu page until you feel you've gotten your money's worth?
Sounds exhausting lol
Then just don't do smartphone ordering in the first place. Why should I have to burn my precious data allowance?
What you're using up is packet data, not "gigs."
Things like no register fraud, no order mistakes —
it simplifies the annoying closing-time work for the restaurant.
But they shouldn't be pushing that burden onto customers.
When they clear the plates and wipe the table, I wish they'd properly wipe down the tablet too.
At family restaurants I go grab a wet wipe first and clean the tablet before ordering.
But that's just smearing the grime around.
It's sticky, so doing that is still better than nothing.
Makes me think ordering on my own phone is just better after all.
Places like McDonald's are basically all mobile order now anyway.
Just carry your own bottle of Kitchen Haiter (a common bleach spray) and splash it on whenever needed.
Then post it at the entrance.
You can't just walk out once you're already inside and at the ordering stage.
Basically, you only find out after you've already entered the store, so customers end up feeling like they've been "tricked."
and they still make you QR order. I laughed.
So you're saying go outside to order?
If you can't order verbally, just leave.
Overseas, this kind of infrastructure consolidation has sent national productivity soaring,
and countries doing the same thing with AI on top are growing at an insane pace.
Yet Japan alone keeps falling behind, productivity keeps dropping, and it's becoming irreversible.
There's no such country, as always (a stock 5ch retort meaning "here we go again").
If you're going to call yourself part of the "educated class," at least teach them the simple fix: have the restaurant keep one spare phone on hand so customers who forgot theirs can order too.
You'd probably blame the bubble bursting on Wi-Fi too…
why are you so deathly opposed to Japan's productivity improving?
I'm not trying to bait you, but Japan alone is getting left behind the rest of the world's rising productivity, you know?
Are you saying anyone who pushes for that no matter what is unforgivable and has to stop? That's a pretty dangerous way of thinking.
If restaurants just install tablets themselves, that spending happens right there and productivity goes up, no?
It's the opposite — it's precisely because productivity is falling.
This is basically solved just by keeping QR ordering as the main method while having one staff member carry a phone to also handle verbal orders. But here you are, embarrassingly steamrolling everyone with the delusion that you alone are right.
It's because it lowers customers' time efficiency.
Table turnover drops too, so it's only struggling, run-down places that adopt it.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Mobile ordering (QR-code ordering) offers a major benefit to restaurants struggling with staff shortages: fewer order mistakes and less hassle with register reconciliation. On the other hand, investing in network infrastructure tends to be avoided as an added cost. For customers on budget SIM plans with capped data, a system that eats into their data allowance every time they place an order can be a real burden that’s hard to ignore. In the thread, some said they actually prefer ordering on their own phone over a shared tablet for hygiene reasons, while others criticized the fact that the burden of cost-cutting ends up falling on customers’ data usage — leaving no consensus on whether store-side rationality or customer burden should take priority. Note that some posts that veered off into a debate comparing productivity with other countries have been omitted here, since they aren’t directly related to the Wi-Fi installation issue itself.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Express+) thread “Why Do Restaurants Make You Order via Smartphone but Skip the Customer Wi-Fi?.”
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