转载「手机点餐菜单下架：为啥就餐的地方逐步放弃二维码」

Name: QR-code menus.

Age: Around for decades, mainstream for three years.

Appearance: A big square full of smaller squares that your cameraphone consistently fails to recognise.

Oh, you’re giving me Covid nostalgia. I know, right? Nothing says Covid-era dining like a QR-code menu, other than giant Perspex partitions and the unremitting fear of infecting yourself by touching the cutlery.

Simpler times. No. Stop that. Covid was awful. We need to firmly reject all the old Covid tropes, including QR-code menus.

But I like QR-code menus. No, you don’t. What you like is getting to order and pay for your food without having to endure human interaction.

Same thing. No, it isn’t. Anyway, you’re in a rapidly diminishing minority, because it has been reported that the QR-code menu is on the way out.

No! I’m afraid so. A report in the New York Times says that scans of restaurant QR codes have fallen by 27% in a year. Plus, fewer restaurants are creating new QR-code menus and about 75% of all restaurant QR-code menus were scanned fewer than 90 times in the past 12 months.

But why? Maybe people want to experience the tactile comfort of a paper menu when they go out. Maybe they want to talk through their options with a flesh-and-blood waiter. Maybe they want something more glamorous than repeatedly trying to aim their smeary phone at a peeling, ketchup-stained sticker on the corner of their table.

汉语译：那为啥啊？可能是因为大家出来吃饭的时候还是想摸一摸真实的菜单，纸质带来的良好触感。也许大家想通过一个血肉之躯的真人侍应来点餐。也许大家觉得，比起拿着个手机对着桌角边上着边角跷起，沾着调味酱的脏兮兮二维码猛拍一顿，或许还有别的更好的点餐方式。

But QR codes were the future. They were. But they were a future designed by a Japanese components manufacturer for the purpose of tracking automotive parts. We can probably go back to holding menus in our hands.

汉语译：但是以前都说二维码就是未来啊。以前是这么说的，但是那时候是人家日本汽车零件制造厂用来跟踪部件来源的。我们吃饭的时候还是可以回到过去手握菜单的样子。

This is a tragedy. It isn’t. Did you ever pop out to eat without your phone and find yourself being treated like a second-class citizen? Did you ever experience the chest-thumping terror of a dinner out with 3% of your battery left? Did you ever watch as a moment of potential romance evaporated because you had to get your phones out to try to navigate an impossible ordering system?

汉语译：那太悲剧了。不悲剧。你啥时候出来吃饭曾经因为没带手机就被当成低人一等过？经历过这种情况没，带着手机出来吃饭，发现只有３％的电力了，那个心慌啊。又或者经历过这种情况没，出来约会，结果手机点餐，那个点餐系统叫个复杂啊，浪漫瞬间全无了。

No. Well, it sucked. Good riddance, QR codes, you gussied-up barcodes. You were slightly too impractical to incorporate into our daily lives.

汉语译：真可惜。不可惜，好死。二维码没了好，你这装逼黑杠杠码。你们就不太好参和到我们人的日常生活中来。

Wow. Maybe we were wrong back in 2020. Maybe Covid didn’t change the world after all. I know. We’ve learned nothing. Hooray for humans!

Do say: “Can I see a menu? A real one?”

要说：我可以点餐吗（不是码）？用纸菜单？

Don’t say: “What am I supposed to use my phone for now?”

不要说：现在该用手机干点啥？