Scan QR code. Order on your phone. Pay on your phone. Asks for a tip.

So uh, what exactly am I tipping you here for dawg?

Well yes, that’s the point.

That’s how we know exactly how this playbook goes, because we’ve seen it before.

The fact that all big companies are doing this doesn’t mean that we should think any less badly of HP for doing it too.

The problem, as far as HP will be concerned, is the strategy was leaked to the public. If there was no leak there would have been no news, and no ‘feedback’.

HP won’t take this as a signal to not do the shitty thing. They’ll take this as a signal to back off for now, and then try the shitty thing again later, but slowly and bit-by-bit, so there’s no big news.

Turned out that scratches can easily be avoided if you are careful, and - more importantly - a few scratches won’t prevent the disc being read, thanks to the error correction.

Back in the day I remember using one of those AOL internet sign-up junk discs as a drinks coaster, for several years. As you’d expect from grinding around on my desk it was filthy and scratched to total hell, never mind the thermal stress of hundreds of hot tea mugs being sat on it. I’d never seen a CD looking so bad.

One day out of curiosity I decided to wipe it off and put it in the PC to see what would happen. I was genuinely surprised when the AOL splash popped up (and also a little disgusted because I had no love for AOL and was hoping I’d killed it)