6 ms·

I Eat for Free in NYC Using Python, Automation, AI, and Instagram

61 points by antoinec 4y ago

LionHigh 4y ago
Leveraging social currency to obtain free food? I hate to break it to this guy, but women have already found a way to automate this process far more efficiently.
- sleepdreamy 4y ago
  My initial thought. lmao
unethical_ban 4y ago
Person creates website with some content. Person verifiably has 25k people looking at it at least sometimes. Restaurants give him a meal in exchange for ad space(sponsored review). Other than further polluting the new web with fake bullshit content, there doesn't seem to be anything immoral about it. It just "feels" a bit scummy. But hey, a man's gotta eat.
- LegitShady 4y ago
  This person steals content from others. They don't add anything. They didn't create a website either - they're just scraping content to steal. And they steal that content for actual financial benefit of free food rather so it isn't innocent. This is totally scummy.
  - vietthan 4y ago
    We say that but people who follow the account or like his posts must have found some value.
    - LegitShady 4y ago
      That value is stolen from the original source so he can proposition restaurants for financial benefit.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    I won't argue the "steal content" component. Indeed it's unsavory, though I guess I'm desensitized because that's what 70% of social media and reddit is these days. In the context of this discussion, though, I think the "website" analogy fits just fine.
- tengbretson 4y ago
  > But hey, a man's gotta eat. Yes, ideally by providing value to others in their community.
Mali- 4y ago
This is slightly parasitic behaviour, but it is certainly a cool project.
rdtwo 4y ago
Instagram “influencer” extorting restaurant for money that’s so 2018
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  There is no extortion.
- kurisufag 4y ago
  extortion would be threatening to give a poor review, as it is it's just advertising
- notafraudster 4y ago
  Quite literally: the blog post is from 2019 and the behavior is from 2018.
AIorNot 4y ago
This is simultaneously both a cool project and a depressingly complete waste of human potential to create and consume via that demon scroll of mindless consumption that is Instagram…
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  On the other hand, that's the entire premise of Instagram and any other engagement-based business model. At least this guy uses the "profits" to acquire food as opposed to (another?) superyacht.
kurisufag 4y ago
this is a significantly less criminal version of bruting gift card checking pages, which was both very doable and popular ~5-10 years ago. the cards themselves had something like 16 characters, but only the last 4 would be variable at any time -- with a couple proxies, you could successfully catch codes after they were activated but before they were redeemed. I'm not sure there was any recourse for the party that was inevitably unable to redeem the gift card they had bought.
switz 4y ago
I respect the time, effort, and engineering the author put in. But this sort of thing largely just makes me feel gross. We’re moving towards an Internet that’s just one never ending loop of regurgitated spam. Call me naive, but I wish people wielding these skills felt more responsibility to be good citizens of the Internet, rather than spamming cyclical stolen content and “growth hacking” their way to followers by manipulating social networks. The Internet is in no way, shape or form, pure. But I do wish we would stop treating fellow users (humans) as play things just to get a free dinner. Is it just because I grew up on the Internet starting 20+ years ago that I’m hyper sensitive to spam?
- kyawzazaw 4y ago
  Seems like it helps everyone here. There are always gonna be social media marketers when the audience on the medium grows.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Maybe helps everyone individually in the short term. In the long term, loss of trust in basically everything increases friction for all aspects of interacting with others in society.
  - switz 4y ago
    The creator is getting free meals and the restaurants are getting some exposure. Sure. But what about the average user. They post a picture of their night out at a club in NYC. Some automated bot comes along and follows them because the venue is tagged marking that they live nearby. They’re sitting at work and get a notification that they’ve been followed. ::dopamine hit:: They pick up their phone, distracting them and check the account. Oh cool! This account has 20k followers and only follows 400 people, I must be special. ::dopamine hit:: This account has co-opted their attention via a push notification. They follow the account back and get their feed filled with automated posts even though they’re under the impression it’s a curated account. They’re being subtly manipulated into looking at empty content, maybe even going to some of the restaurants, under the guise of genuine recommendations when it’s purely spam and noise. Is this a travesty? Probably not. Am I being dramatic? Almost certainly. But it kind of sucks and can get out of control quickly. I know people who get thousands of push notifications each day, and who’s feeds are filled with doom scrolling-friendly garbage. It’s not healthy.
netsharc 4y ago
> The beauty of this all is that I automated the whole thing. And I mean 100% of it. I wrote code that finds these pictures or videos, makes a caption, adds hashtags, credits where the picture or video comes from, weeds out bad or spammy posts, posts them, follows and unfollows users, likes pictures, monitors my inbox, and most importantly — both direct messages and emails restaurants about a potential promotion. Since its inception, I haven’t even really logged into the account. I spend zero time on it. It’s essentially a robot that operates like a human, but the average viewer can’t tell the difference. And as the programmer, I get to sit back and admire its (and my) work. It'd be funny if the views and likes are also from bots. As well as there being a bot that algorithmically judge promotion solicitations from "influencers" and automatically dispenses the free meal from their advertising budget (is it really just a free meal?). Makes me want to write a short story (I wish I had movie making talents for a short movie) where social media bots keep reposting content and sending heart emojis to each other after the future where Putin's nukes killed us all (too soon?).
- dannyphantom 4y ago
  > It'd be funny if the views and likes are also from bots That would have been so much more interesting of a blog post; I'd love to see a write up that does some investigative work to determine just how much of engagement on instagram is driven by scripts. > Makes me want to write a short story (I wish I had movie making talents for a short movie) where social media bots keep reposting content and sending heart emojis to each other after the future where Putin's nukes killed us all I may just post this as written to reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/ :)
syspec 4y ago
As far as I can tell, based on him saying he doesn't ever log into the account he's just flat out lying to these restaurants when he says he will exchange a review on his IG for a free entre
- Flozzin 4y ago
  I'd have to agree. I was looking for where he talked about reviewing the restaurants and I didn't see it. He even says he gives away some of the free meals to friends and family, so I doubt he forces them to do the review either.
horsawlarway 4y ago
I find this fairly repugnant. In the same way that dumpster diving also gets you free food - but you are essentially a parasite, living on the waste of others. At least with the dumpster diving, the relationship is clear. He generates literally nothing of value here - everything is stolen from others. I truly hope we end up with the same social aversions to things like this that we do for other taboo social activities.
- mariodiana 4y ago
  I ultimately decided to scrape directly from other Instagram feeds […] I stopped reading, right there.
- oh_sigh 4y ago
  Dumpster divers are commensals, not parasites.
- panda888888 4y ago
  I agree that it's scummy, but I don't think he creates "nothing of value." How is this any different from influencers promoting and following brands manually? He's created a curated feed of NYC pictures that thousands of people follow and like. There is value in that, and the restaurants offering him free meals proves it. I wish he had posted about his follow-ups with the restaurants (does he actually tag them & promote their business?) If yes, he's fine and is upholding what he agreed to do.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > I don't think he creates "nothing of value." How is this any different from influencers promoting and following brands manually? I agree that he's no different than other "influencers". I would just contend that they also create nothing of value.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  Dumpster diving is positive in that it reduces waste of real resources. If I dumpster-dive a meal then as a species we're better off on net than if I'd bought the same thing. This is the opposite, in that we are as a species probably less well off, but its not really any more destructive than other forms of astroturfing (marketers and robots pretending to be real people).
beamatronic 4y ago
If this is not already a Black Mirror episode, it should be.
sydthrowaway 4y ago
cringe
HWR_14 4y ago
I’m curious why this form of piracy is praised and encouraged by so many people, but when people sell DVDs on the street the police drag them away. At least the guy on the street adds value to the person buying the DVD. This guy is just inserting himself as a valueless middleman between the original poster and the viewer.
nonameiguess 4y ago
This guy lists himself as an entrepreneur, founder of a website that apparently sells influencer marketing. Given he has the skills to do something like this, why not just use those skills to get a job that pays you enough to buy food? If he insists on owning his own business, choose an industry sector where founders don't need to scam local restaurants to stay alive. The scheme also seems doomed in that I'm hoping the restaurants aren't stupid enough to fall for it twice from the same account. At some point, he's going to run out of places close to him he can still get free food from and be forced to drive into Jersey, costing him more in wasted time, gas, and tolls than he would have spent just buying food.
kup0 4y ago
I wish this were satire
userboi19 4y ago
You guys are all jealous. Suck it.
userboi199 4y ago
You guys are all jealous. Suck it.
userboi199 4y ago
Haha y’all are salty and jealous. Kids a genius. Suck it.

61 points by antoinec 4y ago

Leveraging social currency to obtain free food? I hate to break it to this guy, but women have already found a way to automate this process far more efficiently.

sleepdreamy 4y ago
My initial thought. lmao

unethical_ban 4y ago

Person creates website with some content. Person verifiably has 25k people looking at it at least sometimes. Restaurants give him a meal in exchange for ad space(sponsored review). Other than further polluting the new web with fake bullshit content, there doesn't seem to be anything immoral about it. It just "feels" a bit scummy. But hey, a man's gotta eat.

LegitShady 4y ago
This person steals content from others. They don't add anything. They didn't create a website either - they're just scraping content to steal. And they steal that content for actual financial benefit of free food rather so it isn't innocent. This is totally scummy.
- vietthan 4y ago
  We say that but people who follow the account or like his posts must have found some value.
  - LegitShady 4y ago
    That value is stolen from the original source so he can proposition restaurants for financial benefit.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I won't argue the "steal content" component. Indeed it's unsavory, though I guess I'm desensitized because that's what 70% of social media and reddit is these days. In the context of this discussion, though, I think the "website" analogy fits just fine.
tengbretson 4y ago
> But hey, a man's gotta eat. Yes, ideally by providing value to others in their community.

Mali- 4y ago

This is slightly parasitic behaviour, but it is certainly a cool project.

rdtwo 4y ago

Instagram “influencer” extorting restaurant for money that’s so 2018

unethical_ban 4y ago
There is no extortion.
kurisufag 4y ago
extortion would be threatening to give a poor review, as it is it's just advertising
notafraudster 4y ago
Quite literally: the blog post is from 2019 and the behavior is from 2018.

AIorNot 4y ago

This is simultaneously both a cool project and a depressingly complete waste of human potential to create and consume via that demon scroll of mindless consumption that is Instagram…

Nextgrid 4y ago
On the other hand, that's the entire premise of Instagram and any other engagement-based business model. At least this guy uses the "profits" to acquire food as opposed to (another?) superyacht.

kurisufag 4y ago

this is a significantly less criminal version of bruting gift card checking pages, which was both very doable and popular ~5-10 years ago. the cards themselves had something like 16 characters, but only the last 4 would be variable at any time -- with a couple proxies, you could successfully catch codes after they were activated but before they were redeemed. I'm not sure there was any recourse for the party that was inevitably unable to redeem the gift card they had bought.

switz 4y ago

I respect the time, effort, and engineering the author put in. But this sort of thing largely just makes me feel gross. We’re moving towards an Internet that’s just one never ending loop of regurgitated spam. Call me naive, but I wish people wielding these skills felt more responsibility to be good citizens of the Internet, rather than spamming cyclical stolen content and “growth hacking” their way to followers by manipulating social networks. The Internet is in no way, shape or form, pure. But I do wish we would stop treating fellow users (humans) as play things just to get a free dinner. Is it just because I grew up on the Internet starting 20+ years ago that I’m hyper sensitive to spam?

kyawzazaw 4y ago
Seems like it helps everyone here. There are always gonna be social media marketers when the audience on the medium grows.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Maybe helps everyone individually in the short term. In the long term, loss of trust in basically everything increases friction for all aspects of interacting with others in society.
- switz 4y ago
  The creator is getting free meals and the restaurants are getting some exposure. Sure. But what about the average user. They post a picture of their night out at a club in NYC. Some automated bot comes along and follows them because the venue is tagged marking that they live nearby. They’re sitting at work and get a notification that they’ve been followed. ::dopamine hit:: They pick up their phone, distracting them and check the account. Oh cool! This account has 20k followers and only follows 400 people, I must be special. ::dopamine hit:: This account has co-opted their attention via a push notification. They follow the account back and get their feed filled with automated posts even though they’re under the impression it’s a curated account. They’re being subtly manipulated into looking at empty content, maybe even going to some of the restaurants, under the guise of genuine recommendations when it’s purely spam and noise. Is this a travesty? Probably not. Am I being dramatic? Almost certainly. But it kind of sucks and can get out of control quickly. I know people who get thousands of push notifications each day, and who’s feeds are filled with doom scrolling-friendly garbage. It’s not healthy.

netsharc 4y ago

> The beauty of this all is that I automated the whole thing. And I mean 100% of it. I wrote code that finds these pictures or videos, makes a caption, adds hashtags, credits where the picture or video comes from, weeds out bad or spammy posts, posts them, follows and unfollows users, likes pictures, monitors my inbox, and most importantly — both direct messages and emails restaurants about a potential promotion. Since its inception, I haven’t even really logged into the account. I spend zero time on it. It’s essentially a robot that operates like a human, but the average viewer can’t tell the difference. And as the programmer, I get to sit back and admire its (and my) work. It'd be funny if the views and likes are also from bots. As well as there being a bot that algorithmically judge promotion solicitations from "influencers" and automatically dispenses the free meal from their advertising budget (is it really just a free meal?). Makes me want to write a short story (I wish I had movie making talents for a short movie) where social media bots keep reposting content and sending heart emojis to each other after the future where Putin's nukes killed us all (too soon?).

dannyphantom 4y ago
> It'd be funny if the views and likes are also from bots That would have been so much more interesting of a blog post; I'd love to see a write up that does some investigative work to determine just how much of engagement on instagram is driven by scripts. > Makes me want to write a short story (I wish I had movie making talents for a short movie) where social media bots keep reposting content and sending heart emojis to each other after the future where Putin's nukes killed us all I may just post this as written to reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/ :)

syspec 4y ago

As far as I can tell, based on him saying he doesn't ever log into the account he's just flat out lying to these restaurants when he says he will exchange a review on his IG for a free entre

Flozzin 4y ago
I'd have to agree. I was looking for where he talked about reviewing the restaurants and I didn't see it. He even says he gives away some of the free meals to friends and family, so I doubt he forces them to do the review either.

horsawlarway 4y ago

I find this fairly repugnant. In the same way that dumpster diving also gets you free food - but you are essentially a parasite, living on the waste of others. At least with the dumpster diving, the relationship is clear. He generates literally nothing of value here - everything is stolen from others. I truly hope we end up with the same social aversions to things like this that we do for other taboo social activities.

mariodiana 4y ago
I ultimately decided to scrape directly from other Instagram feeds […] I stopped reading, right there.
oh_sigh 4y ago
Dumpster divers are commensals, not parasites.
panda888888 4y ago
I agree that it's scummy, but I don't think he creates "nothing of value." How is this any different from influencers promoting and following brands manually? He's created a curated feed of NYC pictures that thousands of people follow and like. There is value in that, and the restaurants offering him free meals proves it. I wish he had posted about his follow-ups with the restaurants (does he actually tag them & promote their business?) If yes, he's fine and is upholding what he agreed to do.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > I don't think he creates "nothing of value." How is this any different from influencers promoting and following brands manually? I agree that he's no different than other "influencers". I would just contend that they also create nothing of value.
ElevenLathe 4y ago
Dumpster diving is positive in that it reduces waste of real resources. If I dumpster-dive a meal then as a species we're better off on net than if I'd bought the same thing. This is the opposite, in that we are as a species probably less well off, but its not really any more destructive than other forms of astroturfing (marketers and robots pretending to be real people).

beamatronic 4y ago

If this is not already a Black Mirror episode, it should be.

sydthrowaway 4y ago

cringe

HWR_14 4y ago

I’m curious why this form of piracy is praised and encouraged by so many people, but when people sell DVDs on the street the police drag them away. At least the guy on the street adds value to the person buying the DVD. This guy is just inserting himself as a valueless middleman between the original poster and the viewer.

nonameiguess 4y ago

This guy lists himself as an entrepreneur, founder of a website that apparently sells influencer marketing. Given he has the skills to do something like this, why not just use those skills to get a job that pays you enough to buy food? If he insists on owning his own business, choose an industry sector where founders don't need to scam local restaurants to stay alive. The scheme also seems doomed in that I'm hoping the restaurants aren't stupid enough to fall for it twice from the same account. At some point, he's going to run out of places close to him he can still get free food from and be forced to drive into Jersey, costing him more in wasted time, gas, and tolls than he would have spent just buying food.

kup0 4y ago

I wish this were satire

userboi19 4y ago

You guys are all jealous. Suck it.

userboi199 4y ago

You guys are all jealous. Suck it.

userboi199 4y ago

Haha y’all are salty and jealous. Kids a genius. Suck it.