The more I think about it, the more dumb the premise of this "fallacy" sounds.
I lived in a doorman building in NYC for almost a decade. It's great!
It's also really expensive to have your building entrance staffed 24/7, which is why the vast majority of buildings do not have a doorman, and you'll pay quite a bit more for one that does. It's a luxury.
And literally anyone who has ever lived in a doorman building knows that approximately 2% of the value is that they can open the door for you. No one who is deciding whether to employ doormen is making their decision based on whether there's a cheaper way to open the door.
There might be a fallacy here beyond "sometimes automation isn't worth it", but doormen are a terrible example of it, given that probably 99.999% of buildings do not have doormen, and wouldn't be better off financially if they did.
Isn’t it a hotel in the original version? Doormen for nicer hotels seem very common
Fair point, but also an even dumber example. I promise you, the people running the kind of upscale hotels that have a doorman are under no illusion that the main job is opening the door.