4 ms·

Most of the "mom-tech" could also be described as "nobility-tech", which allows the old services for the nobility to be bought at a fee. Anyway... > Mommy used

by pnathan 10y ago

Most of the "mom-tech" could also be described as "nobility-tech", which allows the old services for the nobility to be bought at a fee. Anyway... > Mommy used to clean my room. A: Handy. > Mommy used to do my laundry. A: Flycleaners. You'd be surprised how desirable this is when you have Significant Life Issues and you don't want your home to be a disaster. While the "side hustle" being mandatory is not a good place to be, having services which make your life easier is a good thing.

jay_kyburz 10y ago
I'm not sure what life issues you are referring to, but I sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. Standing out in the yard, pegging my shorts to the clothes line, surrounded by leafy trees and chirping bird can be nice.
- pnathan 10y ago
  > sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. I'm not talking about work. Keeping my personal life off the InterTubes, let's say your aging parent is in hospice, and you spend most of your non-work time visiting them and ensuring their last days on earth are as comfortable as possible. That occurred for an extended family member recently. Other scenarios are quite plausible as well.
- trevyn 10y ago
  Maybe that's why all of these services come out of San Francisco, where nobody has a yard. :-)
- zzalpha 10y ago
  And that's great for you. When I get to the end of a stressful ten hour workday, personally, I'd rather not stare down the barrel of another 3-4 hours of house chores that have piled up due to the aforementioned ten hour work days. And that's just normal life. Anyone living as a caregiver, for example, would probably love to do away with your idyllic vision of pegging clothes on the line in lieu of, say, taking a breath and going for a walk...
alphonsegaston 10y ago
While for the individual, this may seem true in the short term, fostering a perpetually desperate underclass tends to have quite negative long term consequences for everyone's health and safety. From what I've seen of California, the well-off are fine with this tilt towards Central American-style stratification. But at some point, this trajectory comes at the cost at allying themselves with some grotesque form of thuggery (corrupt police state, rule by organized crime, etc). Maybe that's what we're inching towards.
- zimablue 10y ago
  Disintermediation itself isn't tied to the creation of an underclass, rapid technological innovation destroying jobs might be but that's something we need to solve with welfare (and Americans are really going to have to get over their brainwashing that accepting government aid makes you scum). Literally the alternative to redistribution is making everyone poorer and manipulating the system so that factory workers can feel like they're worth the money they're paid. Eg. Brexit/Trump - protectionism.
  - alphonsegaston 10y ago
    What constitutes "rapid technological innovation" these days is just exceptionally bright people acting as middlemen to concentrate wealth into a new class of financiers. It's not structurally different from Wall St. UBI is just a story being peddled to keep the engineers on board because they're (right now) more moral and science fiction optimistic than their investment banker counterparts. Americans will gladly embrace (maybe have) authoritarianism before they'll abandon the just world fallacy of Capitalist individualism.
- pnathan 10y ago
  I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. Sure I can hire an Uber, get my laundry handled, my shopping done, but I want to know the poor s.o.b. doing the work has benefits and a decent wage, and isn't being screwed over by the app-company-of-the-month.
  - 10y ago
branchless 10y ago
These are two separate spheres. Rich people love having these, poor people hate having to work all hours to subsist.
NovaS1X 10y ago
Really? You have Significant Life Issues and you can't even manage to clean up your house or cook a meal? Do you really think you can organize your life when you can't even manage to organize your home or your own sustenance? What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective.
- pnathan 10y ago
  > What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective. Your ignorant remark about me does you no credit. Many situations exist where there is simply either no time or no energy. Musicians touring, hospitalizations, illnesses - the list is long and varied. It's often much simpler to pay someone else to take care of things.

by pnathan 10y ago

jay_kyburz 10y ago

I'm not sure what life issues you are referring to, but I sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. Standing out in the yard, pegging my shorts to the clothes line, surrounded by leafy trees and chirping bird can be nice.

pnathan 10y ago
> sometimes find that when things are crazy in my working life, it helps to just switch it all off and do the laundry and clean the house. I'm not talking about work. Keeping my personal life off the InterTubes, let's say your aging parent is in hospice, and you spend most of your non-work time visiting them and ensuring their last days on earth are as comfortable as possible. That occurred for an extended family member recently. Other scenarios are quite plausible as well.
trevyn 10y ago
Maybe that's why all of these services come out of San Francisco, where nobody has a yard. :-)
zzalpha 10y ago
And that's great for you. When I get to the end of a stressful ten hour workday, personally, I'd rather not stare down the barrel of another 3-4 hours of house chores that have piled up due to the aforementioned ten hour work days. And that's just normal life. Anyone living as a caregiver, for example, would probably love to do away with your idyllic vision of pegging clothes on the line in lieu of, say, taking a breath and going for a walk...

alphonsegaston 10y ago

While for the individual, this may seem true in the short term, fostering a perpetually desperate underclass tends to have quite negative long term consequences for everyone's health and safety. From what I've seen of California, the well-off are fine with this tilt towards Central American-style stratification. But at some point, this trajectory comes at the cost at allying themselves with some grotesque form of thuggery (corrupt police state, rule by organized crime, etc). Maybe that's what we're inching towards.

zimablue 10y ago
Disintermediation itself isn't tied to the creation of an underclass, rapid technological innovation destroying jobs might be but that's something we need to solve with welfare (and Americans are really going to have to get over their brainwashing that accepting government aid makes you scum). Literally the alternative to redistribution is making everyone poorer and manipulating the system so that factory workers can feel like they're worth the money they're paid. Eg. Brexit/Trump - protectionism.
- alphonsegaston 10y ago
  What constitutes "rapid technological innovation" these days is just exceptionally bright people acting as middlemen to concentrate wealth into a new class of financiers. It's not structurally different from Wall St. UBI is just a story being peddled to keep the engineers on board because they're (right now) more moral and science fiction optimistic than their investment banker counterparts. Americans will gladly embrace (maybe have) authoritarianism before they'll abandon the just world fallacy of Capitalist individualism.
pnathan 10y ago
I'd like to see a Gig Economy Union myself. Sure I can hire an Uber, get my laundry handled, my shopping done, but I want to know the poor s.o.b. doing the work has benefits and a decent wage, and isn't being screwed over by the app-company-of-the-month.
- 10y ago

branchless 10y ago

These are two separate spheres. Rich people love having these, poor people hate having to work all hours to subsist.

NovaS1X 10y ago

Really? You have Significant Life Issues and you can't even manage to clean up your house or cook a meal? Do you really think you can organize your life when you can't even manage to organize your home or your own sustenance? What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective.

pnathan 10y ago
> What a joke. You don't need time, you need perspective. Your ignorant remark about me does you no credit. Many situations exist where there is simply either no time or no energy. Musicians touring, hospitalizations, illnesses - the list is long and varied. It's often much simpler to pay someone else to take care of things.