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Is it possible to have a value-added services company that doesn't exploit its labor? Is your answer going to be self-driving cars? What about alternatives tha

Is it possible to have a value-added services company that doesn't exploit its labor? Is your answer going to be self-driving cars? What about alternatives that don't fundamentally replace the labor? In my opinion, it is impossible to achieve venture capital goals and pay service labor commensurate to the value it delivers.

pshposh 10y ago
I think it's possible if the labor owns the company.
- doctorpangloss 10y ago
  So then your answer is no, because then the venture owners don't own the company.
  - pshposh 10y ago
    I didn't realize your comment exclusively pertained to venture owners. Even so a venture owner could sell the company to the employees and move on to their next big thing.
    - doctorpangloss 10y ago
      You're right that it's something a venture owner could do. But then, you'd be surprised at how many highly-compensated programmers never bother to exercise their options. The same ones who then go on Hacker News and complain about bad treatment of workers, and how if only they owned the companies.
      - toomuchtodo 10y ago
        I not only complain about how workers are treated, I'm also active in the political process to effect social change for workers. I've also exercised all of the options I've vested at the startup where I'm employed. Careful with them broad strokes Tex.
      - pshposh 10y ago
        > But then, you'd be surprised at how many highly-compensated programmers never bother to exercise their options. The same ones who then go on Hacker News and complain about bad treatment of workers, and how if only they owned the companies. This reads like an oddly specific claim -- do you have examples?
FussyZeus 10y ago
If the process is entirely automated and consistently deliverable? Sure. But then that's not really exploiting labor. For me, if I wouldn't be comfortable asking a neighbor who was less well off than me if they'd mind dropping off my laundry for $10 a month, I'm not going to do it via a shiny website.
babesh 10y ago
Costco and Trader Joe's workers supposedly get much more than minimum wage although not venture capital based. It isn't an economic law.
- deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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wwalser 10y ago
I think this argument takes a relatively small set of companies a generalizes their exploits across the larger economy. Isn't it the case that most service companies in the west do not exploit it's labor? The people involved in customizing your car configuration prior to it being delivered to the dealership are not, to my knowledge, exploited. Most laundromats in my area do bag service, those workers don't seem to be exploited. I feel sure that the list goes on. There are some common threads amongst companies that are exploiting their workers: 1. They are b2c companies. 2. Most seem to be venture backed. 3. The worker they employ are mostly unskilled. 4. The law doesn't seem view the current treatment of these employees as illegal in any way. #1 seems most significant to me, the price that a critical mass of consumers are willing to pay for the value that unskilled workers can provide seems to be too low to build a large business on the back of.
- doctorpangloss 10y ago
  > Price that a critical mass of consumers are willing to pay Sure, but Instacart is demolishing a very worker-popular tipping feature. That suggests that actually, there is a critical mass of consumers willing to pay more. The question is, why does it matter to Instacart so much that some consumers pay less than what they're willing to pay?
  - wwalser 10y ago
    Your comment is 100% assumptions. > Sure, but Instacart is demolishing a very worker-popular tipping feature. That suggests that actually, there is a critical mass of consumers willing to pay more. Nothing about this article says that to me. Nothing. At least one worker has given this information to someone who tweeted the information whose tweet was picked up by recode. We don't know if tipping is "very worker-popular" we know that some workers asked the company to change it back and they half capitulated. I'm personally a fan of charging higher fees and paying all workers the same living wage. That's effectively what a static service charge does. > The question is, why does it matter to Instacart so much that some consumers pay less than what they're willing to pay? We also don't know that. Do you know what the average tip was on instacart before this change? So you know that a 10% static service fee is lower than the average tip before now? Do you know if brown workers were tipped less than white workers? Men more than women, the inverse? We don't have the information required in order to make the judgements that you've decided to make.
tray5 10y ago
Profit has to come from somewhere. You can't reimburse the workers the full value of their labour if you wish to make a profit. I'd say that counts as exploitation. Unfortunate, but thats the reality of capitalism.
- xapata 10y ago
  The two inputs to production are capital and labor. You need to make profit by paying below market rate for capital (like a bank borrowing from the Fed) or by paying less than the value created by labor.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Sure, but there's some space between "full value of one's labor" and table scraps.
  - tray5 10y ago
    Of course, but when the decision of where the workers pay is on that scale is taken out of the hands of the workers, it tends towards table scraps then full value.
- virmundi 10y ago
  Is value created by labor necessarily the only way to create value? Can labor by itself cost $10, I pay out $10, but when I combine that labor (a largely undirected force) with thought (scheduling, order placement, etc) I get a multiplier over the labor? It seems like it should be possible to do this. I pay for raw, undirected labor. It's like raw iron. When I use my skills for planning (speaking as the management for the company), I can pay full price for labor, but get synergistic effect not possible without thought? To keep with the iron reference, in the end I produce steel or even better a car. Seems like the labor to extract the iron met a multiplier of my metallurgic enhancements.
  - thehardsphere 10y ago
    The mistake here is the assumption that value comes from labor. Value is inherently subjective, depending on what the purchaser is willing to pay for, not due to intrinsic properties of whatever the good or service is. Suppose in your raw iron example, instead of making steel or a car, you make an inferior product because either you or the people who work for you are incompetent. Suppose you make the 1960 Chevrolet Corvair, a car so horrible that it inspires the book "Unsafe at Any Speed" by Ralph Nader. Even though nothing about the product or the labor used to produce it changes, your product loses value immediately because people don't want to buy a dangerous car. Your hypothetical multiplier turns negative overnight, even though your car is just as unsafe before the book as it was afterward. If the labor and your intelligence were the source of the labor, the value of the car should not change just because Ralph Nader says it's dangerous.

pshposh 10y ago

I think it's possible if the labor owns the company.

doctorpangloss 10y ago
So then your answer is no, because then the venture owners don't own the company.
- pshposh 10y ago
  I didn't realize your comment exclusively pertained to venture owners. Even so a venture owner could sell the company to the employees and move on to their next big thing.
  - doctorpangloss 10y ago
    You're right that it's something a venture owner could do. But then, you'd be surprised at how many highly-compensated programmers never bother to exercise their options. The same ones who then go on Hacker News and complain about bad treatment of workers, and how if only they owned the companies.
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      I not only complain about how workers are treated, I'm also active in the political process to effect social change for workers. I've also exercised all of the options I've vested at the startup where I'm employed. Careful with them broad strokes Tex.
    - pshposh 10y ago
      > But then, you'd be surprised at how many highly-compensated programmers never bother to exercise their options. The same ones who then go on Hacker News and complain about bad treatment of workers, and how if only they owned the companies. This reads like an oddly specific claim -- do you have examples?

FussyZeus 10y ago

If the process is entirely automated and consistently deliverable? Sure. But then that's not really exploiting labor. For me, if I wouldn't be comfortable asking a neighbor who was less well off than me if they'd mind dropping off my laundry for $10 a month, I'm not going to do it via a shiny website.

babesh 10y ago

Costco and Trader Joe's workers supposedly get much more than minimum wage although not venture capital based. It isn't an economic law.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

wwalser 10y ago

I think this argument takes a relatively small set of companies a generalizes their exploits across the larger economy. Isn't it the case that most service companies in the west do not exploit it's labor? The people involved in customizing your car configuration prior to it being delivered to the dealership are not, to my knowledge, exploited. Most laundromats in my area do bag service, those workers don't seem to be exploited. I feel sure that the list goes on. There are some common threads amongst companies that are exploiting their workers: 1. They are b2c companies. 2. Most seem to be venture backed. 3. The worker they employ are mostly unskilled. 4. The law doesn't seem view the current treatment of these employees as illegal in any way. #1 seems most significant to me, the price that a critical mass of consumers are willing to pay for the value that unskilled workers can provide seems to be too low to build a large business on the back of.

doctorpangloss 10y ago
> Price that a critical mass of consumers are willing to pay Sure, but Instacart is demolishing a very worker-popular tipping feature. That suggests that actually, there is a critical mass of consumers willing to pay more. The question is, why does it matter to Instacart so much that some consumers pay less than what they're willing to pay?
- wwalser 10y ago
  Your comment is 100% assumptions. > Sure, but Instacart is demolishing a very worker-popular tipping feature. That suggests that actually, there is a critical mass of consumers willing to pay more. Nothing about this article says that to me. Nothing. At least one worker has given this information to someone who tweeted the information whose tweet was picked up by recode. We don't know if tipping is "very worker-popular" we know that some workers asked the company to change it back and they half capitulated. I'm personally a fan of charging higher fees and paying all workers the same living wage. That's effectively what a static service charge does. > The question is, why does it matter to Instacart so much that some consumers pay less than what they're willing to pay? We also don't know that. Do you know what the average tip was on instacart before this change? So you know that a 10% static service fee is lower than the average tip before now? Do you know if brown workers were tipped less than white workers? Men more than women, the inverse? We don't have the information required in order to make the judgements that you've decided to make.

tray5 10y ago

Profit has to come from somewhere. You can't reimburse the workers the full value of their labour if you wish to make a profit. I'd say that counts as exploitation. Unfortunate, but thats the reality of capitalism.

xapata 10y ago
The two inputs to production are capital and labor. You need to make profit by paying below market rate for capital (like a bank borrowing from the Fed) or by paying less than the value created by labor.
emodendroket 10y ago
Sure, but there's some space between "full value of one's labor" and table scraps.
- tray5 10y ago
  Of course, but when the decision of where the workers pay is on that scale is taken out of the hands of the workers, it tends towards table scraps then full value.
virmundi 10y ago
Is value created by labor necessarily the only way to create value? Can labor by itself cost $10, I pay out $10, but when I combine that labor (a largely undirected force) with thought (scheduling, order placement, etc) I get a multiplier over the labor? It seems like it should be possible to do this. I pay for raw, undirected labor. It's like raw iron. When I use my skills for planning (speaking as the management for the company), I can pay full price for labor, but get synergistic effect not possible without thought? To keep with the iron reference, in the end I produce steel or even better a car. Seems like the labor to extract the iron met a multiplier of my metallurgic enhancements.
- thehardsphere 10y ago
  The mistake here is the assumption that value comes from labor. Value is inherently subjective, depending on what the purchaser is willing to pay for, not due to intrinsic properties of whatever the good or service is. Suppose in your raw iron example, instead of making steel or a car, you make an inferior product because either you or the people who work for you are incompetent. Suppose you make the 1960 Chevrolet Corvair, a car so horrible that it inspires the book "Unsafe at Any Speed" by Ralph Nader. Even though nothing about the product or the labor used to produce it changes, your product loses value immediately because people don't want to buy a dangerous car. Your hypothetical multiplier turns negative overnight, even though your car is just as unsafe before the book as it was afterward. If the labor and your intelligence were the source of the labor, the value of the car should not change just because Ralph Nader says it's dangerous.