7 ms·

The point of the article is that by making something scarce free, the company was in effect "rationing by the queue", an inefficient way to handle things. Thos

The point of the article is that by making something scarce free, the company was in effect "rationing by the queue", an inefficient way to handle things. Those unwilling to get there early had a bad time. Instead they said, "Hey, we were giving the average employee $100/mo in parking. We're gonna keep doing that in the form of cash. But, to fund that extra 100 you're now getting in cash, anyone who wants to use the lot has to pay its market value." In short, instead of providing a "flakey parking availability" they provided cash. It's a lot (a lot... get it?) like selling the lot and giving the proceeds to employees. This isn't always the best idea (sometimes, similar schemes can be socially unjust), but from an efficiency standpoint, it's hard to beat. I hear what you're saying about pissing people off, but this should do the opposite. Sure, some folks might irrationally like jockeying for position or be early risers. But the company never intended to say "this benefit is for early risers". The intended it as a benefit to all employees and now it is.

rgbrenner 9y ago
yes, I read the cartoon. There's nothing new in it -- these are all well known things (like 100 year old things). It's not clear that the companies they shopped the idea around to had a shortage of parking. Queuing costs are costs that the employees who are trying to park are imposing on themselves. A parking fee is a cost that is being imposed on the employees by the employer. It's reasonable for employees to react differently to those costs. If you're building a widely profitable business (like facebook), the better answer is to just build a larger parking lot. Just like lyft eventually did, and abandoned this bad idea.
- throwaway91111 9y ago
  There's already too much damn parking. Stop driving to work. Live too far away? Convince your company to move to a place with sane housing costs. Facebook has the advantage of building in the burbs where there's already a glut of parking and people expect more.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Certainly under the prevailing moralistic view on HN that life is too comfortable and people ought to suffer more & have less free time, there is too much parking.
    - throwaway91111 9y ago
      No, parking is a terrible use of land and encourages bad practices like commuting in a personal vehicle using 1/5th of available seating. If you choose to view that as a masochistic world view, that is entirely your choice. However, i would hate to live near you.
      - closeparen 9y ago
        We have a middle class in this country because it's reasonable to participate in productive economic activity while living in housing whose price doesn't completely swallow your productivity. Parking is what makes that possible. It's a fucking great use of land. (I say this as a carfree renter in an urban high-rise. This is fun, but in no way sustainable - I have no hope of owning an analogous condo, let alone one big enough for a family, and that's as a well-compensated professional. When it comes time for stability and child-raising, it will be imperative to chose a city with enough parking that I can commute from an outer suburb where prices are accessible to mere upper-income salary workers. Far as I can tell, cities with your view of land use only work for longtime incumbents, international oligarchs, and twentysomethings living together like they're still in college).
        icebraining 9y ago
        Other countries have much less parking, yet they somehow manage to have a middle class. Have you considered that one of reasons for the high condo prices may be that there's too few of them, in part because land that could be used to build a bunch more is taken up by parking lots? Especially if we're talking about flat parking (not silos), a single spot is taking the place of multiple condos. So you can imagine how much each actually costs, even if you're not the one paying the price.
revicon 9y ago
The parking spots were not "free", employees were paying for them with their time, leaving their homes extra early and risking circling the neighborhood looking for extra spots if the lot was full. That time was worth money to the drivers and the growing price of a spot was evidence of that. As they increased their employee count, the time cost would have increased as well and employees unwilling to spend that time on trying to get parking would take another mode of transportation. From the linked comic it sounds like the employees that spearheaded the program were trying to prove a larger point that cities could raise public transit funds by charging for all parking spaces in a city. I don't think this program was at all about making things more efficient at Lyft.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- surfmike 9y ago
  It was also about making things more efficient at Lyft. Some people really needed cars (mostly because they had kids) but couldn't find spots unless they arrived super early. This change pushed some people to stop using their cars.

rgbrenner 9y ago

yes, I read the cartoon. There's nothing new in it -- these are all well known things (like 100 year old things). It's not clear that the companies they shopped the idea around to had a shortage of parking. Queuing costs are costs that the employees who are trying to park are imposing on themselves. A parking fee is a cost that is being imposed on the employees by the employer. It's reasonable for employees to react differently to those costs. If you're building a widely profitable business (like facebook), the better answer is to just build a larger parking lot. Just like lyft eventually did, and abandoned this bad idea.

throwaway91111 9y ago
There's already too much damn parking. Stop driving to work. Live too far away? Convince your company to move to a place with sane housing costs. Facebook has the advantage of building in the burbs where there's already a glut of parking and people expect more.
- closeparen 9y ago
  Certainly under the prevailing moralistic view on HN that life is too comfortable and people ought to suffer more & have less free time, there is too much parking.
  - throwaway91111 9y ago
    No, parking is a terrible use of land and encourages bad practices like commuting in a personal vehicle using 1/5th of available seating. If you choose to view that as a masochistic world view, that is entirely your choice. However, i would hate to live near you.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      We have a middle class in this country because it's reasonable to participate in productive economic activity while living in housing whose price doesn't completely swallow your productivity. Parking is what makes that possible. It's a fucking great use of land. (I say this as a carfree renter in an urban high-rise. This is fun, but in no way sustainable - I have no hope of owning an analogous condo, let alone one big enough for a family, and that's as a well-compensated professional. When it comes time for stability and child-raising, it will be imperative to chose a city with enough parking that I can commute from an outer suburb where prices are accessible to mere upper-income salary workers. Far as I can tell, cities with your view of land use only work for longtime incumbents, international oligarchs, and twentysomethings living together like they're still in college).
      - icebraining 9y ago
        Other countries have much less parking, yet they somehow manage to have a middle class. Have you considered that one of reasons for the high condo prices may be that there's too few of them, in part because land that could be used to build a bunch more is taken up by parking lots? Especially if we're talking about flat parking (not silos), a single spot is taking the place of multiple condos. So you can imagine how much each actually costs, even if you're not the one paying the price.

revicon 9y ago

The parking spots were not "free", employees were paying for them with their time, leaving their homes extra early and risking circling the neighborhood looking for extra spots if the lot was full. That time was worth money to the drivers and the growing price of a spot was evidence of that. As they increased their employee count, the time cost would have increased as well and employees unwilling to spend that time on trying to get parking would take another mode of transportation. From the linked comic it sounds like the employees that spearheaded the program were trying to prove a larger point that cities could raise public transit funds by charging for all parking spaces in a city. I don't think this program was at all about making things more efficient at Lyft.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
surfmike 9y ago
It was also about making things more efficient at Lyft. Some people really needed cars (mostly because they had kids) but couldn't find spots unless they arrived super early. This change pushed some people to stop using their cars.