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Sounds like a coordination problem with a first-mover disadvantage. It's in the best interest of each individual company to keep profits coming back to improve

Sounds like a coordination problem with a first-mover disadvantage. It's in the best interest of each individual company to keep profits coming back to improve the business and it's competitiveness, rather than earmarking some for philanthropy and community outreach. The first company to do so would suffer while the others continue improving their business. This is exactly why it's a problem to solve at the government level; a higher authority, with teeth, is needed to solve these coordination problems and force market participants to all do the right thing.

Apocryphon 9y ago
Certainly it should be the government's job because it is both intended to and should be most effective/efficient to fix such a tragedy of the commons type situation. But your comment is also sad because it shows how despite all of the iconoclast rhetoric, Silicon Valley companies are often far more risk-adverse, some could say, cowardly, in not willing to buck change. Not simply on matters involving social value or controversy, but more mundane topics that have been brought up before on HN such as willingness to embrace remote work, create better interview processes, etc. And that of course, is also understandable. Tech companies are only willing to disrupt the economic markets and labor practices that would lead to maximum value extraction and shareholder value. No one sincerely disrupts to "make the world a better place."
- al3xnull 9y ago
  Isn't those exact companies and the businesses that will end up paying for it anyway through taxes along with others in the state? This certainly isn't a federal problem. I'm not sure how getting government involved fixes it as if their funds are just "free" and "exist".
- nerfhammer 9y ago
  Tech has absolutely nothing to gain from sky high real estate prices. Casting it as an singular moral entity which you can then accuse of moral delinquency may not help in understanding or solving any particular problem. If it were in fact a hyper powerful agency that could change the landscape around itself merely through the commission of its moral will, why would it not have removed all of the anti-housing laws already? Tech workers don't want to pay millions for housing. It is not in the tech industry's best interest – therefore, the issue can't be due to tech having ill best interests.
- thephyber 9y ago
  "Tragedy of the commons"[1] doesn't seem to apply here. That's applicable where (1) the free dumping of sewage into a common water supply or (2) advertisers get so good at making noisy attention-grabbing web ads that people have a strong motivation to start installing ad-blockers, making ad-based business models try and install more ad placements. It's similar to the Prisoner's Dilemna, where game theory has each player pitted against each other but the outcome is subject to a downward spiral of some common resource. There is no downside for long-term property owners or the highly paid. If the well-paid engineers at tech companies were equally hurt by rising cost of living, then TotC might apply. They aren't, so it doesn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
taurath 9y ago
Can't build because its too expensive, and building is the only thing that will make the pricing go down. Same problem with transit. Even if you want to build public housing, its gotten so expensive that it will be an unacceptably huge chunk of the budget. Governments like China don't have this problem - if they realize they need to build it happens.
- Apocryphon 9y ago
  Those are the immediate solutions. But tech companies can also influence the situation by allowing remote work (less employees having to relocate to the Bay, or commute to one office), or even choosing to be based in, say, San Jose as opposed to San Francisco proper.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    That's true if you think the real problem is the existence of green zones. I'd argue that the problem is the existence of red zones, and we can fix that by helping green zones prosper and redistributing some of their productivity. This is also a pretty pessimistic view of cities in general, if the best way to help a city is to abandon it. Could be true, but that's pretty dark. White Flight certainly reduced the affluent's competition for housing in cities, but it didn't exactly leave them better off. White Flight Round 2 doesn't sound like a good idea.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > I'd argue that the problem is the existence of red zones, and we can fix that by helping green zones prosper and redistributing some of their productivity. The problem is when the socialized cost of “helping green zones to prosper” exceeds the redistributed benefits. Given that green zones map pretty well to outsized political influence, there is a lot of incebtive to use that kind of language to sell a policy that focuses much more heavily on helping them prosper than on redistributing benefits. Especially since that reibforces their already outsized political influence. EDIT: I'd go farther and argue that the existence of red zones already is a direct and deliberate outcome of policies directed at helping green zones prosper, because the manner in which that is done is to make sure that poor people, crime, and facilities which adversely impact land values are redirected out of green zones to somewhere else. Those other places become the red zones.

Apocryphon 9y ago

Certainly it should be the government's job because it is both intended to and should be most effective/efficient to fix such a tragedy of the commons type situation. But your comment is also sad because it shows how despite all of the iconoclast rhetoric, Silicon Valley companies are often far more risk-adverse, some could say, cowardly, in not willing to buck change. Not simply on matters involving social value or controversy, but more mundane topics that have been brought up before on HN such as willingness to embrace remote work, create better interview processes, etc. And that of course, is also understandable. Tech companies are only willing to disrupt the economic markets and labor practices that would lead to maximum value extraction and shareholder value. No one sincerely disrupts to "make the world a better place."

al3xnull 9y ago
Isn't those exact companies and the businesses that will end up paying for it anyway through taxes along with others in the state? This certainly isn't a federal problem. I'm not sure how getting government involved fixes it as if their funds are just "free" and "exist".
nerfhammer 9y ago
Tech has absolutely nothing to gain from sky high real estate prices. Casting it as an singular moral entity which you can then accuse of moral delinquency may not help in understanding or solving any particular problem. If it were in fact a hyper powerful agency that could change the landscape around itself merely through the commission of its moral will, why would it not have removed all of the anti-housing laws already? Tech workers don't want to pay millions for housing. It is not in the tech industry's best interest – therefore, the issue can't be due to tech having ill best interests.
thephyber 9y ago
"Tragedy of the commons"[1] doesn't seem to apply here. That's applicable where (1) the free dumping of sewage into a common water supply or (2) advertisers get so good at making noisy attention-grabbing web ads that people have a strong motivation to start installing ad-blockers, making ad-based business models try and install more ad placements. It's similar to the Prisoner's Dilemna, where game theory has each player pitted against each other but the outcome is subject to a downward spiral of some common resource. There is no downside for long-term property owners or the highly paid. If the well-paid engineers at tech companies were equally hurt by rising cost of living, then TotC might apply. They aren't, so it doesn't. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

taurath 9y ago

Can't build because its too expensive, and building is the only thing that will make the pricing go down. Same problem with transit. Even if you want to build public housing, its gotten so expensive that it will be an unacceptably huge chunk of the budget. Governments like China don't have this problem - if they realize they need to build it happens.

Apocryphon 9y ago
Those are the immediate solutions. But tech companies can also influence the situation by allowing remote work (less employees having to relocate to the Bay, or commute to one office), or even choosing to be based in, say, San Jose as opposed to San Francisco proper.
- closeparen 9y ago
  That's true if you think the real problem is the existence of green zones. I'd argue that the problem is the existence of red zones, and we can fix that by helping green zones prosper and redistributing some of their productivity. This is also a pretty pessimistic view of cities in general, if the best way to help a city is to abandon it. Could be true, but that's pretty dark. White Flight certainly reduced the affluent's competition for housing in cities, but it didn't exactly leave them better off. White Flight Round 2 doesn't sound like a good idea.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I'd argue that the problem is the existence of red zones, and we can fix that by helping green zones prosper and redistributing some of their productivity. The problem is when the socialized cost of “helping green zones to prosper” exceeds the redistributed benefits. Given that green zones map pretty well to outsized political influence, there is a lot of incebtive to use that kind of language to sell a policy that focuses much more heavily on helping them prosper than on redistributing benefits. Especially since that reibforces their already outsized political influence. EDIT: I'd go farther and argue that the existence of red zones already is a direct and deliberate outcome of policies directed at helping green zones prosper, because the manner in which that is done is to make sure that poor people, crime, and facilities which adversely impact land values are redirected out of green zones to somewhere else. Those other places become the red zones.