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Or less cynically: WhatsApp: cheap plentiful messaging Airbnb: cheap plentiful vacation rentals Uber: cheap plentiful taxis Amazon: cheap plentiful stuff F

Or less cynically: WhatsApp: cheap plentiful messaging Airbnb: cheap plentiful vacation rentals Uber: cheap plentiful taxis Amazon: cheap plentiful stuff Facebook: ... umm i'm sure there's something here ... Google: cheap plentiful access to information All of these disrupt the slow-moving complacent dinosaurs of the past.

wpietri 9y ago
And one of the interesting questions for me is "where does 'cheap' come from"? In the case of WhatsApp, it came from telco monopolies overcharging for a particular use of data. I'm certainly ok with that. And I was initially excited about Airbnb, rideshare, etc, because some of the cheap comes from finding underutilized resources (an apartment that happened to be empty for a few weeks, people who were going somewhere anyhow) and putting them to work. But I find the second-order effects fascinating. Certainly some of Airbnb and Uber's cheapness comes from dodging regulation and shifting costs onto other people. "Privatize the gains, socialize the losses" is undeniably a lucrative business strategy, but it's not one I particularly want to celebrate.
- wyager 9y ago
  > "Privatize the gains, socialize the losses" is undeniably a lucrative business strategy, but it's not one I particularly want to celebrate. This doesn't describe anything that AirBnB or Uber are doing. Taxis were expensive and horrible because governments created artificial scarcity via taxi medallion systems. They were "socializing the gains", to build off your aphorism. Uber re-privatized the gains by circumventing this ridiculous system, and we're all much better for it. "Socializing the losses" refers to groups getting bailed out on taxpayer dime when they fail, and nothing even resembling that has happened with AirBnB or Uber.
  - quadrige 9y ago
    Airbnb socializes the costs by transfering them to the flat owners (cleaning etc.), and Uber to the drivers (fuel, maintenance etc.)
    - krrrh 9y ago
      In terms of Airbnb socializing costs, it's not the flat owner who is taking on some costs and some profit, but their neighbours, who bear the costs of noise and reduced security and community.
    - wyager 9y ago
      That's not what socializing means. Socializing means using government to redistribute costs to the population at large via taxes. Entering a voluntary private agreement where you have some obligations is not "socialization".
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Taxis were mostly horrible because of pre-mobile-phone dispatch systems and expectations. That would have gotten fixed with or without Uber, although Uber certainly did push it along. But taxi medallion systems served a number of purposes. One of the big ones is reasonable regulation of taxi and driver quality. Another was keeping supply and demand balanced at a level where people didn't have to cut corners on things like taxi maintenance just to survive, which helped keep taxi fleets safe. A third was setting up a reasonably livable wage for career taxi drivers. A fourth, at least in some cities, was creating a de-facto retirement system: since drivers had dibs on medallions, they could invest and create an asset that would fund their retirement. A fifth was creating a revenue stream for cities to that helps pay for regulatory and road costs. Those are off the top of my head; I'm sure there were more. Now instead a lot of those costs are borne by other people. Uber has shifted capital and maintenance costs entirely away from cab companies and on to random people desperate enough to drive for Uber. Losses are no longer the problem of the cab company, but individuals. When those drivers go bankrupt, society bears the costs. When those drives use public assistance [1], society bears the costs. When they retire and we make up for their lost retirement savings, society bears the costs. And that's to say nothing of the direct and indirect societal costs that come from more traffic. Similar issues come up with Airbnb. E.g., if you thought you were living next to a neighbor and now are dealing with an illegal one-unit hotel in your building, you are experiencing a loss. If the apartment you rent out is trashed because somebody is running an illegal business out of it [2], you experience significant loss. When rent goes up because people are illegally converting housing to de-facto hotel stock, that is a socialized loss with privatized gains. I'm not even saying this is necessarily worse. As with the bankruptcy system as a whole, it can sometimes be overall better for society to pay for something. But we shouldn't sweep this stuff under the rug. [1] E.g., https://uberpeople.net/threads/you-may-qualify-for-government-assistance.56894/ https://uberpeople.net/threads/you-may-qualify-for-governmen... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-fined-after-renters-illegal-listings.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-...
    - wyager 9y ago
      > One of the big ones is reasonable regulation of taxi and driver quality. I can only imagine that someone who rarely or never travels would say something like this. The main reason I switched to uber is that taxis are universally horrible, both in terms of drivers and vehicles. It's gotten much better since uber forced them to compete, but they still generally suck. So maybe you're right, and that was the reason for taxi medallions; but guess what? It didn't work. > Uber has shifted capital and maintenance costs entirely away from cab companies and on to random people desperate enough to drive for Uber. Again, this is something that I can't imagine hearing from someone who actually uses Ubers on a regular basis. Most Uber drivers I've talked to love the platform, and a good portion of them are e.g. students working a side job, none of them "desperate" people.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >Uber re-privatized the gains by circumventing this ridiculous system, and we're all much better for it. Who are those all? Taxi drivers or the general public? I'd rather have professional, decently paid, taxi drivers instead of amateur hour weekend drivers making minimum wage at the expense of yet another working class job.
    - iamd3vil 9y ago
      Actually in India, I am really grateful for Uber. Previously talking to an auto rikshaw or taxi is pretty painful. They are rude, not reliable, charge a lot if you don't know the city or area. Also atleast from my talking to lot of Uber/Ola drivers is that they are earning a lot compared to their previous taxi service. So to answer your question, both drivers and public.
      - devdas 9y ago
        Earning more isn't very true now though.
    - chrisco255 9y ago
      Yeah same in the US. Honestly there was an under supply of cabs. The cars themselves were all uniform and weren't very clean. Cabbie drivers weren't very well paid ever. It was often difficult to pay with a credit or debit card...Uber and Lyft put so much competitive pressure on the system that cabs are nicer now.
    - wyager 9y ago
      Did you ever use a taxi before uber? Nothing you said is grounded in reality. Taxi drivers are usually extremely unprofessional, underpaid, and horrific drivers. It's actually gotten much better since Uber came around.
      - coldtea 9y ago
        >Did you ever use a taxi before uber? Almost every day.
hobarrera 9y ago
It's funny that facebook is amongst the biggest on that list, when they don't actually seem to provide anything of use to the end user.
- dest 9y ago
  cheap plentiful stalking?

wpietri 9y ago

And one of the interesting questions for me is "where does 'cheap' come from"? In the case of WhatsApp, it came from telco monopolies overcharging for a particular use of data. I'm certainly ok with that. And I was initially excited about Airbnb, rideshare, etc, because some of the cheap comes from finding underutilized resources (an apartment that happened to be empty for a few weeks, people who were going somewhere anyhow) and putting them to work. But I find the second-order effects fascinating. Certainly some of Airbnb and Uber's cheapness comes from dodging regulation and shifting costs onto other people. "Privatize the gains, socialize the losses" is undeniably a lucrative business strategy, but it's not one I particularly want to celebrate.

wyager 9y ago
> "Privatize the gains, socialize the losses" is undeniably a lucrative business strategy, but it's not one I particularly want to celebrate. This doesn't describe anything that AirBnB or Uber are doing. Taxis were expensive and horrible because governments created artificial scarcity via taxi medallion systems. They were "socializing the gains", to build off your aphorism. Uber re-privatized the gains by circumventing this ridiculous system, and we're all much better for it. "Socializing the losses" refers to groups getting bailed out on taxpayer dime when they fail, and nothing even resembling that has happened with AirBnB or Uber.
- quadrige 9y ago
  Airbnb socializes the costs by transfering them to the flat owners (cleaning etc.), and Uber to the drivers (fuel, maintenance etc.)
  - krrrh 9y ago
    In terms of Airbnb socializing costs, it's not the flat owner who is taking on some costs and some profit, but their neighbours, who bear the costs of noise and reduced security and community.
  - wyager 9y ago
    That's not what socializing means. Socializing means using government to redistribute costs to the population at large via taxes. Entering a voluntary private agreement where you have some obligations is not "socialization".
- wpietri 9y ago
  Taxis were mostly horrible because of pre-mobile-phone dispatch systems and expectations. That would have gotten fixed with or without Uber, although Uber certainly did push it along. But taxi medallion systems served a number of purposes. One of the big ones is reasonable regulation of taxi and driver quality. Another was keeping supply and demand balanced at a level where people didn't have to cut corners on things like taxi maintenance just to survive, which helped keep taxi fleets safe. A third was setting up a reasonably livable wage for career taxi drivers. A fourth, at least in some cities, was creating a de-facto retirement system: since drivers had dibs on medallions, they could invest and create an asset that would fund their retirement. A fifth was creating a revenue stream for cities to that helps pay for regulatory and road costs. Those are off the top of my head; I'm sure there were more. Now instead a lot of those costs are borne by other people. Uber has shifted capital and maintenance costs entirely away from cab companies and on to random people desperate enough to drive for Uber. Losses are no longer the problem of the cab company, but individuals. When those drivers go bankrupt, society bears the costs. When those drives use public assistance [1], society bears the costs. When they retire and we make up for their lost retirement savings, society bears the costs. And that's to say nothing of the direct and indirect societal costs that come from more traffic. Similar issues come up with Airbnb. E.g., if you thought you were living next to a neighbor and now are dealing with an illegal one-unit hotel in your building, you are experiencing a loss. If the apartment you rent out is trashed because somebody is running an illegal business out of it [2], you experience significant loss. When rent goes up because people are illegally converting housing to de-facto hotel stock, that is a socialized loss with privatized gains. I'm not even saying this is necessarily worse. As with the bankruptcy system as a whole, it can sometimes be overall better for society to pay for something. But we shouldn't sweep this stuff under the rug. [1] E.g., https://uberpeople.net/threads/you-may-qualify-for-government-assistance.56894/ https://uberpeople.net/threads/you-may-qualify-for-governmen... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-fined-after-renters-illegal-listings.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/01/airbnb-nightmare-homeowners-...
  - wyager 9y ago
    > One of the big ones is reasonable regulation of taxi and driver quality. I can only imagine that someone who rarely or never travels would say something like this. The main reason I switched to uber is that taxis are universally horrible, both in terms of drivers and vehicles. It's gotten much better since uber forced them to compete, but they still generally suck. So maybe you're right, and that was the reason for taxi medallions; but guess what? It didn't work. > Uber has shifted capital and maintenance costs entirely away from cab companies and on to random people desperate enough to drive for Uber. Again, this is something that I can't imagine hearing from someone who actually uses Ubers on a regular basis. Most Uber drivers I've talked to love the platform, and a good portion of them are e.g. students working a side job, none of them "desperate" people.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >Uber re-privatized the gains by circumventing this ridiculous system, and we're all much better for it. Who are those all? Taxi drivers or the general public? I'd rather have professional, decently paid, taxi drivers instead of amateur hour weekend drivers making minimum wage at the expense of yet another working class job.
  - iamd3vil 9y ago
    Actually in India, I am really grateful for Uber. Previously talking to an auto rikshaw or taxi is pretty painful. They are rude, not reliable, charge a lot if you don't know the city or area. Also atleast from my talking to lot of Uber/Ola drivers is that they are earning a lot compared to their previous taxi service. So to answer your question, both drivers and public.
    - devdas 9y ago
      Earning more isn't very true now though.
  - chrisco255 9y ago
    Yeah same in the US. Honestly there was an under supply of cabs. The cars themselves were all uniform and weren't very clean. Cabbie drivers weren't very well paid ever. It was often difficult to pay with a credit or debit card...Uber and Lyft put so much competitive pressure on the system that cabs are nicer now.
  - wyager 9y ago
    Did you ever use a taxi before uber? Nothing you said is grounded in reality. Taxi drivers are usually extremely unprofessional, underpaid, and horrific drivers. It's actually gotten much better since Uber came around.
    - coldtea 9y ago
      >Did you ever use a taxi before uber? Almost every day.

hobarrera 9y ago

It's funny that facebook is amongst the biggest on that list, when they don't actually seem to provide anything of use to the end user.

dest 9y ago
cheap plentiful stalking?