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How Bodega typifies Silicon Valley’s cultural ignorance
- sylvinus 9y ago> If you're online in any way whatsoever, you likely know I'm talking about Bodega. I'm online in many ways, and no, I didn't know that. When writing an article on cultural ignorance, try to be mindful of your own echo chamber as well!
- Top19 9y agoGood article, reminded me of Gawker/ValleyWag in a lot of ways.
- omegote 9y agoThis article is gold. I honestly hope the startup bubble bursts soon enough so this kind of crap finishes one and for all. Too much money has been wasted in these "companies" that could've been used for better purposes.
- richmarr 9y ago> Can you imagine handing your bank details to these clowns? On the whole this is an informative and well written explanation of the reaction to Bodega, but I don't think commentary like this is helpful.
- falsedan 9y agoCould you imagine the point-of-view of someone who did find this helpful? And then, the opinion of this hypothetical reader would hold of the Bodega clowns? To me, the commentary helps call out how insincere and non-genuine the quoted text is.
- richmarr 9y ago> Could you imagine the point-of-view of someone who did find this helpful? Who would this "bank details" comment help, and how, and why does someone's point of view affect whether it's helpful? > To me, the commentary helps call out how insincere and non-genuine the quoted text is. There's plenty to discuss on the branding, commercial model, and social implications without attempting to smear them with vague implications of either technical incompetence/negligence or some kind of fraud/ethical risk. Perhaps I've misunderstood it and there's an interpretation of this "bank details" line that's grounded in some evidence rather than being an unnecessary smear.
- falsedan 9y agoTaking this as a 'no' then.
- richmarr 9y ago> Taking this as a 'no' then. Take it as a 'I don't consider your question as stated to be meaningful'.
- falsedan 9y agoIt's a empathy exercise, not a question? You implicitly asked, "who would this statement about bank accounts be helpful for?", and I suggest that you try to think of someone.
- richmarr 9y ago> It's a empathy exercise, not a question? You implicitly asked, "who would this statement about bank accounts be helpful for?", and I suggest that you try to think of someone. The question I asked you was a literal question, not an empathy exercise. By all means suggest a way that anyone might be helped by this apparently-unevidenced smear. It may comfort people to read things that support their worldview, but I don't agree that it helps them. [Edit: changed questions to question as I only asked one]
- falsedan 9y agoI was talking about the question I asked you: > Could you imagine the point-of-view of someone who did find this helpful? I felt that your response didn't try to answer it, and thus I thought you cannot imagine such a person & see things from their point-of-view.
- richmarr 9y ago> I was talking about the question I asked you Yep, and I've explained at length now that your question needs clarifying before any kind of answer can be meaningful. You asked me to empathise with the views of people helped by the author's apparent smear. I'm sincerely asking you; who are these people you're asking me to empathise with, and how have they been helped? Without that this is all drearily hypothetical and meaningless.
- smudgymcscmudge 9y agoThat’s the exact line where I stopped reading. Although I rolled my eyes a little at the idea of the Bodega name being cultural appropriation too.
- wink 9y agoWhen reading about things like this I'm always wondering if I'm the odd one out or others' perceptions are really off. Background: I live in Munich, Germany which grew from ~1.3m to 1.5m people in my lifetime. I've never lived in the city center, and never outside. Just in "normal" neighborhoods, as I'd call them. And the same discussion about "brick and mortar book stores" and their downfall and people lamenting their demise and now this same thing. I've only ever had one of those "corner stores" near where I lived and it was basically a small supermarket. You went there in emergencies (shops here are only open from 7:00 to 20:00 at most, mind you) because there wasn't much stuff. I guess a few people went there exclusively but the selection was really limited. TLDR: How can I live in a big city and still have never have experienced any upside to this? I'm not saying corner stores are bad at all, but I really don't get the fuss.
- kstenerud 9y agoIn America (especially the East coast), the mom & pop bodegas serve as impromptu social gathering places for the locals, as the store and its owners are very much a part of the community. Taking that away feels a lot like ripping apart a family.
- Laforet 9y agoSounds like general stores in small towns closing down because a Walmart has opened next door.
- dagw 9y agoTo be fair, a lot of people are seriously angry at Walmart about that as well.
- madeofpalk 9y agoHonestly, it just sounds like these 'coastal elites' seems to care a lot more about their personal image and making themselves feel good rather than actually caring about bodegas and their families, or whatever. Reminds me in a bit like poverty porn. Lets be honest here - they're just vending machines. Sure, Bodega is a very bad choice of name, but it was the FastCompany article that said they want to kill mom and pop stores and rob their familities, not the founders. Of course, I'm not from America (australia) so I'm definitely out of touch with the cultural part of the situation, but that's just what it looks like from here
- kstenerud 9y agoPeople don't actively set out to be this callous; it just happens as you become more and more insulated from the real world, and the divide between those driving the country and those living in it widens. The French Revolution is an extreme example.
- dataisfun 9y agoTurning this company into a focal point about SV culture is such a ridiculous exercise in voluntary dyspepsia.
- hownottowrite 9y agoHow is this "situation" with Bodega any different than the destruction of small town shops (and small towns in general) over the last 50 years? This article could easily be retitled: "How This Article Typifies Urban Cultural Ignorance of the World Beyond the City Walls."
- falsedan 9y ago> How is this "situation" with Bodega any different than the destruction of small town shops? The $2.5MM funding for a bad vending machine which will only work in cities, in the face of extreme income inequality.
- hownottowrite 9y agoDon't get me wrong, I think Bodega is an exceptionally stupid idea. What bothers me is the outrage about the potential loss of these small shops in urban areas when absolutely zero concern was paid to the eventual shredding of the social fabric of rural communities. The author of the article does not address this, even in passing.
- falsedan 9y agoI guess the cause of that isn't 2 techlife 'product' guys with a ton of other people's money (which they got on the off-chance they completely disrupt the market). Gutting of small towns is done with multi-year business strategies decided in the boardrooms & committees of giant corporations for shareholder benefit: also bad, but less offensive.
- harryh 9y agoLet's check in with what the actual founders of this company said: Are we trying to put corner stores out of business? Definitely not. Challenging the urban corner store is not and has never been our goal. Corner stores have been fixtures of their neighborhoods for generations. They stock thousands of items, far more than we could ever fit on a few shelves. Their owners know what products to carry and in many cases who buys what. And they’re run by people who in addition to selling everything from toilet paper to milk also offer an integral human connection to their patrons that our automated storefronts never will. This endgadget post is lying clickbait. It's "two minutes hate" for 21st century America.
- kmonad 9y agoDid you read the article? That very statement by the founders is discussed and contextualized within. Where's the lie?
- harryh 9y agoWhen you say that a company is trying to do something that: 1) They've explicitly said they aren't trying to do. 2) Given their product, would be a ridiculous thing to try to do in the first place. It's a lie.
- falsedan 9y agoThe title & OP don't claim that this company want to eliminate bodegas… it's about cultural insensitivity. Are you arguing against the linked FastCompany article?
- randallsquared 9y agoFrom the article: > People who shop at the same Bay Area corner stores that Bodega wants to eliminate, like me, aren't worried about any problem the startup wants to solve. You said: > the linked FastCompany article? Did the link change? Right now it's to an inflammatory engadget article that slurs tech workers as subhuman "things": > "It's almost like someone said "Siri, show me why everyone hates and fears the things wearing human suits known as techies."
- Eridrus 9y agoThis is basically a fancy vending machine, so I'm not really clear on why this got funded, but on the other hand vending machines are a thing. They don't actually seem to be trying to displacement bodegas from the get go, but rather putting their machines in upscale places like lobbies and gyms, but I'm still a bit confused by this whole thing, is the premise that these places are more likely to accept a pretty vending machine?
- smudgymcscmudge 9y agoThis article is the first and only thing I’ve read about Bodega, and I the same thought as you. You can do ok running vending machines, but it isn’t any kind of disruptive business. I wonder what kind of spin they put on Bodega to sell it to investors.
- dagw 9y agoI'm not really clear on why this got funded "Imagine if Facebook was vending machine. There are over 7 Billion people in the world today who could potentially use a vending machine! And if we can capture just half that market and convince them to spent just a dollar a day each that's over 1 Trillion Dollars a Year! We will Disrupt the whole vending machine industry by using cutting edge Cloud Technology, Deep Learning, State Of The Art Facial Recognition and Advanced Social Graphs to make sure that each of our vending machines has a uniquely curated selection of the best Locally Produced, Organic products. And of course all of these features will be tightly integrated with our Truly Amazing App. This will be the perfect companion for the Digital Nomad Generation of the Future!"
- pault 9y agoI don't know, I can think of several times in the last week I would have been very happy to have a vending machine with toilet paper and coffee creamer in the lobby of my building. The only corner store nearby went out of business a few months ago.
- Eridrus 9y agoSure, everyone wants convenient things, but why do they need fancy tech development (they're planning to use computer vision), and what makes them think they will be able to make the economics work? Putting these inside building lobbies means they can serve far fewer people than a regular vending machine; their costs have to be far better than a regular vending machine for this plan to make sense.
- gcatalfamo 9y agoI don't want to always sound critic of the USA, but if here in Italy you opened an activity with real or supposed insert your favourite heritage here style, no one would ever care. You would get awful reviews if you weren't doing a good job of it, but aside from that, why would anyone really be offended? If you guys were coherent, places like Olive Garden should never exist. And I am not even starting on how much of a shit job Olive Garden is doing of trying to look Italian, because I don't care. Europe, with such a rich mix of cultures should be a trigger-hell for you Americans. (I am being sarcastic) How can you really cope with all this? Edit: to add insult to injury, how should we Italians feel about being always portrayed as "pizza, mafia, gobbledygook mamma mia". It's so far from our reality, we don't care. Edit2: better phrasing
- S_A_P 9y agoRightly or wrongly, there are people here in the US that make it a hobby to become offended and make a big deal of how offensive it is. Obviously it would do everyone some good to use discernment with their actions, but everyone should also not try to look for how you can spin something that was probably tongue in cheek into something offensive. Is bodega a great idea? Probably not, but I don't know what the entire offering was, maybe the idea got funded because they were interested in a specific part of the whole idea. I would like to see people in the US realize that someone is going to do something they don't like and there is an option to ignore the behavior.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoThe problem is, unfortunately, becoming a world-wide phenomenon, because the entire media industry runs on generating outrage to capture the audience.
- gcatalfamo 9y agoThat's my point. Critics of their business model do sound valid, but people that are shocked about so-called "cultural appropriation" should, trying to be polite here, see more of our wonderful planet and really understand cultures, which are very, very, very different from the cultures you believe to witness when changing neighborhood in your town.
- imartin2k 9y agoI don't take anyone seriously who casually calls something like Bodega an "offensive idea", as if this is the most natural thing to do. A name choice ca be bad without the whole idea "being offensive". Lazy labels are bad for discourse.
- kmonad 9y agoThe article is not centered around the choice of name, it's an example. The offensiveness, to the author, comes from more than that.
- imartin2k 9y agoIt's the idea that "offensiveness" even is a reasonable critical descriptor of a startup idea that i see as a problem. This is such a fluid term which lacks any clear, objective boundaries. Everybody has their own view on what's offensive (apart from some areas in which somewhat of a consensus exists about offensiveness, mostly regarding pejorative expressions). Some people have a thick skin and find nothing offensive, others consider any opposing argument presented in a determined tone offensive. And then there is a huge space in between. Therefore expanding the scope of "offensiveness" more and more is, in my eyes, a problematic trend.
- icebraining 9y agoIf offensiveness is a fully subjective concept, as you say, then "expanding the scope of offensiveness" is an oxymoron, since everyone has their scope.
- imartin2k 9y agoI don't know if that's a correct conclusion. Some individuals or groups can promote an expansion of "offensiveness", which under certain circumstances becomes the new default for everyone who is part of a cultural/social sphere, no matter the individual's subjective position in the matter. This is similar to what Nassim Taleb described in his essay "The Dictatorship of the small Minority". Essentially, the most easily offended person will win, as everyone is expected to adhere to his/her requirements (as most people would, despite disagreeing with the claim, still feel morally forced to oblige, as they don't like to hurt someone else's feelings - so all power is concentrated on the person with the offended "feelings" - the more sensible he/she is, the more everyone else needs to comply. If this person cannot handle any kind of different point of viewpoint or idea, everyone else would have to avoid expressing viewpoints and ideas. This is the extreme scenario of course, but what's stopping us to end up there?) https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
- gadders 9y agoA lot of new innovations put someone else out of work. How is this any different from Buggy Whip Makers or (in the near future) Lorry Drivers being unemployed? To be clear, unemployment like that isn't great but I'm not sure why this is a special case.
- feintruled 9y agoThat was an unnecessarily angry article. A much more measured one (though still very cutting) one is here: https://www.eater.com/2017/9/13/16302386/bodega-startup-corner-store-silicon-valley https://www.eater.com/2017/9/13/16302386/bodega-startup-corn... Also has some very valid sounding criticism of their entire business model.
- pault 9y agoThe author literally dehumanizes the founders and all tech workers, calling them "machines" and "things in suits". What a terrible, clickbaity article.
- falsedan 9y ago"things in human suits", actually. This is an apt description of some tech workers I've worked with, and some of the commantari here.
- ilamont 9y agoIf the startup were called "Vendoogle" or "Quikbox" I don't think there would be so much outrage. Local mom & pop stores have been under assault by all kinds of well-funded rivals for decades, including CVS, Target Mini-Stores, gas station franchises, and bottling companies working with vending machine distributors. Nevertheless, the little corner stores still keep ticking in many areas thanks to goods and services not offered by these bigger competitors, including specialty food, extended hours, and money transfer services. However, if Target were to rebrand their mini-stores as "Red Bodegas" or something similar there would be similar outrage. It's one thing to compete, it's another thing to play dirty by usurping the little guy's brand or throwing your weight around too much in a very obvious or threatening way. If I were McDonald and Rajan, I would use this opportunity to rebrand to something more acceptable, offer a mea culpa, and maybe even figure out some way to work with real bodegas and local stores (shared distribution for certain items to lower costs? Machine learning for real bodegas' inventory? "Local" goods? Spillover sales?)
- 0x27081990 9y agoThere’s a lot of hate and resentment in that article. Sure, maybe Bodega isn’t the brightest startup. But who cares? If it’s a bad idea, nature/market will make it go away. If bodegas/corner stores whatever are worth it, people will continue to buy from there and Bodega nor any other “shiny” startup will stand a chance against them. My guess is she doesn’t believe in freemarket and thinks that someone can simply kill corner stores by throwing money at a startup.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoSeriously, out of all the problems this start-up represents, the author chose to focus on cultural appropriation? Now the article did touch on other things as well, but the central point leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The author seems disconnected from reality, too. Want to talk about the real problem? Start with how such companies will affect the unskilled labour market. Also: people publishing these articles are - like always - fast to write about how the tech culture is perceived, but also stubbornly refuse to take the responsibility for the fact that they're who create that perception in the first place. Juicero and Bodega are one but thousands of startups in SV. Yet they define the tech culture through them... because writing about those gives them most outrage-driven clicks, in a self-reinforcing loop of caricature. I defer to SSC for the much saner critique of SV: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/11/silicon-valley-a-reality-check/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/11/silicon-valley-a-realit...
- kmonad 9y agoNot many people here seem to have read the article, or read so quickly to misinterpret it. This is not a rant about 'appropriation' or naming choices - that's only one of the facets of ignorance by the founders discussed in the piece. More importantly, the author makes their case that some ideas, in particular that of a vending machine, are so disconnected from the daily lives of what the author might call 'normal people' that it's offensive to dump significant money into them (or wasted on them, I suppose). That latter part is, I believe, the real offending bit.
- imartin2k 9y agoOne could argue then that the author failed to get the point across, even if the point might have merit. It's any author's task to make their cases in a way so that people pay attention. In this case, this maybe failed. As I mentioned in my other comment: Using terms such as "offensive" when trying to make a serious point to fact- and argument-oriented people (which one typically finds on HN) might not work very well. It's better to be critical of the author's approach to making the case than to assume that the problem are the readers.
- kmonad 9y agohm, that is a fair point. yet, don't you also think that it is a little endemic on hn, and knee-jerk reaction, to jump on certain phrases? like...a trigger :P? would you think this is a universal response (and therefore problem) or perhaps only among a certain readership? would an author not have to take into account the average response to their phrasing (or that of the audience they address)? if this is not the hn readership, then I would think a word like 'offensive' is comprising a lot of meaning in a concentrated way (ofc you can still disagree with the judgment, that the scenario is truly offensive).
- humanrebar 9y ago> Two Ex-Googlers Want To Make Bodegas And Mom-And-Pop Corner Stores Obsolete It's my understanding that bodegas (gas stations in car towns) make their money from "unsavory" things: nicotine, alcohol, and lottery tickets. Unless Bodega is planning on stocking vending machines with this stuff (they can't; it's generally illegal), corner stores will be fine.
- 7Z7 9y agoActually, and this might be different where you live, but it's my understanding that shops don't really make any profit on cigarettes/alcohol/lottery tickets, and that they are only sold to entice you to buy other things (ie. if they didn't stock them, people would shop elsewhere).
- colorint 9y agoI'm acquainted with the general manager of a local hardware chain in my small town that used to run a gas station. The sense I have from talking to him is, the gas station shut down because 1. Kroger put in a gas station that nobody can compete with, and 2. they couldn't sell liquor (because they were across the street from the high school). The gas station also used to have a successful auto repair shop attached to it, so apparently the gas and liquor problems were severe enough that even the auto shop couldn't justify continuing to operate the location---though, I gather, the Kroger gas station was the straw that broke the camel's back. Obviously this is just one gas station in one small town, but then that's probably all there is to this discussion.
- KaiserPro 9y agoI _think_ the thing the article was trying to explain was tulip fever. But then got distracted along the way.
- LyndsySimon 9y agoIt occurs to me that without the apparent anger of the author, I would likely have never heard of "Bodega". They would have died quietly and never made an impact on my life. Now I know who they are, who founded the company, and what they're trying to accomplish. You literally cannot buy marketing this effective.
- forgottenpass 9y agoI think the more interesting point goes unspoken: nothing short of appropriation is big enough to be a touchpoint for rejecting a run-of-the-mill Valley product. even just the startup's name "Bodega" told us locals and natives -- the involuntary first-wave recipients of Silicon Valley's fucked up experiments with our lives -- all we needed to know. FIRST wave? You think this is first? The fact the battle is over branding at all is the biggest sign the war is already over regarding "Silicon Valley's fucked up experiments with our lives." --- There is nothing new about saying the Valley's products are out of touch, or positioned to change the physical landscape of society in a destructive way, or replacing personal interaction with web forms and call trees, or do damage to user's psyche just to maximize engagement and ARPU. Likewise there is nothing new about "internet threatens mom & pop business model." And in the grand scheme of things, bodeags are of the category "mom and pop". Has everyone become this accustomed and propagandized to the inevitability of business models crushing unnecessary positive aspects of the end user's experience/culture in the name of profit? Where the "we'll do it cheaper, so just forget everything you loose in the process" idea is so ingrained that the only thing that can light up anyone's brain anymore is crossing into the hot political topic of appropriation?
- hsod 9y agoPretty lazy piece, mostly full of easy jabs and containing very little argumentation. "Bodega isn't just an offensive idea, it's an idea so bad and obviously worthless it's maddening." I can (academically) understand how Bodega's rollout was offensive but I don't see how it's a worthless idea. Unlike the author, not everybody has 24-hour convenience stores just down the street. If they had one of these in my building I'd use it every week.
- Divver 9y agoWhen I first saw that initial article of them mentioning their startup which was titled: “ Two Ex-Googlers Want To Make Bodegas And Mom-And-Pop Corner Stores Obsolete “ I already knew it was doomed. I mean an upper middle class Caucasian guy and an upper middle class South Asian guy who previously worked at Google make this startup with the idea of “making mom and pop corner stores obsolete” And they name the startup “Bodega” whose name has Latino roots.... How can these two be so tone deaf and insensitive to how people will react to this? This sounds cruel and bad just from the phrasing of the headline. It’s like they didn’t use any common sense and have no heart for local businesses. I just don’t understand why a decent amount of these Silicon Valley techies are so time deaf? Did they grow up with silver spoons in their mouths? How can you be so smart technically yet so culturally tone deaf at the same time? I would have thought sharp critical thinking and common sense would apply to more than just technical problems... You can complain about how people are overreacting and perhaps you have a point but that doesn’t change the fact that people will overreact. Why are so many upper middle class and rich people so disconnected from the poor and middle class? I’m fairly well off now but I still remember what it was like when my family was poor when my parents first immigrated from Malaysia (we were racial and religious minorities and Malaysia’s government discriminates against racial/religious minorities so my parents left) back in the mid 90s... and we had to go to food banks in Michigan to get some food when my dad’s two menial jobs didn’t make enough. And I also remember when my family was middle class (about 60K) back in Idaho. The middle class life was much better than when we were poor (no food security issues and we had a nice house) and we got a smartphone back when I was in high school. (Only one smartphone for the family, more than one was too expensive, they let me have it because I was the oldest). So even though I’m upper middle class now here in Silicon Valley, I still remember those harder times. And I want Silicon Valley to make startups to help those poor and middle class people, instead of trying to displace or hurt those people. All the machine learning they use in Bodega they could have instead sold that as a service to local Bodegas to empower their businesses by giving the local Bodegas a way to know what to stock up on. And I believe that would have still been profitable but also community conscious. Ugh the level of liberal snobby-ness and elitism that you see on Silicon Valley Makes me super bummed sometimes when I think about Silicon Valley When I see the immense income inequality which I didn’t see as much back in Idaho. Now I’m partially a hypocrite since I love my upper middle class tech job here at a top company which I would not have found in Idaho. I won’t kid. This is the best standard of living and quality of life I’ve ever experienced so far. I’m very grateful for that. But the income inequality here reminds me somewhat of what I saw in India when I visited there for the first time last year. Like it looked like 1/3 of the population has a gesta upper middle class or rich life with great stuff. But 2/3 in like abject poverty. Now California isn’t as bad as that but out of all the States I’ve lived in or visited, It’s the closest to that and perhaps that’s partly due to the fact that our education system doesn’t prepare Americans for these well paying tech jobs.... But if that’s the case then we need to fix that or we’ll turn into India if we don’t change or fix our current problems here in the US. I didn’t vote for Trump but I understood why many of my friends back in Idaho did because hey feel hopeless in this new changing economy and their education system didn’t prepare them for it. Anyway I refuse to believe that it’s impossible to come up with profitable startup ideas that also empower local communities and businesses. Sorry I don’t mean to put anyone here down btw this was just a general rant on Silicon Valley. I’m really sorry if I came off as rude. I normally don’t comment on hacker news this is my second comment ever. Pardon my typos I typed all this on my smartphone.