10 ms·

Rather ambivalent about this tbh. We've seen many times how the online marketplaces initially targeted at grassroots providers evolve into professional domains

by varjag 9y ago

Rather ambivalent about this tbh. We've seen many times how the online marketplaces initially targeted at grassroots providers evolve into professional domains again. Ebay, Uber, AirBnB, in the end casuals are pushed out and you get fulltime sellers, drivers and purpose rental properties driving the market. Only this time most of the profit ends up with members of a one pool party somewhere in California. They want to disrupt the market, well be ready to bust your asses this time.

wutbrodo 9y ago
> in the end casuals are pushed out and you get fulltime sellers, drivers and purpose rental properties driving the market. Have casuals been pushed out of Uber? Maybe my market is weird, but I tend to talk to every Uber driver I have and I take a lot of them: I'd say less than 50% are full-time drivers.
- lordnacho 9y ago
  Really? I don't recall meeting an Uber driver who didn't do it all the time. I think GP's point is valid. To start with, it's beneficial and fair that lots of little people can rent out their cars for some extra change. But when it ends up being a loophole to sidestepping existing rules to make essentially the same service with fewer rules, it's worth paying extra attention to. Not saying it needs to be outlawed, just that it's not obvious what to do.
  - ForHackernews 9y ago
    It'd be very easy to have legislation that regulates small-timers (only owns one or two cars, rents it out less than 30% of the time, etc.) differently from professional operators, even if they advertise on the same platform. Some jurisdictions have started doing this for AirBnb.
    - Shivetya 9y ago
      we already have too much of this type of regulation which does just what you state, keeping small timers out to benefit the established interests. occupational licensing sounds beneficial to the public as a whole and at one time it was but once established businesses found they could use it to block competition its original focus was lost. It really clobbers low income workers and fattens pockets of companies which "train" for licenses and the like. Nearly a third of all jobs are regulated as such and many are prohibited to former convicts which is yet another road block. You can end up spending more money gaining your license to braid hair than serve as an EMT.
      - ForHackernews 9y ago
        I'm proposing the opposite: regulate big operators more heavily than small-time amateurs. If you want to rent out a spare room in your own house a few weekends a year, the government probably doesn't need to be very involved in that. On the other hand, if you're a company that owns 50 condos and lists them all on Airbnb, you should be carrying insurance, you should be subject to inspection for bedbugs, etc.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Sure, I'm not disagreeing with the point as you state it. I was just surprised by the claim that casuals are pushed out.
    - ams6110 9y ago
      Afer accounting for their costs, Uber drivers don't make much money. As a casual gig a lot of people with other sources of income have probably found it's not worth their time. If you have no other options, working 80 hours/week as an uber driver might make you enough to eeek out a living.
      - wutbrodo 9y ago
        I'm not speculating from first principles as to what might be happening, I'm saying what I've seen from a fairly large sample over the years. Though again, it's limited to my market (SF).
- varjag 9y ago
  My country has no Uber service, so I use it on foreign trips. Initially everyone seemed amateur, now it feels full of pro drivers. But of course could be market specifics, and I don't chat up with every driver too.
- yardie 9y ago
  Depends on time of day. I tend to meet causa Uber drivers late nights and weekends. Day tend to be full time drivers. Quite a few are recent immigrants. At various stages of job searching. Full time? Yes. Professional? Definite no.
  - wutbrodo 9y ago
    Right, which would belie the notion that casuals are pushed out.
  - bluntfang 9y ago
    It seems like you're make a subjective value judgement on what 'professional' is. If they are making money, they are a professional.
    - yardie 9y ago
      No, you are confusing occupation with profession. Most of the drivers I have ridden with would not consider being a driver their profession. Some were retired accountants, others were freshly arrived immigrants saving up for school. A UPS, longhaul or UberXL may consider driving this their profession. As for ridesharing very few were professionals.
jstanley 9y ago
eBay, Uber, and AirBnB are all great. Much better experiences than what was available before.
apatters 9y ago
If the established players promote regulation which make it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold, that's cartel-like behavior and it hurts consumers. In general, regulations should promote competition because competition results in better products and services. The examples you list are all businesses that I wouldn't want to disappear. The problem with these businesses is that software-driven industries have monopoly characteristics, which among other things lead to the concentration of wealth you mention. Consumers would be better off if we had five Ebays or five Ubers or five AirBnBs, but for a variety of reasons this is currently unlikely--the weaponization of patent law, the high up front costs of developing new software, etc. Patent reform is a relatively straightforward area where better regulations could promote competition within software-driven industries. A more controversial approach (at least in the US, but the EU had no problem with doing this to Microsoft) is compulsory licensing of intellectual property when monopolies have abused their position. If the ultimate goal is to reduce wealth concentration and ownership, we might also consider making it easier for firms to IPO again.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  We do have 5 EBays and it sucks IMO. I have to search EBay, autotrader, craigslist(s), Amazon 3PM, AliExpress, BringATrailer, FChat/RennList, Etsy, Tindie, and others to get the whole market for whatever random thing I'm looking for. For lodging, it's AirBnB, VRBO, TripAdvisor, Priceline, hotels.com, Expedia, trivago, and 15 others that I'm not thinking of, half of which are owned by one of the others. Uber has Lyft and other smaller competitors as well. Users go to where the vibrant market is; they aren't, in general, helped by having the market sharded for arbitrary reasons. Even back to the days of Trajan's Forum, local produce markets, or modern-day "Auto Mile"s, consumers seem to prefer the convenience of one place over many.
- varjag 9y ago
  > If the established players promote regulation which make it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold, that's cartel-like behavior and it hurts consumers. It's called level playing field and it's not catered to multinationals in particular. There is no shortage of independent car rentals and hotels around the world. In fact am writing this from a non-chain beach condo and there's a mom&pops car rental maybe 250 meters away. Somehow they are able to comply to a few simple regulations, it is a bit dramatic to paint comparatively huge centralized corporations as victims of oligopolies here.

by varjag 9y ago

wutbrodo 9y ago

> in the end casuals are pushed out and you get fulltime sellers, drivers and purpose rental properties driving the market. Have casuals been pushed out of Uber? Maybe my market is weird, but I tend to talk to every Uber driver I have and I take a lot of them: I'd say less than 50% are full-time drivers.

lordnacho 9y ago
Really? I don't recall meeting an Uber driver who didn't do it all the time. I think GP's point is valid. To start with, it's beneficial and fair that lots of little people can rent out their cars for some extra change. But when it ends up being a loophole to sidestepping existing rules to make essentially the same service with fewer rules, it's worth paying extra attention to. Not saying it needs to be outlawed, just that it's not obvious what to do.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  It'd be very easy to have legislation that regulates small-timers (only owns one or two cars, rents it out less than 30% of the time, etc.) differently from professional operators, even if they advertise on the same platform. Some jurisdictions have started doing this for AirBnb.
  - Shivetya 9y ago
    we already have too much of this type of regulation which does just what you state, keeping small timers out to benefit the established interests. occupational licensing sounds beneficial to the public as a whole and at one time it was but once established businesses found they could use it to block competition its original focus was lost. It really clobbers low income workers and fattens pockets of companies which "train" for licenses and the like. Nearly a third of all jobs are regulated as such and many are prohibited to former convicts which is yet another road block. You can end up spending more money gaining your license to braid hair than serve as an EMT.
    - ForHackernews 9y ago
      I'm proposing the opposite: regulate big operators more heavily than small-time amateurs. If you want to rent out a spare room in your own house a few weekends a year, the government probably doesn't need to be very involved in that. On the other hand, if you're a company that owns 50 condos and lists them all on Airbnb, you should be carrying insurance, you should be subject to inspection for bedbugs, etc.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  Sure, I'm not disagreeing with the point as you state it. I was just surprised by the claim that casuals are pushed out.
  - ams6110 9y ago
    Afer accounting for their costs, Uber drivers don't make much money. As a casual gig a lot of people with other sources of income have probably found it's not worth their time. If you have no other options, working 80 hours/week as an uber driver might make you enough to eeek out a living.
    - wutbrodo 9y ago
      I'm not speculating from first principles as to what might be happening, I'm saying what I've seen from a fairly large sample over the years. Though again, it's limited to my market (SF).
varjag 9y ago
My country has no Uber service, so I use it on foreign trips. Initially everyone seemed amateur, now it feels full of pro drivers. But of course could be market specifics, and I don't chat up with every driver too.
yardie 9y ago
Depends on time of day. I tend to meet causa Uber drivers late nights and weekends. Day tend to be full time drivers. Quite a few are recent immigrants. At various stages of job searching. Full time? Yes. Professional? Definite no.
- wutbrodo 9y ago
  Right, which would belie the notion that casuals are pushed out.
- bluntfang 9y ago
  It seems like you're make a subjective value judgement on what 'professional' is. If they are making money, they are a professional.
  - yardie 9y ago
    No, you are confusing occupation with profession. Most of the drivers I have ridden with would not consider being a driver their profession. Some were retired accountants, others were freshly arrived immigrants saving up for school. A UPS, longhaul or UberXL may consider driving this their profession. As for ridesharing very few were professionals.

jstanley 9y ago

eBay, Uber, and AirBnB are all great. Much better experiences than what was available before.

apatters 9y ago

If the established players promote regulation which make it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold, that's cartel-like behavior and it hurts consumers. In general, regulations should promote competition because competition results in better products and services. The examples you list are all businesses that I wouldn't want to disappear. The problem with these businesses is that software-driven industries have monopoly characteristics, which among other things lead to the concentration of wealth you mention. Consumers would be better off if we had five Ebays or five Ubers or five AirBnBs, but for a variety of reasons this is currently unlikely--the weaponization of patent law, the high up front costs of developing new software, etc. Patent reform is a relatively straightforward area where better regulations could promote competition within software-driven industries. A more controversial approach (at least in the US, but the EU had no problem with doing this to Microsoft) is compulsory licensing of intellectual property when monopolies have abused their position. If the ultimate goal is to reduce wealth concentration and ownership, we might also consider making it easier for firms to IPO again.

sokoloff 9y ago
We do have 5 EBays and it sucks IMO. I have to search EBay, autotrader, craigslist(s), Amazon 3PM, AliExpress, BringATrailer, FChat/RennList, Etsy, Tindie, and others to get the whole market for whatever random thing I'm looking for. For lodging, it's AirBnB, VRBO, TripAdvisor, Priceline, hotels.com, Expedia, trivago, and 15 others that I'm not thinking of, half of which are owned by one of the others. Uber has Lyft and other smaller competitors as well. Users go to where the vibrant market is; they aren't, in general, helped by having the market sharded for arbitrary reasons. Even back to the days of Trajan's Forum, local produce markets, or modern-day "Auto Mile"s, consumers seem to prefer the convenience of one place over many.
varjag 9y ago
> If the established players promote regulation which make it harder for new entrants to gain a foothold, that's cartel-like behavior and it hurts consumers. It's called level playing field and it's not catered to multinationals in particular. There is no shortage of independent car rentals and hotels around the world. In fact am writing this from a non-chain beach condo and there's a mom&pops car rental maybe 250 meters away. Somehow they are able to comply to a few simple regulations, it is a bit dramatic to paint comparatively huge centralized corporations as victims of oligopolies here.