4 ms·
The way i see it, is that this is just capitalism. If you sell a overpriced poor product, and someone comes in and sells a better product, your going to lose. O
by AaronM 16y ago
The way i see it, is that this is just capitalism. If you sell a overpriced poor product, and someone comes in and sells a better product, your going to lose. Of course people don't like to lose, so they try to get government to prevent the new comers from getting a foothold on their market.
- tptacek 16y agoIt's not just capitalism. The streets are community property. Starbucks can't exploit that to set up coffee trucks selling below-cost lattes to siphon customers from Intelligentsia and then call it "capitalism"; Intelligentsia paid for a very expensive retail space, and Starbucks would be free-riding off our tax dollars to punish them for it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- yummyfajitas 16y agoHow is a food truck free-riding any more than a person parking a car is? Unlike a car parker, the food truck owner is also paying licensing fees to the city. If you believe people underpay for parking, I agree with you. Everyone who parks a car is free-riding, and food-trucks are free-riding to the exact same extent as a guy who commutes to work. But if that's the problem, why not just charge market rates for parking?
- marcinw 16y agoI live in NYC, and I see food trucks everywhere. Someone parking their car versus a food truck doesn't even compare. Like Thomas, I enjoy food trucks, but I wouldn't want them being able to just park anywhere. Food trucks attract many people, and thus result in more litter, noise, beggers etc; that's something I just don't want at my doorstep everyday.
- ultrasaurus 16y agoI think everyone can agree (relentless optimism ensues) that we hope the licensing costs cover the externalites (parking, waste clean up), which mitigates that to some extent. That still leaves property values as an issue.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoI'm not opposed to regulating food trucks for crowd control reasons. Nor would I object to charging them license fees proportional to their impact (e.g., cost of additional litter cleanup) - in fact, I'd strongly support that. But that's not tptacek's objection - his objection is that many people will prefer Starbucks Truck to Intelligentsia, which might cause Intelligentsia to go out of business. This would deprive him of the coffee he desires, and he is willing to deprive everyone else of the coffee they desire to protect his preferred coffee.
- tptacek 16y agoHonestly, I don't care; I go to Starbucks 40% of the time and Intelligentsia 60% of the time (Intelligentsia is on the first floor of my business). The reason I brought up Starbucks was to take the "underdog vs. establishment" subtext out of the discussion, because it isn't relevant, but was essentially the theme of the article we're commenting on.
- tptacek 16y agoIf you believe the city shouldn't zone space for commercial vs. residential use, I agree with you. Otherwise, in for a penny, in for a pound: the state has created (for good reasons or bad) an artificial scarcity in retail space, and people who exploit public property to skirt the resulting premium are, in fact, free-riders.
- yummyfajitas 16y agoOk, I understand now. You mean free-riders in the universe of food-sellers, not the universe of people. It's true - food-sellers have conspired with local governments to create an artificial scarcity and exploit it for their own benefit. This benefits city governments and food-sellers at the expense of the public. The food trucks are benefiting from the higher prices and reduced competition created by this situation. Similarly, Mexico free-rides off of high oil prices created (in part) by collusion among OPEC members. As a consumer who purchases food, why should I care? They are not free-riding off me or other consumers. They are free-riding off rent seekers who are trying pick my pocket. If the brick&mortars destroy themselves with an anti-competitive situation they sought to benefit from, that's just delicious irony.
- AaronM 16y agoWhy can't Starbucks do exactly what you are saying they can't do? It wouldn't be illegal for Starbucks to operator a mobile coffee truck, and if they sell below cost drinks to and take customers away from someone else at a loss then that would be between Starbucks and their shareholders. And how would they be free-riding off our tax dollars? If that is the root cause here, then maybe the food truck owners should pay more taxes, which I doubt that it is. Any established industry has a vested interest in keeping status quo. They don't want someone to come in and shake things up, because that means they might have to actually compete.
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- tptacek 16y agoYes, it's unfair to other coffee shops to have to compete with a truck that offers a similar product with an artificially (state-sponsored!) reduction in cost structure. Cities are zoned for retail business. That zoning is part of what determines the cost of commercial real estate. Why is it fair for the city to "look the other way" when people set up transient businesses that cannibalize businesses that invest in their community? That's a de facto subsidy, not the free market.