8 ms·

And they should. We are fast approaching a world where all markets are walled-in by a few international companies. I've had clients of mine go under because Ama

• worldsayshi 8y ago
  In part I think it's important to think about how to make and keep a healthy culture of labour unions. There needs to be counter balance to corporate power. Especially in blue collar sectors. I guess gig unions could be a thing? Can we build apps for worker coordination? What if there was a way for all Uber drivers to coordinate global strikes? We should be open for regulation that protect the rights of workers to unionize.
  • ThrustVectoring 8y ago
    One of the big problems with forming a gig worker union is the same problem with gig work in general; you're disconnected with your coworkers and other firm participants. Uber can press a button in response to a strike and send out a push notification to potential scabs offering a bribe to cross the digital picket line. The strikers both don't know and can't efficiently tell who scabs are, and as such can't put pressure for solidarity on them.
    • opportune 8y ago
      Some would say this is the killer-app of gig platforms - the picket lines and scabs are almost invisible, and workers are completely disconnected from each other unless they seek each other out. Makes organization and striking very hard
      • tajen 8y ago
        Honest question: Is there any upside to the organization of strikes? I’m from France and what I see is mostly people in a position of blackmailing society do strike. To the question of whether it improves working conditions, it seems as if it improved them, but at the expense of 1. underrepresented colleagues and 2. the taxpayer. If underrepresented colleagues (whom I used to be part of before I quit) are any meaningful part, then the results of strikes are at the expense of the majority of society. It’s great that I have 7.5 weeks of holidays, but they are also mandatory... so much that a net salary for an engineer is 2000€ net pm. It’s like... a joke. “Everyone is poor” is France, compared to other countries I’ve lived in with fewer taxes and friction. Strikes, more than ever, seem to be the imposition on weaker workers of the force of stronger workers. The benefits of the strikes are taken at the expense of all workers. It doesn’t improve the economy and adds friction, slowing down the economy. And what the new economy brings to me is so much more reliability of services, since they’re not on strike every second day or shut down at 3.30pm every first day. I like the no-strike economy, because I see what people suffer through in the strike economy. Besides, parties who organize strikes also organize to shut down free speech events, so strike isn’t compatible with free speech. Is the fact that Uber doesn’t have strikes a pure bonus of the platform?
    • walterbell 8y ago
      Some Uber drivers also use the Lyft app. Would they use a “DriveTogether” app for labor organizing? Is digital labor organizing more or less work than old-school organizing of workers in factories across a large geographic region? Edit: looks like this is now legally permitted, https://tcf.org/content/report/virtual-labor-organizing/ https://tcf.org/content/report/virtual-labor-organizing/ ”Due to a little-known, but far-reaching change made by the NLRB last year, virtual labor organizing by employees is now sanctioned by law in many situations and could possibly be transformative in the workplace ... NLRB recently reversed years of legal precedent that allowed employers to ban the use of workplace e-mail for organizing or communicating about the terms and conditions of work. Last year, in its decision in Purple Communications, Inc., the NLRB emphatically endorsed the right of employees to use workplace e-mail for such activities. It held that “employee use of email for statutorily protected communications on nonworking time must presumptively be permitted by employers who have chosen to give employees access to their email systems.” The NLRB added that: “Employees’ need to share information and opinions is particularly acute in the context of an initial organizing campaign.”
• jeff_carr 8y ago
  The most scary part of this story is a minor line item: ... except China. In other words, China is just stealing EVERYTHING FROM EVERYONE and not even Apple or Google can stop it from happening. This article is about pushing Google and Apple to lower percentages -- perhaps 5% from what once was 30% and that these two giants are the dangerous entities in the world? Let me know when Google and Apple shut down the wikipedia or block news about Tienanmen Square or block pictures of Winnie the Poo. Until then I hope Apple and Google get stronger. If you want a balance against the central state, then capitalism might be your best option.
  • coldtea 8y ago
    Well, they should also let us know when China invades tens of countries all around the world (and not its own citizens or immediate neighbors they have some beef with), topples their democratically elected leaders and so on. From 2001 till now, 4 ex-sovereign countries have been bombed and invaded into hellscapes, and it wasn't China doing it. Just some old friendly "whataboutism" (/s) to put things into perspective, I'm tired of the pots of this world calling the kettles black...
• avar 8y ago
  It's really screwed up even as a consumer. E.g. for things like Uber I've taken to always rating 5 stars regardless of my experience, because even if I have something bad to say do I really want to so nonchalantly be a cog in the machine of potentially robbing someone of their livelyhood?
  • remusrm 8y ago
    Its not just Uber, most surveys and other such feedback, unless is satisfied or extremely satisfied is considered bad!
  • imgabe 8y ago
    Yeah, the way Uber ratings work it seems like there are only two ratings: "I had an acceptable experience" or "This person should lose their job".
    • rashomon 8y ago
      It's the same for restaurants in low-volume areas. That under-4-star death knell is a killer for sales. On the other hand, I love perusing those 3-star restaurants as I find so many hidden gems covered in the tears of LLC owners and bored hostesses. If I were a lesser man, I totally am, I would write a book concerning that social theory called the Star Divide.
      • knightofmars 8y ago
        I'd read that book.
      • pferde 8y ago
        Hopefully it would be better than the related Black Mirror episode (Nosedive), which started with an interesting premise, but handled it in a very crass and immature way, more reminiscent of stupid Hollywood teen comedies (e.g. American Pie).
    • fjsolwmv 8y ago
      What else matters when choosing a car hire?
• sp527 8y ago
  > We as a society need to start thinking about how we rate people. Right now we all shop for that 5-star rating and punish anyone with 4. We need to mature beyond that as it grows increasingly impossible to maintain perfect ratings. I couldn't disagree more with this sentiment. The answer is not to intentionally sabotage competitive market forces that are driving better outcomes for consumers. That's the equivalent of a jobs program. If you can't compete, you don't compete. Businesses are inherently risky and some people will lose. If an inordinate number of sellers are failing or struggling, that reflects a failed assessment of market risk and ill-informed decision-making. The answer is to improve the decision-making capability of participants or otherwise improve the social safety net for people who are facing new realities of economic obsolescence.
  • jolmg 8y ago
    I didn't downvote, but I think cptaj's point was to "unsabotage" the rating system. Ideally, the 5-star rating system should work like: - 1-star means Awful - 2-star means Bad - 3-star means OK - 4-star means Good - 5-star means Excellent That means no one should have any problem using something rated 3 or above. However, by "[shopping] for that 5-star rating and [punishing] anyone with a 4", the rating system ends up meaning: - 1-star means Couldn't be worse - 2-star means Awful - 3-star means Bad - 4-star means There was a problem - 5-star means OK Because we all know that's how the rating is treated, no one gives a 3 when the experience was normal and tries to reserve that 5-star for when a service was absolutely phenomenal. We just give a 5 when a service was OK. Being more accepting of 4-star or 3-star ratings is not sabotaging competitive market forces; it's trying to use the 5-star rating system like it should be.
    • notafraudster 8y ago
      This does not follow. Even in a system where 3 stars means excellent, 4 stars means once in a lifetime, and 5 stars means Platonic Ideal, I'm still going to look for restaurants (or drivers or network routers or whatever the thing is) that are as close to 5* as possible. Do I subdivide between 4.45 and 4.47 stars? No. But in general I'm going to sort my results by some measure of quality. I'm also optimizing over other variables, but to the extent quality is one of those variables, there's no reason to settle for OK when Excellent is available. I'm definitely not going to voluntarily get worse food so I can protest the idea of ratings. And as long as that's the case, there will always be pressure for people and services that aren't "Excellent" to go for the 5 star anyway, and as long as they're going for it, there'll be a social pressure to provide it. The problem isn't linguistic, it's game theoretic.
• remusrm 8y ago
  Indeed is scary, and a lot of hUmans these days don't look future in the future and its all about now, and what can I get now!
• damon_c 8y ago
  My GF and I recently moved from NYC to Los Angeles and an Uber driver once asked her "Are you from NY?", "Yes, why?", "Because your rating is so low and people from NYC usually have really low ratings." We checked her rating and it's 4.5 or so. But it's funny, she looks like a deadbeat here because of more discerning/critical NYC Uber drivers who gave her 4 stars 50% of the time.
  • michaelchisari 8y ago
    Los Angeles has serious grade inflation across the board wrt social ratings. Their yelp reviews are completely unreliable, everything is 4 or 5 stars. I'm used to Chicago where even a great restaurant can have 3 stars because everyone is so picky, and the 4 or 5 stars are reserved for the truly extraordinary.
    • baby 8y ago
      Good chinese restaurants in London (like my old place) end up having less than 4 stars because of service. I find that raging since the food is the only thing that should matter.
      • consto 8y ago
        Maybe people are over critical but the service and experience of a meal is not to be ignored. I'm sure you would agree that if they literally threw the food at you it wouldn't deserve a rating regardless of the food.
        • drb91 8y ago
          Rating the food, or rating the service? Rating them together is nonsensical.
          • elboru 8y ago
            That’s something I like about Airbnb, it will give you different categories to rate
• gg3 8y ago
  Can we discuss alternative to these big platforms? This is the only long term solution to the problem. Decentralization is need of the hour. Why isn't etherium based solutions gaining traction even after repeated backlash by these big platforms on multiple fronts.
  • adrinavarro 8y ago
    Unless you're thinking about the next Silk Road, then, you're not solving the real problem here.
  • ghthor 8y ago
    There is a lot of disinformation about ethereum due to the economic incentive that I think is discouraging well established engineers from looking to ethereum as a good piece of infrastructure to use moving forward. It's also just missing link in understanding between a consensus service like zookeeper and a cryptographic consensus service like ethereum, meaning, it's not easy to see the huge gains over what some would say are mundane differences. That's also Not to say that ethereum doesn't have problems, but not being open and not being a quality engineered product and not part of the issues.
  • spookthesunset 8y ago
    > Why isn't etherium based solutions gaining traction even after repeated backlash by these big platforms on multiple fronts. Because the problems that need to be solved aren't technical ones and won't be solved with technology. They are meatspace-based cultural, economic and social problems.
• pcmaffey 8y ago
  We engineers could also develop more intelligent and robust rating systems.
  • jpeloquin 8y ago
    Perhaps old ratings should be removed or down-weighted in the system as time passes. This would make the ratings better reflect current levels of quality, (a) helping people learn and recover from mistakes and (b) keeping people from coasting on past success while reducing quality. Not sure how to get general users to rate with 1-star = bad, 3-stars = ok, and 5-stars = great. Sounds like a social engineering problem. It may be more reliable to use trained evaluators, like the system used by Consumer Reports or the Michelin Guide.
    • ddingus 8y ago
      Meta reviews would be great, but are expensive due to having to basically repeat an experience.
  • sundvor 8y ago
    Have a look at Steam. Their recent view is brilliant, and they'll flag it for the user if a long time solid title suddenly gets a barrage of negative views.
• scarface74 8y ago
  Most non game apps shouldn't be apps. They should be web pages. It would be faster development and you wouldn't be dependent on the app stores. A torrent remote app would never be allowed on the IOS app store, but going to https://remote.vuze.com https://remote.vuze.com and pairing your Vuze app can't be banned....
  • freehunter 8y ago
    If it was easier to pin a web page to your home screen, I think this would catch on more. I run a website and I get requests a lot saying "you should have an app!" I ask what the app would do, and they say "what the website does, but stuck on my home screen." It's also unfortunate that web pages have the disadvantage that they have the browser UI around them, so it reduces the space available to the page versus an app, and web pages don't have permissions that apps do like sending notifications. Some people view this as a good thing and I tend to agree, but it's still a big disconnect that my weather app can send me a notification saying there is a tornado in my area whereas a weather website needs me to actively be checking it.
    • fjsolwmv 8y ago
      Modern web browsers have already solved all these problems.
    • culturestate 8y ago
      > If it was easier to pin a web page to your home screen, I think this would catch on more On iOS, this is literally a two-tap process (share sheet -> add to home screen). I can't speak for the masses, but the reason I don't do it more often is because so many web apps are just bad on mobile. Slow, poor rendering, no attention paid to extended usability...
      • PinkMilkshake 8y ago
        Modern Progressive Web Apps mostly fix these issues. When you visit a proper PWA multiple times, your browser is supposed to notice and ask you if you want to save it to the Homescreen. But you're right, web on mobile is still miserable in general.
• CommanderData 8y ago
  I can't think of a good counter argument to balance this. There are forums filled with people who have essentially been blacklisted from the 'internet' after being barred from Google search for whatever reason. Some removed without explanation and assumed it is because they competed with Alphabet in some way. Scary to think two or three companies effectively have total control over your digital business and you have basically zero rights without any course for appeal, you're absolutely at the mercy of good will if there is any (often none). Regulation is needed here, the old 'regulate thy self' is a sham soundbite, proven time and time again.
• throwaway_7003 8y ago
  > Regulation is a very very touchy subject, ... We need real due process. What scares me even shitlesser is that the legislative and regulatory momentum is pointing in the wrong direction. Governments and political movements are calling on platforms to policing their users more tightly along various axes. They are doing little or nothing to help folks act independently on the net. I share your intuition that any good solution will involve government action. But if we just shout "there oughtta be a law" then law we get will do the opposite of what we want.
• deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
• mnm1 8y ago
  And yet these stores aren't considered a monopoly? There is no competition and no one can make an app and distribute it outside the store in Apple's case, but no you can go to Google where the situation is virtually the same. Regulation is the only thing that can possibly fix it. If it's a touchy subject for people, people need to be less sensitive and ask themselves what else could possibly be a solution? Do people really think that the industry will regulate itself or something equally implausible?
  • fjsolwmv 8y ago
    It's a trust, not a monopoly. Antitrust law should apply.
• shams93 8y ago
  It effects entire countries. With the power of the app store ZTE was crushed overnight if you can't ship the app store you can't sell your phones. The level of leverage is pretty breathtaking.
  • apexalpha 8y ago
    ZTE was crushed because they were banned from essential parts for electronics (think Qualcom SOCs etc...) Companies in China do fine without the Google App Store.
• m_fayer 8y ago
  I would add: we as a society need to start thinking about how to halt the service-ization of everything. The smartphone is a general purpose handheld computer that's been captured and turned into a rent-extraction device by being re-conceptualized as a "service." And the service-bug is spreading. Laptop and desktop computers are in the crosshairs, as are cars and various home appliances. Do we want to live in a world where every device is a black box that's only reparable by "authorized" personnel, where some hobby-level engineering skill won't help you prevent a 1$ dishwasher repair from costing 100$? Where every appliance comes with a plan, favors a "platform" and will make your life a headache if you disagree, serves you but also who knows how many other masters and economic agendas, and inexplicably goes dark because bankruptcy, bugs, hacks, your guess is as good as mine? Generally we need to stop this because it's a major culprit in turning our world into an exhausting, low-trust, paranoid slog. Already, I mistrust non-OSS computing devices with their mystery-meat forced updates and non-removeable apps and barrage of legal agreements. If current trends hold, I'll have to second-guess my fridge because it's also serving a grocery-conglomerate, or the insurance company, my car is serving the insurance company and the state, my toilet works for pharma, and my washer and dryer... well, it goes on like that. Constant wariness and justified cynicism are exhausting and dehumanizing and will do their part to sap an entire society. We know how this goes in the case of corrupt illiberal states, but ending up in that same place via a corrupt corporate culture/state is also possible, happening as we speak even, and halting that should be seen as another layer of defense for the liberal order.
  • dnomad 8y ago
    > The smartphone is a general purpose handheld computer that's been captured and turned into a rent-extraction device by being re-conceptualized as a "service." Services are indisputably a good thing and they are absolutely the way forwards. There is no reason for anybody to own much of anything and with global middle class approaching 4 billion it's simply not possible for the extremely wasteful concept of "ownership" to survive. Metering is the only way forwards besides catastrophe. > Already, I mistrust non-OSS computing devices with their mystery-meat forced updates and non-removeable apps and barrage of legal agreements. You've stumbled upon the actual issue which is nothing more than compelled business (in Europe and Asia) and what I guess the US calls a "coercive monopoly" [1]. The fundamental problem with Apple's App Store is that there is no reasonable alternative. Individuals and businesses which purchase IPhone devices are forced to do business with Apple if they want to actually utilize those devices to their full potential. Similarly developers who wish to provide services around IPhones have no choice but to do business with Apple. > We know how this goes in the case of corrupt illiberal states, but ending up in that same place via a corrupt corporate culture/state is also possible, happening as we speak even, and halting that should be seen as another layer of defense for the liberal order. Ironically, if you want to see a government who gets this "right" take a look at China. Chinese governments have moved aggressively to prevent monopolies and the laws were modified ten years ago to draw a clear distinction between a market (where all businesses interact freely and there is fair competition) and a platform (where a single business dictates virtually all the economic terms). This, along with the relaxed IP framework, is why the Chinese market is much more competitive and dynamic than anything else going on out there. At this point I don't think anybody seriously expects America's ultra-right-wing Supreme Court to break Apple's monopoly, but earlier this year there were a lot of indicators suggesting that Apple's coercive practices were not welcome [2]. (Though this issue might solve itself if Apple's market share in China continues to plunge.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coercive_monopoly [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/business/china-apple-app-store.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/business/china-apple-app-...
• severine 8y ago
  > The platform will never forget, there will be no second chances. Or worse. This reminded me of this recent comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17694032 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17694032 The paragraph in question: > After an agent had been terminated, their punishment points would decay over time until such a time they reached zero (or another configurable threshold depending on how desperate the company was for warm bodies), at which time they would be sent an e-mail to their personal e-mail (which was collected during the application process), inviting them to “re-apply”. Being an early telephony company we also would send them a robo-call with the “good news”. This process was known as a “life-cycle” and it was common in certain labor markets for employees to have many such lifecycles. Seriously, give it a read and cry, if you haven't...
  • cptaj 8y ago
    That gave me absolute chills. I can't help but think of a platform like that but international and for all jobs. Hellish reality.
• HeadsUpHigh 8y ago
  The gig economy is getting unreal. With the silicon valley boom it used to be that you would become a software developer or some IT related profession and you would be almost guaranteed a top of the line paycheck. That paycheck represented almost nothing in terms of costs compared to how well software scales across the board. And yet corporations will find a way to take that away too, make some of the last high-paying jobs turn into a race to the bottom market. And brand it as "innovative" on top of it.