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Caretaker: The redfin of brokers. Take all the value for themselves freeze out the brokers (who provide a service but are universally disdained). Ride that w

• crazygringo 5y ago
  > Less human involvement = better world /S ...why sarcasm? The entire premise of technological and economic progress is outsourcing repetitive mind-numbing tasks (whether farming or showing apartments) to automation. You're just describing regular old beneficial economic progress -- the reason why we're not all still farmers. And if Caretaker becomes a massive success, then competitors will appear, which is the basic economic force that prevents prices from rising too far. All of which would be wonderful.
  • pydry 5y ago
    If they still end up charging 15% for doing the same thing automated there hasn't been any meaningful economic progress. There's just concentration of wealth. If they can cut that 15% to 1% and this field ends up being competitive then sure. But, they're probably going for a monopoly play here.
    • crazygringo 5y ago
      It doesn't matter if they're trying to go for a monopoly play here. Competitors would arise and there wouldn't be any inherent monopoly dynamics left. So of course the percentage will be cut. That's how competition works.
      • pydry 5y ago
        Have you seen the fees airbnb charges?
      • TeMPOraL 5y ago
        It's a two-sided market, it's gonna be winner-takes-all.
        • crazygringo 5y ago
          You mean the way Lyft went out of business because Uber took it all, and then Uber raised their prices 5x?
          • TeMPOraL 5y ago
            No, the way it will happen when Uber, Lyft and their other rideshare competitors run out of investor money and become forced to actually turn a profit. Still, Uber is not sticky. Drivers aren't forced to use it exclusively (fun things would happen if they tried to pull it off, something something employees). Brokerage websites most likely will demand you don't post your apartment on multiple sites. This will encourage concentration.
            • crazygringo 5y ago
              It doesn't matter if a brokerage website is exclusive. Healthy competition between, say, 3 main ones means people looking for apartments will check those 3. Kind of like people looking for used textbooks will check eBay, Alibris, and Chegg. Of course there will be concentration, that doesn't mean it's going to be a monopoly. It's just going to be the usual 2 main competing companies with a 3rd slightly-different company -- your Coke, Pepsi and RC, or your AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. It's the usual market pattern.
          • pydry 5y ago
            Lyft and Uber have already dialed down their competition with each other in many locations and raised prices. If theyre smart theyre probably already hammering out an (illegal) agreement of some kind and figuring out ways to disguise the price rise as a natural side effect of something innocuous. Did you really think investors were willing to sustain a 12 billion dollar loss for a shot at a 1% margin?
• freewilly1040 5y ago
  Brokers provide a service that people in most cities happily do themselves for free, and take an extortionate cut. Someone is coming in and doing it better. Why should I be sad?
• jollybean 5y ago
  Brokers don't exist in most cities and it works just fine. Maybe there is value, but not 10-15%. Maybe Caretaker isn't the perfect solution either ... but brokers definitely are not. It's definitely an activity that should be disrupted.
• booleandilemma 5y ago
  I can confirm that taking an Uber from NYC to NJ is much cheaper than a yellow cab used to be. Uber and Lyft are great as long as we don’t think about the drivers they’re exploiting.
• sudopluto 5y ago
  as a student in boston where brokers take 1 month rent for doing exactly *nothing*, i welcome the idea of automating away these leaches. edit: fb marketplace might get the brokers first, most of my friends found their places via landlords posting there
  • Trias11 5y ago
    Advertising platforms love middlemen beause they feed each other. Both are parasitic entities that cause more harm to end users than benefits. The problem is that they control the information flow and supported by governments, hence we cannot eliminate them completely but can try to keep them at the bay using technology we can control
  • boringg 5y ago
    Your comments are the perfect example of the short term positive news wave they can generate. Thank you for validating.
    • nerdponx 5y ago
      Not all brokers provide value to the renter. In "hot" markets like New York, a lot of the time they don't. They render a lot of value to the landlord, however. Taking nice photos, dealing with unqualified applicants, showing the property, etc.
    • seneca 5y ago
      > Your comments are the perfect example of the short term positive news wave they can generate. Thank you for validating. This kind of lazy snark comment degrades this community.
      • kreeben 5y ago
        Absolute free speech, however, empowers this community. I say, let each and everyone speak their mind, even the snark.
        • 5y ago
• beisner 5y ago
  If they bring permanent change to the market and lead to the elimination of rental brokers entirely, I don't care what replaces it.
  • boringg 5y ago
    Shouldn't you always care what replaces it?
  • p_j_w 5y ago
    >I don't care what replaces it What if the replacement is worse?
    • beisner 5y ago
      Such a system is not possible.
      • p_j_w 5y ago
        I can't imagine it happening either, but I also: 1. Don't like tempting fate. 2. Am very aware of the limits of my imagination. 15 years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to predict Facebook having the sorts of downsides that are now glaring.
      • throwaway19937 5y ago
        Things can always get worse. Consider what would happen if brokers disappear and your application is rejected by an AI from a company that most landlords use.
        • beisner 5y ago
          This is already the system. Brokers have no impact on the application process. It's all credit checks, which is basically the same thing as "AI from a company".
• mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Uber forced the taxi game to change where no regulations could due to lobbying.
• admax88q 5y ago
  Stop letting perfect be the enemy of good.
  • boringg 5y ago
    Unrelated as I'm not saying anything is perfect or aspiring to that - I'm just showing the pattern of how the business operates.
    • admax88q 5y ago
      Sure, but it seems that in the short term at least this company is improving the rental market. Should we really critize them on hypothetical future behaviour when the current behaviour is a benefit? And as for Uber/Lyft, there's no doubt that they provide a much improved experience for the consumer.
• rualca 5y ago
  > It's like the same idea of Uber and Lyft. Less human involvement = better world /S. It's very easy and edgy to disdain the importance and positive impact of Uber and Lyft, but the truth of the matter is that the ride share revolution already introduced collosal improvements in quality of service in entrenched markets such as the old taxicab services. I recall a time where unscrupulous taxicab services fraudulently inflated prices and made up twist-and-turn paths to fleece customers, and we're free to act as organized crime. With rideshare services, you get routes and estimates generated a priori and in a deterministic way, and more importantly through a really auditable service. With rideshare services, a nasty driver is no longer totally shielded from criticism or consequences. With rideshare services, quality of service became something that was important to drivers. And we have to than the Ubers ad Lyfts of the world for that.
• handmodel 5y ago
  Uber and Lyft are 100% a win though. - It is now cheaper for the average person to get a ride to an airport/bar than it was before. It is safer, more predictable with timing, and more predictable with pricing. - Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. There are also way more job openings in this than there used to be, with less friction to get involved. The world is not a zero sum game. Technology made this a win-win long-term although there were already some people caught in the middle with old business models. However, that really cant be a reason for us not to move on.
  • kanzenryu2 5y ago
    Maybe ask female employees of Uber if they agree with that
  • NikolaNovak 5y ago
    >>> Uber drivers make more money today than taxi drivers used to/or do today. Hmmm, That must depend on the market as it's not necessarily the case based on discussions I had with both in Ottawa. (note, when Uber first started, that was the perceived story - almost "free money!" for bored white collar workers with a car and few hours to spare here and there. I've had people in $50k, $60k cars drive me around, to "meet new people and have fun". However, once full-time professionals joined the ranks, and did math on maintenance and insurance and fuel etc, the story RAPIDLY changed).
    • handmodel 5y ago
      I guess I'm skeptical that taxi driver who takes on less rides is making more money after the cut they give to their company. Or, if you were starting an independent taxi service that you'd make more money taking your own calls and doing your own maintenance anyway. I'm not surprised its gone down - probably a sign that it used to be very profitable even if not as much so now. I do know plenty of people that can repair cars themselves (one of whom has been uber driving foe years) so perhaps it will only work out for those people. Which seems like a 100% decent outcome.
      • 5y ago
• Magodo 5y ago
  Please, humans are overrated. They lie, they cheat, they conceal and they are certainly biased. In my city an unmarried couple or people of certain religions are not allowed to rent some places
  • TeMPOraL 5y ago
    On the other hand, technology is full of bugs and idiotic assumptions, from which it can't recover - it's also strongly biased towards the one controlling it. And it can also lie, cheat and conceal things, and there's exactly shit you can do about it. The older I get, the more I prefer dealing with flesh-and-blood people rather than self-service solutions. Life is too short for dealing with systems that go out of your way to railroad you into a bad deal.
• roberttod 5y ago
  There are some very different dynamics though - for one, the path to profitability is a little easier and price probably won't ever need to be near where it is with brokers. Uber never actually removed the humans, but seems like they already got there with this. Also, not likely to change the landscape in the way Uber did, the scale is so much smaller and no one is getting fooled into some gig economy loophole that exploits workers. Will probably end up with its own problems, but can't think it's worse than some brokers having to find another job/get creative.
• spankalee 5y ago
  Oh, Redfin eliminated brokers?
• 908B64B197 5y ago
  > It's like the same idea of Uber and Lyft. Less human involvement = better world /S. It's interesting how everyone conveniently forgot about the medallion system Uber and Lyft disrupted. Pre-Uber, either the driver rented the car to a middleman who rented the medallion from a rich owner, or said owner was selling and financing (most banks won't touch these medallions!) a medallion at a ridiculous interest rate to a driver that planned to use it as his retirement savings (an extremely volatile asset and not very liquid). The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime, and they know exactly how much they are going to get for the car they have should they sell it. And I'm not even touching the usual pain points and often discriminatory practices of medallion drivers (refusing card payments, refusing rides to non-white passengers and to non-white neighborhoods...).
• ForHackernews 5y ago
  Good. Freezing out useless middleman occupations is a net positive for humanity. The difference is that cab drivers provide a real and valuable service, whereas real estate agents are a glorified key safe.