4 ms·

How many employees does a snitching-as-a-service app require ideally? You'd think the onus would be on the snitches to be numerous, not necessarily employees fo

by aliqot 4y ago

How many employees does a snitching-as-a-service app require ideally? You'd think the onus would be on the snitches to be numerous, not necessarily employees for what is essentially a forum with subscriptions and push notifications.

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
Can you explain what you mean by this? Are you saying crime is actually good or something else?
- Nextgrid 4y ago
  I don't think he's making an argument either way? He's just commenting that given the current situation, it seems that the snitching app has too many employees? I'd argue the title is wrong - it's not a "Crime app" as much as a "Crime reporting & monitoring" app.
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    Using the word "snitch" is itself an argument. It is used to paint someone who reports crimes as bad. Now, some laws are perhaps bad, but that would of course be on a case by case basis. Describing the app and it's users as a whole as "snitching" is certainly an argument. All this said, I just wanted GP to explain what exactly they meant.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  The criticism against Citizen (and vigilantism in general) is that average citizens aren't actually that good at detecting crime and instead rely stereotypes and hunches. This is bad because it generally creates an unspoken appearance-based caste system, where 'non-sketchy looking' people can do things that others can't (like park their work van on the side of the road to take a lunch break).
  - lovecg 4y ago
    Thankfully we have a professional police force to avoid all these problems.
    - Nextgrid 4y ago
      I'd rather have one idiot on the case than that idiot + a bunch of other, self-selected idiots prompted to show up by an app. At worst they will actually hinder police response and/or get themselves or others hurt. Keep in mind that the user base of Citizen is not a uniform distribution of the population either - certain classes (for the lack of a better word) will self-select and are likely to have similar issues to the police itself. In fact you might have the kind of people who can't even make the cut to join the police itself, which is not a good thing when you see how low the bar for the police is to begin with.
  - Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
    That's a valid critisism. So the issue is bias and not "snitching."
Nextgrid 4y ago
This applies not just to snitching but a lot of other "marketplace"-type apps where the bulk of the value is provided by third-party participants. Think ridesharing, food delivery, marketplaces, etc. I'm not sure it's justifiable for these companies to have just as much (if not more) engineers working on a product that's already been built and is successfully running - I'd expect there to only be a skeleton crew for maintenance and the bulk of employees being support/operations/legal once the tech stack is built and stable.
- fabianhjr 4y ago
  A good book on why those capitalist Platforms are hiring and investing a lot on becoming "the most perfect platform" is Nick Srnicek's Pltaform Capitalism ( https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504862 https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504... ) Most of their profitability comes from becoming a de facto monopoly / middle-man so they will attempt to gain as much market share as aggressively as possible. (Including sacrificing present profitability, giving away money for free rides/things, etc) It is not a technical necessity but an economic venture capital necessity.
boomboomsubban 4y ago
They're apparently having people listen to police scanners and input the data from them. Covering 50 cities 24 hours a day, that'd take hundreds of employees.
- kjkjadksj 4y ago
  They often just crowdsource the labor for free with paranoid local people who listen to those scanners all day anyhow

by aliqot 4y ago

Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago

Can you explain what you mean by this? Are you saying crime is actually good or something else?

Nextgrid 4y ago
I don't think he's making an argument either way? He's just commenting that given the current situation, it seems that the snitching app has too many employees? I'd argue the title is wrong - it's not a "Crime app" as much as a "Crime reporting & monitoring" app.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  Using the word "snitch" is itself an argument. It is used to paint someone who reports crimes as bad. Now, some laws are perhaps bad, but that would of course be on a case by case basis. Describing the app and it's users as a whole as "snitching" is certainly an argument. All this said, I just wanted GP to explain what exactly they meant.
RC_ITR 4y ago
The criticism against Citizen (and vigilantism in general) is that average citizens aren't actually that good at detecting crime and instead rely stereotypes and hunches. This is bad because it generally creates an unspoken appearance-based caste system, where 'non-sketchy looking' people can do things that others can't (like park their work van on the side of the road to take a lunch break).
- lovecg 4y ago
  Thankfully we have a professional police force to avoid all these problems.
  - Nextgrid 4y ago
    I'd rather have one idiot on the case than that idiot + a bunch of other, self-selected idiots prompted to show up by an app. At worst they will actually hinder police response and/or get themselves or others hurt. Keep in mind that the user base of Citizen is not a uniform distribution of the population either - certain classes (for the lack of a better word) will self-select and are likely to have similar issues to the police itself. In fact you might have the kind of people who can't even make the cut to join the police itself, which is not a good thing when you see how low the bar for the police is to begin with.
- Vt71fcAqt7 4y ago
  That's a valid critisism. So the issue is bias and not "snitching."

Nextgrid 4y ago

This applies not just to snitching but a lot of other "marketplace"-type apps where the bulk of the value is provided by third-party participants. Think ridesharing, food delivery, marketplaces, etc. I'm not sure it's justifiable for these companies to have just as much (if not more) engineers working on a product that's already been built and is successfully running - I'd expect there to only be a skeleton crew for maintenance and the bulk of employees being support/operations/legal once the tech stack is built and stable.

fabianhjr 4y ago
A good book on why those capitalist Platforms are hiring and investing a lot on becoming "the most perfect platform" is Nick Srnicek's Pltaform Capitalism ( https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504862 https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Platform+Capitalism-p-9781509504... ) Most of their profitability comes from becoming a de facto monopoly / middle-man so they will attempt to gain as much market share as aggressively as possible. (Including sacrificing present profitability, giving away money for free rides/things, etc) It is not a technical necessity but an economic venture capital necessity.

boomboomsubban 4y ago

They're apparently having people listen to police scanners and input the data from them. Covering 50 cities 24 hours a day, that'd take hundreds of employees.

kjkjadksj 4y ago
They often just crowdsource the labor for free with paranoid local people who listen to those scanners all day anyhow