6 ms·

Unsustainable business is unsustainable. News at 5. Or 11. Or maybe noon. Whenever news that isn't really news is aired. Even without the additional city-based

Unsustainable business is unsustainable. News at 5. Or 11. Or maybe noon. Whenever news that isn't really news is aired. Even without the additional city-based fee, these food delivery services companies are far too expensive.

CamperBob2 3y ago
It was 'sustaining' just fine until City Hall got involved.
monero-xmr 3y ago
“These services hurt workers! Let’s force them to charge more and pay a living wage!” <Law implemented and jobs disappear> “Well those jobs were bad anyway, we are all better off without them”
- phmqk76 3y ago
  Funny, that’s the same exact (bad) argument against the minimum wage…
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    Hopefully the way I phrased it puts a point on why job losses are bad. There are no “bad” jobs - just labor that needs to be done, with a commiserate price. If the labor is too difficult to find at a price, the price goes up. You can’t artificially increase the price without losing jobs.
    - hotpotamus 3y ago
      > There are no “bad” jobs What about fentanyl dealer? Hitman? Psychologist for a social media or tobacco company? Telemarketer?
      - monero-xmr 3y ago
        I’m not suggesting we don’t outlaw illegal activities. I’m saying for legal enterprises, stuff needs to get done. Bad jobs are in the eye of the beholder. A lot of people love delivering for door dash vs. working retail.
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        How many delivery drivers are you friends with? Ever bought them a tank of gas or a tire because they can't afford it? I have; they might prefer it to the soul-suck of retail, but that doesn't make it anything like a good job.
        monero-xmr 3y ago
        Everyone has complaints. I’d rather be working retail than in the fields 500 years ago, the mill 200 years ago, or as a manual human calculator 100 years ago. Or maybe some would disagree! Labor needs to be done. There is no utopia - in a socialist economy there are very few who get to hold the clipboards, everyone else works the fields or the factories.
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        Which jobs have you worked?
      - elevatedastalt 3y ago
        he is talking of economically bad jobs not morally bad jobs
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        And those are economically good jobs?
        elevatedastalt 3y ago
phmqk76 3y ago
Not sure why people are disliking your comment. You are absolutely right - a business that cannot turn a profit while paying even the most basic wages (I wouldn’t call $15 per hour “living”) has no business existing. How did people in the 1930s understand this and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, and yet highly-educated techies fail to grasp this simple concept?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  > How did people in the 1930s understand this and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, and yet highly-educated techies fail to grasp this simple concept? People in the 1930s came right out of the Great Depression with 25% unemployment rate. Stuff had to change, and radically at that, which is why FDR got elected. Today's techies, meanwhile, are largely decoupled from the actual realities of the people. We live in decent homes with fat paychecks, and despite us working for the same company as the barely-surviving delivery driver, our lives rarely intersect other than at the next food delivery.
- pierat 3y ago
  > How did people in the 1930s understand this and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, and yet highly-educated techies fail to grasp this simple concept? Because the "highly-educated techies" think of themselves as the next potential big founder over a tech company taking lumps of money from each transaction and making it big. Closing that form of exploitation closes down all of those techies' wet dream of exploiting millions to be the next (pee-bottle) Bezos.
elevatedastalt 3y ago
And yet people were using them more until the city decided to add the extra fee. Just because a cost is added by the government doesn't make it immune to the demand-supply curve.

CamperBob2 3y ago

It was 'sustaining' just fine until City Hall got involved.

monero-xmr 3y ago

“These services hurt workers! Let’s force them to charge more and pay a living wage!” <Law implemented and jobs disappear> “Well those jobs were bad anyway, we are all better off without them”

phmqk76 3y ago
Funny, that’s the same exact (bad) argument against the minimum wage…
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  Hopefully the way I phrased it puts a point on why job losses are bad. There are no “bad” jobs - just labor that needs to be done, with a commiserate price. If the labor is too difficult to find at a price, the price goes up. You can’t artificially increase the price without losing jobs.
  - hotpotamus 3y ago
    > There are no “bad” jobs What about fentanyl dealer? Hitman? Psychologist for a social media or tobacco company? Telemarketer?
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      I’m not suggesting we don’t outlaw illegal activities. I’m saying for legal enterprises, stuff needs to get done. Bad jobs are in the eye of the beholder. A lot of people love delivering for door dash vs. working retail.
      - hotpotamus 3y ago
        How many delivery drivers are you friends with? Ever bought them a tank of gas or a tire because they can't afford it? I have; they might prefer it to the soul-suck of retail, but that doesn't make it anything like a good job.
        monero-xmr 3y ago
        Everyone has complaints. I’d rather be working retail than in the fields 500 years ago, the mill 200 years ago, or as a manual human calculator 100 years ago. Or maybe some would disagree! Labor needs to be done. There is no utopia - in a socialist economy there are very few who get to hold the clipboards, everyone else works the fields or the factories.
        hotpotamus 3y ago
        Which jobs have you worked?
    - elevatedastalt 3y ago
      he is talking of economically bad jobs not morally bad jobs
      - hotpotamus 3y ago
        And those are economically good jobs?
        elevatedastalt 3y ago

phmqk76 3y ago

Not sure why people are disliking your comment. You are absolutely right - a business that cannot turn a profit while paying even the most basic wages (I wouldn’t call $15 per hour “living”) has no business existing. How did people in the 1930s understand this and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, and yet highly-educated techies fail to grasp this simple concept?

mschuster91 3y ago
> How did people in the 1930s understand this and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, and yet highly-educated techies fail to grasp this simple concept? People in the 1930s came right out of the Great Depression with 25% unemployment rate. Stuff had to change, and radically at that, which is why FDR got elected. Today's techies, meanwhile, are largely decoupled from the actual realities of the people. We live in decent homes with fat paychecks, and despite us working for the same company as the barely-surviving delivery driver, our lives rarely intersect other than at the next food delivery.
pierat 3y ago
> How did people in the 1930s understand this and pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, and yet highly-educated techies fail to grasp this simple concept? Because the "highly-educated techies" think of themselves as the next potential big founder over a tech company taking lumps of money from each transaction and making it big. Closing that form of exploitation closes down all of those techies' wet dream of exploiting millions to be the next (pee-bottle) Bezos.

elevatedastalt 3y ago

And yet people were using them more until the city decided to add the extra fee. Just because a cost is added by the government doesn't make it immune to the demand-supply curve.