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DHL pioneered the sharing economy (2016)
- malfist 2y agoThis is a fascinating read, thanks for sharing. I remember when I was college hearing about "vacationing couriers" and thought it sounded amazing
- cbull 2y agoI used to work for a small business called The Air Courier Association. They didn't do any of the actual travel arraignments, they were a membership "club" that gave you all the information on the actual shipping companies and how you can get the cheap/free airfare in return for giving up your baggage allowance on your flights. This was at the end of the 1990s...
- tomjen3 2y agoI can't believe that to retrieve a container today, you still need to present the original document from the shipper. Surely, a simple database record at the port authorities office should suffice. Or a series of digitally signed transfers.
- jerkstate 2y agoYou don’t anymore. There is something called Telex release that allows the carrier to release the cargo with an electronic copy of the bill of lading.
- thedogeye 2y agoIn actuality a telex release is just an email that opts you out of the secure release process so once a container has been 'telex' released anyone with the BL number can go pick it up at the port.
- razakel 2y agoIt's not a technical problem, it's a political one. You'd have to get every country in the world to agree on a central source of truth. Physical documents mean the port operators can point the finger at someone else in case of criminality.
- potato3732842 2y agoIronically I think international is almost easier because when the DEA finds the CIA's coke in your container you can just kinda shrug and say "well that container got tamper seals applied when they loaded it in Mongolia and we can prove it" and they just kinda stop chasing there because it's not tractable to dig further until they've established a pattern or something. When everything is under one regulatory umbrella and it's actually tractable to pin it on someone then it turns into a giant bickering fest until someone takes it (this goes for all sorts of exceptions like damaged goods or whatever, not just crime). That said, there are tons of places in the economy where make-work is done and BS jobs exist to divide responsibility because the current regulatory situation (private more so than public, i.e. insurers, lenders, etc) all but demands it because if you make things hyper efficient with low labor your concentrate responsibility into few parties and are more likely to get left holding the bag when there's a mishap.
- razakel 2y agoMuch like illegal immigration, too many people benefit from the status quo, hence there is no real desire to actually do anything about it. As you said, it's all about passing the buck.
- whs 2y ago>For the trouble of giving up their baggage allowances, passengers were handed a free round trip plane ticket to Hawaii. Doing that today would likely get people arrested for drug trafficking
- chirau 2y agoWhat do you mean? As long as people inspect what they are transporting or only take things delivered to them directly from merchants, I don't see how this would be a problem. In fact, there is a whole class of travellers in some parts of the world now called runners who do this
- echoangle 2y agoHow would you inspect it? I don’t think you have a good chance of finding hidden drugs, but the airport might. So there’s a risk that you missed it but their dog will find it, and you’ll be on the hook.
- lelanthran 2y ago> So there’s a risk that you missed it but their dog will find it, and you’ll be on the hook. No problem - you have a paper trail showing where you got it, that you were unaware of what was in it, and that you were not allowed to inspect it.
- echoangle 2y agoDepends on the country, I wouldn’t try it myself. And I’m pretty sure „well I wasn’t even allowed to inspect my luggage, i have it on paper“ isn’t a good defense, because then you shouldn’t have taken it in the first place. If you bring something onto a plane, it’s your responsibility. If you don’t know what it is, don’t take it.
- wileydragonfly 2y agoDon’t bother. This “I’m the main character, change my mind on this thing” culture has become rampant and exhausting. Smile, nod, move on.
- eesmith 2y agoAs I commented when this came up yesterday, there are older (and better!) examples of a sharing economy. The Negro Motorist Green Book was a guidebook published 1936–1966 for African-Americans to have safe road trips during the Jim Crow era. Some of the information was voluntarily collected by U.S postal workers who gathered the information while on their routes. I say 'better' because paid couriers existed long before DHL. What DHL did (according to this account) was find a way to replace them with cheaper workers and not have to share the profits but instead use those profits to defend legal challenges against their business model.
- hackernewds 2y agoPioneering means also running it sustainably I'd say.
- eesmith 2y agoIt was not sustainable. DHL switched to a different business model.
- pessimizer 2y agoIt lasted for 30 years, and ended when legal segregation ended. I suppose they could have lobbied to maintain Jim Crow, if they had been run by MBAs.
- dang 2y agoRelated: DHL Pioneered the Sharing Economy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41867650 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41867650 - Oct 2024 (5 comments) How DHL Pioneered the Sharing Economy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11096769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11096769 - Feb 2016 (3 comments)
- _zagj 2y agoWorth a watch is the documentary about the "H" in DHL, Larry Hillblom: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212449/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1212449/ https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/king-larry-the-bizarre-road-of-a-billionaire-review.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/business/king-larry-the-b... He leveraged his FU money to become a South-Pacific sex tourist so prolific and shameless that, besides his death giving rise to a massive, multi-national paternity dispute, probably was instrumental in getting Congress to criminalize the sexual exploitation of minors by Americans traveling abroad.
- andrewstuart 2y agoHe also pioneered Ruby on Rails and Basecamp.
- beAbU 2y agoThat's DHH
- raxcc 2y agoWow, I read the entire thing only to realize it’s an advertisement
- Aloha 2y agoI figured from the URL - but its a really well written ad! It taught me something, and at the end, it presents a problem that I may or may not need solved.
- lm28469 2y agoI love how they made the term "sharing economy" a thing when in reality 99% of these things are about _renting_ something from a megacorp