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Just to be clear: I agree with your point on focusing on creating value. And after I read your comment, I agree that none of the startups in the articles are tr

by NhanH 12y ago

Just to be clear: I agree with your point on focusing on creating value. And after I read your comment, I agree that none of the startups in the articles are truly creating that much value. However, is it that simple to qualify when you're creating value? If I had read the article before HN's comments, I'd have thought the startup is cool (admittedly trivial and silly, but we have a lot of those nowadays), rather than parasitic. I'd have thought it's just a clever hack in helping more efficient distribution - in the true spirit of capitalism. Yes, while it would shift the value to rich people, it also free up the rich people's time, so they (rich people) can create more value. Assuming that rich people is richer because society decides that their time is more valuable, they can create more value in the same amount of times of some other poorer people. Of course, that might be not morally justifiable. But creating value and being morally correct is orthogonal. I'm not living in SF the SV area, but I've a few friends there. Every time they talked to me about startup ideas, I've always felt off about those ideas. I kept telling myself that trivial value is still value, and potentially if it can help many people, the net gain would still be large. How do I know where to draw the line? Edit: it seems like quite a few people have problem with my post, so let me rephrase the middle paragraph a bit: Ignoring the mentioning of rich/ poor, parking spot is a commodity. And just like other commodity in life, everyone values it differently. What's wrong in letting people paying for what they think it's worth for? The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix, and the solution isn't telling people to stop producing commodity, or distributing them. In this specific case of parking lot, it's bad either way because a private company is skimming profit from public space.

wpietri 12y ago
Not sure why you were downvoted; I think it's a great question. I don't think it's that hard if you look at it systemically. If the problem is parking, none of the JerkTech startups are solving the problem, they're just shifting the burden. And they're probably making the problem worse, as now they've created a financial incentive for people to occupy hot parking spaces so they can get paid to leave. On the other hand, if the problem is "rich people don't have enough time", then there are plenty of ways to solve that. Indeed, Uber basically set out to solve the problem of "rich people don't have enough time and/or feel important enough". Thus the fleet of fancy cars. That created value. I think solving small problems across a large number of people is fine. Look at entertainment. There are plenty of video games that created value one quarter at a time. Or today, $0.99 per. It's not like it cures cancer, but as long as people end up having fun and are happier, that seems fine to me. However, in my view that excludes operations like Las Vegas and Zynga, which create very little fun and a lot of compulsion, which they then use to extract cash. I think the hypothesis that rich people generate more value given more time is... unproven. There are plenty of people who are rich because of their cash-extraction skills, not their value-generation skills. Many of them do it in ways that are negative sum. For those people, the best thing you could do for the world is to waste their time.
metaphorm 12y ago
"Assuming that rich people is richer because society decides that their time is more valuable, they can create more value in the same amount of times of some other poorer people." are you fucking kidding me? why would you assume that?
- NhanH 12y ago
  I believe that's a reasonable assumption for this discussion (that's not my personal opinion, btw). But trying to justify that statement will start a flame war and distract from the topic, so let me try to say that sentence in another way: Parking spot is a commodity. And just like other commodity in life, everyone values it differently. What's wrong in letting people paying for what they think it's worth for? The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix, and the solution isn't telling people to stop producing commodity. In this specific case of parking lot, it's bad either way because a private company is skimming profit from public space.
  - metaphorm 12y ago
    "The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix" its not at all an entirely separate problem to fix. society should not be structured so that rich people are always, fundamentally advantaged in every dimension. we should not commoditize everything.
    - gjm11 12y ago
      Indeed we should not commoditize everything, but parking spots and restaurant reservations don't seem to me like great examples of things so important or fundamental that we should try hard to decouple them from money.
      - metaphorm 12y ago
        public parking spaces on city-owned land are part of the commons and are supplied as a public benefit by the city to the whole community. that is very much an example of things that should not be commoditized, or else we end up with yet another tragedy of the commons. restaurant reservations are not a public benefit, and I think its fine to commoditize them IF AND ONLY IF it can be done in a way that is fair to the restaurants and the customers. we shouldn't tolerate a service that is based on lying to restaurants.
RodericDay 12y ago
"in the true spirit of capitalism. Yes, while it would shift the value to rich people, it also free up the rich people's time, so they (rich people) can create more value." this is embarrassing.
- mturmon 12y ago
  "Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles; therefore my lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide
7Figures2Commas 12y ago
> How do I know where to draw the line? Considering legality is a good start. Sweetch and Money Parking induce their users to violate San Francisco's Police Code, which forbids the buying and selling of public on-street parking. The city says it will pursue Sweetch and Money Parking under California's Unfair Competition Law for facilitating these violations. In the case of ReservationHop, I'm not an attorney but I'd venture a guess that there are a number of potential causes of action that a restaurant might be able to claim, including violations of unfair competition law. Now, a lot of folks will complain that many of these laws and regulations are counterproductive and stifle innovation. They may be right, but a point that is often overlooked in discussions about startups that are intentionally violating the law is that you can be against foolish laws and regulations without being for the willful violation of them.
untog 12y ago
Yes, while it would shift the value to rich people, it also free up the rich people's time, so they (rich people) can create more value. Have trickle down economics ever been proven to actually work? Either way, my problem is this: millionaires don't care about running one-off, unique restaurants. They'd want to set up a chain, or something similarly profitable. So if we go with this "redirecting money to rich people" idea, all the restaurants that struggle to get by close and get replaced with McDonalds. Great.
- smsm42 12y ago
  McDonalds doesn't require reservation and nobody would pay for a reservation to McDonalds. In order for the scheme to work, you need to have restaurant that is so popular that people would pay premium just to get a reservation there. That's not McDonalds, that's usually the same one-off, unique restaurant, and rich people would seem to care well enough for it if they agree to pay just to get into the door. So there's no threat to such restaurants in it, and it mere existence denies such threat. Now, I think it's a very dick move for other reasons - because if it succeeds it would actually make the world a worse place - restaurants just start charging for reservations or stop taking ones remotely. They make a couple of bucks but everybody else suffers a lot. It's despicable.
  - untog 12y ago
    I don't mean that as anything to do with reservations. Just that because there are savings to be made in an industry doesn't mean they should be. The result for the restaurant industry would be endless identical restaurants with the same ingredients.
    - smsm42 12y ago
      That conclusion appears to be wrong, as there is a very large and consistent demand for non-identical restaurants with varied ingredients. Of course, investing in McDonalds or even Subway would probably be safer than in an unique restaurant, but that did not lead to the extinction of varied unique restaurants and probably never will.

by NhanH 12y ago

wpietri 12y ago

Not sure why you were downvoted; I think it's a great question. I don't think it's that hard if you look at it systemically. If the problem is parking, none of the JerkTech startups are solving the problem, they're just shifting the burden. And they're probably making the problem worse, as now they've created a financial incentive for people to occupy hot parking spaces so they can get paid to leave. On the other hand, if the problem is "rich people don't have enough time", then there are plenty of ways to solve that. Indeed, Uber basically set out to solve the problem of "rich people don't have enough time and/or feel important enough". Thus the fleet of fancy cars. That created value. I think solving small problems across a large number of people is fine. Look at entertainment. There are plenty of video games that created value one quarter at a time. Or today, $0.99 per. It's not like it cures cancer, but as long as people end up having fun and are happier, that seems fine to me. However, in my view that excludes operations like Las Vegas and Zynga, which create very little fun and a lot of compulsion, which they then use to extract cash. I think the hypothesis that rich people generate more value given more time is... unproven. There are plenty of people who are rich because of their cash-extraction skills, not their value-generation skills. Many of them do it in ways that are negative sum. For those people, the best thing you could do for the world is to waste their time.

metaphorm 12y ago

"Assuming that rich people is richer because society decides that their time is more valuable, they can create more value in the same amount of times of some other poorer people." are you fucking kidding me? why would you assume that?

NhanH 12y ago
I believe that's a reasonable assumption for this discussion (that's not my personal opinion, btw). But trying to justify that statement will start a flame war and distract from the topic, so let me try to say that sentence in another way: Parking spot is a commodity. And just like other commodity in life, everyone values it differently. What's wrong in letting people paying for what they think it's worth for? The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix, and the solution isn't telling people to stop producing commodity. In this specific case of parking lot, it's bad either way because a private company is skimming profit from public space.
- metaphorm 12y ago
  "The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix" its not at all an entirely separate problem to fix. society should not be structured so that rich people are always, fundamentally advantaged in every dimension. we should not commoditize everything.
  - gjm11 12y ago
    Indeed we should not commoditize everything, but parking spots and restaurant reservations don't seem to me like great examples of things so important or fundamental that we should try hard to decouple them from money.
    - metaphorm 12y ago
      public parking spaces on city-owned land are part of the commons and are supplied as a public benefit by the city to the whole community. that is very much an example of things that should not be commoditized, or else we end up with yet another tragedy of the commons. restaurant reservations are not a public benefit, and I think its fine to commoditize them IF AND ONLY IF it can be done in a way that is fair to the restaurants and the customers. we shouldn't tolerate a service that is based on lying to restaurants.

RodericDay 12y ago

"in the true spirit of capitalism. Yes, while it would shift the value to rich people, it also free up the rich people's time, so they (rich people) can create more value." this is embarrassing.

mturmon 12y ago
"Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles; therefore my lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candide

7Figures2Commas 12y ago

> How do I know where to draw the line? Considering legality is a good start. Sweetch and Money Parking induce their users to violate San Francisco's Police Code, which forbids the buying and selling of public on-street parking. The city says it will pursue Sweetch and Money Parking under California's Unfair Competition Law for facilitating these violations. In the case of ReservationHop, I'm not an attorney but I'd venture a guess that there are a number of potential causes of action that a restaurant might be able to claim, including violations of unfair competition law. Now, a lot of folks will complain that many of these laws and regulations are counterproductive and stifle innovation. They may be right, but a point that is often overlooked in discussions about startups that are intentionally violating the law is that you can be against foolish laws and regulations without being for the willful violation of them.

untog 12y ago

Yes, while it would shift the value to rich people, it also free up the rich people's time, so they (rich people) can create more value. Have trickle down economics ever been proven to actually work? Either way, my problem is this: millionaires don't care about running one-off, unique restaurants. They'd want to set up a chain, or something similarly profitable. So if we go with this "redirecting money to rich people" idea, all the restaurants that struggle to get by close and get replaced with McDonalds. Great.

smsm42 12y ago
McDonalds doesn't require reservation and nobody would pay for a reservation to McDonalds. In order for the scheme to work, you need to have restaurant that is so popular that people would pay premium just to get a reservation there. That's not McDonalds, that's usually the same one-off, unique restaurant, and rich people would seem to care well enough for it if they agree to pay just to get into the door. So there's no threat to such restaurants in it, and it mere existence denies such threat. Now, I think it's a very dick move for other reasons - because if it succeeds it would actually make the world a worse place - restaurants just start charging for reservations or stop taking ones remotely. They make a couple of bucks but everybody else suffers a lot. It's despicable.
- untog 12y ago
  I don't mean that as anything to do with reservations. Just that because there are savings to be made in an industry doesn't mean they should be. The result for the restaurant industry would be endless identical restaurants with the same ingredients.
  - smsm42 12y ago
    That conclusion appears to be wrong, as there is a very large and consistent demand for non-identical restaurants with varied ingredients. Of course, investing in McDonalds or even Subway would probably be safer than in an unique restaurant, but that did not lead to the extinction of varied unique restaurants and probably never will.