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Statists, take notice of how improvements in work conditions come from competition and not from regulation. They're better off now than through the monopoly of

Statists, take notice of how improvements in work conditions come from competition and not from regulation. They're better off now than through the monopoly of taxi medallions.

dragonwriter 12y ago
And anti-statists should take notice of how many improvements in working condition did require regulation, and how the Uber/Lyft market has special features (particularly, the fact that the primary service being provided to the end customer is provided entirely by one worker using their own capital and that the fact that what Uber/Lyft provide is essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low friction for a driver to switch services and for the other service to absorb new drivers -- which is not true in many other industries regardless of how competitive they may be on the consumer end. Even in a competitive market for autos, the capital dependence of the industry -- and potentially geographical separation between plants -- means that if the workers in Alan's factory are upset with their working conditions, they very likely can't just walk over to Bob's factory en-masse and sign up to work there. The ability to do that with certain services that are 1:1 and where the middleman is just providing matchmaking gives the individual service providers more power to set working conditions with the middleman in a market where there are competing middlemen then would be the case in many industries.
- innguest 12y ago
  What's happening right now to Uber and Lyft is a metaphor for how the free market works. You've touched on a few interesting points yourself: "provided entirely by one worker" : this is like admitting that the problem comes from injecting hierarchy into the system, which in a free market can only happen voluntarily if both parties benefit from it, but in a statist society is imposed or restricted by the economy planners through regulation. "essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low [switching] friction" : every market is a matchmaking service between the seller and the buyer, and the way to sustain low friction is to have as little regulation as possible (you will see the Uber/Lyft_fuelled prosperity (e.g. happy workers) disappear if the government steps in, and it will decrease wages to the point that it will be equal to the taxi market which is heavily regulated) "which is not true in many other industries" : how can we know? "many other industries" are mostly regulated, and heavily so.You're saying deregulation doesn't work in other industries because they're already regulated. The problem of workers and factories, as far as I know, is solved by unions. However, historically governments have regulated unions as well. Cf. Bangladeshi garment workers, their poor working conditions and their torturing of labor organizers.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    > every market is a matchmaking service between the seller and the buyer No, markets are not matchmaking services. Markets are places where people make matches, matchmaking services are a service that is sold in the market. Notably, its the core of the service Uber and Lyft provide, and its low friction to switch, as a user or supplier, between them. This is a special characteristic of the kind of service Uber and Lyft are selling. > "which is not true in many other industries" : how can we know? Because we can readily observe that what many other industries are selling is not matchmaking services between single-worker-provided services and purchasers of those services with low switching friction for workers because local competition exists which can readily absorb additional workers because there is little capital dependency for the service being provided that isn't carried with the worker and there is low friction for consumers to switch between service providers. > You're saying deregulation doesn't work in other industries because they're already regulated. No, I'm not saying either that deregulation doesn't work in other industries, or that to the extent it doesn't its because they're already regulated. I'm saying the specific features of the market in which Uber and Lyft are operating which provide significant leverage to their drivers to improve their labor conditions by leveraging competition among potential employers does not exist in most other markets, and so is not simply generalizable into "improvement in working conditions come through competition not regulation" (and that, additionally, history provides plenty of examples of improvement in working conditions that came through regulation.) It certainly illustrates how workers can, in certain market conditions, leverage competition between services through which their labor is marketed to improve labor conditions, and its certainly worth understanding for that value.
    - bmcfeeley 12y ago
      I tried to respond on the other sub-thread about getting downmodded, but I think this is probably more concise than mine. I think the key here is that workers are always going to be better off when they have more bargaining leverage with their employer / are competed for more rabidly, and competition is fierce for drivers between Uber and Lyft more because of their business model than any regulatory influence (or lack thereof).
innguest 12y ago
Why am I being modded down?
- praxulus 12y ago
  "Statist" is usually a derogatory term among libertarians/ancaps, so that's not a great way to open up a productive discussion.
- orblivion 12y ago
  Because you're making a brazen libertarian point in a thread on a tech discussion board where it's not all that warranted. If this were a discussion of public policy it could be different. I chimed in with that stuff when Net Neutrality came up, for instance. Otherwise it just gets overbearing. That said, I also got voted down there, I think libertarians are losing ground on HN.
  - innguest 12y ago
    Thanks for the reply. The philosophical connection between the hacker culture/ethics and anarchism was much clearer to me and many others maybe a decade ago, but now I see this losing ground. There's a fear in people when someone calls for decentralization of power. Most other types of decentralization are obviously good in the eyes of programmers, but not this one anymore.
    - com2kid 12y ago
      > The philosophical connection between the hacker culture/ethics and anarchism was much clearer to me and many others maybe a decade ago, but now I see this losing ground. It is not even that so much in this case as the language used. The HN community works hard to encourage polite conversation. Even a commonly agreed upon opinion will be down voted if not stated in a polite and clear fashion. If you had instead stated "This is an excellent example of free market competition allowing more freedom for workers than are exhibited in a government regulated market" then your comment would likely have been better received. :)
- 12y ago
Karunamon 12y ago
That's an argument against that particular kind of regulation, not regulation in general.
digikata 12y ago
There are a couple of market preconditions that are glossed over here. For this competition to have actually worked in an effective way, switching costs for both the labor as well as the customer have to be low. Transactions also need to be fairly short and repeated to complete to keep feedback loops responsive. There were also missteps with insurance that companies like Uber and Airbnb made, which were corrected, but, I suspect, wouldn't have been addressed as quickly without a legal/regulatory framework for liability. They're essentially hidden risks/costs to the consumer and employees. So aspects of this market need more than a simplistic "Yay competition, boo regulation..." And, I think in general we need to move public & political discussion beyond that point an get a better understanding of where competitive markets work, and where they fail.
Pxtl 12y ago
Wake me when they drive on privately owned roads instead of capitalizing on a taxpayer-funded asset.

Statists, take notice of how improvements in work conditions come from competition and not from regulation. They're better off now than through the monopoly of taxi medallions.

dragonwriter 12y ago

And anti-statists should take notice of how many improvements in working condition did require regulation, and how the Uber/Lyft market has special features (particularly, the fact that the primary service being provided to the end customer is provided entirely by one worker using their own capital and that the fact that what Uber/Lyft provide is essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low friction for a driver to switch services and for the other service to absorb new drivers -- which is not true in many other industries regardless of how competitive they may be on the consumer end. Even in a competitive market for autos, the capital dependence of the industry -- and potentially geographical separation between plants -- means that if the workers in Alan's factory are upset with their working conditions, they very likely can't just walk over to Bob's factory en-masse and sign up to work there. The ability to do that with certain services that are 1:1 and where the middleman is just providing matchmaking gives the individual service providers more power to set working conditions with the middleman in a market where there are competing middlemen then would be the case in many industries.

innguest 12y ago
What's happening right now to Uber and Lyft is a metaphor for how the free market works. You've touched on a few interesting points yourself: "provided entirely by one worker" : this is like admitting that the problem comes from injecting hierarchy into the system, which in a free market can only happen voluntarily if both parties benefit from it, but in a statist society is imposed or restricted by the economy planners through regulation. "essentially a matchmaking service where there is very low [switching] friction" : every market is a matchmaking service between the seller and the buyer, and the way to sustain low friction is to have as little regulation as possible (you will see the Uber/Lyft_fuelled prosperity (e.g. happy workers) disappear if the government steps in, and it will decrease wages to the point that it will be equal to the taxi market which is heavily regulated) "which is not true in many other industries" : how can we know? "many other industries" are mostly regulated, and heavily so.You're saying deregulation doesn't work in other industries because they're already regulated. The problem of workers and factories, as far as I know, is solved by unions. However, historically governments have regulated unions as well. Cf. Bangladeshi garment workers, their poor working conditions and their torturing of labor organizers.
- dragonwriter 12y ago
  > every market is a matchmaking service between the seller and the buyer No, markets are not matchmaking services. Markets are places where people make matches, matchmaking services are a service that is sold in the market. Notably, its the core of the service Uber and Lyft provide, and its low friction to switch, as a user or supplier, between them. This is a special characteristic of the kind of service Uber and Lyft are selling. > "which is not true in many other industries" : how can we know? Because we can readily observe that what many other industries are selling is not matchmaking services between single-worker-provided services and purchasers of those services with low switching friction for workers because local competition exists which can readily absorb additional workers because there is little capital dependency for the service being provided that isn't carried with the worker and there is low friction for consumers to switch between service providers. > You're saying deregulation doesn't work in other industries because they're already regulated. No, I'm not saying either that deregulation doesn't work in other industries, or that to the extent it doesn't its because they're already regulated. I'm saying the specific features of the market in which Uber and Lyft are operating which provide significant leverage to their drivers to improve their labor conditions by leveraging competition among potential employers does not exist in most other markets, and so is not simply generalizable into "improvement in working conditions come through competition not regulation" (and that, additionally, history provides plenty of examples of improvement in working conditions that came through regulation.) It certainly illustrates how workers can, in certain market conditions, leverage competition between services through which their labor is marketed to improve labor conditions, and its certainly worth understanding for that value.
  - bmcfeeley 12y ago
    I tried to respond on the other sub-thread about getting downmodded, but I think this is probably more concise than mine. I think the key here is that workers are always going to be better off when they have more bargaining leverage with their employer / are competed for more rabidly, and competition is fierce for drivers between Uber and Lyft more because of their business model than any regulatory influence (or lack thereof).

innguest 12y ago

Why am I being modded down?

praxulus 12y ago
"Statist" is usually a derogatory term among libertarians/ancaps, so that's not a great way to open up a productive discussion.
orblivion 12y ago
Because you're making a brazen libertarian point in a thread on a tech discussion board where it's not all that warranted. If this were a discussion of public policy it could be different. I chimed in with that stuff when Net Neutrality came up, for instance. Otherwise it just gets overbearing. That said, I also got voted down there, I think libertarians are losing ground on HN.
- innguest 12y ago
  Thanks for the reply. The philosophical connection between the hacker culture/ethics and anarchism was much clearer to me and many others maybe a decade ago, but now I see this losing ground. There's a fear in people when someone calls for decentralization of power. Most other types of decentralization are obviously good in the eyes of programmers, but not this one anymore.
  - com2kid 12y ago
    > The philosophical connection between the hacker culture/ethics and anarchism was much clearer to me and many others maybe a decade ago, but now I see this losing ground. It is not even that so much in this case as the language used. The HN community works hard to encourage polite conversation. Even a commonly agreed upon opinion will be down voted if not stated in a polite and clear fashion. If you had instead stated "This is an excellent example of free market competition allowing more freedom for workers than are exhibited in a government regulated market" then your comment would likely have been better received. :)
12y ago

Karunamon 12y ago

That's an argument against that particular kind of regulation, not regulation in general.

digikata 12y ago

There are a couple of market preconditions that are glossed over here. For this competition to have actually worked in an effective way, switching costs for both the labor as well as the customer have to be low. Transactions also need to be fairly short and repeated to complete to keep feedback loops responsive. There were also missteps with insurance that companies like Uber and Airbnb made, which were corrected, but, I suspect, wouldn't have been addressed as quickly without a legal/regulatory framework for liability. They're essentially hidden risks/costs to the consumer and employees. So aspects of this market need more than a simplistic "Yay competition, boo regulation..." And, I think in general we need to move public & political discussion beyond that point an get a better understanding of where competitive markets work, and where they fail.

Pxtl 12y ago

Wake me when they drive on privately owned roads instead of capitalizing on a taxpayer-funded asset.