4 ms·

> The experience is usually good for the people getting paid, and the people getting the service. It is frequently bad for people who are not part of that excha

> The experience is usually good for the people getting paid, and the people getting the service. It is frequently bad for people who are not part of that exchange at all, and just happen to be in close proximity. The externalitati.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
That's exactly how the "sharing economy" ended up working in practice. Skirt the law, dump externalities on third parties.
- twic 11y ago
  Privatize gains, and socialize losses. A tried and tested formula!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    I like that. Concise.
  - nota_bene 11y ago
    Those who bear the "socialized losses" can easily band together to become a force to be reckoned with and change things: https://www.iWouldDo.it https://www.iWouldDo.it lets you do just that, in an efficient way.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  It's also why it's such a darling for the libertarian crowd.
  - deciplex 11y ago
    In fairness to the "libertarian crowd", the smart ones usually do grok negative externalities, and come up with grandiose (if naive) schemes for internalizing them. The likely result most of the time is a community that spends 20 hours out of every day in various town hall meetings, byzantine tax and fee schedules, an enforcement arm that would have to rival the Stasi in order to actually work, and of course the whole thing is very susceptible to corruption. But they do know what negative externalities are, at least.
    - microcolonel 11y ago
      How exactly would the libertarian crowd get "byzantine" tax? Avoiding taxation in general seems like one of the major components of the idea.
      - cbd1984 11y ago
        By calling them "fees" or "voluntary contributions" or similar. Taxes are only bad if a government extracts them at gunpoint. If a non-governmental force extracts them at... well, the gun is still there, I suppose, but hidden behind a layer of "If you don't pay, we sue, and if you don't pay after the lawsuit, the guns come out"... they're morally A-OK.
      - deciplex 11y ago
        I only call it a "tax" as a shorthand, libertarians would not call it that. Rather they devise a system where, for example in the case of air pollution, there is no such thing as a public good, and instead of regulation and fines, potential air polluters would need to enter into a contract with the owners of the air in order to secure the right to pollute the air. And it pretty much goes downhill from there. It's one of those things that might sometimes work okay on paper, but the trouble is that you can't actually try it out in practice due to the difficulty of assembling into a coherent community, a critical mass of people with the correct sort of deranged insanity to want to try it in the first place.
      - WalterSear 11y ago
        The solutions always involves either some kind of enforcing organization (ie - a government) or a hand wavy 'the market will provide' appeal to fervor.
neuro_imager 11y ago
I get your point but (partly to play devil's advocate)... How is this significantly different from traditional businesses? - Good for people getting paid. - Good (maybe) for people getting the service (which is often mediocre at best). - Bad for competitors. - Bad for people who invested in a competing service/product/related industry. - Often bad for the environment, neighbourhood etc.
- SixSigma 11y ago
  That's the whole point. Society has constructed mechanisms for dealing with externalities: governments, laws, regulations and taxes.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

That's exactly how the "sharing economy" ended up working in practice. Skirt the law, dump externalities on third parties.

twic 11y ago
Privatize gains, and socialize losses. A tried and tested formula!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I like that. Concise.
- nota_bene 11y ago
  Those who bear the "socialized losses" can easily band together to become a force to be reckoned with and change things: https://www.iWouldDo.it https://www.iWouldDo.it lets you do just that, in an efficient way.
WalterSear 11y ago
It's also why it's such a darling for the libertarian crowd.
- deciplex 11y ago
  In fairness to the "libertarian crowd", the smart ones usually do grok negative externalities, and come up with grandiose (if naive) schemes for internalizing them. The likely result most of the time is a community that spends 20 hours out of every day in various town hall meetings, byzantine tax and fee schedules, an enforcement arm that would have to rival the Stasi in order to actually work, and of course the whole thing is very susceptible to corruption. But they do know what negative externalities are, at least.
  - microcolonel 11y ago
    How exactly would the libertarian crowd get "byzantine" tax? Avoiding taxation in general seems like one of the major components of the idea.
    - cbd1984 11y ago
      By calling them "fees" or "voluntary contributions" or similar. Taxes are only bad if a government extracts them at gunpoint. If a non-governmental force extracts them at... well, the gun is still there, I suppose, but hidden behind a layer of "If you don't pay, we sue, and if you don't pay after the lawsuit, the guns come out"... they're morally A-OK.
    - deciplex 11y ago
      I only call it a "tax" as a shorthand, libertarians would not call it that. Rather they devise a system where, for example in the case of air pollution, there is no such thing as a public good, and instead of regulation and fines, potential air polluters would need to enter into a contract with the owners of the air in order to secure the right to pollute the air. And it pretty much goes downhill from there. It's one of those things that might sometimes work okay on paper, but the trouble is that you can't actually try it out in practice due to the difficulty of assembling into a coherent community, a critical mass of people with the correct sort of deranged insanity to want to try it in the first place.
    - WalterSear 11y ago
      The solutions always involves either some kind of enforcing organization (ie - a government) or a hand wavy 'the market will provide' appeal to fervor.

neuro_imager 11y ago

I get your point but (partly to play devil's advocate)... How is this significantly different from traditional businesses? - Good for people getting paid. - Good (maybe) for people getting the service (which is often mediocre at best). - Bad for competitors. - Bad for people who invested in a competing service/product/related industry. - Often bad for the environment, neighbourhood etc.

SixSigma 11y ago
That's the whole point. Society has constructed mechanisms for dealing with externalities: governments, laws, regulations and taxes.