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Schubalts posted:For real. There are laws that make absolutely no sense and should not exist, and laws about what day of the week a store can operate on fall under that. Oh you're closed on a Saturday eh? Well we God-Fearing folks like to take our breaks on the lord's sabbath, Sunday thank you very much. Or, to be slightly more hopeful, maybe it was a "Please let your workers have at least one day off a week thanks" law. So why aren't all the techblogs just flaming the ever loving gently caress out of a presentation by someone that was barred from performing lab work???
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Aug 2, 2016 16:24
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I would think that a new company offering a non-slimy alternative to used car dealers would be applauded, but we are in topsy-turvy land where we obsess over properly complying with blue laws. Incredible.
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Aug 2, 2016 16:31
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I would just worry that they may be used to disguise curbstoning, or that they themselves might run afoul of laws intended to prevent it. Otherwise it seems like a pretty big step up from Craigslist for anyone selling or buying a car. My neighbor used it and was quite happy.
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Aug 2, 2016 16:35
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silence_kit posted:I would think that a new company offering a non-slimy alternative to used car dealers would be applauded, but we are in topsy-turvy land where we obsess over properly complying with blue laws. Incredible. Whatever happened to CarMax?
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Aug 2, 2016 16:48
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Yes, people are most definitely defending blue laws and not discussing the implications of allowing businesses to arbitrarily choose the laws that they follow.
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Aug 2, 2016 16:49
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Shifty Pony posted:I would just worry that they may be used to disguise curbstoning, or that they themselves might run afoul of laws intended to prevent it. I just have to wonder what other laws are stupid and weird. god it was just a little water, salvage titles are bullshit! why should I have to follow registration rules if I'm just selling it soon! taxation is theft! etc etc, good on you if you're willing to make a big purchase from someone with that little regard for the law. Edit: archangelwar posted:Yes, people are most definitely defending blue laws and not discussing the implications of allowing businesses to arbitrarily choose the laws that they follow. Yeah, this is pretty much what I'm meaning blugu64 fucked around with this message at 16:53 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 16:50
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Whatever happened to CarMax?
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Aug 2, 2016 16:51
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Whatever happened to CarMax? What about CarMax? If this post is just a passive-aggressive way of saying that CarMax is a similar business, I say, so what? The more alternatives to used car dealers, the better.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:09
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blugu64 posted:Look I don't agree with the law, makes buying a car a hassle. What I'm saying is you don't get to pick and choose what laws you have to obey, and when you're blatantly flaunting one law....what else are you doing behind the scenes that I don't know about?
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Aug 2, 2016 17:15
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silence_kit posted:What about CarMax? If this post is just a passive-aggressive way of saying that CarMax is a similar business, I say, so what? The more alternatives to used car dealers, the better. Actually, it was a serious question. What happened to them? I haven't seen an ad or a mention of them in years.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:20
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Actually, it was a serious question. What happened to them? I haven't seen an ad or a mention of them in years. They have fuckloads of ads. I dunno how they're doing but advertising isn't the issue. Also their name always makes me think those cars committed some really serious crimes.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:28
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pr0zac posted:Are you seriously defending something stupid purely because it's a law? What's your opinion of North Carolina's bathroom law? Well, given that it governs public school bathrooms and not private entities, it seems to be somewhat unrelated, but frankly I'd rather businesses that take exception to such laws do what most are doing, and boycott the state, rather than keep doing business there and reward the state with their taxes.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:42
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Actually, it was a serious question. What happened to them? I haven't seen an ad or a mention of them in years. There is one 15 minutes or so from me. Seems to do pretty decent business judging by the number of cars I see with the little decal they put on all their vehicles. You can do a lot better buying directly from a private seller but you can also get royally screwed.
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Aug 2, 2016 17:56
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twodot posted:To be clear, you are certainly able to pick and choose what laws you obey. It turns out if you blatantly flaunt laws the government might step on you, but we don't need this thread for that to happen. The government doesn't get to dictate morality through law making, so breaking laws is only bad when the law is good. No one is saying that violating Blue Laws is an objectively morally bad thing. They are saying that deriving a competitive advantage through violation of laws should be addressed rather than ignored; one of the ways to address it is to remove said law.
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Aug 2, 2016 18:26
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Cross posting from the yospos thread: Remember that uber class action alleging price fixing? I had said the real test would be if they managed to make it past the motion to compel arbitration. Well the judge ruled the arbitration agreement unenforceable last Friday. The grounds upon which he relied to find it unenforceable make this case even more exciting. Basically the app had a giant register button and then small text close to the background color saying that registering means you agree to the terms and conditions, with "terms and conditions" being a different color and a hyperlink which took you to a screen where you could follow another link to the actual terms which had the arbitration provision buried near (but not at) the bottom after a ton of legal poo poo that uber has claiming they aren't a cab company. Basically if this gets upheld it could kill the enforcement of any similar linked but not displayed arbitration agreements, which seem pretty ubiquitous in apps these days. 
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Aug 2, 2016 18:39
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cheese posted:I've read up on this blockchain poo poo and I'm still not sure I fully understand it. Its like self contained computers with blocks of data that link together? What is the supposed advantage of that? Bitcoin is basically a clever solution to a narrow problem — when you have a decentralized resource that's relied on by a bunch of individuals, all of which have a strong incentive to counterfeit the resource in some way and none of which have any trust for the others. A blockchain solves this by writing to the resource as "blocks" and having each block contain a cryptographic hash of the last block. This way, it's obvious if a transaction is forged because the hashes don't match anymore. It's actually a pretty clever solution, which people who care more about cleverness than practicality often confuse with a good idea. Thing is, there are actually not a lot of situations in the real world where this is a problem, and even in situations where it is a problem, it may not be the most pressing one. Take money, for example. Obviously there's a big incentive to falsify transactions, and in most online transactions the parties don't know each other well enough for there to be trust. So on the surface, it looks like a good job for the blockchain. But actually there are other problems in payments — speed, reliability and reversibility of transactions being the most notable — where a blockchain actually makes things worse, and those problems are actually a lot more pressing for most people. Not to mention people aren't hyper-rational machines making decisions according to complex game theory. They're actually much more altruistic and likely to behave in a pro-social manner than logic would suggest, so often times the best way to solve the trust problem is to gather a minimal amount of info we need to trust the other party and then just trust them. This is actually what we've done in payments — we trust Visa and friends to ensure the transactions are above board and protect us from being exploited. In return, we get near-instant processing on a network that's also rock-solid reliable. It's a pretty good system for all its many flaws. So it's actually incredibly unlikely for Bitcoin to ever be more than a fringe element in global payments. Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Aug 2, 2016 |
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Aug 2, 2016 20:44
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One of the Bitexchanges got hacked or something and they're out $60 million American dollars. B-b-b-but my cryptographic security!
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Aug 3, 2016 06:11
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FilthyImp posted:One of the Bitexchanges got hacked or something and they're out $60 million American dollars. They didn't get hacked. The software explicitly allowed for anybody to get that money as long as they could program a function that did so and this function was allowed (by a vote from all "shareholders") to execute. You don't need to break the cryptographic security when people inadvertently sign you a blank check.
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Aug 3, 2016 13:56
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trucutru posted:They didn't get hacked. The software explicitly allowed for anybody to get that money as long as they could program a function that did so and this function was allowed (by a vote from all "shareholders") to execute. You don't need to break the cryptographic security when people inadvertently sign you a blank check. You're talking about the Etherium FAO thing, but there was another bitcoin hacking incident in Hong Kong.
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Aug 3, 2016 14:02
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Guy DeBorgore posted:You're talking about the Etherium FAO thing, but there was another bitcoin hacking incident in Hong Kong. I should stop relying entirely on star citizen as my source of daily laughs and re-invest in butts. My portfolio needs the diversification.
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Aug 3, 2016 14:09
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ShadowHawk posted:Beepi actually really are pretty strict. I had a roommate move across the country and try to get rid of his car. The car was about 2 years old and not too driven. Beepi was his first choice since they come onsight and guarantee you a good price because of the rigor of the inspection. The inspection was quite through -- I think about an hour and a half. I'm considering buying a car from them, and I love the idea of never talking to a salesperson.
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Aug 3, 2016 15:57
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a foolish pianist posted:I'm considering buying a car from them, and I love the idea of never talking to a salesperson. 
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Aug 3, 2016 16:01
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Talking is fine, negotiating is terrible.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:02
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Used car dealers are the common goto metaphor for people who are duplicitous, manipulative and smarmy but sure it's incredibly goony to not want to deal with them.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:06
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Lots of people have had really bad experiences with car salespeople, dude. I basically don't ever want to deal with them or dealerships in general again after my last experience car shopping. edit- Lady Naga posted:Used car dealers are the common goto metaphor for people who are duplicitous, manipulative and smarmy but sure it's incredibly goony to not want to deal with them. I've honestly had worse experiences when looking at new cars.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:07
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Talking to regular people is great. Talk to people trying to sell you a car is exceedingly unpleasant.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:09
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a foolish pianist posted:Talking to regular people is great. Talk to people trying to sell you a car is exceedingly unpleasant. Well, unless you just want to pay $40k for an altima.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:12
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Paradoxish posted:Lots of people have had really bad experiences with car salespeople, dude. I basically don't ever want to deal with them or dealerships in general again after my last experience car shopping. The worst I've ever experienced is mattress shopping.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:15
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Paradoxish posted:I've honestly had worse experiences when looking at new cars. I mean for sure some element of the metaphor does arise from classism ("those dirty used car salesmen only deal with poors, unlike those noble few who hock Cherokees for 30k!") but there are elements of truth there.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:27
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Glad I live in a city big enough to have a dealer that advertises that they don't haggle, what's listed is what you pay pre-tax.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:27
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duz posted:Glad I live in a city big enough to have a dealer that advertises that they don't haggle, what's listed is what you pay pre-tax. You sure you don't want the extended warranty?
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Aug 3, 2016 16:30
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hobbesmaster posted:You sure you don't want the extended warranty? The only thing worse than a car salesman is a TV salesman.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:31
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It's interesting how Mattress sales have (and car sales haven't) adopted to the internet. Mattress stores/chains do all sorts of duplicitous poo poo like listing the exact same mattress as different names based on region/state so you can't comparison shop (the elegante' in OR is the luxori in WA) and they don't really have online shopping at all (mostly because you need to come in and lay down on them) Meanwhile car salesmen, after kbb and edmonds, just got drilled into the ground when the age of asymmetric information ended and everyone (not just the greasemonkey carrying a physical blue book) knew exactly what the cars actually cost and how to wheedle you down. It must be nightmarish to deal with people who aren't rubes as a car salesmen, since them doing the correct thing (asking for the best price) literally takes money out of your pocket This might not be the best tangent for the unicorns thread, but what are people like car salesmen supposed to do when technology literally obsoletes their job or makes their gravy train into something that's a lot harder to eke a living out of? Shrecknet fucked around with this message at 16:36 on Aug 3, 2016 |
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Aug 3, 2016 16:34
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Those internet mattress companies (Casper, etc.) are starting to do that same sort of thing to mattresses. I went to their show apartment last time I was in NYC, and they set up a couple of semi-private bedrooms in an apartment so you can test them out. It was a really pleasant experience. I didn't buy a mattress, but if I want to, I can get exactly what I tested sent to me for an easily-discovered price.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:47
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:This might not be the best tangent for the unicorns thread, but what are people like car salesmen supposed to do when technology literally obsoletes their job or makes their gravy train into something that's a lot harder to eke a living out of? We should ask all of the former travel agents this question. I wonder what they ended up doing. (Yes, I'm aware some still exist, but I have to figure like 90% of them died out once you could order plane tickets online)
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Aug 3, 2016 16:48
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Lady Naga posted:I mean for sure some element of the metaphor does arise from classism ("those dirty used car salesmen only deal with poors, unlike those noble few who hock Cherokees for 30k!") but there are elements of truth there. I think a lot of it just comes down to what it is they're trying to sell you. New car salespeople are really only going to push you on price and financing, used cars salespeople are potentially lying to you about the actual condition of the vehicle.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:49
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WampaLord posted:We should ask all of the former travel agents this question. I wonder what they ended up doing. What did happen to the travel agents? I can't think of an industry more thoroughly decimated than travel agencies by the internet.
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Aug 3, 2016 16:56
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:This might not be the best tangent for the unicorns thread, but what are people like car salesmen supposed to do when technology literally obsoletes their job or makes their gravy train into something that's a lot harder to eke a living out of? No, it is a good tangent for the thread. If CarMax, Beepi, etc., were to totally get rid of used car dealers, and create overall lower costs of ownership for cars (I'm not saying that this is what they are doing--if you use their services you probably can't get the prices you could get by haggling with car dealers), then arguably that would be a net benefit to society. Unlike taxi-cab rides and hotel rooms, basically almost everybody in the US, including poor people, needs a car and spends a lot of money on cars, and would benefit from lower costs of car ownership. It's like how food now is cheaper than it has ever been. Sure the process of industrializing farming has eliminated many jobs, but everybody, including poor people, eats and people now don't have to pay as much for food, which I would say is a net social good.
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Aug 3, 2016 17:24
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Man discovers one neat trick for lowering his purchase price, Goons HATE it!
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Aug 3, 2016 17:50
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Dr. Angela Ziegler posted:What did happen to the travel agents? I can't think of an industry more thoroughly decimated than travel agencies by the internet.
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