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This was A Good Thread before it became about Uber. =( Can we get back to that? It was really interesting.
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Feb 11, 2016 13:17
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Yelp / Eat24 worker fired for posting on the internet about literally starving to death while working for food company. You know, I read her story and all I could think was it took an avalanch of bad decisions to land her at that point.
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Feb 22, 2016 13:48
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lancemantis posted:Plenty of midwestern nowhereville cities have a young populace that loves uber/lyft/etc because they associate it with significant cities and thus makes the city they can't/won't escape more like the ones they wish they lived in I like Uber/Lyft/etc because when I'm traveling in a nowhere city in the States it can be a loving epic quest to get a taxi, while getting a rideshare takes like 10 minutes on my smartphone and costs me less. I know a lot of foreigners who use Uber here in Santiago because they don't know how to get around and don't want to get scammed by taxi drivers (which they will).
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May 9, 2016 19:48
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Mozi posted:I would attribute that more to greed than some sort of patriotic boosterism. Karia posted:Sure, it's by and large the same employment model. My problem with that, though, is that Uber is being lauded as "disruptive" and "innovative" for that exact same model. Nobody's going to argue that regular taxi drivers being contractors is anything great, but somehow Uber's model is amazing. Praising a system that hurts its workers pisses me off. Is it really that hard to understand? Taxi and livery service in a lot of the US is slow (takes a long time to get a car), expensive, and the rides are of lovely quality. Service could stay bad because of high capital costs to enter (buying and maintaining the cars, etc) and regulatory barriers that kept new traditional companies from coming in and competing. Uber brought better service at lower prices to a ton of places by turning personal vehicles into capital and saying gently caress you to the rules protecting fat cat incumbents at the expense of consumers. That is an amazing model. As far as hurting workers, why do so many drivers continue to drive for Uber? Are they dumb? Are shut-in goons doing back-of-the-napkin math based on cursory internet research more capable of figuring out what's in Uber drivers' best interests than the actual Uber drivers are?
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May 10, 2016 15:47
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Panfilo posted:I always figured it was people who were under employed and had odd chunks of time to fill. For a lot of people, it is. Or it's something to do for awhile while they look for something else. Very few Uber drivers see Uber as their career. duz posted:2) They're poor enough and government aid is hard to get, so people will do anything to be able to feed their family It's just a job, dude. Sometimes people take jobs because they need money and that's ok.
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May 10, 2016 16:27
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Comcast is a monopolistic business that provides terrible service because they are the sole provider in many areas. (Mine's been down or trickle-slow since Thursday. "We're working on it.") It consistently wins consumerist.com's website for most hated company in America. But that's because laying fiber involves things like tearing up streets to lay cable and stringing additional lines, which imply problems for the town that have no analogs in the Uber situation. An analagous startup would be like...a company that contracted with you to buy your unused Comcast bandwidth so it could bundle and resell it to non-subscribers as on-demand broadband or something. And the on-demand broadband is faster and more reliable than Comcast service. Arsenic Lupin posted:Are builders in the Home Depot parking lot hiring day laborers who are paid off the books "disruptive"? No, because that's been a standard business model for construction companies since forever!  duz posted:That's what the companies want you to think. The numbers tend to show a different story which is why they fight so hard to keep from releasing those numbers. The last time they released numbers it did in fact seem to be the case, though? Do you have sources besides that?
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May 10, 2016 17:00
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Arsenic Lupin posted:The fiber-laying is an analogy, not an identity, as you point out. However, if a town has an interest in keeping the streets un-torn-up, it also has an interest in making sure that people who drive-for-hire know more about driving than private commuters. See "Taxi & Chauffeur Licenses in CA" here here. Los Angeles requires a thorough background check and a written test. Uber drivers in LA don't have to provide either of those, and there's evidence in multiple places of Uber driving background checks being inadequate. I think there's some interest in making sure vehicles are regulated for safety and that drivers aren't scam artists, but how much of the regulation is doing that as opposed to setting up a barrier of entry to protect established cab companies? The LA requirements, for instance require the endorsement of a taxi franchise to get permitted and that freezes out independant operators. And official licensing doesn't seem to guarantee good experiences. I have been overcharged for trips in cabs from drivers who tried to take the long way around to pad the fare (happens all the time to me), from some who tried to negotiate an up-front fee more expensive than the trip would be if metered (happens a lot), from a couple who outright tampered with their meters, etc. I've been in licensed cabs that were falling apart but somehow passed inspection (I hope). Most of my cab experiences have been fine...but so have all of my Uber experiences. I think by and large that private commuters are savvy enough to handle driving people around, and Uber's fare system keeps them more honest than many cab drivers. I can say similar things about AirBNB. Ostensibly AirBNB hosts are flauting hotel regulations, and that's bad. But I have stayed in more hotels and motels than I ever wanted to that were dirty, insecure, sprug surprise charges, etc, while most of my AirBNB experiences have been positive while also being cheaper and providing a better service (whole apartment or house for me and my guests instead of a room or suite) that in many ways is more secure (because a bunch of strangers aren't passing through and no one is coming into the space while I'm not there). So from a user's perspective, who cares if they are violating the law? The law is doing nothing good for me.
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May 10, 2016 18:51
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Arsenic Lupin posted:"I have had bad experiences in regulated businesses, therefore regulations don't matter" is like "I got mugged, therefore laws against assault don't matter". I mean...not really? Running a hotel is a very different type of endevour from short-term renting an apartment unit and applying the same regulations doesn't make sense, or offer me any more security over for instance staying at a friend's place. The codes that govern the construction of apartment buildings are adequate to ensure the safety of single-unit operations, and AirBNB has a reputation system that encourages hosts to keep their spaces tidy and inviting (also, AirBNB will compensate you if something's amiss). Arsenic Lupin posted:Sure, your average Uber driver is friendlier, the car is cleaner, and the service is more reliable than your average taxi. The end-user experience, assuming your driver isn't a violent criminal or somebody with multiple driving violations, is pretty great. There is more than end-user experience to running a business. This is why regulations exist. For instance, if I live in an apartment, and the apartment above me is rented on AirBNB full-time, the AirBNB renters are happy. I, meanwhile, am coping with more traffic in the halls at odd hours of the night, more noise (because short-term renters don't have any reason to stay on good terms with the neighbors), and very likely more physical damage to common areas. San Francisco, which has nowhere near enough long-term housing, is having its housing market further depleted by people running illegal hotels out of residential property. You could equally have loud neighbors, or neighbors with houseguests over all the time. Your recourse would be the same, wouldn't it? How much extra traffic does one family short-term occupying a unit cause vs one renting longer term, anyway?
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May 10, 2016 19:35
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Coolness Averted posted:Except for when things go wrong and they didn't have proper insurance, or how much easier it is for the regulators to enforce/catch a public facing and licensed hotel violating safety and sanitation ordinance than a secret hotel only open occasionally. In the same way I've had some much tastier meals cooked in people's homes than McDonalds, and I'm sure there's some fast food places not following health and safety code, but that's not an argument for why everyone should be able to sell food made in their kitchens and 'disrupt' rules about food handling and prep. In reference to apartments, we're talking about units built for people to live in, that have had people living in them, and where actual people do in fact live much of the time. If they're not too deathtrappy to be occupied 24/7 by a long term tenant, what are you worried is going to happen if you're there for a week? In reference to food, much like hotels, there are considerations that apply to running an industrial kitchen that just don't apply to having someone over for dinner or having house guests for a bit. Coolness Averted posted:Hell both the airbnb and uber examples do have damage to a public good making them analogous to the disruptive cable laying example. Besides wear and tear on roads, air quality is affected. air resource boards have more practical room for fleet regulation telling a taxi or freight company "You can only put out X tons of CO2" vs consumer car use. Seems like a stretch. A ride that happens on Uber is a ride that, presumably, was going to happen anyway through another channel. Where is the saving on road maintinence or air quality? And it's not AirBNB loving over the housing markets in LA and San Fran.
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May 10, 2016 19:53
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Zikan posted:About that safety arguement... It sucks about that guy's dad but most of those stories are 3rd world as gently caress. The one about the foreigners in that place in Taiwan (and it's horrible, no question) is HostelsOutsideTheAngloWorld.txt. Same about the dog bite in Argentina. Peztopiary posted:Report her/come to an understanding where you get some of the money. Disruption! This, but unironicly! Talk to the landlord - they're going to be very interested in not having trouble. Arsenic Lupin, I think we do have a cultural difference that's causing us to talk past eachother. "This venue is not following the rules", as a matter of principal, doesn't provoke any outrage in me. That is the way things are done where I live. If the rules are inconvenient, people won't follow them unless they're being audited. Much of the time they couldn't even tell you what rules should apply in any case. Any kind of certificate or certification here means very little. You just sort of talk things out informally and come to arrangements that work for you, and use your eyes and your good sense to avoid bad situations. So for me, Uber and AirBNB present no dangers or difficulties that don't already exist without them. With regard to background checks in Austin, it's notable that national criminal background checks have been mandatory for Uber and Lyft since 2014 but weren't mandatory for traditional livery companies until just last month. Were commuters being exposed to needless danger because felons from out of state could become taxi drivers? edit: on the subject of background checks: http://kxan.com/2015/10/27/uber-drivers-who-failed-its-background-check-have-austin-issued-permit/ tldr - Turns out that of 163 applicants with chauffer's licenses in Austin who applied to Uber, 53 failed the background check and 19 of those had serious offenses such as DUI, violent felonies, etc. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 15:29 on May 11, 2016 |
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May 11, 2016 14:41
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Ah! I don't think we'll ever agree then. What you call "rules" I call "laws", and I think a company whose business model relies on ignoring the laws is a bad company. I think this especially strongly when the laws in question regulate matters of health, safety, and labor protection. Yet some laws seem more relevant than others, don't they? For instance, consider an apartment building with 50 units in which some are being rented on AirBNB. If the building meets the code requirements for people to live in it long term, does it become unsafe if some of the units are rented short term? The relevance of hotel buliding and fire codes to this sort of operation seems less obvious.
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May 11, 2016 16:38
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Munkeymon posted:This is hilarious because a consistent and predictable regulatory environment helps a business grow a lot faster than a bunch of arbitrary handshake agreements and workarounds ever will. A consistent and predictable and also well designed and administered regulatory environment, sure, I agree. If you have one that is consistent and predictable but generally awful (but still arguably the best in Latin America, LOL) you get what we have here. =(
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May 11, 2016 16:41
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Kobayashi posted:Ahh yes, the "common sense" school of jurisprudence. So...you're saying yes, the building does become unsafe if some units are short-term rented?
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May 11, 2016 17:04
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Goons seem to treat anything requiring interacting with other people as an insurmountable hardship. Therefore asking someone to knock the noise off is doomed to fail, going to the condo board is impossible, and airBNB is awful for possibly hypothetically putting them in a position to have to deal with people. Also, San Fran density restrictions do way more to gently caress up its housing market than AirBNB ever could.
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May 16, 2016 13:08
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blowfish posted:i rather wouldn't deal with one group after the other of drunk douchebros trashing the place, no thank you Do the people who use AirBNB tend to be more drunk douchebros than otherwise? That doesn't seem obvious at all. But if you do have that situation you can talk to 1) the guests, 2) the landlord or 3) your building's management, probaby in that order, and you can shut it down. It's the same process for dealing with disruptive long term tenants just easier because the landlord is not going to want trouble - especially if the operation is on the gray side of the law / building's bylaws. WampaLord posted:The kind of people who are lovely guests who make a ton of noise are the same type of people who won't be reasoned with if you approach them and go "Hey, can you cut down on the noise?" I promise, if you act like a human being and just talk to people it'll almost always go fine. People, by and large, are not trying to be assholes or cause you inconvenience. PERPETUAL IDIOT posted:Is your "argument" that people can just deal with bad guests themselves and that airbnb might cause problems but actually it's not as much of a cause as other stuff? Seems a bit weak to me. It's TBH that AirBNB in fact does not cause much of a problem and people are being oversensitive to things that are actually pretty normal when you're living in a multi-unit building.
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May 16, 2016 14:06
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Some people aren't trying to be assholes but just are. That's the problem; the issue is that most people understand "don't poo poo where you eat" but quit caring if they know they won't have to deal with the mess. Aside from that some people have this attitude of "well if you don't like absurdly loud music that keeps the neighbors awake at 3 a.m. then the problem is you." Some people do, sure. Most people, the vast majority, will go "Oh sorry, man. Didn't realize." and turn their music down. Just treat people like people, seriously.
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May 16, 2016 14:37
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ToxicSlurpee posted:You've never lived in a college town, have you? When I was in college, sure. 
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May 16, 2016 15:05
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mastershakeman posted:Yea, it makes sense to never restrict mobility. Zoning laws should be done away with and if you don't want a factory to move next door to you just move away. Hmm. Zoning laws that prohibit dense development in popular metro areas are bad and should be done away with, though, so maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle.
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May 16, 2016 15:14
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computer parts posted:The middle being "Zoning laws are not inherently bad". And the correlary: Zoning laws are not inherently good. twodot posted:I like the idea that there is someone who when choosing between "Not having loud neighbors" and "Having loud neighbors that you occasionally have to alert they are being loud" would choose the latter. From childhood ----> present I have had neighbors who were occasionally loud and not only did that include a significant number of years where the internet didn't exist, let alone AirBNB, I somehow managed to cope despite that horrible circumstance. 
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May 16, 2016 15:52
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rscott posted:Not everyone wants to live in a developing nation where corruption and flouting rules and regulations is endemic There's a U.S. joke in there somewhere. Where have you lived that you've never had a loud neighbor?
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May 16, 2016 16:10
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Arsenic Lupin posted:The thing about AirBnB neighbors is that they don't have to live with the consequences of their behavior. If you're on a longer-term lease, then if you have noisy parties/scream at your spouse/throw the trash into the yard/threaten people who complain/damage common areas, you might lose your lease or at least have everybody in the building hating you. You also, if you get the cops called on you for violence, may get kicked out. This is getting back to what I was talking about earlier (unseriously) about goons and dealing with people. If someone's being loud you can walk over and ask them to knock it off. You can go to your building's management if people are consistently loud, and they for sure can contact the landlord. The landlord REALLY does not want trouble with his cash cow and has an interest in guests not trashing his place to begin with, so not only are they trying to pre-screen guests - they're going to try and placate neighbors as well. On top of all that, most people are basically decent and not looking to blow the roof off the place on their out of town stay anyway. What kind of degenerates do you think use AirBNB?
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May 16, 2016 16:25
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Arsenic Lupin posted:When I have a loud neighbor, I know that if I gently ask them to turn the music down, I can do it again next week and say "I'd hate to bring the landlord into this". As I keep saying, your opportunities to educate a neighbor vanish when the neighbor isn't going to be there next week. If you really feel like you need leverage and people are consistently being really loud in the unit you can always go to the landlord and say "I'd hate to bring the building management into this" or "Hey does the zoning board know you're running a hotel in this building?".
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May 16, 2016 16:27
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pangstrom posted:In practice educating a bad neighbor borders on fantasy, but we're pretty far in the weeds re: tech startups anyway. We should get together and launch iComplain, a service that crowdsources your noise complaints so you can outsource your mildly unpleasant social interactions.
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May 16, 2016 16:29
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Coolness Averted posted:Looks like Tesla is disrupting the labor market now! Wow. It costs almost 20x as much to employ union welders in Alameda county as it does to hire Slovenians. 
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May 18, 2016 20:53
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Not after these lawsuits!  I'm actually pretty surprised that Californian welders and pipe fitters and such get paid better than anestesiologists, and not at all surprised companies would try to avoid dealing with that racket. It was pretty interesting to read that the dudes coming in to do the work are by and large happy with the arrangement and regard it as a good wage that allows them to send money home to their families despite their wages being a little less per hour than they'd make working at a McDonalds in Fresno. California labor market seems ripe for disruption.
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May 19, 2016 14:18
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exploding mummy posted:Yes, we need to disrupt the ability for the citizens of California to feed their families. What about the ability of citizens of Slovakia to feed their families?
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May 19, 2016 15:20
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duz posted:Why do they have to do that in California? Because the jobs are in California? (and wherever Auto plants are built, apparantly, according to the article)
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May 19, 2016 15:25
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Racket? Seriously? God forbid that a skilled industrial job be paid as well as a skilled professional job. Or that welders get paid a living wage. Even being paid 10-20x less, the Slovakian workers were getting paid a living wage (for Slovakia). In fact, it was a wage higher than the prevailing one in their country for the same work. It was a really good thing for those workers, who apparantly were also skilled enough to do the work. God forbid that welders from Slovakia get paid a living wage instead of welders from California, right? Is that not an equally valid perspective?
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May 19, 2016 15:45
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Arsenic Lupin posted:Hmpf. I was just being too polite to correct his thinko. Oh no, I made a minor error. I will forever not be super worried about it. Arsenic Lupin posted:I really, really shouldn't trust other people's throwaway figures. Californian anesthesiologists make an average of $104.26/hour. See? The working classes aren't being coddled after all. Wage + Pension contributions (according to the article) are comparable - in the mid 90's. Quandary posted:This is a derail, but past the most surface level of analysis it's actually a pretty dangerous practice as it ends with one countries "well paying jobs" being still at a low standard relative to developed countries, but with no way for the country to develop a local economy that will allow the country to develop, because they outsource skilled labor to the States or where ever. That doesn't seem to follow. There are a ton of skilled tradespeople just flat out of work because the economies in their countries are terrible. Taking jobs outside their home countries keeps them working when otherwise they wouldn't be, earns them higher wages, and brings money into their countries. That can't be anything but good for their local economies if the alternative is the unemployment or underemployment of the workers in question.
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May 19, 2016 18:19
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incoherent posted:They'll spin it as "we've released our independent contractors in austin". Market power is an important element of an anti-trust investigation, and there are plenty of taxi companies left in Austin.
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May 23, 2016 20:31
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enki42 posted:Here's an idea - maybe the company profiting off of literal child labour and the poor disenfranchised home cooks should foot the bill or provide the facilities to prepare food safely? "Thousands" of dollars is for sure not a minor amount for a poor grandma who wants to cook, but it's routine for any business. Especially when California already specifically has relaxed regulations for home-based food operations (that Josephine readily admits it's cooks don't meet) Spending thousands of dollars each to certify home kitchens is probably a non starter. I can't imagine many Josephine cooks generate more than say a couple hundred in revenue for the company in a year. Installing facilities for home cooks to go cook in might be a business or might not, but is very different from what Josephine wants to do. Hopefully they can work with the health department to come up with a streamlined inspection process or something. It's a neat idea.
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Jun 7, 2016 18:17
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Arsenic Lupin posted:This business already exists in the Bay Area. http://www.kitchentowncentral.com/ Want to start a food startup? There's a legal way to do it! No disruption needed! The people who use Josephine don't want to run food startups, I don't think. They want to cook a few nights a week and serve people at home. Arsenic Lupin posted:It isn't just about the facilities. It's about "everybody who's touching hot food for resale should have a food handler's license." Josephine's cooks do have CA food handler's licenses, which are paid for by the company. The partnership with the middle school is a non-profit mentoring activity where teachers and students make the meals and all the proceeds go back to the school. The school cafeterias used to prep the food are the same commercially licensed facilities used to make school lunches. This part is a totally unobjectionable non-profit activity. Arsenic Lupin posted:Which schoolchildren not only don't but can't. Good luck teaching a school child to wash their hands every time they sneeze; half the time you can't even get them to cover their mouths. Have you ever worked back of the house in a restaurant? Do you know anyone who has? Ask them about their food safety stories and prepare to ROFL (then never want to eat at those establishments again, ever).
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Jun 7, 2016 19:28
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Solkanar512 posted:Why should the health department compromise on safety standards just because there's an app maker that wants to make money? Well, there are potentially thousands or even tens of thousands of home cooks who would like to make money by inviting people to eat in their homes, and who make the long margin on that business. So there's that to consider. But really, the problem is that the law in CA doesn't contemplate small-scale operations that have a different risk profile than full scale commercial kitchens. Why shouldn't the law be ammended to permit safe small-scale production? Josephine is working within the system to try and bring that about.
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Jun 7, 2016 19:33
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MickeyFinn posted:You're just begging the question here. You assume that CA laws are overly burdensome to small time cooks without any evidence and then assume that they can be changed to make small time home cooks both safe and cheaper. Since you have provided no evidence for this and knowing your posting history you will resort to "common sense" my response to you is this: everything you have posted on this subject is incorrect and naively stupid to the point where you should stop. Please stop. Nice post and contribution you made here. duz posted:His red title isn't ironic. You're not going to convince him. A spectacular post.
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Jun 7, 2016 19:51
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wehmMoazx0 A woman talks about what it took to license her home kitchen as a commercial kitchen.
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Jun 7, 2016 19:58
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OwlFancier posted:You can cook and eat your own food, you can cook and serve food to your family, you cannot cook and serve food for money without qualifications and inspection. I see no need to change that. Josephine's cooks are licensed by the state and have their kitchens inspected by the company, though.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:04
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OwlFancier posted:I don't think the children at the middle school are licensed by the state. The children are participating in a non-profit program for the benefit of their school called Growing Leaders. It's 100% legal and unobjectionable. edit to respond to your edit: The company is working with lawmakers to expand CA's cottage food regulations to cover the things its home cooks want to do. Seems pretty legit - they're taking the road of working within the system. wateroverfire fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 20:09
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OwlFancier posted:Legal perhaps, unobjectionable no. Go read the article about the school program and the company's response to alameda county's health inspectors. Also, the school was doing its thing before they partnered with the company. LOL you're making GBS threads on a middle-school fundraiser.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:16
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OwlFancier posted:I have read it, they started a business based on doing something illegal, got caught, and are now spitting their dummy out about it. You didn't read it. Jesus.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:20
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OwlFancier posted:"In an email sent out to 2,000 East Bay customers last week, Oakland-based food startup Josephine announced that it would be pausing cooking operations in Alameda County. All non-profit partnerships, including Josephine’s partnership with Willard Middle School, have not been affected. Umm... they got a cease and desist, told their cooks "Hey stop doing this while we figure it out with the regulators", and now they're figuring it out with the regulators. The cooks also, by far, make the long margin on this business. Edit: You seem really invested in being mad and self-righteous about this. Why are you so invested in that?
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Jun 7, 2016 20:26
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