Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 523 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#431

Post by Terr_ »

throw10920 wrote: post #418
Terr_ wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given the promises that free market idealogues & corporate actors made us I find it amusing/annoying how many Free™-market boosterism messages are actually contradictory "heads I win, tails you lose" constructs. For example: 1. "Regulations are bad, because left to its own devices the market will be optimally-efficient, once everyone has perfect-information about all the prices and deals other people are making." 2…

I wonder what the name is for the fallacies committed by this comment and grandparent comment. It's this disingenuous "even though nobody in this thread has expressed these two contradictory things, I'm just going to make them up and pretend that an imaginary member of [group that I don't like] said them". It's like a strawman fallacy did a fusion dance with an ad-hominem. I see it all the time on HN - surely it has…

> It's this disingenuous "even though nobody in this thread has expressed [...]"

No, what's disingenuous is your weird attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion which has made you uncomfortable. You're suggesting that we may not criticize a stance or argument unless another Hacker News user has directly advocated for it. That's not how it works, or else we'd never be able to talk about things like the DMCA or Microsoft's forced-reboot update policy.

That said, how about we steer away from pure-meta personal attack posts to something that at least involves the original topic of markets and market-actors, starting with:

> I'm just going to make them up and pretend that an imaginary member of [group that I don't like] said them"

Your comment is saying--via sarcastic subtext--that I have "made up" items #1 and #2 and that (to substitute GP's term) "free-market ideologues" do not advance either argument about efficiency or cartel-risk.

Is that really what you believe and you'd be convinced otherwise by examples, or would you like to issue some non-sarcastic clarification?

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#432

Post by bjornsing »

ghaff wrote: post #337
bjornsing wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. And as I said there’s nothing illegal about that, as long as it’s about historical and current prices. But if your local grocer walks over to their competitor and has a conversation about what the prices (or salaries) should be tomorrow , then that’s illegal in many jurisdictions. The same rules should apply if they use software.

I don't actually know what the letter of the law is in US, much less other countries and depending on public sector vs. private. But, yeah, there's a lot of information sharing both direct and (often) indirect on existing and past pricing on at least the aggregate level and sometimes at a more specific level. As you say, the boundary is often about what pricing should be next year. But there's often a lot of nudge-nu…

> As you say, the boundary is often about what pricing should be next year. But there's often a lot of nudge-nudge-wink-wink given good information about what prices and salaries are today.

Sure. Just like a lot of people steal office supplies from their employers or trade small scale on insider information. But that doesn’t mean you could or should build a website to enable that on an industrial scale. Same applies here IMHO.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#433

Post by Terr_ »

TheKarateKid wrote: post #403
elawler24 wrote: post #45

I got access to Pave through one of my investors. Seeing the data made us set salaries and contractor rates higher, not lower. It’s like salary banding at big companies. It’s a framework for how much other people are paid at the same level, not a contract. HR will make it seem like a rule, but if you do spectacular work - you can always negotiate. Collusion requires an agreement between rivals that negatively disrupt…

Ok, so your company ended up raising salaries because you were underpaying. That certainly wouldn't be the case if you found out your salaries were ABOVE average. You'd keep it the same at best, but most likely lower it. That's the point of these systems. If it's not illegal, then it should be.

Or at any rate, "as one member, we ended up spending more when we started participating in a thingy" isn't super-strong evidence that the thingy is OK.

__________

To illustrate this, imagine some kind of over-the-top incontrovertible conspiracy to depress wages. I'm talking a secret volcano-island base, a letterhead with a Et redigam operarios in servitutem in latin, members greeting each-other as "Hello, fellow conspirator!" while twirling deliberate Snidely Whiplash mustaches, etc.

Then a new company joins the cartel, and it turns out that company was one of the ones previously paying below the fixed-price.

The fact that some members pay more on joining doesn't change the core nature of the system, especially if there's "noise" in the organic prices.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#434

Post by throw10920 »

Terr_ wrote: post #431
throw10920 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what the name is for the fallacies committed by this comment and grandparent comment. It's this disingenuous "even though nobody in this thread has expressed these two contradictory things, I'm just going to make them up and pretend that an imaginary member of [group that I don't like] said them". It's like a strawman fallacy did a fusion dance with an ad-hominem. I see it all the time on HN - surely it has…

> It's this disingenuous "even though nobody in this thread has expressed [...]" No, what's disingenuous is your weird attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion which has made you uncomfortable. You're suggesting that we may not criticize a stance or argument unless another Hacker News user has directly advocated for it . That's not how it works, or else we'd never be able to talk about things like the DMCA o…

> what's disingenuous

Incorrect. I'm pointing out logical fallacies and emotional manipulation. Nothing disingenuous here, just rationality.

> attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion

Incorrect. This is "flamebait....generic tangents...internet tropes." (as the guidelines say to avoid) because, as already pointed out, nobody in this thread has made these arguments together.

> You're suggesting that we may not criticize a stance or argument unless another Hacker News user has directly advocated for it.

Also incorrect. I never suggested that. Additionally, even if I had, you're not criticizing a stance - that's a dishonest and incorrect portrayal of your comment, which was fabricating an imaginary contradiction between two distinct arguments, as a means of attacking a group you didn't like.

> That's not how it works, or else we'd never be able to talk about things like the DMCA or Microsoft's forced-reboot update policy.

Also dishonest and incorrect. Microsoft is a single organization that makes public statements that you can link to and point out inconsistencies in.

That is not what you're doing - the free-market HN users that you're emotionally attacking (because that's what it is - there's no logic here) are not a single person or entity, but a highly diverse group of individuals with wildly different opinions.

What's more, you didn't even respond to a comment that one of them made - you're fabricating the existence of one of them that has a set of contradictory opinions (that you've also invented) to try to generally attack the idea that they represent. That's very bad form and very clearly against the HN guidelines.

> That said, how about we steer away from pure-meta personal attack posts

You're violating the guidelines and engaging in dishonest and anti-intellectual emotional manipulation and ideological warfare...on a site that's designed for intellectual curiosity. It's very reasonable to call that out.

> Your comment is saying..."free-market ideologues" do not advance either argument about efficiency or cartel-risk.

That is not what my comment is saying or implying - that's you fabricating a strawman.

You are "fabricating" a person because there's no specific person that you're debating with. That clearly does not mean that there don't exist people who don't hold those beliefs individually (or even together) - but you're not referring to a person in your comment, you're referring to an imaginary archetype, and you're doing so as a way of attacking it.

I've absolutely met individuals who hold either of those positions individually. And I have definitely met people that are self-inconsistent with respect to the beliefs that they hold.

Neither of those things justify you inventing a nonexistent self-contradictory person as a way to wage ideological warfare against a group/ideology you don't like.

"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That tramples curiosity."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#435

Post by archon810 »

iav wrote: post #189
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downloaded a personal report from the work number website and found to my horror that my employer was reporting every. single. paystub. gross and net, to equifax. That felt like a huge breach of privacy. Given that equifax had already proven incompetent at keeping my data secure, I immediately sent HR a request to stop sending my supposedly 'confidential' pay info. They politely told me to kick rocks, so I went on…

I am an investor in equifax. Let me clear up a misconception on where the data comes from. Half the data comes from large enterprise customers, who “sell” the data in exchange for Equifax doing I-9 verification for free. The other half comes from 39 payroll companies. Every single payroll company except for Rippling and Gusto sell paystub data to Euifax. (Rippling will start next year). Those are exclusive revenue sh…

As a Gusto admin for my company and user for another (well, my wife is the user), I am happy with our choice of payroll provider.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#436

Post by RHSeeger »

FactKnower69 wrote: post #404
olyjohn wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to pay by card for a huge purchase, and have the card company take 3% off the top. That's just a dick move when you can just write a check that does the same thing.

it's a "dick move" to not give the guy who owns your local dealership a 3% tip when you buy a car??

1. The guy who owns the dealership doesn't get the credit card fee

2. If they charge you extra for using a credit card, they're breaking even

3. If they _don't_ charge you extra for using a credit card, they're paying 3% of the purchase cost to the credit card company (so, $1,000+)

So yes, it's a dick move to pay via credit card for any purchase in the thousands of dollars, if you have the option to pay by check or debit card. I always offer to pay by check if I know the money for the CC will come out of their pocket.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#437

Post by tdeck »

__loam wrote: post #164
billjings wrote: post #132

As described, it is a fair ways away from what RealPage is doing. Specifically: * RealPage sells raising rents, not just market info. * RealPage pressures clients into taking their higher rents. * RealPage also pressure clients to refuse to rent at lower rates for their own narrow economic interest - in other words, they actively seek to circumvent competitive pressure to keep rents high. (edit: to clarify, I mean th…

What's the point of getting this data if it's not to pay less money? What is the value add?

What I've heard from leadership at more than one company is that they choose a percentile of the market they want to pay and then set the compensation there. For example, they may say "we want to pay at the 75th percentile for SWEs with X experience in the Bay Area".

I certainly don't trust that this doesn't hold wages down overall, particularly in the boom hiring market we had until recently.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#438

Post by Terr_ »

throw10920 wrote: post #434
Terr_ wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's this disingenuous "even though nobody in this thread has expressed [...]" No, what's disingenuous is your weird attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion which has made you uncomfortable. You're suggesting that we may not criticize a stance or argument unless another Hacker News user has directly advocated for it . That's not how it works, or else we'd never be able to talk about things like the DMCA o…

> what's disingenuous Incorrect. I'm pointing out logical fallacies and emotional manipulation. Nothing disingenuous here, just rationality. > attempt to stifle an entirely on-topic discussion Incorrect. This is "flamebait....generic tangents...internet tropes." (as the guidelines say to avoid) because, as already pointed out, nobody in this thread has made these arguments together . > You're suggesting that we may n…

I encourage readers to click on that link to all the commenting guidelines, and then carefully consider who is really breaking their spirit in this thread. Goodbye.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#439

Post by rtpg »

anomaly_ wrote: post #390
dawnerd wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like something gusto can turn into a marketing point. Surely there’s a desire for a privacy respecting payroll/hr platform.

The actual buyers of payroll software don't care and if you think people are going to evaluate their potential employer based on what payroll solution they use, you are wrong.

But it's a signal among many. If your employer purposefully goes out of their way to make these kinds of decisions consistently, it sticks with you.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Pave legal?

#440

Post by admissionsguy »

f1shy wrote: post #198
admissionsguy wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or live in Sweden (where your earnings as well as your address and property, car or pet ownership are public record)

I’ve read about that. Is ipen to ANYbody? Is there a link? Thanks

Multiple websites resell the financial data for like $4 per check, for example https://www.ratsit.se/ (you can try with 'sven svennson') One can also just call the tax agency and ask. The person looking up the information does not need to provide their data.

Living addresses, birth date, vehicles, pets are available in plain text without login and can be Googled.

Post reply on HN