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Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

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Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#281

Post by jsmith0295 »

drewrv wrote: post #121
TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #94

When I was younger and financially unstable, I had a decision to make. Take a crappy restaurant job or live out of my car. I chose to live out of my car. Every time I hear the argument that people in the restaurant industry are getting unfair pay, I ask myself, "I wonder who made that decision to work there in the first place" Stop this bullshit tipping. These people made a choice and then chose to complain about it.…

Not everyone has a choice, for example if you had kids at the time then living in your car would be unacceptable. Meanwhile, restaurant patrons make a choice to eat somewhere where tipping is customary.

If you had kids then you wouldn't need to live in your car because the government would volunteer to pay your rent.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#282

Post by rubicon33 »

drewrv wrote: post #121
TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #94

When I was younger and financially unstable, I had a decision to make. Take a crappy restaurant job or live out of my car. I chose to live out of my car. Every time I hear the argument that people in the restaurant industry are getting unfair pay, I ask myself, "I wonder who made that decision to work there in the first place" Stop this bullshit tipping. These people made a choice and then chose to complain about it.…

Not everyone has a choice, for example if you had kids at the time then living in your car would be unacceptable. Meanwhile, restaurant patrons make a choice to eat somewhere where tipping is customary.

Was it not your choice to have the kids?

I'm tired of this cultural excuse of "what about the kids!"

If you chose to have kids, either explicitly, or through choice of recklessness, you deserve to own up to your decision. If you can't, or won't, that's what CPS is for.

Let's stop giving people excuses just because they brought another person into the world. In fact, lets hold them to an even higher standard for choosing to invoke a LIFE without themselves being able to support it.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#283

Post by nikdaheratik »

jonahx wrote: post #87
chrisseaton wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if tipping is an option, through a kind of cultural game-theoretic pressure, the situation will always devolve into the restaurant norm. at least that's how it is in the states In the UK tipping in restaurants is optional and, while it sounds really weird to say this, I don't think the waiters and waitresses seem to care either way. I don't get a different reaction from them if I tip or if I don't. They don't seem…

that's pretty interesting. any theories on the underlying cultural differences that explain it, or just different established customs? all the (many) wait-people here in the states i've known really dislike it, and it's generally considered either clueless, rude, or stingy not to tip at least 15%. i'm curious about things like: 1. if you go out with your friends to the pub, and don't tip on your bill, are you friends…

The "cultural difference" in Australia is that servers, etc. are actually paid the same (fairly high by U.S. standards) minimum wage or above for experience bartenders. So tipping just seems kind of dumb in most cases. The bill is the bill and you pay it and move on with your night.

I think there are many reasons why it persists in the U.S. On the server end, it makes it easier for a casual employee to make a reasonable amount for a couple of nights work and you would make much less if you were straight hourly. It also allows service industry employers to "staff up" on those busy nights and not have to worry about keeping too many on the rest of the week. While customers get to do some social signalling, I think that's mostly adjacent to the server and owner's pay scheme.

If the U.S. moved away from tipping, they would need to pay a higher minimum wage, keep fewer casual employees that only work 2-3 nights a week, and the regulars would be either full-time or half-time which means the busy nights would have fewer servers, though maybe more experienced so nearly as productive for the ones that work it as a full time job.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#284

Post by wtvanhest »

estefan wrote: post #173
wtvanhest wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_Treo was way before Andriod. First mover advantage is rarely an advantage at all. My guess is that google sees this as optionality and testing to get things right like insurance etc. in anticipation of self driving cars. At the very least it allows them to extract more value from Uber when Google finally have self driving cars ready to sell them. I really don't see how Uber is worth…

> First mover advantage is rarely an advantage at all Genuine question (not a snarky comment as it might sound), but can you link to any research that indicates it's 'rarely' and advantage? I've been reading books recently that emphasise the importance of being the first to market with something innovative. Your brand then gets associated with the product/service ("hoover", "Uber", "google") even when referring to th…

Take any big market business started over 10 years ago, and look at the current major players. Then look at all the people that started before them. You will basically never find a company that started 1st, also be the market share leader 10 years out.

There are some exceptions, but once a 10 year period has passed, the biggest player is rarely the first player. Also, the markets don't usually become really profitable for a while.

Uber has not won yet, and I don't think they will be in 1st place in 5 years.

Google started at least a few years after many, many sites including yahoo.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#285

Post by riboflava »

gingerrr wrote: post #230
haneefmubarak wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what the parent is getting at is that by instituting a price floor, you prevent people from providing services whose utility is below the price floor. In other words, if someone wanted to do extra work that wasn't worth much money (but might add up over a longer period of time), they are now unable to do said work because no one will be willing to pay them for it. Basically, when setting a minimum wage, you e…

Got it, didn't realize that was the argument. Thanks much. I hadn't heard this decision point framed so clearly in terms of the two kinds of labor each side ends up favoring, that's a great example.

I don't know if I'd be so charitable to call my counter-assertion to the assertion I replied to an argument, but the replies to your reply are indeed representatives of the argument chains that lead to the assertion, and I agree they are phrased well, probably better than I would have. More tangentially I'm now wondering how often leaving an assertion that's the obvious output (if you've seen it before anyway) of an idea framework ends up with other people doing the backward chaining algorithm to give an explanation for you...

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#286

Post by nikdaheratik »

et-al wrote: post #99
runako wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only that were remotely true. In many/most states, the minimum wage for a variety of jobs is not in the range of "livable". For example, minimum wage for restaurant jobs in Georgia is $2.13/hour [1]. They actually don't "get paid enough for this shit," so their attitude actually matches reality. Tipping is a necessary component of the compensation if we want to continue our practice of letting certain employers ha…

I waited tables a decade ago. If I recall correctly, it was $2.95 + tips and I believe with a 4% tip-out. So your 15% tip became 11% real quick. So I hustled. I'm not saying that we should continue to screw over people who rely on tips as living wage. What I'm saying is that if one wants to have the overwhelmingly warm service Americans expect in restaurants, we need to keep tipping. After all, we've heard anecdotes…

There's no reason why it can't work differently, as mentioned elsewhere, but it would require alot of change in the way these businesses are ran in the U.S. and there's not that much incentive. Most likely the end result would be the same as far as service goes.

From having lived in both the U.S. and Australia, my feeling isn't so much that tipping is the reason why the service is better. I've had excellent service in some places in Australia and lousy service in places in the U.S. My feeling is that the management makes a point of emphasizing customer service more in the U.S. than in other places (even in businesses that don't have tips), and this is true across the board. Increased competition in the U.S. is some of it, and just plain cultural attitude is alot.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#287

Post by jsmith0295 »

doomtop wrote: post #120
TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #94

When I was younger and financially unstable, I had a decision to make. Take a crappy restaurant job or live out of my car. I chose to live out of my car. Every time I hear the argument that people in the restaurant industry are getting unfair pay, I ask myself, "I wonder who made that decision to work there in the first place" Stop this bullshit tipping. These people made a choice and then chose to complain about it.…

Your privilege is showing. Not everyone who "chose" the job they have really has a choice. It's just not that simple. BOH employee pay rates are generally not based on the assumption of tips the way they are for FOH employees. And don't forget, BOH employees don't have to deal with the way some people treat service workers.

Really that's kind of a matter of what "choice" is, but without getting too deep into that discussion, my observation has been that it's driven more by a toxic culture than anything else. I was a minimum wage and food service worker until quite recently, and having worked with many different people that's been my observation. A lot of people "stuck" in that position have been so indoctrined in their own victimhood that they get caught in a negative loop of ruining their own lives and blaming everyone and everything else around them for it. And some of them just plain don't give a shit. And there are some others who manage to get past it, and they're the ones who often manage to make things better for themselves and end up around lower-middle class. Certainly not great, but it's a huge difference. But in my opinion our coddling and infatalizing people isn't really helping the underlying cultural problem, it's making it worse by creating its own kind of privilege, which is basically a freedom from most forms of responsibility aside from having to obey the law.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#288

Post by jsmith0295 »

oldmanjay wrote: post #232
doomtop wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your privilege is showing. Not everyone who "chose" the job they have really has a choice. It's just not that simple. BOH employee pay rates are generally not based on the assumption of tips the way they are for FOH employees. And don't forget, BOH employees don't have to deal with the way some people treat service workers.

It's very bizarre to me that the younger generations are learning to throw shame at people for not being in bad circumstances, particularly given the mixed-at-best results shaming produces.

Based on the current political landscape, I think it's fair to say that the primary outcome of the shaming is rage

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#289

Post by Anasufovic »

nikdaheratik wrote: post #283
jonahx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's pretty interesting. any theories on the underlying cultural differences that explain it, or just different established customs? all the (many) wait-people here in the states i've known really dislike it, and it's generally considered either clueless, rude, or stingy not to tip at least 15%. i'm curious about things like: 1. if you go out with your friends to the pub, and don't tip on your bill, are you friends…

The "cultural difference" in Australia is that servers, etc. are actually paid the same (fairly high by U.S. standards) minimum wage or above for experience bartenders. So tipping just seems kind of dumb in most cases. The bill is the bill and you pay it and move on with your night. I think there are many reasons why it persists in the U.S. On the server end, it makes it easier for a casual employee to make a reasona…

Why would they have less staff on busy nights? How does wage tie into the obligation of giving employees more hours?

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#290

Post by oldmanjay »

runako wrote: post #62
et-al wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to tip in America because the prevalent attitude here is "I don't get paid enough for this shit." It's not so much about paying people a living wage, as much as changing the way people view their jobs and obligations. Everyone wants to change the world, but how many people will actually pick up a stray piece of trash and throw it in a bin?

If only that were remotely true. In many/most states, the minimum wage for a variety of jobs is not in the range of "livable". For example, minimum wage for restaurant jobs in Georgia is $2.13/hour [1]. They actually don't "get paid enough for this shit," so their attitude actually matches reality. Tipping is a necessary component of the compensation if we want to continue our practice of letting certain employers ha…

Do you feel like the unsupported assertion that employers do not obey the law helps to bolster your point? If so, is it because you feel facts are subordinate to emotional resonance?
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