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An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

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Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#151

Post by duncan_bayne »

Frondo wrote: post #134
duncan_bayne wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be better if we were allowed to interact voluntarily? Pay for what we wanted and used, and support people and causes through charity instead of under duress?

No, it wouldn't, because that's the fantasy that libertarians always push that has no historical or contemporary basis for working as a society. Sorry for being grumpy, but this is as useful a contribution as "Wouldn't it be better if we harnessed the power of house-elves to magic away our trash?"

... except that the vast majority of what society does is voluntary.

To extend your analogy: "The magic house-elves are already making our cars, writing our software, and growing our food. I wonder if we should pay them a bit more to cart away our trash too."

The house-elves shouldn't be doing the law enforcement or the Government (and in fact they _are_ right now, e.g. in the case of for-profit prisons and the Fed, and it's a disaster). But they're a bit under-utilised right now in some areas :)

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#152

Post by duncan_bayne »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #28
jelder wrote: post #5

This is great but what if, hold on, we paid taxes.

Wouldn't it be better if we were allowed to interact voluntarily? Pay for what we wanted and used, and support people and causes through charity instead of under duress?

Too late to edit, so posting a follow-up for clarification: I don't mean anarcho-capitalism, I mean a voluntarily-funded State.

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#153

Post by ryandrake »

Tharkun wrote: post #90
jelder wrote: post #5

This is great but what if, hold on, we paid taxes.

I pay roughly a 50% income tax, and in spite of that municipal garbage collection is, well, garbage. Regular waste is easy enough: weekly collection is OK. Larger items which can be incinerated are OK-ish: need to make an appointment two weeks in advance, and pay by weight. Anything else and I'm screwed. I'd like to get rid of a metal ladder, but it can't be incinerated. I'm supposed to take it to a municipal recycli…

Same here. My municipal trash service is awful, and they increase the price every year without making the service better, probably because f-you. They could seriously use some competition.

1. Motor oil, electronics, toxic waste: They say you can't throw them away with the garbage but your only other alternative is to take time out of your weekday to drive that stuff to some government center somewhere (during business hours--I suppose you're not supposed to have a job).

2. Large items that can't fit in the trash can: There are apparently several special times a year when these things will be picked up, but only when several planets align and it's a weekday. You need to place it exactly on the right spot next to the curb, it needs to fit into a certain dimension and be under a certain weight or they'll leave it there and you need to wait for the next blue moon to come along in order to dispose it.

3. Anything else you need to get rid of that doesn't align with the garbage company's tight requirements: $50-100 trip to the dump.

I've had the best luck by just putting stuff in my front lawn with a big red "FREE" sign on it. People will scavenge ANYTHING. I've gotten rid of piles of dirt this way.

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#154

Post by dsfyu404ed »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #67
phdp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should they? If there are dangerous items to be disposed that 99.99% of the people on a given garbage day don't throw out, should the other people subsidize the disposal? Most residents are not throwing out things that need special care. By making the price more transparent, you can incentivize people to use fewer items that are toxic or bad for the environment.

The other side of the argument is that people simply won't do it. If you make it difficult to dispose of used motor oil, people will just put it in their regular trash bags and it will wind up in a land fill where it's dangerous.

Yup.

The towns around where I grew up used to make you pay money to get rid of metal (!!!!). Consequently it wasn't uncommon to find washing machines and old rims in random places. Then a scrap place opened up, appliances stopped showing up on the side of the road and the scrap place that only took copper quickly got ran out of business.

People don't want to dump stuff illegally, it's just the least worst option in the moment.

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#155

Post by dragonwriter »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #147
dwaltrip wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Governments are a default state produced by groups of humans. They are inevitable. Making them better is incredibly hard work, but that is the only option. Often times, they are improved by working outside the system itself, it seems. So there are some interesting options for tackling this hard problem. The company mentioned in the article may turn out to be a great example of this. Governments do come in many forms,…

I agree with you re. anarcho-capitalism. I think that a state is a prerequisite for capitalism. But that doesn't mean you couldn't a) pare back the state to the bare minimum functionality (which doesn't include garbage collection, IMO) and fund it voluntarily.

> But that doesn't mean you couldn't a) pare back the state to the bare minimum functionality (which doesn't include garbage collection, IMO) and fund it voluntarily.

You could do that with the entity called “the state”, but that entity would no longer be the state or government, no matter what it was called. (It might be an arm of the real government, which might consist of entities voluntarily funding the “state” which themselves exercise coercive, in practice, extraction of wealth, or it might be an irrelevant figurehead.)

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#156

Post by [deleted] »

criddell wrote: post #128
toomuchtodo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence, regulation! Fire marshalls have teeth.

Given Uber's history, I would guess they would find out where everybody associated with the fire department, police department, county, and state regulators live and then block any deliveries to them or their neighbors. Fire Marshalls have to catch you before they can use their teeth.

[deleted]

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#157

Post by austenallred »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #123
austenallred wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that inherently better than having it available as a service for a small fee?

Yes, actually, at least for basic pickup. I'd support it for big/dangerous items as well. It is really easy to let that trash bill go if you get poor, and folks tend to dump things when convenient or burn things that shouldn't really be burned to get rid of their trash. They leave large items in rentals they are moving out of and put dangerous items in with the regular trash. Sure, communal pickup is flawed - but so…

It seems like this is in addition to, not necessarily a replacement for, communal pickup

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#158

Post by beambot »

ryandrake wrote: post #153
Tharkun wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay roughly a 50% income tax, and in spite of that municipal garbage collection is, well, garbage. Regular waste is easy enough: weekly collection is OK. Larger items which can be incinerated are OK-ish: need to make an appointment two weeks in advance, and pay by weight. Anything else and I'm screwed. I'd like to get rid of a metal ladder, but it can't be incinerated. I'm supposed to take it to a municipal recycli…

Same here. My municipal trash service is awful, and they increase the price every year without making the service better, probably because f-you. They could seriously use some competition. 1. Motor oil, electronics, toxic waste: They say you can't throw them away with the garbage but your only other alternative is to take time out of your weekday to drive that stuff to some government center somewhere (during busines…

> they increase the price every year without making the service better

Inflation?

EDIT: Not sure I understand the downvotes. The cost of milk goes up every year too, and it doesn't get any better. Between inflation and unsustainable municipal expenditures (e.g. pension plans), it's not surprising that trash service follows the same MO.

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#159

Post by enraged_camel »

Tharkun wrote: post #90
jelder wrote: post #5

This is great but what if, hold on, we paid taxes.

I pay roughly a 50% income tax, and in spite of that municipal garbage collection is, well, garbage. Regular waste is easy enough: weekly collection is OK. Larger items which can be incinerated are OK-ish: need to make an appointment two weeks in advance, and pay by weight. Anything else and I'm screwed. I'd like to get rid of a metal ladder, but it can't be incinerated. I'm supposed to take it to a municipal recycli…

>>I pay roughly a 50% income tax, and in spite of that municipal garbage collection is, well, garbage.

No one pays 50% of their income as tax. That is not how tax brackets work.

Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of income tax goes to the federal government.

Re: An ‘Uber for garbage’ picks up steam, and $11.7M in Series A funding

#160

Post by discombobulate »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #149
discombobulate wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame government services are normally junk (pun unintended). That's my experience. Off the top of my head: I would pay twice for x. Given how bad gov services are. Edit: Cool downvotes Marxist bros. Our national health service can't be super inefficient (I'm just about to go on a waiting list for a year) & my rubbish collection can't have just halved the amount of trash they take every two weeks . You're righ…

Marxism is entirely orthogonal to the idea of "government-provided services."

Socialised production & all ...
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