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The sharing economy was always a scam

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Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#111

Post by TeMPOraL »

bobthepanda wrote: post #14
jeffbax wrote: post #12

Articles like this ignore the impact on individuals. For every group that is trying to full time Uber/Lyft or turn an AirBNB into a hotel, there's also tons of people who are doing in the spare time to make some extra or work the better allocation of resources into something beneficial for them. See threads like: https://twitter.com/RantyAmyCurtis/status/110272136190510694... That's what sharing is about, more optima…

Allowing people to participate in activities is useful, but that assumes that they are well-informed and rational. People also willingly participate in multi-level marketing; that doesn’t mean it’s good for them and society to do so.

MLMs makes participants scam other people, so IMO they should be burned to the ground.

As for "sharing economy" & drugs and - banning them outright may not be a good idea, but it sure would be best if working for Uber came with Surgeon's General warning.

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#112

Post by kortilla »

redwall_hp wrote: post #92
wyqydsyq wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find it's been years if not decades since there was a Camry available with a manual transmission

And that would just wear a bearing/spring system or the clutch, which are all repairs that are far cheaper than the cost of an automatic transmission replacement.

But idling an automatic shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a fluid turbine.

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#113

Post by neonate »

dredmorbius wrote: post #105
em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #5

The claim was never that "‘Sharing’ was supposed to save us" nor any of the other allegations in the article. In fact there never was any unified claims. Of course the individual companies made claims about how their platform would save you a bit of time and money and friction. And that has largely been true. Millions of people each saves a little time and money, and that in aggregate has benefited us tremendously. T…

In a world where, as I’ve argued, average is over — the skills required for any good job keep rising — a lot of people who might not be able to acquire those skills can still earn a good living now by building their own branded reputations, whether it is to rent their kids’ rooms, their cars or their power tools. -- Thomas Friedman, The New York Times , July 21, 2013 https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/opinion/sunday/…

Well, that's Friedman. If ever there were an exception to prove the rule.

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#114

Post by akiselev »

tomc1985 wrote: post #53
orangecat wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It ruined people's lives and destroyed a stable field of work. Telephone operators and travel agents used to have stable careers. This wasn't a technological innovation If the technology is so insignificant, why didn't taxi companies develop ride-hailing apps? Either it's actually complex, or they decided they had no need to improve service because of their oligopoly.

Telephone operators and travel agents used to have stable careers. So you are for the indiscriminate ruining of lives because of technological innovation? Why can't any of these innovators work with encumbents to ensure happiness for all and not just enriching themselves?

Why can't any of these incumbents work with innovators to ensure happiness for all and not just enriching themselves?

I don't know if you've ever been to a medallion auction but they went for over a million dollars each in Manhattan before Uber came along. Most of the medallions were bought up by holding companies that then leased them out to drivers who paid up front and had to hope they made enough money that day to cover the fee. In San Francisco, I remember a driver told me that his up front fee was $100-200 per 8 hour shift depending on the season - that's over $100-200k per year ROI and SF's medallions were a fraction of the price of NYC.

I seriously doubt many lives were ruined by the fall in value of taxi medallions. Very few are owned by actual drivers and that's where all the money is.

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#115

Post by benwr »

geezerjay wrote: post #89
benwr wrote: post #7

The title seems totally unsupported by the article to me. A less misleading one might be "The 'sharing economy' has evolved into a collection of large, unregulated, rental businesses"

The sharing economy was always fron day 1 about rentals. That's the central premise. What's deviating from the original concept is that barriers to entry are restricting supply to the point that providing a service becomes too profitable and actually pays off to provide it full time. Consider Uber. The principle behind ride sharing is quite simple: if you're already driving somewhere you can help someone out by shari…

Sure - I still think the title is misleading. "Was always a scam" implies that everyone in the sharing economy has been lying for decades in order to make money. I don't see any evidence presented in the article that supports that implication.

And when looking at it through a reasonable lens as you do in your comment, I also don't understand the urge to treat it as though "sharing economy" companies are somehow evil or deceptive. They're just responding to market conditions in a way that (at least in the short term) produces value for both drivers and riders. There are other arguments you can make about whether this is bad in the long term due to e.g. dynamics around regulation, but that's an argument about how things will play out in the future, not about past or current bad faith on the part of Uber or AirBnb.

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#116

Post by pmichalina »

geezerjay wrote: post #69
door5 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is "us"? Maybe upper middle class consumers, but not the workers at these companies.

If those providing services through platforms such as Uber or airbnb didn't benefitted from them then they'd be doing something else instead. Furthermore, of detractors actually cared about "the workers" then they'd be worried about how they have no better options instead of attacking the best options they have. And no, banning Uber or airbnb does not make the workers' lives any better. It just an option off the tabl…

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Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#117

Post by kortilla »

akiselev wrote: post #87
hyperdunc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's true for newer cars then how come they turn off the engine at the stop lights to save fuel?

Corporate average fuel economy regulations [1] set targets for the average fuel efficiency of all the vehicles a manufacturer sells. Since SUVs are popular and higher margin, car companies often have to do tricks like the auto-off engines to offset poor fuel economies in more profitable segments. Manufacturers that want to go over the limits have to pay a penalty or buy credits from their competitors who go under the…

Does that make a meaningful mileage difference or is it just a marketing trick because it’s so obvious to the user when the engine shuts off that “it must be saving fuel”.

During a normal 15 minute drive, the engine auto shutdown shaves maybe 20 seconds of runtime for me (smaller city without long lights) and it’s at the lowest engine consumption level (idle).

Given that an engine can idle for approx an hour on a gallon, I fail to see how an idle-off makes any meaningful difference for the average driver. It reeks of a marketing scam.

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#118

Post by [deleted] »

orangecat wrote: post #50
door5 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/nyregion/taxi-drivers-sui... It's easy to be cavalier if you ignore the effect on Taxi workers. Ride sharing replaced a stable, unionized, middle class career with low-paying, low-benefit gig jobs. It ruined people's lives and destroyed a stable field of work. This wasn't a technological innovation -- it was a legal one, where they figured out a way to evade regulations to undercut…

It ruined people's lives and destroyed a stable field of work. Telephone operators and travel agents used to have stable careers. This wasn't a technological innovation If the technology is so insignificant, why didn't taxi companies develop ride-hailing apps? Either it's actually complex, or they decided they had no need to improve service because of their oligopoly.

[deleted]

Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#119

Post by pmichalina »

crankylinuxuser wrote: post #3

Indeed it is. I've posted and talked about this along with posting Richard D Wolff's video "Uber is an old scam" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGwZcR0q6VE&t=10s We've seen this before, at the beginning of a new industry. And once capitalism sets in, everyone is dragged down to a race to the bottom... Along with safety and human treatment. And then once the abuses are rampant, people demand change in the way of regu…

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Re: The sharing economy was always a scam

#120

Post by basicplus2 »

onion2k wrote: post #106
basicplus2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think you are correct.. If a grocer sells you groceries.. that is part of an "economy" and there is no third party

In that case the third party is the banking system.

but banking is involved when i pay for my car costs to give a free ride to aunty may and then the bank is involved when she pays for her vet bill for her chooks when she gives me "free" eggs in payment for the car ride
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