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Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

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Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#61

Post by lotsofpulp »

alaskamiller wrote: post #39
Animats wrote: post #16

Amazon had a restaurant business? The funny thing is, Amazon probably could do a good delivery restaurant business. There are already many "delivery only restaurants"[1] Uber Eats encourages others to start them. But Amazon, unlike Uber, is capable of building physical infrastructure. The future of this is "food fulfillment centers", large warehouse spaces which house various specialty kitchens. Common functions, suc…

Yeah it did, and restaurants actually put up stickers for it on their doors! What you're describing is what Travis Kalanick bought and have been building in LA and San Jose since last year. There are other commissary kitchens that's now doubling as virtual kitchens with half a dozen brands sharing utility, equipment and even staff. I'll do you even one better, here's the real future in less than three years: Restaura…

That misses a major purpose people go to sit down restaurants is for the atmosphere. Whether it be for casual dining, or celebration, or a date, or business meeting. The point is not the food, it’s to facilitate a social interaction under the common setting of needing to eat.

You’ve always been able to get good food without a front of house.

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#62

Post by sokoloff »

civility wrote: post #53
sokoloff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no reason home sale paperwork should cost thousands of dollars to process. Someone like Amazon could eliminate agents altogether. It’s a mistake to think that the real estate commission is primarily for paperwork or executing transactions that would have happened anyway. I brought my house to our agent and pushed the sale through. That’s probably a rarity when I think about all the time friends of mine hav…

I've bought 3 homes now and sold 2. There was no "house hunting" process. I went online, looked at photos, and made an offer - same as you. On my second home, I told the realtor exactly what I wanted and where. She failed to find it in her search (she did a zip code search instead of looking at the map), so I showed her the listing I wanted to see. There was no extra value to justify 3% of a sale for hundreds of thou…

Because the transactional paperwork can already be filled out, even by real estate lawyers, for a couple grand today. No one is paying 5% for that, even though would-be disrupters talk about it that way. Think about what it would take to transfer your house to a family member, assuming it was paid off. That paperwork would be ~$500 per lawyer involved. Anything more that you're paying for an arms-length sale transaction isn't related to the paperwork processing part of it, IMO.

What's really being paid for is access to MLS, advertising, labor to drive people around, maintaining the brokers office, people on both sides who talk crazy people off the ledge and keep deals together when someone is flipping out over a $1000 repair one way or the other.

Even when you "went online", I bet you found the house via a paid insertion into MLS (most likely) or a real estate advertising site. Why did you go there? Because that's where the houses for sale are. Why do people pay so much to put their house in MLS? Because that's where the buyers go to search to come up with their short-list of houses to go visit. Why should MLS listings be so expensive? Because they've built the marketplace. Same as why Amazon or Ebay can charge so much.

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#63

Post by masklinn »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #61
alaskamiller wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it did, and restaurants actually put up stickers for it on their doors! What you're describing is what Travis Kalanick bought and have been building in LA and San Jose since last year. There are other commissary kitchens that's now doubling as virtual kitchens with half a dozen brands sharing utility, equipment and even staff. I'll do you even one better, here's the real future in less than three years: Restaura…

That misses a major purpose people go to sit down restaurants is for the atmosphere. Whether it be for casual dining, or celebration, or a date, or business meeting. The point is not the food, it’s to facilitate a social interaction under the common setting of needing to eat. You’ve always been able to get good food without a front of house.

> That misses a major purpose people go to sit down restaurants is for the atmosphere.

Also the contextual break (from your desk or your home), or as a "neutral ground" (for dates or less formal meetings).

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#64

Post by civility »

sokoloff wrote: post #62
civility wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bought 3 homes now and sold 2. There was no "house hunting" process. I went online, looked at photos, and made an offer - same as you. On my second home, I told the realtor exactly what I wanted and where. She failed to find it in her search (she did a zip code search instead of looking at the map), so I showed her the listing I wanted to see. There was no extra value to justify 3% of a sale for hundreds of thou…

Because the transactional paperwork can already be filled out, even by real estate lawyers, for a couple grand today. No one is paying 5% for that, even though would-be disrupters talk about it that way. Think about what it would take to transfer your house to a family member, assuming it was paid off. That paperwork would be ~$500 per lawyer involved. Anything more that you're paying for an arms-length sale transact…

Access to MLS? Driving people around? You think any of that should cost the $25,000 the buyer and I paid agents for the house I sold last year? We could've bought a new car for those commissions! Are you an agent, or related to one? I can't see any other way you could defend that nonsense.

Someday one of the big companies is going to figure out how to put the parasites out of business. Amazon could pull it off, so could Google.

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#65

Post by sokoloff »

civility wrote: post #64
sokoloff wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the transactional paperwork can already be filled out, even by real estate lawyers, for a couple grand today. No one is paying 5% for that, even though would-be disrupters talk about it that way. Think about what it would take to transfer your house to a family member, assuming it was paid off. That paperwork would be ~$500 per lawyer involved. Anything more that you're paying for an arms-length sale transact…

Access to MLS? Driving people around? You think any of that should cost the $25,000 the buyer and I paid agents for the house I sold last year? We could've bought a new car for those commissions! Are you an agent, or related to one? I can't see any other way you could defend that nonsense. Someday one of the big companies is going to figure out how to put the parasites out of business. Amazon could pull it off, so co…

I'm not involved in real estate and agree that the services are over-priced relative to the value. (I have a friend who's an agent; he and I pretty regularly get into it.)

I don't think it's defending the nonsense, but rather explaining that there is some value there and it's not predominantly in filling out paperwork. It's a sales job, selling people the most expensive and leveraged thing they'll ever purchase and the place they're going to live/raise a family, with all the good and bad that comes along with that.

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#66

Post by madeofpalk »

masklinn wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #16

Amazon had a restaurant business? The funny thing is, Amazon probably could do a good delivery restaurant business. There are already many "delivery only restaurants"[1] Uber Eats encourages others to start them. But Amazon, unlike Uber, is capable of building physical infrastructure. The future of this is "food fulfillment centers", large warehouse spaces which house various specialty kitchens. Common functions, suc…

> There are already many "delivery only restaurants"[1] "Delivery-only restaurant" sounds self-contradictory, a restaurant is by definition a place where you can eat. These sounds more like takeouts, or traiteurs.

While I understand what you're saying, I think the distinction is useful because "takeout" has more of a specific meaning and association with more 'casual' food. Whereas these 'delivery only restaurants', or 'dark kitchens' are existing restaurants that people enjoy, but with an offsite, delivery-only location.

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#67

Post by chrisseaton »

masklinn wrote: post #42
Animats wrote: post #16

Amazon had a restaurant business? The funny thing is, Amazon probably could do a good delivery restaurant business. There are already many "delivery only restaurants"[1] Uber Eats encourages others to start them. But Amazon, unlike Uber, is capable of building physical infrastructure. The future of this is "food fulfillment centers", large warehouse spaces which house various specialty kitchens. Common functions, suc…

> There are already many "delivery only restaurants"[1] "Delivery-only restaurant" sounds self-contradictory, a restaurant is by definition a place where you can eat. These sounds more like takeouts, or traiteurs.

'Delivery-only takeout' would also be self-contradictory, wouldn't it.

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#68

Post by emiliobumachar »

prostoalex wrote: post #30
civility wrote: post #4

I wonder if Amazon would ever dive into the home real estate market. With modern day search, realtors provide very little value above doing the paper work, and that seems very automatable. There's just no reason to pay 6% of every house sale to middle men, but that's the way it currently works. A large company like Amazon or Google could make a ton of money at a much lower rate. I think this makes a lot more sense th…

It's expensive to have boots on the ground in every zip code. RedFin hires their own agents full time. OpenListings and Zillow refer online buyers to their affiliated agents who cut them a deal on commission in exchange for leads. You can always list a place with photos and all on Zillow or CraigsList and mention that seller will not pay an agent's commission. End of the day there's a "For Sale by Owner" sign for tho…

Has an agent ever told a potential buyer that a neighborhood is in decline?

Re: Amazon to shut down its Amazon Restaurants business in the U.S.

#69

Post by emiliobumachar »

prostoalex wrote: post #30
civility wrote: post #4

I wonder if Amazon would ever dive into the home real estate market. With modern day search, realtors provide very little value above doing the paper work, and that seems very automatable. There's just no reason to pay 6% of every house sale to middle men, but that's the way it currently works. A large company like Amazon or Google could make a ton of money at a much lower rate. I think this makes a lot more sense th…

It's expensive to have boots on the ground in every zip code. RedFin hires their own agents full time. OpenListings and Zillow refer online buyers to their affiliated agents who cut them a deal on commission in exchange for leads. You can always list a place with photos and all on Zillow or CraigsList and mention that seller will not pay an agent's commission. End of the day there's a "For Sale by Owner" sign for tho…

No reason to start on all zip codes at the same time.
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