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SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

sfchronicle.com

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Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#51

Post by randomsearch »

mikojan wrote: post #31
randomsearch wrote: post #19

And what a disaster Airbnb and Uber have been for the cities they have invaded. That’s why people legislate against them.

Who is down voting this? It is correct. Uber is contributing to traffic jams, environmental catastrophe and the continued deterioration of public transport. Airbnb is contributing to a housing crisis in many major cities. Of course,the public sector created a lot of the problems Uber alleviates on an individual basis but that doesn't change the fact that is a really bad solution.

Thanks, that was exactly my point.

The contribution to the conversation, for those it wasn’t clear to, is that regulation exists exactly because companies are prone to behave like Uber and Airbnb, and not the other way around.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#52

Post by mrighele »

watt wrote: post #35
mrighele wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bureaucracy should be treated as a computer program, you have to feed it exactly what it expects. If you give to a JSON parser an object with single quoted strings it is your fault if the parser complains even though it is quite clear what you meant. In the case of software, being clever means that you open yourself to unintended result, vulnerabilities and such, in the case of bureaucracy you open yourself to lawsui…

No, you expect bureaucracy to be helpful and resist when they are acting as harmful to the spirit of the law. Otherwise you get a nightmare state akin to Soviet Union.

You're right but that doesn't invidate what i said. I am not talking about how a bureaucracy should work, but how you should approach it.

Of course a helpful bureacracy will ask feedback in order not to waste your work, but unless you know how it will work expect the worst and act accordingly

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#53

Post by selectodude »

reaperducer wrote: post #24
mstade wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the bigger point is that the SF government apparently places more weight on minor application mistakes than actual, historical "bad" behavior. This has been my experience with pretty much any bureaucracy, regardless of locale. E.g. when I incorporated my company, I had to send in the same application four times, each time paying an additional fee. Reason was I had minor, pointless really, mistakes in the applic…

This has been my experience with pretty much any bureaucracy, regardless of locale. It doesn't have to be this way. I incorporated my first company in Chicago, and was stunned with how helpful the bureaucrats were. Yes, it was a little complex, especially in the years before "startups" were a thing, and you could do stuff online. But each department I had to work with had people who would sit me down at their desk an…

>In spite of all this, I still moved the company to another state a few years later because of Chicago

This is the cause of the race to the bottom. All that hand-holding is really expensive.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#54

Post by Klinky »

mstade wrote: post #18
argonaut wrote: post #15

Yes, this is just standard bureaucracy and it's Skip's fault, as people are saying. But the bigger point is that the SF government apparently places more weight on minor application mistakes than actual, historical "bad" behavior. That's why this is so comical. It only feeds fuel to the truth that rules should be bent and there really is no point in "moving slow" for startups. You won't be rewarded for it. Most tech…

> But the bigger point is that the SF government apparently places more weight on minor application mistakes than actual, historical "bad" behavior. This has been my experience with pretty much any bureaucracy, regardless of locale. E.g. when I incorporated my company, I had to send in the same application four times, each time paying an additional fee. Reason was I had minor, pointless really, mistakes in the applic…

Regardless of locale or public vs private entity. Trying to get customer service at many big name corps is a Kafkaesque experience. This is generally a fundamental human problem with how groups interact with outsiders to that group.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#55

Post by jakobegger »

jimmaswell wrote: post #43
parthdesai wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having cheaper alternatives to hotels available that let people make money renting out extra rooms. Yeah, in that case, all the long term residents living in popular cities must be insane to hate Airbnb. Have lived in a city and a building infested with Airbnbs? If you did, you would how fucked up it is for a long term renter.

I've stayed in AirBnB's. The only way any other tenants would even know I was there was that I was taking up a parking spot. Someone would have been insane to be mad about my being there, yes.

The problem is that investors buy up cheap apartments and put them on AirBnB to make insane profits.

This drives up prices for locals.

The other tenants are mad because landlords prefer renting apartments to tourists for 5k a month instead of renting to locals for 1k a month.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#56

Post by rpedela »

mikojan wrote: post #36
zozbot234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deterioration of public transport is political. NIMBY's don't want public transport in their backyard, out of fear that it might bring in "undesirable" folk. Uber and Lyft have zilch to do with this. If anything, these services make public transport more effective by solving the "last mile" problem for its users and thus obviating the need for a privately-owned car. Airbnb is contributing to a housing crisis? You kno…

This is just corporate propaganda. Studies have repeatedly shown that a significant number of people are using Uber INSTEAD of public transport

If Uber/Lyft didn't exist, public transportation in US would still be horrible for a myriad of reasons. I don't know if Uber/Lyft make things worse, but they certainly aren't the root cause.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#57

Post by delfinom »

argonaut wrote: post #15

Yes, this is just standard bureaucracy and it's Skip's fault, as people are saying. But the bigger point is that the SF government apparently places more weight on minor application mistakes than actual, historical "bad" behavior. That's why this is so comical. It only feeds fuel to the truth that rules should be bent and there really is no point in "moving slow" for startups. You won't be rewarded for it. Most tech…

>But the bigger point is that the SF government apparently places more weight on minor application mistakes than actual, historical "bad" behavior.

OR, SF used the tiniest technicality to reject because it's easier and immediate than on grounds of previous bad behavior ;)

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#58

Post by Consultant32452 »

mikojan wrote: post #31
randomsearch wrote: post #19

And what a disaster Airbnb and Uber have been for the cities they have invaded. That’s why people legislate against them.

Who is down voting this? It is correct. Uber is contributing to traffic jams, environmental catastrophe and the continued deterioration of public transport. Airbnb is contributing to a housing crisis in many major cities. Of course,the public sector created a lot of the problems Uber alleviates on an individual basis but that doesn't change the fact that is a really bad solution.

>Uber is contributing to traffic jams

Who are you trying to alleviate traffic jams for? Which group of people do you think has a greater right to traffic free car travel?

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#59

Post by jimmaswell »

jakobegger wrote: post #55
jimmaswell wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stayed in AirBnB's. The only way any other tenants would even know I was there was that I was taking up a parking spot. Someone would have been insane to be mad about my being there, yes.

The problem is that investors buy up cheap apartments and put them on AirBnB to make insane profits. This drives up prices for locals. The other tenants are mad because landlords prefer renting apartments to tourists for 5k a month instead of renting to locals for 1k a month.

Some price controls and restrictions on renting out whole domiciles would be nice but the aspect of renting out a portion of an already-occupied space like I used it for is great.

Re: SF wants startups to behave, so why did it reject the ‘nice guy’ of e-scooters?

#60

Post by ozzyoli »

This article is anthropomorphising a company. The journalist has no way of knowing if everyone at Skip was a nice guy.

I had to complain to the city twice about a Skip distributor’s aggressive strategy of tying their scooters in the early morning to every available bike hoop (and even trash cans) around the Twitter building.

The city has rules about how many scooters can be tied to a public bike hoop and at least one person at Skip was not nice and was ignoring that rule.

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