Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

sfchronicle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 174 posts

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

#61

Post by parthdesai »

jimmaswell wrote: post #59
jakobegger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, airbnb used as a bed and breakfast is great. I'm not saying otherwise. But what has ended up happening is people buying multiple properties to list them only on airbnb. This has created shortage for people actually living and working in the city and driving the rent prices up in desirable neighbourhoods since tourists want to experience the city through the lens of a local person. And Airbnb actively lobbies and tries to skirt the rules where city puts a limit on how many units you can list and for how many days a year. So yeah, long story short, fuck airbnb.

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

#62

Post by asah »

Comments in this thread are missing the actual takeaway: when interfacing with legacy systems and bureaucracies, get help and don't DIY. Experience counts and experienced people know what to do when the form talks about "A3" which doesn't exist - or they know who to call.

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

#63

Post by ianai »

jimmaswell wrote: post #59
jakobegger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Price controls are a dead political option. Laws that either mandate change or enforce original intent tend to work better. Ie forcing home buyers to sign a document stating they are not flipping the property.

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

#64

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

rolltiide wrote: post #46
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…

People that defer too much respect to the state are at a disadvantage. What I mean by that is that some people will conclude "well that's the law! so don't break it" as opposed to looking at the consequences or seeing the relativity of the law, or the influence you can have on the law. Many laws don't have a consequence. Many laws were written by your rival. Many laws have consequences that have nothing to do with cl…

And it's important to remember that the state doesn't see the law this way. I guarantee that whoever wrote the application forms didn't think they were passing a law about filling in section A3; they just wanted information about safety, and the style guide for writing forms says they get that information by putting a lettered and numbered section.

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

#65

Post by jakobegger »

jimmaswell wrote: post #59
jakobegger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If that's all AirBnB was used for, nobody would complain. But at least 90% of listings on Airbnb are for whole apartments that nobody lives in.

If people just rented out their guest room, or rented their apartment out while they're on vacation, I don't think anybody would complain.

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

#66

Post by chubot »

Huh I had been wondering what happened to Skip. They were the first scooter I tried and I had a great experience.

After they stopped servicing SF, I tried Uber's red scooters and they really sucked. There was not enough torque to get up 90% of the hills in SF.

I downloaded the Spin app in frustration but on one attempt wasn't able to get a scooter.

Skip indeed seemed to be doing the best out of all these companies.

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

#67

Post by tsimionescu »

harimau777 wrote: post #27
tsimionescu wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is possibly the worst heuristic for evaluating an action. You may be right that it is somewhat natural to arrive at it, but it is by no means a good heuristic. And why is it bad? For one, real intentions are inscrutable, so it is very easy to ascribe whatever intentions you want to an action. For another, the intentions behind an action have essentially no correlation with the effects of the action, at least ins…

Is there an alternative that you feel works better? The most common alternative that I can see is "you can do whatever you want as long as it follows the letter of the law". However, that doesn't seem to work well either.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The question I was essentially answering was 'how can we tell whether an action was "good" or not?'. Rather than looking at the intentions of the author, I think you need to look at the effects, or some proxy thereof (are people I know poorer/richer? How many people died because of this action? Or whatever else is easily measurable and pertinent)

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

#68

Post by mikojan »

rpedela wrote: post #56
mikojan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's what I wrote:they aren't the root cause. My point was:They are a BAD solution and they are contributing to the problem.

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

#69

Post by souterrain »

Forget for a moment that a bureaucracy is involved.

If your company was bidding on a request for proposal (RFP) for a potential client, wouldn't you want to follow the customer's requirements?

Often RFP teams use failure to follow directions or specifics in a proposal submission as an informal measure of the likelihood the respondent will fail to deliver on other requirements.

I have worked for a company where I had spent 80 hours building a demo for a potential client. We did not make it to the demo phase due to a failure of our proposal writing team to address some technicality in the written proposal. I don't hold this against the client we lost; this falls on those whose jobs are solely writing and submitting technical proposals.

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

#70

Post by [deleted] »

andromeduck wrote: post #38
mikojan wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Keep on blaming demand and not the constricted supply.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN