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When we get Komooted

bikepacking.com

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Re: When we get Komooted

#131

Post by carlosjobim »

mellosouls wrote: post #105
dakiol wrote: post #35

> Komoot, to them, was more than a job; it was a mission and purpose. Many had accepted below-average salaries and uprooted their lives to commit to the outdoor lifestyle and the dream job. Suddenly, they were left scrambling for new work and visa sponsors with just a few months’ pay as severance. The six bosses, meanwhile, pocketed an estimated 20 to 30 million euros each. That’s why, and call me unethical, I never…

This approach doesn't work ethically if you are working for (say) public service organisations. There's also the argument an abundance of cynicism - as well as being occasionally aimed at a misjudged target (eg you work for bosses who do try to do the right thing) - is corrupting to the self and wider society.

Of course the argument works for everybody who works in public service. You do the duties you are paid for. If you think that's not enough you are welcome to volunteer for free.

Re: When we get Komooted

#132

Post by renox »

navane wrote: post #107

The users were always the real service provider. All the value is in what they tell each other through their data. All Komoot does is aggregate it, supply the infra structure. The only way to stop owners pulling the rug underneath all this community given content is by keeping the content open source. Promise the users you will do best with their data by keeping it out in the open so that if you don't, someone else w…

> Unfortunately this is another "if we all just" solution that humanity seems unable to do

Not all the time, see the success of GPL software. But yes, each community has to relearn the lesson: promises don't matter what matter is whether the data are 'open' or not.

Re: When we get Komooted

#133

Post by atoav »

dakiol wrote: post #35

> Komoot, to them, was more than a job; it was a mission and purpose. Many had accepted below-average salaries and uprooted their lives to commit to the outdoor lifestyle and the dream job. Suddenly, they were left scrambling for new work and visa sponsors with just a few months’ pay as severance. The six bosses, meanwhile, pocketed an estimated 20 to 30 million euros each. That’s why, and call me unethical, I never…

Bosses always want workers who treat their job and the company like family, but when it comes to them treating their workers like family somehow it is all about the numbers and they barely even treat them like people (if the law permits it).

It may seem over the top, but my feeling is we as a society need to stop accepting, excusing or even applauding behavior like this for our own good. This should be a stain on their names for the rest of their lives and the rest of society might consider treating them as outcasts.

I know this is an extremely unpopular position to take on a platform where half of the people dream of creating a company, pretending it is the mission of their lives, just to sell it to the highest bidder and live a life in luxury after. Everybody has to watch out for themselves they would say. If your goal is to leave the planet worse off than before that is the sure way to do it. This is a model for a society of sociopaths who kill everything good and it is time we start putting up some resistance.

Re: When we get Komooted

#135

Post by m0llusk »

This piece ignores some potentially critical points. Having large amounts of capital to carelessly throw at organizations that do not have sustaining cash flow is a recent thing. Zero interest rates are casting their shadow here. Also, with modern analytical tools it is relatively easy to see, for potential investors if not the general public, roughly how profitable or not any given entity is. This makes growth dependent plays hard to hide.

On a more robustly positive note, ongoing progress with solid legal frameworks for benefit corporations may address much of this. Such companies serve stakeholders instead of shareholders and have employee ownership as foundational.

Leaning back and declaring Capitalism as flawed isn't good enough. If you have property rights and ability to sell labor then you have Capitalism. Corporations are a new innovation that we can hone. Large, shared allocations of capital will continue to be needed for essential endeavors so we need to figure this out.

Re: When we get Komooted

#136

Post by kelvinjps10 »

michaelt wrote: post #77
lycopodiopsida wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing unethical about: you are doing the only sane thing in this system and economics. Morons, who work themselves to death believing bosses shit-talk about “our mission” and “we are in this together” will learn it the hard way.

In principle, we can imagine jobs that contribute positively to the world. When a builder builds a house, or a doctor mends a broken arm, the community has one more home and one less broken arm - and the community is left richer even after the builder and doctor have been paid. That house will be keeping a family warm and dry 20, 40, 100 years into the future, and the patient will be using that arm for the rest of th…

In the workers side they could be doing good but on the corporations side not, like insurance companies charging way more for the broken arm than it should be and the house prices being way more higher than they should

Re: When we get Komooted

#137

Post by awjlogan »

Do users share some “responsibility” (for want of a better word) as well? If people were happy to share their experiences to personal, or at least smaller, groups rather than with some implicit desire to be widely acknowledged then a portion are of the use of these platforms would not exist. Keep a blog of your routes, shared with your friends - others can stumble upon it (obviously less easily these days) - or even go with your friends and don’t bother sharing it to the rest of the world. Your activity might not be the best by some metric, but who really cares? Some of my favourite trips have been those that have gone completely wrong, as compared to the original plan, and enjoying that with the people who care about you is far better in the long run.

Re: When we get Komooted

#138

Post by the_wolo »

I seriously didn't expect to find one of the best critiques of capitalism I've ever read on a site about Bikepacking. It's got almost everything one needs to know about the enclosure process and the relationship between platform companies and their users, all nicely described through an example that the Bikepacking community can really feel by just having been owned.

Re: When we get Komooted

#139

Post by astrobe_ »

mellosouls wrote: post #105
dakiol wrote: post #35

> Komoot, to them, was more than a job; it was a mission and purpose. Many had accepted below-average salaries and uprooted their lives to commit to the outdoor lifestyle and the dream job. Suddenly, they were left scrambling for new work and visa sponsors with just a few months’ pay as severance. The six bosses, meanwhile, pocketed an estimated 20 to 30 million euros each. That’s why, and call me unethical, I never…

This approach doesn't work ethically if you are working for (say) public service organisations. There's also the argument an abundance of cynicism - as well as being occasionally aimed at a misjudged target (eg you work for bosses who do try to do the right thing) - is corrupting to the self and wider society.

> This approach doesn't work ethically if you are working for (say) public service organisations.

This remark is specially apt with regard to the leitmotiv of TFA; one sees, indeed, an entirely different picture when the goal of an organization is something else than growing and making profits.

Re: When we get Komooted

#140

Post by tonfa »

mnmalst wrote: post #34
avhception wrote: post #24

As someone who always rejected Komoot and stuck to OpenStreetMap, and had to justify that decision multiple times: I'll play them the world's smallest violin.

I am the same. I use osmand and sync the recorded tracks with syncthing to my desktop. Works for me but not comparable to sites like komoote of course.

Also there can be some really great country specific apps.

E.g. in Switzerland there's the free official Swiss Topo app with all the official maps incl. all the trail data. Can easily create/import/export tours.

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