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

Stop The JerkTech

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 202 posts

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#51

Post by icpmacdo »

MBlume wrote: post #35
wpietri wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're doing some of that. But there's a problem with that: plenty of people who live here can't afford a sudden major bump in living expenses. In the long term, correct pricing is part of the solution. But in the short term, it'd be unfortunate to solve the problem by screwing poorer people. And anyway, this could be a temporary spike in demand. Once places like ZipCar and Uber get ahold of self-driving cars, I exp…

Politically impossible, but my blanket response to "how will this affect poor people" arguments is "give them money" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

This concept is basically becoming a meme.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#52

Post by randallsquared »

People keep using the phrases "the rich" and "the wealthy" in connection with this parking app (I heard this same phrasing on the NPR story about it last night), as though having a smartphone in the US and using it for parking is a sign of wealth.

Firstly, a Virgin Mobile (no contract) Android phone is $30. Gas is well over $3 a gallon near SF. If you can afford to drive a car (even assuming it was given to you and you therefore have no payments), you can definitely afford a smartphone.

Secondly, the company rep was quoted as saying that the highest price ever paid for a spot was $15. Is this is steep price to pay for a couple hours parking? Sure. Is it only for the wealthy? No, I'm thinking not.

The reservation thing is much more of a "jerktech" startup because of the potential harm to the restaurant[1], but the parking startup seems like a win, all considered: people who care more can purchase certainty, and people who don't care as much couldn't be certain of getting a parking spot even before this, so...

[1] though they could just require showing photo ID in the reserved name to effectively combat this, at least for a while.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#53

Post by profquail »

eevilspock wrote: post #31
wpietri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentor at startup events, so I know exactly what kind of people they are. The good ones are people who just haven't thought it through. They've found some sort of demand, and they're doing the standard hack-the-system thing that the startup culture trains them to do. Once it's rolling, it's like Mencken said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising, a lot of good people jump through hoops to convince themselves that they have not made a deal with the devil. The downvotes[1] come fast when I point out this moral and cognitive dissonance, usually without any counter argument since t…

> "Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising"

Citation please? There are many "internet businesses" that don't derive their revenue from advertising, e.g., AWS, Dropbox, Netflix. Spotify derives some revenue from advertising, but their core business is subscriptions. ad nauseum

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#54

Post by bane »

tyoma wrote: post #13

The restaurant issue I'm somewhat conflicted about -- I don't know enough about the business so some of my thoughts maybe impossible for various reasons. If people are willing to buy reservations, why not just charge more for the food until there is no waiting list? Or just charge for reservations (or at least those at preferred times) and keep the money for the restaurant? Whats the inherent reason that reservations…

> If people are willing to buy reservations, why not just charge more for the food until there is no waiting list?

Because a restaurant with a long waiting list for reservations gives the place a cachet of popularity, which can be more important than optimizing available reservations.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#55

Post by clay_to_n »

randallsquared wrote: post #52

People keep using the phrases "the rich" and "the wealthy" in connection with this parking app (I heard this same phrasing on the NPR story about it last night), as though having a smartphone in the US and using it for parking is a sign of wealth. Firstly, a Virgin Mobile (no contract) Android phone is $30. Gas is well over $3 a gallon near SF. If you can afford to drive a car (even assuming it was given to you and y…

I see your distinction between the two, and agree that the restaurant app clearly hurts the restaurants. But the parking app hurts every other driver in the city who doesn't take part. I really don't see how using auctions for every parking space is better for the whole than keeping public parking what it is now (public).

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#56

Post by jordanthoms »

ivanca wrote: post #40
aaronwall wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they can have a fleet of them which go into traffic at peak hours & allow people to bid to have them removed from traffic. ;)

"What is your business model?" "Extortion" "Well, it is a time-proven way of making money; and you may go to jail, so I can see you are not afraid of risk... like a true entrepreneur!"

MafiaJoy?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#57

Post by benatkin »

saurik wrote: post #50
benatkin wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The restaurant probably gets about the same amount of money on average, if not slightly more. It's easy to say that the jerk that uses this kind of app leaves less of a tip or takes up table space longer without spending more but on closer examination I don't see why this would be the case. They likely just pay more overall, and the app gets the extra.

You missed the part where these reservations are being held with risk of not succeeding in selling the spots: it isn't that the person who is sitting at the table is less profitable for the restaurant, but that a bunch of reservations are made that might in the end not ever succeed in being sold by the website. Assume for a second that the restaurant also charged for reservations and had cancellation fees for no-show…

Ah yes. I thought about that but forgot to mention it. I think this could be mostly solved by some combination of a) canceling reservations (if the place is busy these would often be replaced by a waiting list or walk-ins), b) avoiding excess inventory, c) using unused reservations themselves or having friends use them

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#58

Post by mjmahone17 »

codezero wrote: post #42
wpietri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mentor at startup events, so I know exactly what kind of people they are. The good ones are people who just haven't thought it through. They've found some sort of demand, and they're doing the standard hack-the-system thing that the startup culture trains them to do. Once it's rolling, it's like Mencken said: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it…

This is exactly right, from the creator of ReservationHop: "To be honest, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking through these questions." http://brianmayer.com/2014/07/how-i-became-the-most-hated-pe...

It's great how he compares himself to two NYC startups: https://www.zurvu.com/info/guests and http://www.killerrezzy.com/pages/about-us

The difference is Zurvu actually partners with the restaurants, helping them move empty tables. They may request a certain number of tables be free per night, but because they partner with the restaurants (that they prominently display), that presumably comes with kickbacks to the restaurant in question.

And Killer Rezzy's goal is to allow restaurants to monetize reservations. While this may suck for those of us who don't want to pay an entrance fee to eat, it's certainly not harming the businesses they depend on.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#59

Post by eevilspock »

profquail wrote: post #53
eevilspock wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising, a lot of good people jump through hoops to convince themselves that they have not made a deal with the devil. The downvotes[1] come fast when I point out this moral and cognitive dissonance, usually without any counter argument since t…

> "Because nearly every internet business gets it's revenue from advertising" Citation please? There are many "internet businesses" that don't derive their revenue from advertising, e.g., AWS, Dropbox, Netflix. Spotify derives some revenue from advertising, but their core business is subscriptions. ad nauseum

Count all of the web content you've consumed and all the web services you've used in the past year. Now count all the ones you've paid for.

Also, those paid-for services you mention are of such high quality (to you, not advertisers) because you pay for them. You are the customer not the product, as they say.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#60

Post by Mandatum »

wpietri wrote: post #7

God yes. The whole point of commerce is the creation and exchange of value. The great startups have been great because they create massive amounts of value in the world. Startups like this don't create value. They just shift the value around. In the case of these startups, they shift the value to rich people while pocketing the cash. They are essentially parasitic. Not only is that a dick move, it's dumb for a startu…

They're just clipping the ticket for bribery. This same thing exists in the underworld, however tech has made this sort of thing a "legitimate" business. I don't see much of a difference between this, and say, high frequency trading. Different areas, but same concept.
Post reply on HN