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Stop The JerkTech

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Re: Stop The JerkTech

#61

Post by mraison »

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?

I don't really like the idea that restaurant owners should be forced to raise their prices just to avoid being screwed by clever startups. What if you just want to keep your prices affordable even though you have a lot of success? I guess you can always ask for an ID and check if it matches the reservation, but I'm not a great fan of that either.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#62

Post by metaphorm »

NhanH wrote: post #29
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…

Just to be clear: I agree with your point on focusing on creating value. And after I read your comment, I agree that none of the startups in the articles are truly creating that much value. However, is it that simple to qualify when you're creating value? If I had read the article before HN's comments, I'd have thought the startup is cool (admittedly trivial and silly, but we have a lot of those nowadays), rather tha…

"Assuming that rich people is richer because society decides that their time is more valuable, they can create more value in the same amount of times of some other poorer people."

are you fucking kidding me? why would you assume that?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#63

Post by mjmahone17 »

icpmacdo wrote: post #51
MBlume wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So is legalize weed.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#64

Post by RodericDay »

NhanH wrote: post #29
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…

Just to be clear: I agree with your point on focusing on creating value. And after I read your comment, I agree that none of the startups in the articles are truly creating that much value. However, is it that simple to qualify when you're creating value? If I had read the article before HN's comments, I'd have thought the startup is cool (admittedly trivial and silly, but we have a lot of those nowadays), rather tha…

"in the true spirit of capitalism. Yes, while it would shift the value to rich people, it also free up the rich people's time, so they (rich people) can create more value."

this is embarrassing.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#65

Post by Untit1ed »

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…

$15 worth of $3/gallon gas can take an efficient car a long way - there's a pretty big gap between paying that to travel 100 miles and paying it just to not drive anywhere for a few hours. It makes little difference to the wealthy, but for those who can barely afford to drive as it is it makes the situation even worse.

But that's not the reason it's jerktech, it's because the parking space was already paid for with taxes. What monkey parking's doing isn't much better than brigands setting up in front of a bridge and demanding a toll from anyone who wants to cross it.

(edited for grammar)

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#66

Post by vdaniuk »

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…

When I talk to anyone who starts raging about ethics of advertising, I often ask: are you talking about deontological or consequentialist ethics? Because that changes everything.

Also, do you not understand that entities buying and selling advertising are currently in a Nash equilibrium and no amount of internet whining will change that.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#67

Post by jbackus »

> Don’t concert ticket re-sale sites like StubHub encourage and take a cut from scalping? Yes, and I’m not a big fan of them for that reason. If the demand for a band’s ticket is high, they’re the ones that should be making the mark-up, not some sleazy guy with 20 computers who bought 40 tickets the second they went on sale to turn around and flip them. But at least that guy has to bet his own money that he can resell a private commodity he bought.

This is a weird opinion. This kind of resale is common in markets where producers would rather guarantee selling their entire product at a certain price as opposed to risking overpricing. Same reason many farmers sell off crops immediately to middlemen instead of trying to maximize price selling directly. They aren't being exploited, they're hedging risk. I would imagine that centralized ticket websites like StubHub also improve the venue's distribution in this case. If venues don't like resellers, they can follow Louis CK's actions[1].

[1] http://thenextweb.com/media/2012/07/03/louis-c-k-sees-ticket...

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#68

Post by potatolicious »

onewaystreet wrote: post #49
lotharbot wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "you will likely see them work directly with restaurants and share the revenue" Why wait for the future? If some startup thinks that selling reservations at restaurant X is profitable, they should be partnering with restaurant X right now to sell their reservations. They should be sharing in the potential downside with the restaurant -- if they book reservations they don't sell, and the restaurant has to turn down…

Because it's very hard to get small businesses, especially restaurants, to signup for unproven new services. This is why you had companies like Groupon spending millions on hiring local sales people.

That's an excuse, not a reason.

"Because doing the right thing is too hard" is not a valid reason for doing the wrong thing.

"Let me do the wrong thing, I promise (disclaimer: not a real promise) to do the right thing once I've gained sufficient profit" is even less of a reason.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#69

Post by gizmo686 »

eevilspock wrote: post #59
profquail wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

That isn't entirely fair. There are some websites that offer a free tier in the hopes that enough users will buy the paid tier. I suppose one could call this a form of advertising, but Dropbox giving me 2gb free does not seem to the type of manipulative advertising you are referring to (and is not a revenue source for them).

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#70

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

NhanH wrote: post #29
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…

Just to be clear: I agree with your point on focusing on creating value. And after I read your comment, I agree that none of the startups in the articles are truly creating that much value. However, is it that simple to qualify when you're creating value? If I had read the article before HN's comments, I'd have thought the startup is cool (admittedly trivial and silly, but we have a lot of those nowadays), rather tha…

> How do I know where to draw the line?

Considering legality is a good start.

Sweetch and Money Parking induce their users to violate San Francisco's Police Code, which forbids the buying and selling of public on-street parking. The city says it will pursue Sweetch and Money Parking under California's Unfair Competition Law for facilitating these violations.

In the case of ReservationHop, I'm not an attorney but I'd venture a guess that there are a number of potential causes of action that a restaurant might be able to claim, including violations of unfair competition law.

Now, a lot of folks will complain that many of these laws and regulations are counterproductive and stifle innovation. They may be right, but a point that is often overlooked in discussions about startups that are intentionally violating the law is that you can be against foolish laws and regulations without being for the willful violation of them.

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