Stop The JerkTech • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#91

Post by jbackus » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:36 AM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #71

jbackus wrote: post #67

> 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 resel…

The author isn't linking StubHub to these other startups, rather, they're saying "at least that guy has to bet his own money that he can resell a private commodity he bought."

Yes, I'm glad he isn't dismissing them. I'm just saying that it isn't as simple as returning profits to the producer.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#92

Post by jw_ » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:37 AM UTC

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...

This guy seems intensely clueless.

"If somebody is willing to pay for it, is it really unethical?"

There we go - if there's a paying market for something, it's totally ethical. Off I go to found assasins.io - murder for hire disrupted.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#93

Post by IvyMike » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:42 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #27

ar7hur wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is it's not your parking spot, but public property.

Right, and you're allowed to occupy it as long as you want. If your friend gives you $5 to let him take it over, I don't see a problem. This could only be a problem if people start parking cars they would never use in the city, just to profit from these services.

I dunno about "cars they would never use", but I wonder if anyone who has a driveway/garage for their car has started parking on the street. "I get to work at six and the street is empty, so I park there. When it's eight, I sell my spot and move it into the company garage."

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#94

Post by bronson » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:43 AM UTC

jgh wrote: post #90

icambron wrote: post #84

I dislike all of these companies, but I'd have put it all differently: The first one, Reservation Hop, is simply indefensible because it relies on fraud. It's deceiving restaurants into thinking the person asking for a reservation is a real person. Not only does it involve lying, but it's fundamentally different from scalping a ticket because if no one "buys" the reservation, the restaurant gets nothing and was perha…

The parking ones won't last long if cities follow Santa Monica's lead: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/smart-parking-... edit: tl;dr the extra time gets wiped out when your car leaves the spot.

Sure they will. The whole point is paying for an empty spot. Who cares if there's 20 minutes left on the meter?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#95

Post by Andys » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:43 AM UTC

usefulcat wrote: post #45

Andys wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the restaurants could enjoy higher margins if they made great websites which let you bid for last-minute reservations?

Because talking to a human for 30 seconds is that much of a chore when making a reservation? And how, exactly, would that do anything to prevent reservation scalping without adversely affecting the user experience of making a reservation or making life even easier for reservation scalpers? Probably it will be easy to use and easy for scalpers to screen scrape, or the UX will be a some kind of CAPTCHA-filled monstrosi…

OK, how about prepaid meals?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#96

Post by icambron » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:45 AM UTC

jgh wrote: post #90

icambron wrote: post #84

I dislike all of these companies, but I'd have put it all differently: The first one, Reservation Hop, is simply indefensible because it relies on fraud. It's deceiving restaurants into thinking the person asking for a reservation is a real person. Not only does it involve lying, but it's fundamentally different from scalping a ticket because if no one "buys" the reservation, the restaurant gets nothing and was perha…

The parking ones won't last long if cities follow Santa Monica's lead: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/smart-parking-... edit: tl;dr the extra time gets wiped out when your car leaves the spot.

As I understand it, the issue isn't the leftover meter money at all; it's just access to the spot. There are no meters (or there's a meter and it's trivially cheap) but there's a chronic shortage of parking spaces. So by occupying one, you claim it. That opens up the market for buying and selling spots, where the only good changing hands is the "right" to put a vehicle in a particular box of space.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#97

Post by jamesisaac » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:49 AM UTC

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…

As someone who worked in an advertising-industry startup for 2 years before questioning what I was doing, I agree with everything you've said (in your linked post too), and sorry to see you're getting downvoted.

The project I subsequently started operates on a very simple $5/mo pausable subscription with a 30-day free trial. I'm _much_ happier with this model than anything I've ever worked on which is ad-based - it feels like a completely fair and fulfilling exchange of value.

I, too, feel like if the web was free from advertising, and instead was home to services supported by paying customers and/or donations, it would be a much better place and have far-reaching benefits. This is something I genuinely want to make a difference on, so feel free to get in touch if you want to see if we can combine our efforts in some way (contact details in profile).

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#98

Post by funkyy » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:51 AM UTC

It seems that the part of young generation is extremely demanding. So demanding that they misunderstand "communal" with "my". I am part of generation that is happy to destroy public property just because they can. Generation that sells what is rightfully owned by all. Its sad that mentioned startups are more like vultures rather than tigers.

Good that someone finally publicly named those companies.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#99

Post by trysomething » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:54 AM UTC

Frankly there is no need to keep beating the drum about these startups. This is at least the 4th article about the parking apps on HN's front page in the last couple weeks. It's also been on TV.

This is not not deeply interesting anymore, and as such I am flagging it. I hope others will do the same.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#100

Post by eevilspock » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 4:56 AM UTC

EdwardDiego wrote: post #81

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…

> When I talk to anyone who's livelihood doesn't rely on advertising or marketing, there is near unanimous agreement that advertising is fundamentally manipulative and dishonest. Besides the social cost of Advertising, there many other costs. Such as? Keen to hear. :) Also, what would you propose in lieu of the current advertising supported model that is dominant today?

Please read the linked comment for an explanation of other costs. It's not exhaustive. I didn't write about other costs, such as the stifling of competition (advertising favors the establishment, the rich get richer) and negative sum arms races[1].

I'm implicitly proposing that people pay directly for the products they use. Be the customer, not the product. Reward businesses that put the user first, with no advertiser conflict of interest. We need to evolve a way to do this efficiently, since people aren't going to pull out their credit card for every different site they use, especially not the one-offs.

The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks. – Jeff Hammerbacher, fmr. Manager of Facebook Data Team, founder of Cloudera

If we can redirect just a fraction of those best minds at coming up with a micropayment system for the web, it won't take long to solve. Some people make themselves feel better about advertising by saying it helps the poor (who can't, presumably, afford to pay for Gmail or Facebook or whatever online journalism they read). These same people conveniently forget that the poor spend a greater share of their income on goods, thus a greater share goes to advertising costs, which could mean that the ad-supported web model we have today is regressive (as in regressive tax).

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[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7927862