Stop The JerkTech • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#131

Post by rahimnathwani » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:05 AM UTC

neumann wrote: post #43

rahimnathwani wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalpers do create value. After a complete scalping transaction: - the original ticket purchaser is happier with the cash received than with the ticket they had before - the final ticket purchaser is happier with the ticket than with the cash they paid - the scalper is happy with his/her profit - the promoter's/venue's revenue is unaffected So, three people are better off. Value has been created.

I do not understand this logic. What original ticket purchaser? Scalpers aren't like eBay. They have bought up the tickets from the venue at certain amount, depriving others of a limited resource at that same value, and now offering it a higher value to people who didn't have the means to buy it as fast as the scalper. The disruption the scalper is introducing into an existing system benefits nobody but themselves.

I'm not willing to pay more than face value for tickets so, if scalpers didn't exist, I would be better off. I'd have an x% chance (where xThere are rich people who are willing to pay up to 4x face value. They are very happy to pay 2x face value and get to go to every show they want. Without scalpers, they would pay less per show, but would totally miss out on some shows.

The scalper benefits those guys, at the expense of guys like me. It's not true that the scalper benefits nobody but themselves.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#132

Post by silencio » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:17 AM UTC

Patrick_Devine wrote: post #126

silencio wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> inefficiently priced parking This is not really relevant in the context of San Francisco. The city has been running a pilot program since 2010 to change meter pricing based on demand. Interested startups could have worked within this program and with SFMTA to help. All Monkey Parking et al. have been doing is screwing with this program which has been actively adjusting prices and rolling out to more areas. http://s…

Completely agree. Hats off to the city as SFPark is absolutely brilliant. Are people actually using these "jerkTech" services though? If you've got the SFPark app, why would you bother with Monkey Parking? I get the feeling that they're all enjoying the free hype/hate which is being doled out right now as it's probably steering more users their way. Ultimately though there is no way any of these services will be viab…

SFPark's most useful feature - the per-spot sensors - was disabled last year ... Kind of a shame, that would have eaten Monkey Parking's lunch, I think. Not sure if people really used it or if people use Monkey Parking at all, but the hate doesn't really help the image problem that tech already has in SF.

> It's a similar thing for making restaurant reservations. If restaurants start getting hit with a ton of no shows to the point where they're losing money, it doesn't take long to figure out that it's listed and file a cease-and-desist order.

Trying so hard not to rage here. I own a restaurant. Reservationhop guy could have spent literally a few more seconds taking his idea to the logical conclusion that he should work with restaurants - just like EVERY OTHER service involved including the ones in his defensive blog post. Nope. It's like all he saw was "oh, something like ticket scalpers for concerts!" and ended there.

Not sure why they jumped to the stupidest option possible instead of taking a look at seriously starting something in the big, generic, terribly done to date foodservice needs area (everything from reservations to POS systems) or becoming the Airbnb of privately owned parking spaces. You'd think they'd see the nonviability of their ideas sooner.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#133

Post by eevilspock » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:21 AM UTC

gfodor wrote: post #121

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…

Why is advertising "fundamentally manipulative and dishonest?" People aren't stupid. Give them more credit. Truly effective advertising gives more credit to its viewers than you seem to. Have you ever run an advertising campaign? Do you know anything about marketing a product? Cynically manipulating people may help you in the short run, but good sales and marketing is about informing people of value you can provide i…

The Co-Founder and CTO of Adtuitive, an ad platform startup, defending advertising! You make Upton Sinclair proud!

Like I said, "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."

People can be stupid. People can be manipulated. Propaganda works. Take political ads. Which ones work best, the ones that manipulate your perceptions and emotions and ignorance, or the ones that "respect [your] time and intelligence" with the honest whole truth?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#134

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:23 AM UTC

untog wrote: post #103

NhanH wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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. Have trickle down economics ever been proven to actually work? Either way, my problem is this: millionaires don't care about running one-off, unique restaurants. They'd want to set up a chain, or something similarly profitable. So if we go with this "redirecting money to rich people…

McDonalds doesn't require reservation and nobody would pay for a reservation to McDonalds. In order for the scheme to work, you need to have restaurant that is so popular that people would pay premium just to get a reservation there. That's not McDonalds, that's usually the same one-off, unique restaurant, and rich people would seem to care well enough for it if they agree to pay just to get into the door. So there's no threat to such restaurants in it, and it mere existence denies such threat.

Now, I think it's a very dick move for other reasons - because if it succeeds it would actually make the world a worse place - restaurants just start charging for reservations or stop taking ones remotely. They make a couple of bucks but everybody else suffers a lot. It's despicable.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#135

Post by neumann » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:44 AM UTC

rahimnathwani wrote: post #131

neumann wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand this logic. What original ticket purchaser? Scalpers aren't like eBay. They have bought up the tickets from the venue at certain amount, depriving others of a limited resource at that same value, and now offering it a higher value to people who didn't have the means to buy it as fast as the scalper. The disruption the scalper is introducing into an existing system benefits nobody but themselves.

I'm not willing to pay more than face value for tickets so, if scalpers didn't exist, I would be better off. I'd have an x% chance (where x There are rich people who are willing to pay up to 4x face value. They are very happy to pay 2x face value and get to go to every show they want. Without scalpers, they would pay less per show, but would totally miss out on some shows. The scalper benefits those guys, at the expe…

That's a good point I had (subconcisouly refused) to consider as value.

Value is added to the rich. Further offending my socialist dream. ;)

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#136

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:47 AM UTC

bildung wrote: post #125

marcus_holmes wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic theory. A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). Money is a representation of value (by definition). In Economics, value earned is at least proportional (if not equal) to value created. So a rich person creates more value in the same amount of time than a poor person. Their time is literally more valuable. In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In prac…

Economic theory. A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). Money is a representation of value (by definition). In Economics, value earned is at least proportional (if not equal) to value created. So a rich person creates more value in the same amount of time than a poor person. Their time is literally more valuable. The assumption of a rich person being rich because of the value crea…

I don't know about Germany, but for USA it is does not appear to be true. Which data your based your claim on?

Here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/moneybuilder/2012/04/20/most-wea... it says only 6% of wealthy people are wealthy by inheritance.

Here: http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2008/01/14/the-decline-of-inheri... they arrive at the same conclusion (minority got wealthy by inheritance).

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#137

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 7:55 AM UTC

kourt wrote: post #87

marcus_holmes wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic theory. A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). Money is a representation of value (by definition). In Economics, value earned is at least proportional (if not equal) to value created. So a rich person creates more value in the same amount of time than a poor person. Their time is literally more valuable. In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In prac…

A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). No, that's a person with "high hourly earned income". Making wealth is not the only way to get rich. For most of human history it has not even been the most common. Until a few centuries ago, the main sources of wealth were mines, slaves and serfs, land, and cattle, and the only ways to acquire these rapidly were by inheritance, marriage, con…

We're not living "a few centuries ago", however. And there is also an important qualifying word "rapidly". One doesn't have to become rich overnight to be rich now.

As for the "bad reputation", given that most things that were written and otherwise arrived to us were composed by people of some means at least (excluding monks, etc. which are harder to classify by modern standards) - really poor folks had high illiteracy rates, little spare time to create records that we could read, and not many people that cared for their opinions enough to create permanent record of them. So, given that, how exactly Paul Graham knows what reputation the wealth had amongst folks who weren't wealthy?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#138

Post by el_zorro » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 8:26 AM UTC

venomsnake wrote: post #130

marcus_holmes wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economic theory. A rich person earns more money per hour than a poor person (by definition). Money is a representation of value (by definition). In Economics, value earned is at least proportional (if not equal) to value created. So a rich person creates more value in the same amount of time than a poor person. Their time is literally more valuable. In theory there's no difference between theory and practice. In prac…

A rich person usually inherits more money. Abolish inheritance and almost all of the capitalistic problems disappear.

I'm really curious how you think this will solve anything. Children of wealthy parents don't have to inherit anything to have advantages that most poor children could only dream of. That is, unless you somehow abolish parents using their wealth to give their kids access to better healthcare, higher-quality and healthier foods, better educations, opportunities for travel, exposure to culture, and on and on. And if you say that yes, that is what you mean and all those things are to be taken care of by the state, then you've moved beyond even the socialized policies of the Nordic countries. Not that that's a bad thing, but it would be a little disingenuous to call it capitalism.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#139

Post by icebraining » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 8:50 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #107

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 are a bit different, in that they're taking advantage of inefficiently priced parking. The reason parking is priced the way it is is because it is a public good. The only thing "efficient" pricing would do is give wealthy people a massive advantage over the consumption of that good. You might like to live in a world where only rich people can afford public parking - I don't. That's exactly why the…

What about us, the people who take public transportation instead - definitively poorer on average than car drivers - and would rather breathe less fumes from cars driving around trying to find parking spots?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#140

Post by rahimnathwani » Fri, Jul 04, 2014, 8:58 AM UTC

jblow wrote: post #48

rahimnathwani wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scalpers do create value. After a complete scalping transaction: - the original ticket purchaser is happier with the cash received than with the ticket they had before - the final ticket purchaser is happier with the ticket than with the cash they paid - the scalper is happy with his/her profit - the promoter's/venue's revenue is unaffected So, three people are better off. Value has been created.

No, because the final ticket purchaser would have been even happier with the ticket plus the extra cash he would have had if he had not needed to buy from the scalper, and/or the venue or promoter would have been happier with the extra money that is instead taken by the scalper. Come on, this is obvious.

No, because the final ticket purchaser would have been even happier with the ticket plus the extra cash he would have had if he had not needed to buy from the scalper

But in my example, he wouldn't have gotten the ticket at all. The ticket would have been had by someone like me, who was barely willing to pay the face value, but was lucky enough to get one of the limited supply of tickets when they were released for sale.

and/or the venue or promoter would have been happier with the extra money that is instead taken by the scalper

But in my example the venue or promoter has already set the price lower than the market-clearing price. If s/he hadn't done that, then the scalper would not have popped into existence, as the market would already have cleared.