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Stop The JerkTech

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Re: Stop The JerkTech

#171

Post by wpietri »

gizmo686 wrote: post #73
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.

Your analysis is slightly off. In a world without scalpers, the original ticket purchaser would not exist, because he bought the ticket for the purpose of selling it. However, your general thought is good. In a world without scalpers, person A and B both have a 50% of buying the ticket at price $X. However, the ticket is worth more to B than it is to A (in terms of real utility, not monetary value). There is real val…

What's your evidence that a market mechanism is most useful here?

When I think of the best concerts I've seen, the ones I really loved, they were mostly when I was young and broke. Now that I'm older and have money I can afford to go more concerts, but I generally care less. I could well be pushing out very passionate fans.

I suspect a better mechanism in this case is making people pay in a currency in which we are all more or less equal: time. If the venue just started selling tickets in one spot at a particular time, the people in line first would be the very passionate fans, the ones who dropped everything to get in line early.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#172

Post by wpietri »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #155
bildung wrote: post #125

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. The assumption of a rich person being rich because of the value crea…

Actually it doesn't matter how they became rich. A rich person creates value by investing their wealth in economic activity, which generates interest as a payment back to them "earned" by their investment. If our example rich person does absolutely nothing except put their money in a bank, and yet earns more per hour in interest payments than our poor person, that rich person is still creating more value in the same…

For the purposes of the question, which is about the economic effects of saving rich people time, I believe that's incorrect. Rich people leaving money in the bank are creating more wealth (for them), but they are not applying their time in a way that creates value. Thus there's no economic benefit in saving the time of the idle rich.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#173

Post by gjm11 »

metaphorm wrote: post #89
NhanH wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's a reasonable assumption for this discussion (that's not my personal opinion, btw). But trying to justify that statement will start a flame war and distract from the topic, so let me try to say that sentence in another way: Parking spot is a commodity. And just like other commodity in life, everyone values it differently. What's wrong in letting people paying for what they think it's worth for? The ri…

"The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix" its not at all an entirely separate problem to fix. society should not be structured so that rich people are always, fundamentally advantaged in every dimension. we should not commoditize everything.

Indeed we should not commoditize everything, but parking spots and restaurant reservations don't seem to me like great examples of things so important or fundamental that we should try hard to decouple them from money.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#174

Post by wpietri »

el_zorro wrote: post #138
venomsnake wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you abolished inheritance (that is, taxed it at 100%) you would certainly reduce a number of capitalism's structural problems. That's why even many wealthy people are in favor of large inheritance taxes. [1]

That would also provide you a lot of tax revenue for improving education and social services. Or you could just pay it out as a negative income tax or a basic income.

That wouldn't solve every problem of capitalism, but so what? No improvement makes everything perfect, but that's not a reason to argue against improvements.

[1] e.g.: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2012/12/11/buffet-...

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#175

Post by wpietri »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #110
grey-area wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startups like this don't create value. This is a very old hypothesis, and you are shadowing Marx in decrying parasitic middlemen. Value is such a indeterminate notion that anyone could be said to be creating it, but so many activities we take for granted (and which render us service) are parasitic in some sense - taking rent, opening a store of any kind, transporting goods, paying interest, manufacturing goods are al…

This isn't an issue of middlemen, value or the alignment of interests between customer and company. It's an issue of legality. Google operates a legal business. It sells advertising on a service that it owns. Period. The parking companies in the article are knowingly inducing their "customers" to violate local laws that forbid the buying and selling of on-street public parking. These companies seek to profit from thi…

And I'd add that even if it were technically legal to sell public parking spaces, it would still be a good thing to outlaw. The city's offering free public parking for a reason, and that reason isn't enriching a couple of entrepreneurs who moved here six months ago.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#176

Post by wpietri »

grey-area wrote: post #102
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…

Startups like this don't create value. This is a very old hypothesis, and you are shadowing Marx in decrying parasitic middlemen. Value is such a indeterminate notion that anyone could be said to be creating it, but so many activities we take for granted (and which render us service) are parasitic in some sense - taking rent, opening a store of any kind, transporting goods, paying interest, manufacturing goods are al…

I don't think all middlemen are parasitic. The guy at my corner store, for example, creates value by stocking a carefully chosen set of products very near to my house and having them available at all hours. He's basically an L1 cache. And in being that, he's not making the problem of goods-getting worse for other people.

I think you're wrong about Google. They create enormous value through the services they provide. They then monetize that mainly through advertising. They could monetize it other ways; if advertising were illegal, Google would still be raking in cash.

But their search-related advertising, unlike traditional display advertising, actually creates value for both advertiser and viewer because it's relevant to what people are searching for. In user tests, a former colleague was having people do Google searches related to shopping. One guy, unprompted, said, "Hey, you want to know the secret for Google? ignore the stuff in the middle. The really good links are over here on the right." That is, he found the ads more valuable than the normal web content.

Turning back to the companies mentioned, I think they are serving their customers well. The problem is that they are all creating negative externalities by forcing other parties to become unwitting free suppliers of goods they are selling. For the parking apps, it's the cities providing the public parking. For the reservation app, it's the restaurants.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#177

Post by metaphorm »

gjm11 wrote: post #173
metaphorm wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The rich will always have advantage in buying commodity, and that's a fundamental issue in our society, but that's an entirely separate problem to fix" its not at all an entirely separate problem to fix. society should not be structured so that rich people are always, fundamentally advantaged in every dimension. we should not commoditize everything.

Indeed we should not commoditize everything, but parking spots and restaurant reservations don't seem to me like great examples of things so important or fundamental that we should try hard to decouple them from money.

public parking spaces on city-owned land are part of the commons and are supplied as a public benefit by the city to the whole community. that is very much an example of things that should not be commoditized, or else we end up with yet another tragedy of the commons.

restaurant reservations are not a public benefit, and I think its fine to commoditize them IF AND ONLY IF it can be done in a way that is fair to the restaurants and the customers. we shouldn't tolerate a service that is based on lying to restaurants.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#178

Post by icebraining »

jamesisaac wrote: post #161
icebraining wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't pay for Wikipedia, how are they the product? Many people pay for Hulu and many other services, and still get ads, how are they not the product? That cliché can't die soon enough.

It's quite representative of the problem if you can't identify the difference between Wikipedia - a non-profit which is entirely ad-free and runs exclusively on donations, compared with the majority of other free sites which are funded by subjecting their visitors to advertising. No wonder Wikipedia has so to push so hard with its annual donation drives, if people can't even recognise the benefits of keeping it free…

I can identify the difference - the cliché can't! That's my whole point! Wikipedia is the proof the paying is not always required to not "be the product", unlike claimed. Hulu proves that it's also not sufficient.

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#179

Post by icebraining »

wpietri wrote: post #164
icebraining wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't pay for Wikipedia, how are they the product? Many people pay for Hulu and many other services, and still get ads, how are they not the product? That cliché can't die soon enough.

Wikipedia is not a business, so that's irrelevant. Hulu's just funny to me. You're paying to be a product. It means the business decision makers will respect you a little, but how much depends on how much of the revenue you're bringing in and what sort of industry it is. The cliché is an excellent guide to the situation. So many people don't seem to understand why ad-supported businesses work they way they do, and in…

Wikipedia is not a business, so that's irrelevant.

So it's not "if you're not paying for it; you're the product", it's "if you're not paying and the provider is a business, you're the product". And then we're just missing a truckload of exceptions, instead of two truckloads.

Hulu's just funny to me. You're paying to be a product. It means the business decision makers will respect you a little, but how much depends on how much of the revenue you're bringing in and what sort of industry it is.

People pay a lot to Comcast every month, does that mean they get plenty of respect?

Re: Stop The JerkTech

#180

Post by scott_karana »

wpietri wrote: post #170
fidotron wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's totally undervalued. Ask the average person if they think the price of parking is right and they'll probably claim it's outrageously high, when the existence and apparently enough-to-be visible success of this app prove the opposite is true.

You're making the same mistake I pointed out above. Ask people how they feel about getting a good parking spot and you'll clearly hear that they value it. Or measure the amount of time they spend driving around looking; it's a clear demonstration that they value parking. They do, however, expect it to be free. It's not a normal market. Note that the same is true about love and sex. Most people value those things high…

> Note that the same is true about love and sex. Most people value those things highly, but you won't discover that by looking at what they pay for it.

That's a great analogy in general, thanks!

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