DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage • Hacker News Board

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#121

Post by TheTacoMerchant » Wed, Nov 18, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

granzymes wrote: post #3

> A hidden loophole, meant for small businesses, co-opted by multibillion-dollar tech companies to avoid accountability, just because they can. There are a lot of issues with this newsletter, but this bit at the end stuck out. The 'loophole' is for companies with - total annual gross revenues less than $1.07 billion and - less than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the past three years and - not a “large accelera…

You have mis-read the content. It state's that only companies with less than $1.07 bil can qualify.

Not sure about you, but my mom and pop definitely fall in that category.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#122

Post by andrewjl » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #120

andrewjl wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Averages can conceal just as much as they reveal. What does a society look like with those same averages but where the distribution of production is governed by power laws and the distribution of consumption isn't?

In the end, for people's welfare it matters what they can consume over their lifetimes. So flat distribution of consumption seem like an egalitarian utopia?

A flat distribution doesn't comport well with heterogenous consumption preferences. The latter is a trend that will likely intensify in the coming decade.

The challenge with discussing welfare is that different people have radically differing definitions of what it entails. A solution that's worked ok so far is to seek a minimal band of commonality. In the future, given current trends, it might be difficult to maintain even that and it will likely "snap" into several fragments. The strains leading to this "snapping" are the root causes of most headline political dynamics worldwide.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#123

Post by eru » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 7:25 AM UTC

andrewjl wrote: post #122

eru wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the end, for people's welfare it matters what they can consume over their lifetimes. So flat distribution of consumption seem like an egalitarian utopia?

A flat distribution doesn't comport well with heterogenous consumption preferences. The latter is a trend that will likely intensify in the coming decade. The challenge with discussing welfare is that different people have radically differing definitions of what it entails. A solution that's worked ok so far is to seek a minimal band of commonality. In the future, given current trends, it might be difficult to mainta…

I was suggesting a flat distribution in terms of the monetary value of consumption. Not what specifics people consume, which varies a lot with preference, yes.

Of course, some people like to 'consume' leisure instead of working to earn money to finance other consumption. That's a perfectly valid preference, just a bit harder to measure and model.

Re: DoorDash and Societal Arbitrage

#124

Post by granzymes » Fri, Nov 27, 2020, 3:01 AM UTC

TheTacoMerchant wrote: post #121

granzymes wrote: post #3

> A hidden loophole, meant for small businesses, co-opted by multibillion-dollar tech companies to avoid accountability, just because they can. There are a lot of issues with this newsletter, but this bit at the end stuck out. The 'loophole' is for companies with - total annual gross revenues less than $1.07 billion and - less than $1 billion in non-convertible debt in the past three years and - not a “large accelera…

You have mis-read the content. It state's that only companies with less than $1.07 bil can qualify. Not sure about you, but my mom and pop definitely fall in that category.

No I read it right. The newsletter makes it sound like Doordash is somehow abusing a loophole intended for SMBs when in fact the reduced reporting requirements are obviously for companies of their size.

Both Doordash and your mom and pop qualify (if your mom and pop decided to IPO).