181–190 of 461 posts
I have to imagine there's going to be a smarter way to finance and manage companies that don't have huge growth prospects. Sure, creative destruction and all that, but isn't there some size at which a bookstore works profitably?
So figure out that size, which is maybe smaller but still a chain, and get organized around that concept. Is that unrealistic somehow? Does it really need to be financed in public markets?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It sucks, but I'm not sure there's a better option. Maybe the best we can do is try and structure a society where getting laid off from a decent job isn't so damaging and scary on a personal level. Maybe we need to acknowledge that we're moving towards having a society where "everyone has a job that earns them their living" is untenable, because there will be less work for humans to do than humans to do it, and we…
> Maybe we need to acknowledge that we're moving towards having a society where "everyone has a job that earns them their living" is untenable No, we need a society that guarantees everyone a job, a job that will generate the income necessary for survival. We shouldn't give up agency and become simple wards of the state, waiting hand stretched ahead for the UBI to fall from the crumblings at the tech billionaires tab…
Has this guy never taken a look at his situation and noticed something off?
He works in a relaxing huge retail store reading books to kids for free, and makes above min wage and keeps his job for the next 20 years and supports 5 kids???
That’s insane, and completely abnormal. No one else with that same type of job has that kind of life.
It reminds me of someone I know who lived in an in-law with no rent control and no law against eviction, for 15 years, paying 60% of market rate. And then was completely stunned and devastated when the landlord gave 60 day notice. Really???
In Canada, Indigo is a chain of bookstores just like B&N. To counter the threat of Amazon, they have dedicated a large amount of their stores’ square footage to a lifestyle concept that sells aesthetically pleasing stationery, home goods, and gifts. AFAICT this has allowed them to keep afloat and they do still sell quite a bit of books.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's sort of like first-class flying. There's no logistical reason for not boarding the plane rear-to-front, but you can get people to pay for the privilege of being first, so why not? Non-Prime customers are second priority, and expected fulfillment is adjusted accordingly.
It’s a good analogy. I must be hopelessly optimistic to think there will be a reckoning for businesses that intentionally provide a worse experience.
While I still get some books from Amazon, I've been increasingly purchasing through Abebooks. They tend to be more accurate in what they stock with regards to ISBN, which is what I go by when purchasing a book as I like to get specific editions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, you didn't mention economics at all but all of your points are discussed thoroughly and pretty well agreed upon in economic textbooks so I assumed you weren't aware (since if you were, I thought you would have sourced them).
In general, conversations are more interesting and edifying when they consist of more than someone just saying "my reaction on this topic is what economics textbooks say" :)
My main point was bringing up unemployment benefits.
This is the flip-side of creative destruction. Amazon and ecommerce in general have given us a world where brick and mortar retail often just can't compete. 99% of these layoffs and restructurings, etc. are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The writer of this article seems to think that the executives are just trying to milk the company all the way down, but it's not even clear to me there's a better o…
> It sucks, but I'm not sure there's a better option. Maybe the best we can do is try and structure a society where getting laid off from a decent job isn't so damaging and scary on a personal level. Maybe we need to acknowledge that we're moving towards having a society where "everyone has a job that earns them their living" is untenable, because there will be less work for humans to do than humans to do it, and we…
Reading that Storytime guy’s tweet, I really wondered: Has this guy never taken a look at his situation and noticed something off? He works in a relaxing huge retail store reading books to kids for free, and makes above min wage and keeps his job for the next 20 years and supports 5 kids??? That’s insane, and completely abnormal. No one else with that same type of job has that kind of life. It reminds me of someone I…
This is the flip-side of creative destruction. Amazon and ecommerce in general have given us a world where brick and mortar retail often just can't compete. 99% of these layoffs and restructurings, etc. are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The writer of this article seems to think that the executives are just trying to milk the company all the way down, but it's not even clear to me there's a better o…
Cribbing from r/economics FAQ on automation -------- > It's important to note that the vast majority of workers (>90%) before the industrial revolution worked in agriculture, and that this number is now less than 5%. Why did the automation of agriculture not lead to widespread, long term unemployment? This is because disruptive technologies have multiple effects. They: * Destroy existing jobs * Complement existing jo…
In my mind one of the most distinguishing features of the labor world today is the growth of complete independence. You have solitary people start software companies and independently design, develop, and publish products that go on to earn billions. I think a big part of this is the efficiency created by current systems. The economic systems to handle payments are almost entirely automated. The system of publication processes payments and delivers product in an entirely automated fashion. And consumers can learn about and purchase your product also using fully automated systems. Compare that to times when software was sold exclusively in retail outlets. For that matter you don't even have to go that far back to times when computers themselves were outside the reach of all except the most elite of society rendering such economic possibilities moot.
And I think this trend of independence is something that will likely continue going forward. Imagine in a post automation world where things like industrial level machining and eventually even things like semiconductor fabrications become as accessible as PCs were let's say 30 years ago. This is a game changer that I think is going to be extremely difficult to predict the implications of. For that matter imagine automated construction bots capable of executing building designs all the way from ground clearance on up.
Let's get more agrarian. Consider things like automated micro-farms. People could use these for their own nourishment, but then there's also the possibility of automated delivery systems enabling user-to-user distribution systems where people could even make a living off of their land in an autonomous fashion. Right there are vast amounts of great arable land in the US that's for sale for next to nothing. In some cases you can get land literally for free. But without automation it's not so straight forward to monetize this. What would be the implications, if it did become possible? 4 acres and a bot?
The whole point here is that I think by focusing on training as a means of contributing to a large company as a means of earning a living is not necessarily something that will be a given in the future. These large companies are the ones that have the means and motivation to eliminate these jobs. The present already rewards independence vastly more than dependent labor and this is a trend I think we'll see grow exponentially in the era of automation. And that has very difficult to even imagine implications.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Haha, you literally just came upon the realization for the economic use cases for unemployment benefits and also the main reason our government has one. You should read some economic textbooks as the world will make a whole lot more sense once you do.
Believe it or not, I didn't just "come upon" this realization and I've taken multiple econ classes (though I'd like to take more). Also, our unemployment benefits are a pretty sorry excuse for a social safety net, which is why I wasn't specifically talking about them here.
What and how much of a safety net do we need considering the opportunity cost of supporting said safety net?