331–340 of 410 posts
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There is no scenario that's rather optimistic of you. Don't get me wrong there currently very popular and profitable so they don't need to worry about a Pets.com style crash. However, the barriers to entry are relatively low just look at Lyft. Eventually investors are going to want to get their money back, so they either start issuing dividends or face a hostile takeover.
Saying the barriers to entry or low is completely uninformed. The incumbent has a massive advantage in driver/rider liquidity that is nearly impossible to overcome. Lyft is the perfect example in that it still massively trails Uber in every one of its markets despising having very deep pockets and for many, a more attractive product.
AKA: Uber pays a lot to get ex: NYC and LA drivers, wins both markets, lowers payouts to make money. New competitor shows up in NYC so Uber dramatically raises rates in NYC and not LA. Then, before that competitor moves to LA a lot of drivers are going to get pissed there stuck with low rates. Basically, by attacking one city, Uber is forced to either raise rates in all its cities’ which it can't afford or piss off all their drivers.
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> the balance of power between the tech company and the "1099 contractors" That hits the nail on the head. A 1099 contractor has to cut some 30%-40% off their wage to support things like self-insurance, etc (or add yea much). If you're "working" for a gig provider, you're not a 1099 employee by the inherent nature of the thing. Granted, you're not in a normal employer-employee relationship, but neither are you a skil…
It seems like you're a 1099 as soon as you give a client your phone number to cut out HomeJoy. The law might not agree, but it certainly seems well within the spirit. Seems very common too (at least based on the HN comments).
The recent US Dept. of Labor interpretation suggests the same: see "Does the Worker’s Managerial Skill Affect the Worker’s Opportunity for Profit or Loss?" at http://www.dol.gov/whd/workers/Misclassification/AI-2015_1.h...
Of course then you're even more at risk of disintermediation, so you're probably charging for listings. It's a useful business but a smaller one.
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To expand on what you said below, imagine someone hires you to code up a simple API. You get started, but then decide you just don't like your job so you write 50% tests and hand it back to the client. Let's say the 50% of other tests weren't needed because your code actually ran perfect. "Here" you coldly tell him and walk off. Was it fair that you did a poor job for the client because you didn't like the work? Did…
> Did you not technically complete the job, but in a shoddy, unprofessional fashion? I don't see how that's immoral. You either completed a job to spec or you didn't. API works but you didn't complete the tests? You didn't do what you were paid for. No morality comes into play.
I once asked Adora why they are not a marketplace instead. She replied that the branding and bonded/insured cleaners would be more attractive to customers. Obviously easy to say in retrospect what mattered in the end, but I'm wondering what is a method to test this kind of assumption? I go by my own use case - I really only care about price, and I build trust by the person and not by the company. I prefer to stay hom…
It seems like there is a problem in the market when you have an overwhelming supply of people willing to clean, but low actual demand due to high price:value ratio. You can interpret the difference in price between the cheapest 'craigslist' cleaner and the professional cleaning service as the 'price of ignorance' regarding the honesty and quality of the cleaner. It seems that Homejoy was trying to control quality, and then claim that price premium for themselves (as does every other professional cleaning company), while pretending that their cleaners were contractors, not employees.
I think they might have been more successful if they tried to build tools that actually reduced that price premium, by making it easier for people to judge the quality of cleaners, in turn making it easier for the better cleaners to charge more, and driving the bad cleaners out of the market. You would expect the average quality/price to go up due to competition and better information, which would raise volumes, and you would still end up making money, just a smaller percentage of a much bigger market.
I recall the story about how Ms Cheung spent some period of time working as a cleaner, to learn about the cleaning business. I suspect she learnt a lot about the mechanics of cleaning a house, but not necessarily what it is like actually trying to survive for several months only on the income generated as a self-employed cleaner: I wonder if Homejoy's relationship with its' cleaners and its' business model might have been different if she had?
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You're mistakenly drawing a parallel between the two words. I am saying a cashier that is not passionate about their job is not _entitled_ to be uncourteous and therefore act unprofessionally.
I'm agreeing with that. I am totally fine with cashiers who are clearly dispassionate about their job and act professionally. I can see "the lack of passion," but it doesn't impact their professionalism. In particular, I'm worried about judging people to be unprofessional simply because they are dispassionate. They are separable.
I agree with you. You can be dispassionate, but hold onto professionalism. That's actually the whole point I'm making by saying even if you are dispassionate, you should still act professionally.
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Yes, but that doesn't mean you should exactly seek out the advice of those who haven't conquered the failures and reached the end of the road of "success". Everyone has their own wisdom to offer, but I would agree with the parent, there's more notable persons to learn from and I personally feel most comfortable with someone who has BOTH failed & succeeded.
Sorry, you can learn from other's failures just like you can their successes... and maybe their big success comes in a few years.
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> Did you not technically complete the job, but in a shoddy, unprofessional fashion? I don't see how that's immoral. You either completed a job to spec or you didn't. API works but you didn't complete the tests? You didn't do what you were paid for. No morality comes into play.
haha ok. Now what about comments in the source code? Should that be specified too? What about SRP inside the code-base? Should that be specified? Come on, we all know when we're pissing off and doing our best. I'm not say we need to do an absolutely amazing job for every person that gives us money, but me personally, I like to think of myself as professionally upstanding because I want to make my employer's dollars c…
Maybe its because I've been doing this for 14 years, but I produce to the spec. Of course, I'll make recommendations during the scoping process, but what I produce matches what I've agreed to with a client or employer; no more, no less. My time is far too valuable to me to provide anything additional than to what I've committed to. If you want to give your time away for free because you think you professionally upstanding, more power to you.
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>she got angry and refused to work until I went into another room. I would have kicked her out. Yikes.
I was tempted. The atmosphere got very uncomfortable. I canceled all my recurring appointments after that cleaning. I had a cleaner through a personal referral in Seattle, who for $60, cleaned my place so well that I'd be happy just coming home to the neat and spotless apartment. When I moved out of Seattle, she packed up my stuff for $160. Movers would have charged >$700. Needless to say, I paid her a lot more than…
I wanted HomeJoy to work and tried to use the service a few times. What the failure came down to: 1. The cleaners were not professionals. It felt like they were just recruiting anyone who wanted a job. You could really feel this with the lack of passion from the cleaners and the severe lack of quality cleaning. Most of the people complained and were quite rude sometimes. Cleaning is very much a skill as much as it is…
> the lack of passion from the cleaners I doubt cleaning other people's shit is anyone's passion.
This is not acceptable. No matter what you do, be a professional and strive for excellence.