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Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

theguardian.com

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Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#41

Post by [deleted] »

rayiner wrote: post #15
humanrebar wrote: post #4

> By “convenient” they mean anonymous people on minimum wage clean up after you. Hey, let's not stigmatize the upper middle class actually hiring people to do worthwhile work. That's how jobs, small businesses, and economic growth happen. > As was quickly pointed out by numerous people this is basically a “bus”. Just, you know, without the poor people. Likewise, this is a good idea. People sharing rides in smaller bu…

> Hey, let's not stigmatize the upper middle class actually hiring people to do worthwhile work. That's how jobs, small businesses, and economic growth happen. It should be at least a little stigmatized. Having upper middle class people be able to afford lots of labor intensive services is a sign of an unhealthy society with too large an income gap.

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#42

Post by humanrebar »

rayiner wrote: post #15
humanrebar wrote: post #4

> By “convenient” they mean anonymous people on minimum wage clean up after you. Hey, let's not stigmatize the upper middle class actually hiring people to do worthwhile work. That's how jobs, small businesses, and economic growth happen. > As was quickly pointed out by numerous people this is basically a “bus”. Just, you know, without the poor people. Likewise, this is a good idea. People sharing rides in smaller bu…

> Hey, let's not stigmatize the upper middle class actually hiring people to do worthwhile work. That's how jobs, small businesses, and economic growth happen. It should be at least a little stigmatized. Having upper middle class people be able to afford lots of labor intensive services is a sign of an unhealthy society with too large an income gap.

> Having upper middle class people be able to afford lots of labor intensive services is a sign of an unhealthy society with too large an income gap.

Getting well off people to spend is a great way to spread that wealth around. Especially when the money is going to sole proprietors and small businesses, as is typically the case for housekeeping, landscaping, etc.

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#43

Post by thriftwy »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their answer was that it's not economically viable for the public bus service There's a huge number of dollar van systems all around the world, they're usually profitable, sometimes profitable enough to wage wars against competitors. Public buses: Big, amenities, lose public money. Private minibuses: Small, rough, earn profit. Moreover, they can totally turn the table with regards of quality of life. Village where…

Is there anywhere to compare the wages, credentialing, and insurance of those drivers to those of a city's bus system? It's easy to earn a profit when you don't pay taxes or have to worry about liability insurance.

You say "credentials and insurance" I hear "red tape and rent-seeking".

UPD: But yes, they do have some paperwork. Its relevance is open to the debate. However, same applies to any paper coming out of public bus system.

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#44

Post by humanrebar »

falcolas wrote: post #40
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a developing economy like China or India, it does provide a good opportunity to transfer wealth from rich urban dwellers to poor rural residents. It isn’t clear how development could happen otherwise if some weren’t allowed to get rich first, and then pull up the lower classes. As a developed economy, much fewer people can afford house keepers in the USA. Our cleaning tech is better to compensate.

Minimum wage doesn’t pull anybody up. It is just barely enough to let them survive.

Nobody is mandating minimum wage here. And housekeeper is not a dead end job. People can small businesses or use good references and clean records (i.e., proven to be trustworthy) to move into all kinds of jobs.

Also cleaning houses is great work for responsible teenagers. They don't have to pay mortgages or anything.

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#45

Post by cisanti »

humanrebar wrote: post #4

> By “convenient” they mean anonymous people on minimum wage clean up after you. Hey, let's not stigmatize the upper middle class actually hiring people to do worthwhile work. That's how jobs, small businesses, and economic growth happen. > As was quickly pointed out by numerous people this is basically a “bus”. Just, you know, without the poor people. Likewise, this is a good idea. People sharing rides in smaller bu…

The guardian is notoriously left wing newspaper and it will always find a reason to blame all the problems in society for people who are better off.

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#46

Post by monort »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #35
thriftwy wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Their answer was that it's not economically viable for the public bus service There's a huge number of dollar van systems all around the world, they're usually profitable, sometimes profitable enough to wage wars against competitors. Public buses: Big, amenities, lose public money. Private minibuses: Small, rough, earn profit. Moreover, they can totally turn the table with regards of quality of life. Village where…

Is there anywhere to compare the wages, credentialing, and insurance of those drivers to those of a city's bus system? It's easy to earn a profit when you don't pay taxes or have to worry about liability insurance.

There are dollar vans in NY, that supposedly regulated and still profitable. It's really weird how developed world mostly ignores third-world model of private mini-buses.

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#47

Post by seszett »

snowAbstraction wrote: post #24
dtech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public bus systems should really be exploring a smaller vehicle model more I asked someone from my local bus service once. Their answer was that it's not economically viable for the public bus service, as the only major saving was fuel cost and the extra services don't provide enough revenue to offset the employee cost (otherwise they could service it with the large normal busses). So basically this becomes viable…

Two comments: 1. Something between taxis and buses could theoretically be viable. 2. Many cities already have rush hour fees on public transportation (or equivalently discounts for off-peak passes) so some price differentiation in bus lines seems possible.

> 2. Many cities already have rush hour fees on public transportation (or equivalently discounts for off-peak passes) so some price differentiation in bus lines seems possible.

I have never seen that anywhere in Europe or Canada, does that mean there are two different tickets with different prices, and you have to have both if don't know exactly when you're going to take your bus?

Also, I wonder how it works with a monthly or yearly pass.

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid »

falcolas wrote: post #40
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a developing economy like China or India, it does provide a good opportunity to transfer wealth from rich urban dwellers to poor rural residents. It isn’t clear how development could happen otherwise if some weren’t allowed to get rich first, and then pull up the lower classes. As a developed economy, much fewer people can afford house keepers in the USA. Our cleaning tech is better to compensate.

Minimum wage doesn’t pull anybody up. It is just barely enough to let them survive.

I wasn’t talking about the USA on that point. How does your observation apply to china or India?

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#49

Post by ProblemFactory »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #17

> Earlier this year, for instance, the ridesharing start-up Lyft launched Shuttle, which allows you to “Ride for a low fixed fare along convenient routes, with no surprise stops”. [...] As was quickly pointed out by numerous people this is basically a “bus”. Just, you know, without the poor people. Implicit Nirvana fallacy. Yes, ridesharing is worse for society then using (and voting to improve) traditional public tr…

The author isn't arguing that any of the services or products are a bad idea.

She's arguing against the over-the-top marketing for something entirely ordinary. "We will revolutionise transport with this new invention" instead of "we started a bus route".

Re: Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living'

#50

Post by humanrebar »

brandelune wrote: post #25
chrisseaton wrote: post #8

I think the author is being deliberately uncharitable. I think what these co-living spaces are proposing is more similar to an officers' mess, if people here have experienced that, than roommates, in that it's sort of like a private permanent hotel with private rooms, dining areas, kitchens, libraries, and staff waiting on you. As a young person it's a really fantastic way to live, very efficient, and it fosters comm…

Student dorms. While we're at it, let's rethink the whole social mess we're in with nuclear families. Vastly inefficient, totally anti-social. We need more communities.

Do you mean single family homes?

Nuclear families seem to be empirically less poverty-prone than other family arrangements. And there seem to be higher order effects to the success of entire communities when there are relatively fewer nuclear families in the neighborhood.

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