Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#41

Post by mdellavo »

koolba wrote: post #4

> A weekly cleaning of a 1,500-square-foot home runs about $156. It doesn’t say what’s included but off hand that seems 2-4x expensive for a weekly house cleaning of that size. That (relatively) high pricing may be specific to Seattle though as they’ve got a high ($15/hr) min wage laws there that would apply. Combined with non-contractor employees, FICA, and benefits, they’re easily looking at $20+/hr in labor costs.

Came here to say this - seems like what's included in a nice big markup for Amazon ;)

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#42

Post by mseebach »

castis wrote: post #31
mseebach wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon and Google A couple of weeks ago, your list would have included Facebook. The future is a lot less deterministic than you think.

Yes, but does this make OPs forecast any less possible?

The OPs forecast is predicated on an understanding of companies like Google and Amazon being so big and powerful that they are immune to the ebb and flow that define normal market conditions and allow new entrants to prosper and old companies to whither when they no longer create enough value for consumers.

My argument is that when Facebook, a company until a few weeks ago commonly understood to be every bit as immortal as Google and Amazon, can be so deeply upset by a scandal that isn't even predominantly their own making (I don't mean to imply that FB isn't culpable, but CA did the bad stuff and explicitly and broadly broke terms in doing so), this immortality is a lot shallower than it seems. Facebook isn't dead, and won't be for a long time, but the idea that Facebook moving into Airbnb's space will immediately monopolise it for the detriment of consumers seems rather more of a silly fantasy than a "forecast".

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#43

Post by kaybe »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19
mabbo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We may not be there yet, but there's certainly going to be a day where online advertisers know a woman is pregnant before she does based on the changes in her behavior. I'm not sure if that counts as a dystopia or not. Is there a good word for "Weirdtopia"?

Helpful? I mean honestly, the whole point of computing is to do things we as humans can't do with data to make our lives easier. Now that it's actually doing those things, people think it's creepy and scary. If a computing system knows you are pregnant before you do then maybe it can help you take steps (like taking pre-natal vitamins, abstaining from heavy drinking/smoking, starting a savings account etc...) weeks b…

I can't help but think about how it would give you more time to consider carrying to term vs abortion, since there is a hard time limit and earlier is better in terms of stress on the body and ethics.

This would make it a target for anti-choice groups as well as internal company ethics, however, so it's a complicated issue.

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#44

Post by shortoncash »

CPLX wrote: post #39
rubidium wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The railroad barons are going to be the middleman for everything. They have all the best engineers and control all the suppliers.

They were for a while there, and it took legislation to fix it, it didn't just magically get better.

I am always surprised by the turn of events when legislation is not involved.

Several years ago, documentaries were coming out attacking Walmart over everything. Now it's Amazon. I don't hear as much about Walmart from the rabble-rousing press anywhere now. Moreover, Amazon ended up killing many of the mom and pops anyway. We could not get a Walmart near our city because of the political opposition, and in the end, the political opposition only delivered us a different overlord.

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#45

Post by jaibot »

neogodless wrote: post #38
RandallBrown wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon probably sees your browsing history from embedded affiliate ads on the websites you’re visiting.

I can only assume. It's annoying that I can't (trivially) block that level of information gathering. I use AdBlock and I disable 3rd party cookies. I personally don't think I've looked up anything that would "tip my hand", but I'm sure my wife has used my computer/browser enough that things she researches have leaked into the corporate overlord databases.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#46

Post by ubernostrum »

CPLX wrote: post #40
kakarot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is a lot less deterministic than you think. Unless our current understanding of physics is completely wrong, the future is entirely deterministic. I think you mean to use the word predictable , which insinuates that we don't have enough information to accurately model the future.

I believe Mr. Heisenberg would like to have a word with you.

Mr. Heisenberg would like to have a word with you about classical versus quantum phenomena.

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#47

Post by kakarot »

CPLX wrote: post #40
kakarot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The future is a lot less deterministic than you think. Unless our current understanding of physics is completely wrong, the future is entirely deterministic. I think you mean to use the word predictable , which insinuates that we don't have enough information to accurately model the future.

I believe Mr. Heisenberg would like to have a word with you.

We don't use quantum physics to measure significant amounts of time, we use classical physics. In addition to the uncertainty we encounter at that scale, the arrow of time is often irrelevant anyway.

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#48

Post by neogodless »

neogodless wrote: post #6

I'm in the weird position where, we are family planning, but (to our knowledge) unsuccessful, but started getting a series of emails from Amazon congratulating us and offering up suggestions like vitamins, baby registry and, of course, housecleaning services w/ discounts available. (The first email was, to put it lightly, premature. Now we got one that says "week one", and it could be right, or not. We don't know yet…

ETA: Too late to edit, but the point I'm trying to make is that Amazon is able to gather data on potential customers, and it's possible, even likely, that when you get pregnant, you start to think "paying for housecleaning" is worth it, and the combination of knowing if this is true, and being able to predict (or know) when someone is pregnant through their data mining and algorithms gives them a position to advertise directly to newly expectant mothers with these housecleaning services. This is, obviously, a big advantage over their competitors.

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#49

Post by htormey »

2_listerine_pls wrote: post #12

Amazon and Google will end up being the middle men for everything. You simply can't compete with a company that has all the data, all the money, the best engineers, the patents, etc... Once they like your business model, you are out of business. This is happening at an increasingly faster pase. There will be an Amazon AirBnB, and Amazon Uber, Amazon Food, Amazon Freight, etc... the future of free markets is not free.…

Nah, both companies have a major weaknesses that no amount of money seems to be able to solve. Namely, user experience.

Example 1, Dropbox: Google & Amazon seem like companies ideally positioned to destroy Dropbox. They excel at making network infrastructure at scale, they both have competing products and massive existing customer basis. Yet Dropbox has managed to compete and win on user experience.

Example 2, Netflix: Both google & amazon have tons of money and massive amounts of users to cross promote a premium video service to yet neither YouTube nor Amazon seem to have figured out how to produce consistently good original content to the same degree that Netflix has. Netflix should be dead by now yet it’s doing very well. YouTube/Amazon also have much poorer interfaces than Netflix.

I could go on. My point is that plenty of companies successfully compete with both Google & Amazon.

Re: Amazon Takes Fresh Stab at $16B Housekeeping Industry

#50

Post by matthewmacleod »

kakarot wrote: post #32
mseebach wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Amazon and Google A couple of weeks ago, your list would have included Facebook. The future is a lot less deterministic than you think.

The future is a lot less deterministic than you think. Unless our current understanding of physics is completely wrong, the future is entirely deterministic. I think you mean to use the word predictable , which insinuates that we don't have enough information to accurately model the future.

You seem certain of that, but I don't think it's been quite that clear for some time. I'm not a physicist, but AFAIK the Copenhagen interpretation essentially requires indeterminacy. Suffice it to say that I don't think it's as clear-cut as you do :)
Post reply on HN