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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#501

Post by izacus »

scarface_74 wrote: post #312
ryandrake wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not proposing that at all. False dichotomy. Is it possible that there is a reasonable middle ground somewhere between “shield everyone involved in corporate wrongdoing” and “send every investor to jail?”

Your words were > One's investment into a criminal enterprise could arguably be contributing to or encouraging that crime Every shareholder is an “investor”. Well not really, when you buy a stock unless you buy at IPO or secondary offering, you are buying an ownership share from another holder. So if you really want to go after “investors” you would have to find all of the investors who invested before the company we…

You're reading the post of the OP uncharitably (which is against the rules) and are deliberately misinterpreting their words into ridiculous extremes.

Please unlearn that.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#502

Post by gruez »

FireBeyond wrote: post #423
gruez wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't recall anyone demanding that. That's seemingly what OP was demanding, given the displeasure he was expressing at uber for the practice. >but back when I worked in restaurants if things were slow I'd be sent home and know when I was expected to be back be that the next day or in time for the dinner rush. I wasn't randomly clocked off for 15-30 minutes, and expected to hang around, then suddenly told I'm back…

> It's the difference between employment vs working as a contractor. That's absolutely NOT the difference between employment and contracting. The general expectation from the IRS is that if you are setting someone's hours (and Uber is, the driver chooses to be available, but within that availability window, Uber can arbitrarily define them as unavailable), then they are an employee. Contractors don't just hang around…

>the driver chooses to be available, but within that availability window, Uber can arbitrarily define them as unavailable

This is basically the result of new york's legislation. In jurisdictions without such legislation, uber doesn't cap the amount of drivers that can be online. Moreover "availability" in this context is entirely arbitrary. The amount of fares available is still the same. The only difference is that uber caps the amount of people that can be online because new york puts them on the hook if anyone is "available" but doesn't make minimum wage. This was never the case for regular cabbies, but for whatever reason decided to apply this to ride hailing apps only.

>Contractors don't just hang around your job site because you tell them you don't have work for them now but "stick around 5 minutes or 2 hours, we might have some then".

Right, because the labor required to build a house isn't spiky like the demand for drivers.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#503

Post by olalonde »

ogleopoly wrote: post #483
olalonde wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to keep a free market from collapsing into one of the natural end states What is that natural end state? Natural monopolies are exceedingly rare, almost all monopolies are the result of government intervention .

[flagged]

Government non-intervention doesn't typically lead to monopolies. What monopoly are you referring to?

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#505

Post by latency-guy2 »

arrosenberg wrote: post #463
daedrdev wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company that makes the cereal is a low margin business. In fact most food that isnt high end is low margin. Somewhere they have a lot of costs to cover.

None of that answers the question of why a box of cereal that costs a dollar or so to deliver landed to a store costs me $8 to buy. Middle men are taking a huge chunk of the pie!

> costs a dollar or so to deliver landed to a store costs me $8 to buy.

Delivery optimization, logistics, and last mile operations are an unfathomably difficult problem(s) to solve, so much so that the entire world participates and there are still enormous gaps in efficiency, many that likely will never be solved due to physics.

I know you're plain wrong about it costing "a dollar" to deliver. Even if it did, you do not pay for just the operational cost, you pay for the convenience, expertise, reliability, or many other factors that comes with procuring a contract/agreement.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#506

Post by keybored »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #485
keybored wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You still have the problem of punishing diffuse guilt. Corporations are hierarchical. > however, because corporations have many stakeholders who may not deserve punishment, e.g. employees. Hiding behind the employees. The ones with the least stake in the company. That’s a classic. They might have their two weeks notice. What else? “There might be no other jobs around?” Class collaboration is a lie.

> They might have their two weeks notice. What else? “There might be no other jobs around?” "Let them eat cake" isn't a winning pitch when it's your job on the line.

You are trying to turn “the corporations are committing crimes” into “the peasants are starving”. I know that this is board of diverse backgrounds, but you have to be very out of touch for that hilarious reversal to be convincing.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#507

Post by RHSeeger »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #399
RHSeeger wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't doubt uber could have done better here, but characterizing poor UI as "circumvent the NYC law to try and ensure Uber drivers get a fair minimum wage" is a stretch. Honestly, that's _exactly_ what it looks like to me. Law makes it so that they have to pay drivers that are available to drive but aren't actively involved in a fair... so they change the system so that, if they don't have fairs for you you're no…

The actual problem is that it's a stupid law. You effectively have two options. Option one, Uber signs up as many drivers as they have customers during off-peak hours and then if you want to drive only during peak hours to take advantage of surge pricing you can't and if you want a ride then there won't be enough drivers, because they won't sign up any more if they'd have to pay someone for 8 hours to have them only…

Option 3 - You hire enough people to cover general demand, have surge prices to lower demand when there's not enough drivers, and charge prices for normal/lower demand that allows you to make sure everyone you have on duty makes at least minimum wage.

And if you _can't_ find a solution that allows you to pay everyone minimum wage, then you don't get to do business. I can think of plenty of businesses I could set up that would make me money and allow me to pay the people that work for me below minimum wage. But, see, we don't allow that; and we created a minimum wage law to make it very clear that we don't allow that.

Not every business model is viable given the rules society has setup (to protext society as a whole)

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#509

Post by itsoktocry »

gruez wrote: post #163
adminu wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then, there is a switch to the most traditional of businesses with the most traditional business models. Who, the author argues, are engaging in price gauging. In the second paragraph he claims that apps cause this inflation He is saying that the traditional businesses use an app that allows for a legal way of price gauging. > The last paragraph portraits a stunning lack of economic knowledge, as companies raising…

>The author claims, that these companies raise prices more than inflation based cost increases in production would allow for. That's just supply and demand? People get mad that when there's an oil shortage, that oil companies raise prices above the cost of production, but they're happy to see oil companies' margin collapse when there's an oil glut.

True market clearing prices depend on easy entrance and exit of participants in the market. Apparently that isn't the case with potatoes, per the article.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#510

Post by RHSeeger »

gruez wrote: post #396
RHSeeger wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't doubt uber could have done better here, but characterizing poor UI as "circumvent the NYC law to try and ensure Uber drivers get a fair minimum wage" is a stretch. Honestly, that's _exactly_ what it looks like to me. Law makes it so that they have to pay drivers that are available to drive but aren't actively involved in a fair... so they change the system so that, if they don't have fairs for you you're no…

>Honestly, that's _exactly_ what it looks like to me. Law makes it so that they have to pay drivers that are available to drive but aren't actively involved in a fair... so they change the system so that, if they don't have fairs for you you're not considered available to drive. Everything about that reeks of trying to circumvent the law. How is this any different than minimum wage laws which are ostensibly enacted t…

> How is this any different than minimum wage laws which are ostensibly enacted to increase worker's salaries, but businesses respond by hiring people for fewer hours?

Nobody is hiring more people to counter the laws "to increase worker's salaries", they're hiring fewer workers to counter the laws that require certain benefits (health insurance) for full time workers. That's a totally different issue.

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