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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'

#71

Post by meheleventyone »

humanrebar wrote: post #44
falcolas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is when the housekeeping itself becomes part of the gig economy.

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

#72

Post by archagon »

dtech wrote: post #7
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…

> 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…

I was just in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the city is chock-full of these tiny taxi-buses called "marshrutki". You can use the regular public transit card and everything — costs the same as a regular bus IIRC. Seems to work great and has since Soviet times.

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

#73

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> Public bus systems should really be exploring a smaller vehicle model more

Unions. This will have to wait for self-driving buses, though even then deployment is unlikely.

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

#74

Post by CaptainZapp »

seszett wrote: post #47
snowAbstraction wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

You can get a whole day pass for^the entire canton of Zurich for about half price. Provided you don't start your journey before 9am.

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

#75

Post by scandox »

saas_co_de wrote: post #28
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 interesting thing is that public transit systems are extremely inefficient. TriMet (Portland, OR) which has a modern mixed bus/light-rail system gets only 20% of expenses from fairs ( http://trimet.org/budget/pdf/2018-adopted-budget.pdf ) That is with charging $5/day capped at $100/month, so if fares were to cover the entire cost, the cost would be $500/month. So, public transit provides a bare bones, horribly un…

> No public transit system has ever done it.

Wow. Ever? In the history of mankind or just in modern history? Please elaborate, preferably at book length.

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

#76

Post by archagon »

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…

Seriously. I've seen "co-living" plenty outside the SV context. It's simply the best word to describe the idea.

I do agree that the SV take on the concept has a nasty VC-fund-ishness to it. Co-living environments should be democratic and cooperative, not run like a startup.

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

#78

Post by mmjaa »

"Silicon Valley thinks it invented ..."

Honestly, this got me thinking. There are so many things that in fact, SI just re-invent, but .. don't sort of get .. the re-invention.

Is this not just 'the thing' about SI? That all human activities can be computerised. So, its not about 'inventing', but rather 'optimising through computerisation'?

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

#79

Post by lykr0n »

baybal2 wrote: post #63
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…

Uber for buses anyone? Back in early nineties in Russia, when the public transport system ceased to exist in almost all second tier cities and below. People were relying in people driving on mini-van taxis that were driving "approximate routes" where the driver was changing his route at will to get more passengers. You was signalling to the driver by hand to be picked up, telling where you go, and he will tell if his…

https://www.chariot.com/ seems to try and do this. Get enough people going in the same direction, and they setup a route for you.
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