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San Francisco bans parking space apps

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Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#71

Post by Nursie »

jtc331 wrote: post #46
Nursie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand this mindset. Parking spaces are a public resource. The city sets tariffs at a level it feels reasonable. Why should this public resource be priced at the highest rate the market will bear? Why should everything in the world basically only be available to those who can pay the top possible price for something? Why do you want to live in that world?

Because that's what balances the supply and demand. Artificially low prices are precisely what cause shortages. The kind of world you describe would far more efficiently allocate resource--even helping people to determine whether or not to drive versus bike versus walk versus other transportation. It also would help people determine the actual value of their property: should it be a house? A restaurant? A parking gar…

Shortages for who? You, that can afford to pay whatever you feel like? Or people on a lower incomes who would just be priced out entirely?

Your 'shortage' is only eased by making life difficult for others.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#72

Post by danielweber »

viraptor wrote: post #60
jtc331 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You pay to get in and pay to get out. Doesn't really seem like seeking [net] rent as much as it is efficiently allocating available resources.

It's not efficient if you park longer, waiting for someone who's going to pay you, rather than just pull out and let anyone else in. Drivers are being paid explicitly for making the allocation less efficient for everyone apart from the app user. It's the tragedy of the commons again.

Closer to racket[1]: causing a problem in order to get paid to fix it

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#73

Post by danielweber »

dragonwriter wrote: post #59
danielweber wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a longer comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7937577 TLDR: if it's a limited resource ("more demand than supply", colloquially), allocate it by money. If you want to help the poor, give them money instead of breaking the market for the resource.

> TLDR: if it's a limited resource ("more demand than supply", colloquially), allocate it by money. If you want to help the poor, give them money instead of breaking the market for the resource. If it is a public resource with a single public issuer, you don't have the requisites for a functioning market anyhow, so not auctioning it doesn't "break the market".

If I want to pay the market clearing price to get a parking spot but cannot, the market has broken.

This is otherwise a functioning market. There is demand that can react to prices, and the city can adjust supply based on price data.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#74

Post by dragonwriter »

jtc331 wrote: post #51
TallGuyShort wrote: post #7

I agree with Mr. Herrera, even as a libertarian. Apps like Uber and Airbnb are fundamentally different from this. You could make an argument that those apps should be regulated consistently with other business in the same market, but at the end of the day they are dealing with private property. This app takes property that is already paid for and maintained by all tax payers and holds it hostage (their metaphor is ve…

It's unlikely you're making [net] money if you're paying to get in and getting payed when you leave.

> It's unlikely you're making [net] money if you're paying to get in and getting payed when you leave.

Getting payed when you leave requires being willing to spend extra time when you are done -- and depends on how willing you are to do that. People with reasons for being in the spot beyond arbitrage may have other needs that make that less viable.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#75

Post by danielweber »

gambiting wrote: post #33
danielweber wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to see this as a foolish reaction of "there is a market? But markets are unfair because money, so let's stop it!" by the city of San Fran. In fact, it would take remarkably little to make me believe San Fran was that foolish. However, these apps also create incentives for people to not give up their spots until someone pays. It's an incomplete market, where someone sits on a shared resource until paid to mo…

Aren't the places made for,and maintained with public money though?

If the city owns a ballpark, and 50,000 people want to sit behind homeplate on opening day, you still need a mechanism for allocating those seats.

You can lottery, but then people would just trade the seats for money themselves. Why bother? If you want poor people to have more money, give them more money. You can even do it randomly if the lottery aspect is fun for them.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#76

Post by bobcostas55 »

Nursie wrote: post #69
bobcostas55 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your concern is for poor people being priced out of the market, the best solution is (obviously) not to destroy the market, but to subsidize poor people. Proper pricing of parking would bring in significant revenues, some of them could be directed to pay for poor people's parking.

Why? that just sucks more money from everyone while leaving the situation the same as it was at the start (first come first served). It's nonsensical

>while leaving the situation the same as it was at the start

No it doesn't. Less traffic, less pollution, faster parking.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#77

Post by Nursie »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #76
Nursie wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? that just sucks more money from everyone while leaving the situation the same as it was at the start (first come first served). It's nonsensical

>while leaving the situation the same as it was at the start No it doesn't. Less traffic, less pollution, faster parking.

And that's just not true if you're giving money back to the poorer folks so they can afford to park again!!

This works if you price people out of the market, not if you price people out and then subsidise them back in, and it's the pricing out in the first place that is my problem with it.

Or are you saying not to give the poor some of the money so they can continue to park, but just as a bit of a bung as an apology for taking away their access to yet another public service?

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#78

Post by jsutton »

300bps wrote: post #42

In this case, you have someone pay a small parking meter fee and then they sit in the public spot waiting for someone to offer them more than their original meter fee. This is very similar to domain name registration. You have someone pay a small registration fee (~$12) to register a domain and then they sit on that domain waiting for someone to pay them substantially more for it. If it is ethical for a domain name m…

Because domain names aren't public property.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#79

Post by techaeon »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #49
Nursie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't understand this mindset. Parking spaces are a public resource. The city sets tariffs at a level it feels reasonable. Why should this public resource be priced at the highest rate the market will bear? Why should everything in the world basically only be available to those who can pay the top possible price for something? Why do you want to live in that world?

>Why should this public resource be priced at the highest rate the market will bear? Because it's the only reasonable choice? Overly cheap parking is not just inherently stupid and wasteful, it also generates other problems: "cruising for curb parking generates about 30 percent of the traffic in central business districts"[0] You seem to think that paying for something is somehow inherently immoral, while being lucky…

Overly cheap parking is a problem for sure, but so is overly expensive parking. The articles you cite say that an 80-85% occupancy rate for parking spaces is most desirable, a figure I've seen before. Say the city determines that for every dollar parking is increased demand drops 10% and at $2 an hour demand is the optimal 80%. That means that the market is most profitable when parking spaces are actually $5 an hour and demand is 50%.

In the closed world of parking spaces $5 an hour is the optimal rate, but in reality this could be disastrous for traffic and business who are now dealing with increased congestion and reduced customers respectively. Taking the ability to set pricing out of the control of the city and placing it with independent/selfish actors might have unforeseen ripple effects on the wider community. Therefore it should well within the city's right as an actor who is responsible to the community to direct the use of its property as best suits the public good.

Re: San Francisco bans parking space apps

#80

Post by naturalethic »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #5

Well, duh ! They have an app that auctions the public parking space you are currently in - and you wait in it till the buyer arrives How did anyone expect that would remain ethical or legal? There are many ways technology could improve parking in SF but making private profits off public resources is not it.

Nature finds a way. The free market is the little green shoots growing up between the cracks of the grey statist utopian paved earth. Technology is allowing innovators to outpace the entitled dullards that inhabit the halls of political privilege. They'll shut this down, with all you fine citizens celebrating, but the innovators will route around it again.
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