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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'

#81

Post by pbhjpbhj »

archagon wrote: post #72
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…

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.

Like an Isuzu van[1] with 5 rows of seats? In Greece I think they're called "dolmush" (meaning 'stuffed'), in Kenya "mtatus" (meaning 'worry').

1 - https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isuzu_Elf_Route-va...

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

#82

Post by Tyrek »

thriftwy wrote: post #67
barrkel wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "red tape and rent-seeking", and I hear "fly-by-night operators, fraudsters and scammers".

How bad your police should be before you can be profitably scammed by a bus?

Police aren't there to prevent the first offense - only to clean up afterwards. Regulation (read: licensing, etc) is more pre-emptive in heading off some of these issues.

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

#83

Post by yellowsir »

wastedhours wrote: post #61
seszett wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I've seen it in a few places, and it's common on the London Underground where you have a peak/off-peak fare - you're charged for pay as you go and it's your responsibility to know which fare you're going to be charged for the journey. It's also common on the trains, where most have a peak price (usually only in the morning). For season tickets (monthly, yearly), all fares are usually included (i.e. your pass allows y…

imo: this makes no sence, soudn't their be rushour discounts, so cities have more space without all the cars arround?

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

#84

Post by twobyfour »

mrighele wrote: post #70
rayiner wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Not having a middle class that can afford lots of labor intensive services is in my opinion even more a sign of a income gap, since it means that either you're very rich, or too poor to afford such services.

In an economy with a very broad and strong middle class and less extreme income distribution, the working class can demand higher wages than the middle class can afford. This was the case in the US during its strongest economic periods in the second half of the 20th century.

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

#85

Post by baybal2 »

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…

FYI: The company from whom they copy: https://www.youplus.cc/

I rented in youplus for 1 month. It was decent, but for a little more you can already rent a room, (which however will not be anywhere near as fancy in Shenzhen)

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

#86

Post by yorwba »

humanrebar wrote: post #50
brandelune wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And there seem to be higher order effects to the success of entire communities when there are relatively fewer nuclear families in the neighborhood.

Do you mean as opposed to singles or to extended families? In either case, I'd be interested in a source.

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

#87

Post by seszett »

yellowsir wrote: post #83
wastedhours wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen it in a few places, and it's common on the London Underground where you have a peak/off-peak fare - you're charged for pay as you go and it's your responsibility to know which fare you're going to be charged for the journey. It's also common on the trains, where most have a peak price (usually only in the morning). For season tickets (monthly, yearly), all fares are usually included (i.e. your pass allows y…

imo: this makes no sence, soudn't their be rushour discounts, so cities have more space without all the cars arround?

It makes sense in large European cities because people won't take their car (if they even have one) because transit is more expensive during rush hour, instead they will try to adjust the time they use transit.

And yeah, to answer GP I had forgotten that London has such a system that makes it quite easy to implement different fares for off-peak travel, I'm more used to places with fixed fares.

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

#88

Post by yardie »

cisanti wrote: post #45
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.

This is Guardians Opinion section. It's not news it's someone's opinion. I don't poorly judge the reputation of NYT or WP based on their opinion sections.

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

#89

Post by peatmoss »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #65
cisanti wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I could forgive the political bias, if the news would try to describe reality and only... you know, focus on certain aspects of reality more, and certain other aspects less. That is, if they would let politics influence their priorities, but not their facts. (Having such newspapers is still suboptimal, but as long as no one is lying, you could at least try to get a more nuanced vision of the world by buying multiple…

It’s an opinion article, which obviously has an axe to grind. The standards of journalism are, were, and ever will be different for opinion than for reporting. The point of this article was to poke fun at the sometimes silly tech culture.

Also, the comparison to Slimfast isn’t that egregious. I mean, Slimfast was always marketed as a way for busy people to conveniently replace meals with a “nutritious” substitute (according to some hand-waving standard of nutrition). Seems a lot like Soylent to me.

The Guardian’s reporting is often excellent. Judging the paper on the perceived slights of an opinion piece is just misunderstanding how news works.

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

#90

Post by thriftwy »

Tyrek wrote: post #82
thriftwy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How bad your police should be before you can be profitably scammed by a bus?

Police aren't there to prevent the first offense - only to clean up afterwards. Regulation (read: licensing, etc) is more pre-emptive in heading off some of these issues.

There's only so many minibuses. It's not an infinite number, so obviously, first offences occurence will be naturally limited by this fact.

Regulation also costs society money, indirectly taken from your wallet. You spend a lot of money without even solving a problem, because there's no certificate for honest person.

I would say, regulation costs 10x of cleaning up afterwards, which you still have to do. I would wait for the first offence if it was me.

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