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Illegal delivery services are my fav ones. People are physically running or riding like slaves to get you tendies from a KFC across the street. No, you are probably not a person who needs that due to some health conditions, you are privileged to buy their labor cheap and further their abuse.
My favorite part about those specifically is the “ghost kitchens” that operate 6 different restaurants out of the same building with the exact same dozen menu items under 6 different names in 6 different sets of packaging
I wish luck to delivery workers union, one of few functioning unions.
Did someone go through my comments and added two downvotes to each?.. Two downvotes, which is exactly same number to amount of them received by other recent comments. I call it “brown stripe”, because someone clearly has diarrhea.
You’ve made a friend.
I’m disabled, and I’ll very occasionally make use of them, but I hate them too. Fucking the workers, making my $11 chicken into $24, and complaining that they aren’t profitable to both sides. Absolute bullshit.
Back on the alien site, there was a sub /r/doordash. That place was toxic.
oh I thought you were talking weed or ketamine, not tendies. Fuckin love my online, legal weed market.
I don’t think we are on the same wavelenght, but good for you if you are served well, I guess.
I guess I’ve found the plagiarism machine the most entertaining so far.
I’d say fake money.
For uber, we’ve never had the overpriced cabs that it was made to circumvent in the first place. It was more of a wild west with lots of smaller companies with in-house made sites. We’ve even had an app that checked their prices, ordered the cheapest ones and cancelled others once a car is found. Then a major player entered the market, and they didn’t know what the fuck they were doing, giving estimates but driving by the meter, which ended up consistently much higher in the end. Then uber came, and started undercutting everyone with stupidly low prices, but their app/maps are an unbearable garbage. So they did a merger with previous one, combining the idea with decent app, and continued until competition crumpled. And now they’re screwing both drivers and customers hard, but there’s now no alternative.
The only good thing that came out of it is incentive structure and a punishment for drivers for not taking orders. It made it so that as a customer you can safely order without fear that you’d have to wait for hours to find a car - your hot potato order can’t be passed off forever, and somebody has to pick it up eventually, even if it’s a bad driver who majorly fucked up recently and now has to take it for redemption, or otherwise lose his job.
Airbnb never made financial sense to me. Because every time I looked there, I found the same, and much better options, for as much as half price on local ad boards. Seems to be just a convinience factor, as renters just put their properties at 2x there for an off-chance a rich tourist checks in.
AI to me seems like a dead end. The innovations are cool and flashy, but they inevitably fall short of being reliable enough to be useful. Like, I don’t use chatgpt anyhow because there’s always a chance it’ll spit out plausible bullshit which makes it so that every answer must be double-checked. And if you can find the source to check against, then why even ask the bot in the first place? Same for art, it can get you maybe halfway there, but refining the prompt takes skill and time that’d be better spend learning to edit and make real art instead.
But for cryptocurrencies I should’ve bought in way sooner. Even if they didn’t hit ATH’s every few years. I find that even drug dealers and crooks are more trustworthy than my own government, who is actively malicious, and has hurt my financial wellbeing harder and more often than even the crypto rug pulls. And that’s coming from someone who got hit by luna, ftx, and even mtgox, among others. Still better than the government straight up saying that you don’t own any of your money anymore. Yes, the ecological impact sucks, but it’s not a crypto problem specifically. I don’t see how mining is worse than, than, say, a literal mining operation across the road that uses electrical heating because they’re too poor to fix their windows and put proper insulation, and running heaters just makes financial sense? There must be regulations to make dirty power more expensive, which will make the problem solve itself. And if we have green energy, who cares what one’s using it for? Mine, game, hang christmas lights, whatever, who gives a shit
government straight up saying that you don’t own any of your money anymore
What are you referencing here?
I feel like I should be recognizing some specific thing here, but I can’t figure it out.
Well it’s third world problems, but the specific event I had in mind was when Russia froze all it’s citizen’s foreign assets in 2022 in an attempt to save it’s own currency from plummeting. This left a lot of people stranded, myself included. I did eventually get mine out, but the law, as far as I know, is still in place, so I tend to think it was purely by luck and some mistake on the bank’s side. Others didn’t have it that lucky, I’ve heard of people being fined as much as $400 for just trying. But, it’s just one case, I believe there’s lots of other places where you just can’t trust the government with money - African, South American, Central Asian countries first come to mind. Even Canada had a scandal where they froze COVID protesters assets - I don’t support the cause, but I don’t think the government should have power over dissenters assets either.
Sure, offshore accounts and physical assets can work in those cases too, but it can be challenging to get a hold of them as an ordinary citizen. Crypto circumvents that by being uncontrollable by design and widespread enough that I can exchange it in some back alley in one place and then again in another with less risk and overhead than any other way.
Ah, that all makes sense. I live in the US, so I’m looking at it from that lens.
don’t think the government should have power over dissenters assets
Agreed, but this is a thorny problem. Clearly the government has a legitimate cause to freeze some assets in some cases (obvious example: US govt freezing Osama bin Laden’s accounts). This becomes an abuse-of-power question, then. Unfortunately, we as humanity don’t have a good answer to it.
third world Russia
Technically, Russia would be second world :)
I do think cryptocurrencies fall short of the promise/hype with the exchange problem – either there’s a big bank-like clearinghouse that the government can target with freeze orders, or you’re in “You have to know a guy who knows a guy” territory when it comes time to actually use the cryptocurrency. I can’t pay my mortgage by transferring Bitcoin or Ethereum to my bank.
Good analysis, but I’d say your not taking a vital factor into account with “AI”, it’s only going to get better, and crooks, conmen, corporations, etc are going to find new ways to weaponize it. I use LLM’s often, and for my purposes, they are truly amazing (now that Google search is fucking useless)
I wouldn’t be so sure it will get much better. It might just stagnate, barely getting any better as we reach the limits of what is possible with our current hardware.
Also it’s starting to run out of good training material, once they’re ingesting a majority of stuff that’s already AI generated it might devolve like a kid whose dad is also his uncle.
I used to drive for Lyft, is it not a thing anymore?
Still a thing. A lot of the other competition died out though.
what’s the fake money for criminals
Cryptocurrency
that’s not fake money, and it isn’t “for” criminals. it’s real, and that’s why criminals use it.
All money is fake, it’s legitimately just made up.
it’s all made up but the only fake money I can imagine is counterfeit.
Gold coins?
OMG Such edge
How is that edgy? It’s a fact.
Everyone knows how money has no intrinsic value. What does pointing that out add to anything?
Just to contrast somewhat the saying that crypto is “fake” Edit: grammar
Go throw crypto at a stripper then!
they probably don’t accept tally sticks or turquoise as payment either. were those fake money too?
Yes.
great. live in your bigotry.
The fuck are you talking about?
They only “use it” to transfer the funds. Once they have it, they cash it in. No criminal is keeping it in crypto form. They use it the same way they use Apple gift cards.
tally sticks were debt tokens. people used them as money out of convenience, and would exchange them for cash if it was possible.
An easy way to tell if it’s “real” money or not is to see if goods are ever priced directly in it, where it isn’t just directly indexed to the exchange rate of an established currency.
Hint: Even places that accept crypto payments don’t do this. The crypto price fluctuates based on the moment by moment exchange rate to the local currency.
sumerians denoted everything in silver shekels but trade was done will all manner of commodities, including barley grains. your theory of money sounds like it comes from the Adam Smith cult.
Are barley grains a currency? I’m not understanding your argument here. In a practical sense, cryptocurrencies are far too volatile to use as a currency and the “stable” coins are tied to things like the US dollar. Well, I should say allegedly tied because “stable” coins like tether haven’t been audited to actually prove it’s tied to the underlying.
So latin American currencies are not real money. We already knew but wow harsh reality
tally sticks denoted debt in Britain, and were used directly as money out of convenience, but they were themselves denoted in roman currency iirc.
Can I ask what the point of arguing semantics here is?
Maybe you have put in the effort to figure out all the avenues to use bitcoin to pay for things, but its not easy and you sound more like a drug addict scrounging for metal and bottles, and then wondering why noone else is interested in your hustle.
Why do you care if people call bitcoin real or not anyways? For most people its not real, for you I guess it is, does that make sense?
If you’re “invested” in cryptogoboligook and you’re not ripping someone off–guess what?–you’re the mark.
Regardless, you can generally use money to buy things.
You can’t buy anything with crypto because it’s 15 years later, and “mass adoption” is never happening. It’s “fake money”.
since people treat crypto as money, it is money.
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Can you buy a tv with a silver bar?
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I can’t buy a TV with turquoise either. or sumerian shillings.
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I hate to be “that guy” but your definition of money is a little constrained. By that definition, the only “money” is the money of the country you’re currently in. Can you walk into a bestbuy and purchase a TV with Yuan?
You’re likely trying to say “Can you walk into a normal store of an appropriate country and pay with that currency” but even that is flawed, as certain stores don’t accept credit/debit, or don’t accept cash.
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Is it too thick sarcasm, incompetence or you just wanted to say smart cards?
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Crypto is an un-backed and unregulated security – the value of which fluctuates wildly. Turns out most people don’t like being paid in something that can drastically lose value in the span of hours.
The few people and institutions that accept crypto as payment either immediately convert it back into real money or are “investors” treating it like the security it actually is.
most money throughout history has been “unbacked” and unregulated
“unbacked”
I’m assuming those quotes are referring to fiat currency. Faith in the solvency of the issuing government, widely agreed upon exchange rates, and regulated prices of goods are all forms of backing. Sure: you can argue that’s “not enough” but crypto “currencies” don’t even have that. Hence why their values fluctuate by the minute – which defeats the entire purpose of “money”.
unregulated
… government controlled central banks and entire bodies of law exist to do just that. Nobody is regulating crypto.
Crypto lacks the features that make money “money”. It doesn’t have a relatively stable, agreed upon value. It’s not easily exchanged for goods or services. It technically can be used as “money” but that’s true of anything – trading cards, a pile of gravel, etc.
People certainly don’t treat crypto like money.
And I suppose that’s where our conversation has to stop because you’ve now outed yourself as willing to say any outlandish thing to support crypto.
Because I do not believe you can actually think that.
I am not defending crypto. I’m correcting people who don’t know what money is
Money refers to some token which is commonly accepted as a form of payment for goods and services and for the repayment of debts. In some contexts - dark web marketplaces, for example - certain cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Monero are money. In the context of the physical world, generally cryptocurrency isn’t considered to be money, but rather a security - a tradable financial asset, but not a form of directly usable money - the asset has to be exchanged for e.g. USD to be spent.
In this way, cryptocurrency is a bit like WoW gold. I can’t pay for my rent with it, and I can’t really buy any physical property with it, so it’s not money in that context, but in Azeroth, it’s money. I might be able to exchange my digital asset for real money or physical assets, but only in black markets.
Hope this helps
I can’t pay for my rent with it
Many landlords accept USDC
and I can’t really buy any physical property with it
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/miami-beach-home-most-expensive-bought-cryptocurrency
Dude, if it’s newsworthy then it’s not a common occurrence. And no, many landlords do not accept crypto lol.
You previously said buying property can’t be done. Now you’ve shifted to “not common”.
https://www.muralpay.com/blog/how-to-use-stablecoins-in-your-daily-life
How to use Stablecoins to Pay Rent While direct payment of rent in digital dollars might not be mainstream yet, Rent.App allows its users to pay their rent in USDC or USDT with no fees. By creating or connecting your digital dollars wallet on their website, you can input your landlord’s email and the amount you wish to send them for your rent. However, your landlord will need to create or connect their wallet to the platform to receive the money.
Now you’ve shifted to “not common”.
The opening line of my comment literally reads:
Money refers to some token which is commonly accepted as a form of payment
me too
I mean, the same can be said for Norwegian Kroner (assuming you’re not in Norway) and nobody doubts that it is money. I can’t pay my rent with it, or buy bread with it, I need to exchange it for “real money” (Euro for me) but it is real money.
Yeah, that’s what I was trying to explain - NOK is money, but only in Norwegian contexts. Runescape gold is money in a Runescape context. Bitcoin is money in the context of dark web marketplaces. The more contexts that some asset is considered to be money, the more widely recognised that asset is as a “real” money. If cryptocurrency becomes more commonly accepted as a medium of exchange, then it will more broadly be recognised as money. But as it stands, for most people in most contexts, cryptocurrencies are not money. I hope that makes sense!
Regardless of your personal opinions about cryptocurrency, that is absolutely what this post is referring to by saying fake money for criminal.
they’re not opinions, but I’m sure you’re right about the post.
With real money you can take out a loan. Kinda the whole point of money, it represents value that is owed.
While crypto loans would be technically possible it would be a foolish thing to do since it’s effectively a short on something that could increase in value. Real money has a small but steady (well, ideally) inflation so you can be confident in taking out a loan and not having to worry about the currency doing something crazy like doubling in value resulting in you owing double the value than you initially borrowed. This is not the case for crypto so it’s simply not a viable currency for financing anything.
Since it’s not viable for financing, it’s not a real currency and never will be. Like is someone supposed to take out a business loan in real currency, convert it to crypto, pay someone else who would then have to convert it back to real money so they can pay back their loan? Why would people want to do all of these conversions back and forth to and from crypto? Because they like the risk of the value dropping for the brief time they’re holding onto it?
your standards aren’t based on historical fact.
I can only imagine he means American currency, and the anti-counterfeiting technology embedded in it. It’s the most popular currency in the world.
Oh, bitcoin? The accounting package that requires the power of a small nation to maintain it? Well, I guess that works, too.
the bitcoin blockchain doesn’t require all that power. nothing about the code dictates that. it’s a social phenomenon, just like the markets.
The bitcoin blockchain requires more power than any other blockchain while providing less features.
The only outstanding feature of bitcoin is it’s price.
the bitcoin blockchain doesn’t require any power. any miner can stop, the blockchain would have less power, and still continue to function.
The bitcoin blockchain doesn’t require any power.
Yes. It does. No transaction can occur without proof of work being performed.
any miner can stop, the blockchain would have less power, and still continue to function.
Marginally less power, but nowhere near the reduction needed to compete with a PoS blockchain.
For example Ethereum PoS uses 2,600 MWh per year (= a single 1MW windfarm). Bitcoin uses 53,000x more energy than Ethereum.
the whole network could be run on two raspberry pis. there is no minimum power requirement in the protocol.
the whole network could be run on two raspberry pis.
No. Then someone would buy 3 raspberry pis and claim all the bitcoin.
Bitcoin was a great idea in 2008 but in 2024 it has been overshadowed by other blockchains in every single dimension except for market cap.
Okay, “maintain” isn’t the right word, but the mining process is designed that way and it’s baked into the whole currency. Actual work could have been done, but instead we burned it all for imaginary money (which isn’t much different from fiat currency).
Well yeah but… Fake money, is “real” money real? The support structures behind bitcoin and dollars or euros are different and both have positive and negative aspects. All in all bitcoin is worse, mainly for the power usage, but if it comes to ease and speed of transfer for the average user bitcoin rules. I guess we can mostly thank banks for that.
This raises the question of how much pollution is created by the dollar in the form of increased consumption from shortened time preferences. The dollar inflates to encourage people to spend more now instead of save, so that the economy gets bigger.
Man it’s so brutal when you think about it like that. Inflation is theft by the back door.
The feds job is to force people to stay productive. It’s a feature, not a bug.
These gains from productivity have gone to the wealthy, and the costs of pollution have gone to the poor.
That’s not how it works. When you invest into the stock market, it actually beats inflation in the long run. So inflation doesn’t actually make me spend any more money than I would otherwise, since investing it would still later improve my buying power even more
You mean that investing in the stock market is a hedge against inflation? I can’t argue with that. But not everyone has money to invest in the stock market after rent, bills, food etc. Unless your wages/benefits rise in line with inflation or you have money to spare, you basically only have the option of buying worse stuff or simply going without it.
Well yeah, but that you can potentially also do with crypto, I’d say that is a whole other level on top of currencies
Yeah but you can’t not do it without crypto
It should be called “unregulated money laundry for criminals”
Well… Partially. It could be so much more than just nerd investment gambling and criminal money, but the technology is just fundamentally too flawed for that.
There are many different technologies, which one is flawed?
I’m referring to all blockchain based ones. Block chain, by design, is beyond extremely inefficient
Only really true in some countries. In the Netherlands you can extremely easily and instantly transfer money from one account to another (even at another bank) for free, using simply their IBAN. There’s also apps for convenient stuff like requesting a small payment by generating a link or splitting the restaurant bill, etc. Again all working directly with your real bank account.
In France you need to physically go to your bank’s branch, prove your identity via 4 different pieces of ID, write a physical check, sacrifice a goat to the overlords, and then the transfer will get there in a couple of weeks.
I’m happier about being able to buy drugs on the dark web than I am about giftcards, even though they’re conceptually related (eg. both “fake money”).
You shouldN’T have to go to the “dark web” to buy drugs, unless it’s highly destructive like meth
(on a side note, I hate that dark wev name, it implies something evil, it implies that only hackers can get there, its just sites you won’t regularly find on Google, or different places like telegram channels)
Edit: damned auto correct
*Shouldn’t
Yeah, autocorrect
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Okay, but national currencies failed before because people would keep dollars and just convert at the time when they need to pay taxes
Source: I still remember the Soviet ruble collapse and hyperinflation
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Of course, but in the end they both rely on a social contract. Bitcoin is worth x amount because that’s what people are willing to pay for it
Uber
Airbnb
Bitcoin
OpenAI
did I guess right
I think the last two are more general, just cryptocurrency and generative AI respectively.
Also Lyft, Wamo, Cruz, and a few other small ones.
Seems AirBnB is the only main player in their category.
vrbo
There are also at least three ubers where I’m at. It’s more about a business model.
Fake money for criminals only because it was useful for me when I wanted to buy drugs while living in a place with little access to them
It’s especially funny since criminal enterprises have used “legal” currency since its invention. It’s almost like criminals are gonna criminal, regardless of the “tender”. 🤌🏽
“legal” currency
Are you goldbug?
The weed and lsd were to this day the best I have had too. I don’t love crypto currencies for many many reasons but it has been years and I still think about those trips
Cryptocurrency with Tor has unironically done more for drug safety than most administrations worldwide. I hate the framing “fake money for criminals” because while there are despicable crimes, not all of them use cryptocurrency, in fact USD was the most common last time I checked, OTOH what constitutes a criminal can be an arbitrary rule. Woman in Texas having an abortion paying with crypto? Fits the definition but I’m not sure people here would condemn it.
I’m not happy with how cryptocurrency turned out with the huge speculational bubble, NFTs, not even a huge fan of smart contracts but I think the idea of a decentralized and maybe even anonymous ledger is very much in the spirit of the fediverse.
Crypto massively helped me when the banks wanted 45 bucks for an international transfer for my buddy to send me money for something I made him. Fuck banks
I’m gonna pile on the “not happy” side with environmental concerns. You see, with Bitcoin, if crypto mining was as easy as just verifying the next block in the chain, it would be easy and the market would flood. You’d have hyperinflation. The system controls the rate at which new bitcoins are minted by artificially increasing the computational difficulty of the problem. And the end result is that crypto mining intentionally wastes power output comparable to that of a country.
the whole Blockchain could be run by two raspberry pis, and the cap is still limited to 21million. I suspect you don’t know what you’re talking about
It could be. I explained why it isn’t. Why don’t you offer an alternative hypothesis for why so much power is used?
it’s used because because more machines areining than 2 raspberry pis
Calling hashing “mining” was probably the most stupid thing in bitcoin. Since it have nothing to do with minting new coins. It is tru that miners get a bonus in addition to the fees of the block when successful. But that bonus is reduced regularly and will eventually go away.
The power consumption used by hashing became quickly insane by companies chaseing a quick buck.
That’s not even touching on the glaring fact that this anti-crypto sentiment is propped up by those who stand to benefit from downplaying its utility - until they’ve got all their plans ready to fire, of course. The same is true of cannabis these days, and (for those that read) was the same for alcohol only a little while ago, and tobacco before that. There is nothing in this current timeline that will be allowed to attack the economic power dynamic, much less correct it. This hype is as much a pre-packaged and deftly engineered product as the military-sports complex is, but where is the conversation on that, citizens? 🤷🏽♂️
Well, one is about to take your job while the others will just make your life slightly easier.
I shared this before.
If you were a person of color, having Uber and Airbnb were a game changer. Taxis and hotels were awful from the 80s-2010s.
Taxis were racists and often wouldn’t even pick you up. If they did, they often took you on a joyride. Hotels were absolute shit holes. Want to complain about your room? Go pound sand.
Those industries werent good for decades. And the disruption actually made car sharing much more consistent and hotel experiences better.
Taxis sucked for white people too.
Oh fuck off no they didn’t
Why do you think Uber took off in white only countries? Or how does Bolt exist. Lol
The fuck is a “white only” country?
Countries where the population is predominantly white and minorities are other also white ethnicities.
Which of these countries is not white? They’re all whiter than the USA. Ask anyone here and they’ll also say taxis suck lol.
Country Majority % Regional majorities Albania Albanians 97% Greeks ≈3%, others Armenia Armenians 98.1% - Azerbaijan Azerbaijanis 91.6% Lezgin 2%, Armenians 1.35% Belarus Belarusians 83.7% Russians 8.3% Belgium Flemings 58% Walloons 31% Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosniaks 50.11% Serbs 30.78%, Croats 15.43% Bulgaria Bulgarians 84% Turks 8.8% Croatia Croats 91.6% - Czech Republic Czechs 90.4% Moravians 3.7% Denmark Danes 90% - Estonia Estonians 68.8% Russians 24.2% Finland Finns 93.4% Finland-Swedes 5.6% Georgia Georgians 86.8% - Greece Greeks 93% Albanians 4% Hungary Hungarians 92.3% - Iceland Icelanders 91% - Republic of Ireland Irish 87.4% - Italy Italians 91.7% Southtyroleans Kosovo Albanians 92% Serbs 4% Latvia Latvians 62.1% Russians 26.9%, Belarusian 3.3%, Ukrainian 2.2%, Polish 2.2%, Lithuanian 1.2% Lithuania Lithuanians 84.61% Poles 6.53% Malta Maltese 95.3% - Moldova Moldovans 75.1% Gagauzs 4.6%, Bulgarians 1.9% Montenegro Montenegrins 44.98% Serbs 28.73% North Macedonia Macedonians 64% Albanians 25.2% Norway Norwegians 85-87% Sami 0.7% Poland Poles 97% Germans 0.4% Portugal Portuguese 95% - Romania Romanians 83.4% Hungarians 6.1% Russia Russians 81% - Serbia Serbs 83% - Slovakia Slovaks 86% Hungarians 9.7% Slovenia Slovenes 83% - Sweden Swedes 88% - Switzerland Swiss Germans 65% French 18%, Italians 10% Ukraine Ukranians 77.8% Russians 17.3%
I’m not sure you understand the parent comment. I didn’t realize how terrible until I hailed a cab, noticed someone who was actually also hailing but must have been doing so before me, so I deferred and offered the cab I hailed to him. The cabby noticed the person was black and just booked it. The person was resigned and indicated this was not uncommon.
I was sitting outside the courthouse with this cool old black guy smoking weed and buying it from him. This guy is a real badass and challenges my perceptions. When he waves me over to sit between him and this other black guy, the other black guy acted like I must have the plague or something and he wouldn’t talk with me or even look at me. He took the first moment he could to go sit back by Bob. The guy had fear in his eyes, plain enough for someone autistic to see. He was afraid of me, and almost certainly for my race. Feels bad man. Not because I super wanted to interact with him or anything, but because he’s clearly been through some awful shit.
Now imagine the old cabbies who wouldn’t pick up a black guy. Why is that? They don’t tip well for not having much money? Maybe there was even worse experiences. I’m just trying to say that there shouldn’t be any pressure for individuals to rub up against something that repels them like that.
The problem here is clearly that some industries have been dominated by particular races who tend to alienate each other and live in echo chambers. An industry should not be occupied by a race because that causes these kinda of rifts and lack of availability. I don’t think it’s fair to just be like “well that cabbie discriminated and let’s prosecute that.” We need to change the gears and lube them up!
The amount of times their credit card machine would just “break” so that you’d be forced to pay in cash and tip much more back then was staggering.
Reeeeee! USSA, please fix bullshit tips. My country is just 4 km away from you and it’s really concerning.
OR we can keep one fairly easily attainable, ubiquitous job that pays decently.
I’d rather make sure everyone gets healthcare than take away their tips.
If you get them healthcare and $30/hr (by the time we accomplish it), then yeah, take their tips.
Not sure about taking away tips, but they SHOULD be excluded from counting wage. Ability to legally pay worker zero because tips count towards paid wage should not exist.
100%
Interesting perspective I never accounted before thank you. Cabs were notorious for not picking up black people. Can’t speak for hotels.
Hotels prior to the Internet would do shitty things like:
- Rates increased. Pay triple.
- You want this moldy room or not.
- Lie and say this is the only thing available in town
Hotels took a long time to actually get online checking. Most hotels were still requiring phone reservations way past 2010. And even if you get a reservation over the phone, they could always take one look at you upon arrival and reject it.
Airbnb forced them to move to the digital age. They forced them to show the pricing up front. They forced them to have photos of the room types. They made them take reservations and actually hold it, else face bad reviews.
You could book hotels online prior to airbnb. I have done that numerous times since 2000…
The big chains for sure. But many did not - especially if you weren’t in a metropolitan area.
At least here in a european countries, taxis and hotels were overregulated and monopolized af. The business models of Uber and Airbnb may not have been the best at the start, but like you say: it was a needed disruption.
“I will never forget the look on that cab driver’s face as he drove away.”
-former business contact extolling Uber (this was in its early days), describing a taxi driver scamming her in a foreign country with unfamiliar currency
And now I’ve never forgotten her words…
My understanding is that Uber basically lifted the idea from queer people. They were tired of not getting taxis so they started a service called homobiles ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homobiles )
Uber then did all the shitty capitalism things and become the huge money hole and exploitation machine we all know.
Airbnb also made the process easy it lead to rents raising by like 30% in some places .
So they have have some convenience and such, but on the whole they’re probably a net negative.
My understanding is that Uber basically lifted the idea from queer people.
That doesn’t make sense as it seems Homobiles was first “thought of” in 2010 and properly founded in 2011. While Uber was founded in 2009 and was already operational in 2010.
I got it from “the cold start problem” , so it’s possible the author was mistaken or I mangled the details.
As a fan of major environmental catastrophe, can I vote for all four?
O’Doyle rules!! O’Doyle rules!! O’Doyle rules!! O’Doyle rules!! drives car with entire humanity off of cliff while continuing self-aggrandizing chant O’Doyle rules!! O’Do💥
Tweet[s] now protected but thanks to Netscape/Mozilla founder and San Francisco night club owner JWZ, Jamie Zawinski, here were some results.
Extremely confident source of misinformation
AirBnb by far is the worst.
Jesus fucking Christ this is cynical.
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It just might.
It is wrong
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I think it’s more absurdist than cynical, but is cynical really a problem here?
We’re running 21st-century technology on a 13th-century economic operating system. It’s bound to produce some outlandishly antisocial results.
As a developer and tech enjoyer, there are some inventions in the past 30 years that I can’t imagine living without.
But there are also some horrific economic systems and social dynamics that have taken hold in large part due to inventions of the past 30 years. Some effects that are so bad I’d gladly hit the snooze button on some of the tech to delay it until we figure out the social/economic side first.
Cynics can never see the forest for the trees.
You keep using that word…
Even a paranoid schizophrenic is right twice a day…
It’s really bad out there. Cynicism is at levels I never imagined growing up in more optimistic times. We are surrounded by wonders and have all the opportunities to reshape our world into anything imaginable but we all collectively decided to sit inside, read how other people are miserable, and internalize that misery so we’re also miserable, even though all we’ve done is read about other people’s feelings.
Our species’s default mode is to be cynical and lazy and I hate it.
The existence of more optimistic times should be evidence that this cynicism is not the species’ default state. We’re in a bad spot and we don’t even currently have the hope of revolution.
Yeah. Other people’s cynicism is bad enough but what really gets to me is my own.
I wish I could care enough to hate this comment
Our species’s default mode is to be cynical and lazy and I hate it.
Oh, the irony… A less cynical perspective would be that as a whole humans are pretty empathetic, and most people want to live in a world where everyone is happy.
I like the map that shows me where public toilets are. I don’t know how that fits into this paradigm.
Illegal Gloryhole finder?
Nah that’s a different app
