True, but heaping viral amounts of scorn on the founders of this particular business seems pretty arbitrary. You could make the same argument against any chain store for example.
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I’m not sure the business model has been decided by this point. I think I saw some mention of these being sold to individual small operators. But arguendo - yes, monopolies in robots are a huge potential problem when it comes to inequality, on all fronts.
Are you sure? I lived in Japan for several years and I don’t remember any small “bodega” type stores but rather the ubiquitous national “konbini” chains like 7-Eleven and Lawson.
There are many family-owned restaurants and eateries in Japan, even specialty stores, but it sure seemed to me that the konbinis have basically replaced any small corner store that sells general items. At least that was true where I lived (not in a city).
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This is why Uber is a Ponzi scheme rather than a sustainable business - in the end you still need to spend money keeping cars on the road. The real business model is to subsidize billion dollar annual losses with investor capital and pay yourself a fat salary for doing so. Honestly, I have to wonder whether that is the original plan.
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Chain stores at least have to employ people so you can theoretically remedy the inequality by “traditional” means of wage/capital balancing. When it’s full automation, the revenues all stream straight to capital.
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I think they originally wanted to generate profit on the real inefficiencies of closed taxi markets and then, when the thing blew up beyond all proportion, latched on to automation as a possible long-shot salvation.
That said, they are still running the operation by scamming and shortchanging their workers at every opportunity and breaking rules other have to abide by, so no sympathy spent here.
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If it’s the automation part you’re concerned with, presumably you have an issue with all vending machines? And of course automated elevators, automated tollbooths, and the list is nearly infinite.
I think, like other “disruptive” start ups they basically thought they had solved a very complex problem with an obvious solution. There was lots wrong with the situation with taxis but that situation was the result of a continuing back and forth between different stakeholders. The idea that a new person could show up and cut through all of that without ending up running into the same problems that created the situation to begin with was foolish.
But in the end what Uber turned into was a business that could only cover about 40% of its expenses but that took in billions in investments every year.
I don’t think Uber started as a Ponzi scheme. I’m wondering if this venture is an intentional Ponzi scheme. Not that I really think it is. Part of deciding you are above history and traditional analysis is probably not comparing yourself to other, similar businesses.
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The dose makes the poison. When you start irreplaceably automating large segments of the labor market with machines built and maintained by other machines through a planning framework operated by algorithms, you start running into trouble. And I’m not even getting into autonomous Ethereum corporations and other post-human economic entities.
No, it’s a fact.
That description could equally apply to newspaper vending machines 30 years ago. They were dispatched using state of the art marketing data of the era (or “algorithms” if you’d prefer), and displaced a massive labor force. And saying these vending machines are somehow “built and maintained by other machines” strikes me as a bit over the top.
And on a sidenote:
I’m not intrinsically opposed to a new take on vending machines - see my previous comments in this thread. But in aggregate, this development will cause a major problem in resource allocation.
I am pretty sure I have read that story. Kuttner maybe?
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I know a couple of fine, skilled engineers who are still out of the work they trained and worked for and have had to fall back on significantly lower-skilled jobs. In essence, they were forced to, although they have skills.
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Sure, things change. But I fail to see how anyone benefits from “replace mom and pops with vending machines” besides the people who want to replace mom and pops with vending machines. What problem are they trying to solve, besides “there are still too many human inefficiencies in the system”?
There’s a breaking point beyond which optimizing for efficiency does more harm than good, and trusting companies to have some degree of “enlightened self-interest” in not crossing that line is to ignore an awful lot of evidence that there’s no such thing as an enlightened corporation. We’ve already largely automated the manufacturing sector. Now we’re starting in on the retail sector. What happens when automation and efficiency-optimization eliminates a large percentage of service industry jobs too? Sure it’s great that Amazon will soon drone-deliver milk to your front door, or that McDonalds will soon let you punch in your order yourself so you know that your request for no onions is actually acknowledged. But what happens to the people who used to do those things when every business is trying to shed jobs wherever possible to do more with less?
We do. About Walmart. A lot.
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Same here.
The original statement you’re responding to was not only assumptive, but awfully tone deaf about the reality that many people live in.
You can’t feed your family on mere pride.
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Is the issue their age?
The question is moot. Who knows. But does knowing that they’re in their early 50s point to anything beyond pure opinion? Would any hirer or firer admit to age discrimination?
It point to a confirmation of the general unwillingness of employers to take on older people. Which really sucks and is leaving a lot of useful experience wasted.
(I’m kind of wondering if this unwillingness comes from bosses resenting having anyone more experienced than they are in a subordinate position, lest they be challenged.)
