Slashdot Mirror
The Sharing Economy Fights Back Against Regulators
An anonymous reader writes in with a story about the advocacy group "Peers". The group says their goal is to “mainstream, protect, and grow the sharing economy.” "The growth of the 'sharing economy,' a loosely defined term generally referring to the internet-enabled peer-to-peer exchanges of goods, has brought with it a shift in the way we think about consumption. Its rise has been fast, and loud. What started with a few enterprising individuals willing to let complete strangers sleep in their homes and use their possessions has now developed into a formidable economic force that threatens to upend several different industries. Along the way, it has posed some major legal challenges. The companies that are pushing it forward have continually undermined local ordinances, consumer safeguards, and protectionist regulations alike. As a result, governments around the country are trying to reign them in. That’s where Silicon Valley’s newest advocacy group comes in."
The "Sharing Economy" is a race to the bottom. The people engaged are selling time and use of the only things they have left (houses, cars, and their personal time) for money to people still working because they cannot find a job that pays enough. It's people hanging onto a shard of what they used to have while renting out the rest. This can only implode, and the faster it grows, the bigger the implosion will be.
The predictions of the 40s and 50s about the future are coming true - robotics will do most menial labor, people will have more free time, except that free time is not evenly divided up among the population. There's the group working 80-120 hour weeks, and the unemployed or sub 20 hours per week minimum wage slave. That will continue until there are not enough consumers to support the people working, and then more layoffs ensue, until we're back in the serfdom and squalor of a good middle ages city with a wealthy elite and beggars and almost no one else in between.
OK, maybe that's a little extreme and apocalyptic view of the future, but where we're going is somewhere between now and there unless some major things change. Automation will remove more manual labor and service type jobs going forward, and there really won't be anything replacing it.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Oh my god, people are doing things I wouldn't do! I demand men in uniforms be sent to make them stop, through the use of physical violence if necessary! I'm just not prepared to live in a world where everyone isn't forced to be exactly like me.
Money is supposed to represent a store of value earned by an economy's participants. Forcing those participants to spend or invest it under threat of confiscation by inflation is not only immoral but also ultimately counterproductive because it interferes with market forces and leads to malinvestment and unstable market prices.
Maybe you live in a weird place... maybe you just don't know how food trucks work. In my town (in wild west Nevada) food trucks fall under the same guidelines as restaurants. In fact, the majority of food preparation must be done in an inspected and licensed commercial kitchen - not in the truck itself. The trucks and kitchens are both inspected by the health department - and contrary to what seems to be popular slashdot belief, it is really quite easy to track down a food truck if it's known to be out of compliance. They're bit, and slow, and have logos and adverts printed on the side. They're registered as food service businesses just like a restaurant paying all the same taxes. On top of all that, they have additional regulations on where they can park. So sure, you can open a restaurant next door to an existing one, but you can't park your food truck in front of the bar next door to an existing restaurant (at least, not in my city).
I wouldn't go so far as to say they are a "far better method" than a regular restaurant, but they serve a niche and are far from the robber barons you guys are trying to portray them as.
+1 Disagree