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."
You rein them in, you don't reign them in. They're horses, not kings.
The food trucks park in public, they have to adhere to normal regulations and are a far better method for many downtown areas. Why use up valuable real estate for a restaurant people will only be in for a few hours a day? Ride sharing seems fine to me, cars have to be inspected for a reason.
If you really believe that about most people you are a sad husk of a man.
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.
This has been going on for at least 60 years. HomeLink and Intervac have been around since 1953, using printed books at arrange person to person swaps long before the internet.
The smarter home exchange, http://switchhomes.net
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.
They swoop in, scoop up money and split, leaving existing local businesses struggling in the aftermath.
Ugh. We must have read different stories on food trucks. You're either jealous or wearing pink glasses. Neither is good for objectivity.
Ezekiel 23:20
That's the major problem, eh? Can't tax it, can't regulate it. As government gets larger and larger, it needs more and more money to sustain itself. It seeks out new forms of revenue from wherever it finds weakness. Renting out your spare bedroom in New York City causes a lot of losses. No bed tax (in NYC it's something like 20%, or used to be when I worked in hotels), no income tax for the housekeeping staff, no sales tax from the gift shop, etc.
Let's not even get into room owners picking and choosing clients. I've seen them proudly say that they check Facebook and such beforehand, only allow professionals and other clean people, etc. Yeah, what they really mean is "no Negroes". When the "sharing economy" is beyond the reach of government regulation, problems like this that society thought solved re-appear with disturbing frequency.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Hyperbole, thy name is Forbes.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
I wouldn't say "predatory", and I would even agree that food trucks and permanent-location restaurants generally fulfill different niches, but I would argue against your statement that people don't "go to a food truck to get a quality meal". At least around here, these days people generally go to a food truck to get generally-overpriced hipsterish fusion silliness, the same sort of food they'd get from, for instance, a gastropub minus the booze. Food is often (though admittedly not always) indeed quite fantastic, just almost always also overpriced. Totally different from the pre-2000s roach coach type food truck concept.
Regulation does have its value. Civilization is better off when food, buildings, etc. are safe, and freeloaders are not cheating. There are risks associated with the unregulated enterprises. Still, even simple things like barter and sales of second-hand merchandise are important contributions to quality of life.
But do the benefits outweigh the costs? That question doesn't get asked enough.
Of course, sometimes 'economy' is just a euphemism for 'bank accounts of the already ultra-rich', which is what some economists seem to think.
For better and most often worse the U.S. economy requires continuous economic growth in order to support it's debt-based structure. A $1.00 of debt today requires $1.03 of consumption next year otherwise the debt interest can't be serviced. This is why the Federal Reserve is so hell bent on preventing deflation, even going so far to say that a moderate amount of inflation is a "good thing". This fact is most critical for the U.S. Government itself since it is the largest issuer of debt in the economy. Sharing and frugality are incongruent with such a system so we'll see much more pushback if the sharing trend picks up steam.
It's easy to be cheaper than the established players when you're not paying taxes.
Where do you live that food trucks might not be registered and inspected? They are licensed with the city they operate in just like any other food-service business.
+1 Disagree
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
Others of us have, and decided we will resist such temptations, large and small, and speak out against abuses. We call ourselves christians, Buddhists, secular humanists, jedi, whatever. Basically, people who have decided to not be dicks.
I prefer the term "ethical" as it covers the specific individuals that act that way, without including the unethical asshats that also happen to use the other terms for themselves.
Now mostly at Usenet:comp.misc & SoylentNews.org (it's made of people!)