bgoldberg
- 267 comments
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@HeddiCundle What you said makes no sense, I'm afraid. Rent control prevents homes from being built, and then entrepreneurs have nowhere to live... have you ever noticed that there are 30 people lined up outside of every open house? That is rent control in action...
@WeAreMany @bgoldberg @mengwu You gonna respond to my point about how many retail workers at Macy's live in Walnut Creek and simply take the BART to work each day... and apparently don't have a big problem doing that? In fact, just a few minutes ago, I bought some fresh juice from a young woman who commutes to Pac Heights via BART and lives in Oakland. She seemed plenty nice and friendly, and says she likes her job.
You would constrict the most basic concepts of freedom and free markets to merely convenience some random Macy's worker... what a laugher.
@WeAreMany @mengwu A lot of the retail clerks who work at Macy's and Nordstrom live outside the city and commute here on BART, what the hell is wrong with that?
Oh, I forgot, in your utopian vision for the world, they are naturally entitled to prime Pac Heights real estate. And the people who built those buildings in Pac Heights are obligated to give these retail workers a free home. And those who are willing to pay for the Pac Heights home should get no priority over your arbitrarily-selected Nordstrom worker.
Got it, that makes a bunch of sense!!
@WeAreMany @mengwu Yup, this is an easy answer for those educated in economics...
Once the waiters and barristas determine that living in San Francisco is too expensive, then they will move to a cheaper neighborhood (this is how the Mission and Haight became popular spots), or they will leave the city.
Then the restaurant owners, who wish to keep their ritzy clientele, will have to either (1) give a raise to their waiters or (2) go out of business. They will always choose (1), and then raise pricing on their food, which the ritzy clientele will have no choice but to pay...
This is how a functioning city works.
Rent control simply slows this from happening, or prevents it from happening at all...
As said in the article, rent control is barbarism plain and simple. It's why virtually every single educated person opposes it, and why it is only kept in place by the ignorant.
@brianpiercy Sorry, Brian.
Nothing kills a promising tech idea like draconian nonsense laws from a local autocratic government...
@readysetawesome @WeAreMany Sounds like you know a lot about technology, and very little about economics. Here's a hint for you: the reason rent is so high is because there are a lot of people who want to live in San Francisco and very few homes for them to live in...
And the only way to solve that problem is to build more homes.
But the only people able to build more homes are the 'evil landlords' and 'evil speculators' who the SFTU loves to villify. And so, at the end of the day, I win, because my home's value has gone up a ton in three years, and my future tenant will be paying me a lot... so long as I pick one who isn't going to stay forever.
Would you give up your own retirement so that Wanda could stay in her house? Because that is what you are asking me to do... you selfishly believe that my income is less important than Wanda's. And you very paternalistically use laws to ensure that your warped moral code is instituted.
The good news is that I will never have to deal with a Wanda... only Kyles.
@danielschiller @bgoldberg Yup, and if you take your daughter's candy away from her, she will cry -- doesn't mean that it's bad to take your kids' candy away sometimes.
It's incomprehensible how wrong you are, Paul.
So let me get this straight... towncar drivers, who already don't make a ton of money, are supposed to work 12-hour days in the middle of a hurricane or snowstorm, despite all the risks to their vehicles... and you have a problem with them getting 2x payment for that?
It seems to me that a blizzard or superstorm is *precisely* the moment that a towncar driver should be incentivized to get out on the road, and while Paul the Idealist would prefer that they all do it out of the goodness of their hearts, I think that 2x compensation is the more realistic method.
Whatever gets the cars on the road is irrelevant — Uber puts them on the road, if there were no Uber, they'd be calling in sick for the storm (and who can blame them)...
@danielschiller @bgoldberg BR made a lot of money each year from remnant/DSP, which we always employed in addition to our brand sales. To the best of my knowledge, it had no impact on bringing down our CPM's.
In my opinion, the notion that running remnant ads on your pages will 'undermine' your sales team is complete hogwash that cannot be substantiated by even the slightest data.
@danielschiller @bgoldberg A small publisher can't. But a small anything can't do much. So if we assume that all companies aspire to be big/successful at what they do, then the question becomes this -- can a large/successful media property drive substantial revenue from brand advertising.. without their prices being undercut by low-cost DSP alternatives?
The answer is yes.
Bleacher proved it on a big (but not billion-dollar scale). And there are plenty of future examples.
@danielschiller (1) I don't believe in the ad network model. I don't think that ad networks make for good businesses, and I don't think that the publishers get much from them. (2) Furthermore, most great sales people in New York, Chicago, and LA far prefer to work for a publisher than for an ad network. (3) Also, who wants to buy a bunch of squares and rectangles, when they can get custom integrations, high-impact placements, and other great campaigns that no ad network can mimic? (4) Because an ad network is forced to pay out 50% of its margin to publishers, they will never have the budgets to do truly great campaigns for their clients, the way a publisher can.
In case you can't tell, I am not a big fan of most adtech companies. Only the few, innovative ones.
@decaturparkway Local is such a different business from national/brand advertising, so I am no expert on it. My gut tells me that he does not understand the media business as well as some other businesses (insurance, railroads, etc.)
There are a lot of people who fancy themselves 'media types', but there is a lot more to media than people realize. Very much an 'art and science' type of business.
@danielschiller There are a lot of great public schools -- I don't think that I was suggesting that all state schools are junk... though there certainly are a lot that are.
My least favorite people are the ones who greatly embellish their resumes to try and look successful. Embellishing your past deeds is like wearing somebody else's Super Bowl ring... what's the point?
@AlfredRose Good comment. My hope is that once we put all taxis out of business, that some of these drivers will get jobs working for Uber and Lyft, where they are held to a much higher standard, get paid more for driving on busy nights, etc. There are many good cab drivers out there, would love to see them re-hired into a better environment.
I know that words like "destroy", "eradicate", etc. may seem harsh -- but entrepreneurship is about looking at the world and doing things so much better than it literally destroys the status quo that came before it.
@SotiriosRebelos Would you like to elaborate on your statement? Maybe include something like a specific counter-point?
@Hughgordon If Uber is committing an ADA violation — and it sounds like they might be — then they should be penalized for it. http://www.equipforequality.org/programs/transportationrights/info_taxis.php