cc439

An untouchable subject.

The reason Uber initially blew taxi companies out of the water is because taxis greatly limited their service to what was profitable and we're incredibly difficult to work with should you be outside one of their comfort zones. You could always count on Taxis near an airport or for an intra-downtown route but good luck getting a cab to pick you up at your house to take you to another suburban destination. It's not that they'd ignore your call because they sucked at customer service, it's that your call is only worth it to them if there's literally nothing else going on. Even then they might not show up if your request isn't going to end with them back in a profitable starting point for another ride.

The unfortunate part of modern American medicine is that the pharmacy isn't likely to know all the medications the patient is on either. I'm currently going through a minor situation but have discovered that health insurance has, in some cases, switched to a model of partnering with specialized pharmacies for certain treatments. You're forced to use a specialized pharmacy for one specific condition while your day to day corner chain is completely excluded.

Room & board is practically mandatory and costs $17.5k. That cost cannot simply be ignored and was a fraction of that 20 years ago.

"The obvious problem is that I can’t see customers paying that much for delivery - ie. at those wages Door Dash can’t exist."

I am 100% ok with DoorDash and that entire market not existing. We somehow managed without it just 3-4 years ago and it's not like Americans need another ridiculously unhealthy eating option provided with even greater convenience.

How can you compete on quality when every delivery has been sitting in a box for ~10 minutes prior to pickup and ~15 minutes awaiting delivery? Pizza delivery companies like Dominoes spend $$$$$$$ to develop ingredients and methods that ensure that 25 minutes cold pizza is still palatable. That local hibachi or taco joint can't do the same. A cold, premium taco is just as unpalatable as the janky one from the cheap place.

There isn't infinite labor on a global scale but there sure is infinite labor willing to work for what first worlders consider a pittance. This basically highlights why I consider open borders immigration to be worse for everyone overall. The first world gets dragged down the societal ladder while the rest of the world is robbed of everyone with initiative plus the lost productivity they'd glean from uncompromised first world economies.

"However, if a worker rejects too many jobs too frequently, they may receive fewer job offers as a result."

They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red. Most people have a very poor sense for overhead costs like vehicle maintenance. The link between miles driven and the rate of repairs required just isn't there.

"However, if a worker rejects too many jobs too frequently, they may receive fewer job offers as a result."

They take those jobs because they lose all access to the chance of profitable jobs otherwise. The people working for door dash aren't exactly the sort of person with the ability to fully understand probabilities and statistics either. I'd say it's fair to assume their business model works by bullying the same psychological behaviors as videogame loot crates, lottery tickets, and casinos. That one huge order that pays $30 after tips quiets the anxiety of losing money on the previous ten orders even if the actual math places the driver in the red.

>We will see an economic depression, also caused by energy problems. The current quantitative easing is actually the first sign of the problems with energy:

One of the only realistic takes in this thread. The current, generationally low price of oil is built entirely upon the output of North American fracking. Fracking is the most capital intensive business on earth at the moment and most players are actually losing money. They are bouyed by the current, generationally low interest rates which are built upon politicized central banking policy. When interest rates rise, fracking grinds to a halt. When fracking stops, the price of oil shoots to 2008 or greater levels and the global economy grinds to a halt. The century scale economic depression that will result entirely invalidates each and every prediction made by the author of the article we're discussing.

Not saying where I learned this from, but the Amazon fulfillment services (fulfillment centers and their 1st party delivery services) have a greater than 30% month over month turnover in my region. No one taking these jobs has any intention of making a career out of it and most aren't even planning to work them for more than a couple months at most. That is exactly the kind of environment that encourages gaming the system in the way you describe because the risk of getting fired within the expected time period employment is so low that it isn't worth doing the job right.

That's a pretty clever idea and an easy way to clean $200k a year.

And how much of that 75nm feature is getting picked up by a diamond stylus? The stylii used in metrology grade surface roughness and contour analyzers can't pick up features even remotely close to that size and those are far finer and more sensitive that a turntables stylus.