• @Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    137
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    I shared this before.

    If you were a person of color, having Uber and Airbnb were a game changer. Taxis and hotels were awful from the 80s-2010s.

    Taxis were racists and often wouldn’t even pick you up. If they did, they often took you on a joyride. Hotels were absolute shit holes. Want to complain about your room? Go pound sand.

    Those industries werent good for decades. And the disruption actually made car sharing much more consistent and hotel experiences better.

    • @whoisearth@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      507 months ago

      Interesting perspective I never accounted before thank you. Cabs were notorious for not picking up black people. Can’t speak for hotels.

      • @Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        227 months ago

        Hotels prior to the Internet would do shitty things like:

        1. Rates increased. Pay triple.
        2. You want this moldy room or not.
        3. Lie and say this is the only thing available in town

        Hotels took a long time to actually get online checking. Most hotels were still requiring phone reservations way past 2010. And even if you get a reservation over the phone, they could always take one look at you upon arrival and reject it.

        Airbnb forced them to move to the digital age. They forced them to show the pricing up front. They forced them to have photos of the room types. They made them take reservations and actually hold it, else face bad reviews.

    • @Microw@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      117 months ago

      At least here in a european countries, taxis and hotels were overregulated and monopolized af. The business models of Uber and Airbnb may not have been the best at the start, but like you say: it was a needed disruption.

    • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
      link
      fedilink
      English
      87 months ago

      My understanding is that Uber basically lifted the idea from queer people. They were tired of not getting taxis so they started a service called homobiles ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homobiles )

      Uber then did all the shitty capitalism things and become the huge money hole and exploitation machine we all know.

      Airbnb also made the process easy it lead to rents raising by like 30% in some places .

      So they have have some convenience and such, but on the whole they’re probably a net negative.

      • @RomenNarmo@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        47 months ago

        My understanding is that Uber basically lifted the idea from queer people.

        That doesn’t make sense as it seems Homobiles was first “thought of” in 2010 and properly founded in 2011. While Uber was founded in 2009 and was already operational in 2010.

        • @jjjalljs@ttrpg.network
          link
          fedilink
          English
          27 months ago

          I got it from “the cold start problem” , so it’s possible the author was mistaken or I mangled the details.

    • @brbposting@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      27 months ago

      “I will never forget the look on that cab driver’s face as he drove away.”

      -former business contact extolling Uber (this was in its early days), describing a taxi driver scamming her in a foreign country with unfamiliar currency

      And now I’ve never forgotten her words…

      • @dariusj18@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        367 months ago

        I’m not sure you understand the parent comment. I didn’t realize how terrible until I hailed a cab, noticed someone who was actually also hailing but must have been doing so before me, so I deferred and offered the cab I hailed to him. The cabby noticed the person was black and just booked it. The person was resigned and indicated this was not uncommon.

        • @Mango@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          -37 months ago

          I was sitting outside the courthouse with this cool old black guy smoking weed and buying it from him. This guy is a real badass and challenges my perceptions. When he waves me over to sit between him and this other black guy, the other black guy acted like I must have the plague or something and he wouldn’t talk with me or even look at me. He took the first moment he could to go sit back by Bob. The guy had fear in his eyes, plain enough for someone autistic to see. He was afraid of me, and almost certainly for my race. Feels bad man. Not because I super wanted to interact with him or anything, but because he’s clearly been through some awful shit.

          Now imagine the old cabbies who wouldn’t pick up a black guy. Why is that? They don’t tip well for not having much money? Maybe there was even worse experiences. I’m just trying to say that there shouldn’t be any pressure for individuals to rub up against something that repels them like that.

          The problem here is clearly that some industries have been dominated by particular races who tend to alienate each other and live in echo chambers. An industry should not be occupied by a race because that causes these kinda of rifts and lack of availability. I don’t think it’s fair to just be like “well that cabbie discriminated and let’s prosecute that.” We need to change the gears and lube them up!

      • @criss_cross@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        177 months ago

        The amount of times their credit card machine would just “break” so that you’d be forced to pay in cash and tip much more back then was staggering.

        • @uis@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          47 months ago

          Reeeeee! USSA, please fix bullshit tips. My country is just 4 km away from you and it’s really concerning.

          • @Serinus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            37 months ago

            OR we can keep one fairly easily attainable, ubiquitous job that pays decently.

            I’d rather make sure everyone gets healthcare than take away their tips.

            • @Serinus@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              37 months ago

              If you get them healthcare and $30/hr (by the time we accomplish it), then yeah, take their tips.

            • @uis@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              37 months ago

              Not sure about taking away tips, but they SHOULD be excluded from counting wage. Ability to legally pay worker zero because tips count towards paid wage should not exist.

            • @RomenNarmo@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              0
              edit-2
              7 months ago

              Countries where the population is predominantly white and minorities are other also white ethnicities.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Europe?oldformat=true#European_ethnic_groups_by_sovereign_state

              Which of these countries is not white? They’re all whiter than the USA. Ask anyone here and they’ll also say taxis suck lol.

              Country Majority % Regional majorities
              Albania Albanians 97% Greeks ≈3%, others
              Armenia Armenians 98.1% -
              Azerbaijan Azerbaijanis 91.6% Lezgin 2%, Armenians 1.35%
              Belarus Belarusians 83.7% Russians 8.3%
              Belgium Flemings 58% Walloons 31%
              Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosniaks 50.11% Serbs 30.78%, Croats 15.43%
              Bulgaria Bulgarians 84% Turks 8.8%
              Croatia Croats 91.6% -
              Czech Republic Czechs 90.4% Moravians 3.7%
              Denmark Danes 90% -
              Estonia Estonians 68.8% Russians 24.2%
              Finland Finns 93.4% Finland-Swedes 5.6%
              Georgia Georgians 86.8% -
              Greece Greeks 93% Albanians 4%
              Hungary Hungarians 92.3% -
              Iceland Icelanders 91% -
              Republic of Ireland Irish 87.4% -
              Italy Italians 91.7% Southtyroleans
              Kosovo Albanians 92% Serbs 4%
              Latvia Latvians 62.1% Russians 26.9%, Belarusian 3.3%, Ukrainian 2.2%, Polish 2.2%, Lithuanian 1.2%
              Lithuania Lithuanians 84.61% Poles 6.53%
              Malta Maltese 95.3% -
              Moldova Moldovans 75.1% Gagauzs 4.6%, Bulgarians 1.9%
              Montenegro Montenegrins 44.98% Serbs 28.73%
              North Macedonia Macedonians 64% Albanians 25.2%
              Norway Norwegians 85-87% Sami 0.7%
              Poland Poles 97% Germans 0.4%
              Portugal Portuguese 95% -
              Romania Romanians 83.4% Hungarians 6.1%
              Russia Russians 81% -
              Serbia Serbs 83% -
              Slovakia Slovaks 86% Hungarians 9.7%
              Slovenia Slovenes 83% -
              Sweden Swedes 88% -
              Switzerland Swiss Germans 65% French 18%, Italians 10%
              Ukraine Ukranians 77.8% Russians 17.3%
  • ComradeSharkfucker
    link
    fedilink
    English
    103
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Fake money for criminals only because it was useful for me when I wanted to buy drugs while living in a place with little access to them

    • littleblue✨
      link
      fedilink
      English
      597 months ago

      It’s especially funny since criminal enterprises have used “legal” currency since its invention. It’s almost like criminals are gonna criminal, regardless of the “tender”. 🤌🏽

      • ComradeSharkfucker
        link
        fedilink
        English
        57 months ago

        The weed and lsd were to this day the best I have had too. I don’t love crypto currencies for many many reasons but it has been years and I still think about those trips

        • @Laser@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          167 months ago

          Cryptocurrency with Tor has unironically done more for drug safety than most administrations worldwide. I hate the framing “fake money for criminals” because while there are despicable crimes, not all of them use cryptocurrency, in fact USD was the most common last time I checked, OTOH what constitutes a criminal can be an arbitrary rule. Woman in Texas having an abortion paying with crypto? Fits the definition but I’m not sure people here would condemn it.

          I’m not happy with how cryptocurrency turned out with the huge speculational bubble, NFTs, not even a huge fan of smart contracts but I think the idea of a decentralized and maybe even anonymous ledger is very much in the spirit of the fediverse.

          • @MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            107 months ago

            I’m gonna pile on the “not happy” side with environmental concerns. You see, with Bitcoin, if crypto mining was as easy as just verifying the next block in the chain, it would be easy and the market would flood. You’d have hyperinflation. The system controls the rate at which new bitcoins are minted by artificially increasing the computational difficulty of the problem. And the end result is that crypto mining intentionally wastes power output comparable to that of a country.

            • @sep@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              -67 months ago

              Calling hashing “mining” was probably the most stupid thing in bitcoin. Since it have nothing to do with minting new coins. It is tru that miners get a bonus in addition to the fees of the block when successful. But that bonus is reduced regularly and will eventually go away.
              The power consumption used by hashing became quickly insane by companies chaseing a quick buck.

            • Victoria Antoinette
              link
              fedilink
              English
              -97 months ago

              the whole Blockchain could be run by two raspberry pis, and the cap is still limited to 21million. I suspect you don’t know what you’re talking about

              • @MindTraveller@lemmy.ca
                link
                fedilink
                English
                107 months ago

                It could be. I explained why it isn’t. Why don’t you offer an alternative hypothesis for why so much power is used?

          • littleblue✨
            link
            fedilink
            English
            37 months ago

            That’s not even touching on the glaring fact that this anti-crypto sentiment is propped up by those who stand to benefit from downplaying its utility - until they’ve got all their plans ready to fire, of course. The same is true of cannabis these days, and (for those that read) was the same for alcohol only a little while ago, and tobacco before that. There is nothing in this current timeline that will be allowed to attack the economic power dynamic, much less correct it. This hype is as much a pre-packaged and deftly engineered product as the military-sports complex is, but where is the conversation on that, citizens? 🤷🏽‍♂️

          • @Zealousideal_Fox900@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            37 months ago

            Crypto massively helped me when the banks wanted 45 bucks for an international transfer for my buddy to send me money for something I made him. Fuck banks

      • @jeffreyosborne@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        15 months ago

        For now… 🖕🏽 They worded that so weasely, they’re just waiting for the storm to pass and for Legal to come up with some compelling reason why they’re totally “obligated” to make it happen, “hands tied” “so sorry” and all that.

        Fuck Sony. They made this SOP way back when, and there’s no way they let this stop them forever. It’s all about profit, not what “we” want.🤌🏿

  • andrew_bidlaw
    link
    fedilink
    English
    927 months ago

    Illegal delivery services are my fav ones. People are physically running or riding like slaves to get you tendies from a KFC across the street. No, you are probably not a person who needs that due to some health conditions, you are privileged to buy their labor cheap and further their abuse.

    • Midnight Wolf
      link
      fedilink
      English
      677 months ago

      I’m disabled, and I’ll very occasionally make use of them, but I hate them too. Fucking the workers, making my $11 chicken into $24, and complaining that they aren’t profitable to both sides. Absolute bullshit.

    • @AVincentInSpace@pawb.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      77 months ago

      My favorite part about those specifically is the “ghost kitchens” that operate 6 different restaurants out of the same building with the exact same dozen menu items under 6 different names in 6 different sets of packaging

      • @uis@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        Did someone go through my comments and added two downvotes to each?.. Two downvotes, which is exactly same number to amount of them received by other recent comments. I call it “brown stripe”, because someone clearly has diarrhea.

      • andrew_bidlaw
        link
        fedilink
        English
        37 months ago

        I don’t think we are on the same wavelenght, but good for you if you are served well, I guess.

  • Flying Squid
    link
    fedilink
    English
    317 months ago

    As a fan of major environmental catastrophe, can I vote for all four?

    • BOMBS
      link
      fedilink
      English
      87 months ago

      O’Doyle rules!! O’Doyle rules!! O’Doyle rules!! O’Doyle rules!! drives car with entire humanity off of cliff while continuing self-aggrandizing chant O’Doyle rules!! O’Do💥

    • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      177 months ago

      Uber is also scum tho. Seems there’s always going to be something dodgy about getting into cars with random strangers.

      • @IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        67 months ago

        Uber, even today has a FAR higher success rate with my personally. Even two weeks ago I had a driver telling me his card reader wasn’t working until it magically did when I started threatening to simply not pay and walk away. This has happened to me multiple times even with my reduced cab rate.

        The worst I’ve ever dealt with in Uber is waiting and cancelled pickup despite using it far more often.

        • @FMT99@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          187 months ago

          The problem isn’t the user experience, same as with Amazon, it’s the abusive relationship the company has with its employees. That it deliberately tries to avoid labor laws that protect workers via legal technicalities.

  • JackbyDev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    217 months ago

    Probably illegal car company. AirBNB isn’t terribly different (as a renter) from previous renting sites. I made some money off Bitcoin but even then it is so much wasted power for something not terribly useful. Generative AI and AI art is fun as a toy but eh, that’s mostly it.

    Being able to pretty easily get a cab from anywhere to anywhere (obviously within reason) is actually kind of a cool innovation to me. It’s probably saved lives too by giving inebriated people an easy way to get a cab home. (But I’m not giving them a huge pass because I think they’ve been accused of finding ways to charge drunk people more.)

      • @madasi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        247 months ago

        You’re not wrong, but you are leaving out some convenient parts of the experience. Yes, before, you could call a cab company and they would come pick you up and take you somewhere. But, you didn’t know how long it would take for your driver to pick you up. had no idea how much the ride would cost you, and there was a pretty good chance the driver wouldn’t accept a credit card for payment whether it was company policy to or not.

        When illegal cab companies came along, they forced competition by giving you realtime information on where your driver was and how long until they would pick you up, price estimates before your ride begins, and a guaranteed method of payment that isn’t cash. Cab companies had to modernize with mobile apps, lower their prices to stay competitive, and improve the overall customer experience.

        For as badly as the drivers are treated by the companies, the services were successful because the existing experience with established cab companies sucked.

      • @nickiwest@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        147 months ago

        Taxi accessibility varies wildly depending on where you are.

        I lived in a small city (700k-ish people) for a decade and almost never saw a taxi on the streets. One morning, I locked my keys in the house and had to call a cab to take me to work. It took 30 minutes for a taxi to arrive. I lived literally one block away from the city’s taxi depot.

        A couple of years later, Uber hit the scene. With their service, I never waited more than 8 minutes for a ride anywhere in the city.

        • @iopq@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          17 months ago

          If all the drivers are out on call, it doesn’t matter where the depot is. But waiting half an hour for a cab was also my experience with calling for one

      • @iopq@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        37 months ago

        I use to do it in spare time, you can’t have a cab company without professional drivers that do it full time

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      6
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      Generative AI and AI art is fun as a toy but eh, that’s mostly it.

      If you keep an eye on low budget Netflix / Max shows and on a number of the popular digital journals (particularly financials) you’ll notice a rising tide of AI generated content. We’ve had this in the financial press for a long time - Benzinga is notorious for churning out tons of automated functionally-unresearched articles that amount to “Stock price changed because news happened”. But its creeping into everything else.

      Generative AI is increasingly a way of making really cheap, lazy templated art into the framework for an endless flow of vapid white noise media. And that’s there to keep you subscribed to these paywalled services, with the illusion of continuously fresh content. The real implementation of this tech isn’t as a toy for media hobbyists. Its as a wholesale replacement of the human-generated fine arts and journalism to reduce costs.

      It is about cheapening new media until nobody human can afford to participate anymore and everything in the market space is this thin tasteless slop.

    • @kibiz0r@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      77 months ago

      I think it’s more absurdist than cynical, but is cynical really a problem here?

      We’re running 21st-century technology on a 13th-century economic operating system. It’s bound to produce some outlandishly antisocial results.

      As a developer and tech enjoyer, there are some inventions in the past 30 years that I can’t imagine living without.

      But there are also some horrific economic systems and social dynamics that have taken hold in large part due to inventions of the past 30 years. Some effects that are so bad I’d gladly hit the snooze button on some of the tech to delay it until we figure out the social/economic side first.

    • @ameancow@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      5
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      It’s really bad out there. Cynicism is at levels I never imagined growing up in more optimistic times. We are surrounded by wonders and have all the opportunities to reshape our world into anything imaginable but we all collectively decided to sit inside, read how other people are miserable, and internalize that misery so we’re also miserable, even though all we’ve done is read about other people’s feelings.

      Our species’s default mode is to be cynical and lazy and I hate it.

      • @Ajen@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        237 months ago

        Our species’s default mode is to be cynical and lazy and I hate it.

        Oh, the irony… A less cynical perspective would be that as a whole humans are pretty empathetic, and most people want to live in a world where everyone is happy.

      • Match!!
        link
        fedilink
        English
        07 months ago

        The existence of more optimistic times should be evidence that this cynicism is not the species’ default state. We’re in a bad spot and we don’t even currently have the hope of revolution.

  • @737@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    link
    fedilink
    English
    167 months ago

    fake money for criminals is just money in general, at least some crypto currencies don’t allow for tracking

    • Match!!
      link
      fedilink
      English
      57 months ago

      yeah, it has a use case even if the best use case is crime

    • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      47 months ago

      The problem is that, as something that is used first and foremost as a speculation vehicle, crypto can’t really be a true currency replacement. The amount of deflation, and instability, crypto see, due to the design, basically prevents it from ever being a true replacement for contemporary money.

      Now, having a block chain credit system that’s availability is not derived in the way that current crypto is could very well be one. Just not what we are being offered now.

      • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        2
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        crypto can’t really be a true currency replacement

        Its been increasingly popular among the unbanked, as it grants a lot of the functions of the modern financial system at a marginally lower cost than check cashing companies and payday lenders without requiring the participant to be considered “credit worthy” by the transacting institution.

        You can have a digital wallet and make digital transactions and you don’t need to carry a giant wade of cash on you all the time, even if a traditional financial institution wouldn’t touch you. That’s a boon for crooks, sure. Its also a boon for people working in the gray market - migrant laborers sending money home to family, state-legal pot/mushroom dealers who don’t have federal sanction and can’t use normal banks, gig workers and other contractors, international workers and businesses needing a universal currency to trade against. And its a boon for the working poor, particularly folks who don’t have a physical bank nearby.

        Because the currency has material benefits for the unbanked (and therefore legally vulnerable) population, it becomes a popular place to ply scams and grifts and other dirty financial tricks precisely because you know the people you’re fleecing will have no legal recourse after the fact. But that’s the parasitic nature of second class citizenship.

        You’re not vulnerable because you’re using crypto nearly so much as you’re vulnerable because you’re denied access to traditional banks and courts.

        • @SupahRevs@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          27 months ago

          So it is a replacement for Western Union. Not a bad thing if it’s helping people transfer money without a middle man taking too much.

          • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            17 months ago

            Not for someone with access to the traditional banking sector, no. But for those locked out, it’s the only available alternative.

            • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              27 months ago

              It is only good for that at a limited scale. The issue is that it’s adoption will be stymied, governments not wanting to give up hold to their influence over currency, or not, by the simple fact that it is either in a near constant state of deflation, or it gets abandoned by the broad market. There will have to be one implemented that has it’s scarcity regulated in such a way that it retains a mostly gradual inflation. The way their scarcity is currently designed it essentially forces the currency value to increase significantly, without huge periods without value growth, or it gets dumped.

              A block chain, crypto, that holds a relatively steady value, in a similar manner to normal currency, is what will be needed for it to truly take off as a full market replacement.

              • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                3
                edit-2
                7 months ago

                That’s just a Stablecoin, like Tether. Unfortunately, stablecoins have a rather tawdry history as ponzi schemes. Terra/Luna being a classic example.

                • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  27 months ago

                  Yes, I am also aware of this. The execution of an anonymous currency was done so poorly, for something trying to be an actual currency alternative, that is set having something like it back decades, if it didn’t kill the idea of a currency that a country didn’t control.

  • @ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    16
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    Definitely Illegal hotel chain. It’s actually weirdly exciting to me to go to an airbnb not knowing what amenities or rules to expect, compared to the standardized experience of a hotel.

    • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      117 months ago

      It’s like a quest in an adventure game. Follow the map to to get to the inn, follow these clues to find the key, is the inn owned by cool NPC or is it owned by a villain? Boss fight! You’ve done well adventurer, you only owe $30 in cleaning fees!

      • @Event_Horizon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        37 months ago

        Well there’s an idea for a video game. The Airbnb adventure full of absurdity and adventure but played 100% straight

        • @RagingRobot@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          17 months ago

          It would also make a good experience you could do over a weekend that takes place in an air b and b? Like a table top game or larping. You enter the air b and b and there are instructions on the table. It could be themed too. There could be a board in the kitchen with different quests you could go on in the town.

    • TheLowestStone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      47 months ago

      Got to agree with that. Also, I live close enough to several desirable vacation destinations for it to be worthwhile to go for a long weekend. It’s nice to be able to book a house with a yard so my dog can come.

    • JackbyDev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      37 months ago

      But you could get rooms from other sites before AirBNB. It wasn’t really too huge of a change. Probably more for people renting out space. Stuff like VRBO existed before I think.

    • Phoenixz
      link
      fedilink
      English
      27 months ago

      standardized

      You and I have been going to different hotels

    • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      157 months ago

      I guess? It’s social construct what we all agree to because trading 20 bushels of wheat for a chicken is a pain in the ass.

      • TheLowestStone
        link
        fedilink
        English
        117 months ago

        That’s 1200lbs of wheat for one chicken. You’ve been getting ripped off.

      • @OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        27 months ago

        Can confirm. I used to play RotMG and everyone defaulted to trading potions and knowing a bunch of conversion rates