Amazon's express delivery service rattles Paris authorities
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I love having a walk from my flat, go to the butcher and my vegetable seller. I like it because I can see the products, because it creates a sense of community in the neighborhood, because I know the butcher and he knows me.
Performance, convenience and business is a part of my life but it will never be my whole life.
Btw, I would be very interested by different cultural point of view on this whole story.
The issue is their economic power might erase a bit of the charm of Paris and lower my quality of life.
That's why the political power counterbalances this.
Humans are not very good for long term thinking. Often, people needs immediate consequences of their action to judge them.
If Parisians will accept higher prices at local shops, then those shops will continue to exist. Amazon cannot "kill" them unless Parisians prefer Amazon.
Oh and then there are those governments who don't care about votets after election. That's why I prefer the market, YMMV
A free market says that anyone can buy any product/service any way that they (as an individual) like, as long as that product/service is available at a price they can afford.
To me[fn], #1 sounds like "mob rule" and #2 sounds like "freedom to choose".
[fn] I am certain that many will disagree with this formulation.
People only produce profitable things, and that profit has to be significant, i.e. 3x for many food items. So you get a few corporation with billion dollar budgets that dominate the market with variations of the same thing, 100s of kinds of potato chips or whatever. And shut out variety, health and so on. You have choice to buy, but the seller has the choice to sell you whatever and destroy smaller competitors through competition and limit variety. Those shelves cost a lot of money and only the most profitable things stay on them, that's by design.
You can not compete with these guys because they have an economy of scale and you will no matter how hard you try achieve the same level of efficiencies to have any significant impact on the market. And even if you do, they will copy you or buy you out and then slowly turn whatever you were trying to do in the profit objective, corrupting it.
You should be lobbying Parisians to vote with their wallets instead of lobbying government to use violence to satisfy your preference. Of course, Parisians are already voting with their wallets, and if Amazon really is a threat to local shops, then Parisians obviously prefer Amazon's offering.
People are dumb idiot sheep well under the thumb of corporations. They are irrational and yet act in predictable ways when serviced by large corporations which are looking to create a monoculture.
If you want any sense of culture, of variety, of difference, then you should never ever buy this argument of letting people vote with their wallets, because we know what that leads to, it leads to the cheapest lowest cost goods and economies of scales dominate the market and create a monoculture.
Big fish at the expense of the little guys always win this game of letting people vote with wallets. And those big fish are usually not local and they sell everyone the same thing, all over the globe.
Going back to the original topic, IF I am doing a project in an area without too many fresh food choices because my neighbors like crappy food (and for right now, I am), isn't having a big corporation like Amazon being able to ship me fresh food that isn't available to me locally, a good thing? More choices?
Now, maybe your point is really that Amazon's ability to ship me fresh fruits and vegetables is unreasonably harsh on the local green grocer. Which it might be. But I don't understand how Amazon (a retailer, not a food manufacturer) will corrupt the food at some point in the future?
Not forcing but strongly encouraging via price + marketing + lack of education + lobbying
"who are we to democratically decide that this option should be off the table for them?"
We are the national community. People eating too much BigMac cost too much to the community. That's why we (should) tax junk food.
So while I'm not really agreeing with the reasons quoted by the mayor, I could definitely see a severe tax on this kind of business, because I'm sick of getting almost flattened by scooters driving on sidewalks.
Should brick and mortar businesses also be taxed extra for the increased traffic safety and pollution caused by citizens traveling to their stores to buy products? If anything I would expect delivery services to reduce both these problems.
The thought of walking to multiple shops just to buy food is a nightmare scenario to me. Considering just milk, I probably go through roughly 2 gallons (eh, 9 L) per day. I probably go through twice that much in juice. There will be a couple loaves of bread, 2 or 3 kg of meat, a hand of bananas (don't bruise them!), several large tomatos, half a kg of chocolate...
That's one day. Judging by filled grocery carts, it's about 0.2 cubic meters of stuff, a.k.a. 200 L of stuff. I think that comes to about 200 kg, given that the density of metal and glass (containers) kind of compensates for air pockets.
I could make 10 trips. Ugh. I could enlist all the little children, marching them through whatever bad weather there may be and trying not to lose any along the way. While we walk, the ice cream melts and the glass bottles get dropped. Think how many little kids would be needed to transport 200 L weighing about 200 kg.
I don't see how this is viable. Are you living on dried food? Milk powder is just not the same, and I've never even seen real juice powder. Assuming juice powder even exists, I'm sure it won't be like not-from-concentrate orange juice with extra pulp.
I'm imagining a family trudging through the winter snow in Paris. Everybody has a huge aluminum-frame hiking pack, including kids who are barely old enough to walk. To avoid losing any kids along the way, they are roped together kind of like a chain gang. It still takes multiple trips.
I don't think i can fill a shopping cart with the groceries for one week for two people.
Then quantities you are taking about seems really huge to me, even for a family of five. May I ask where you are from ?
We easily finish two whole chickens in one meal. We can almost manage to finish a 10 kg turkey.
Even for a little family of five, shopping without a car seems like it would be terribly difficult.
The kind of large families like you have are very rare in paris, for multiple reasons : -it's easier to afford more space/a house outside of Paris. The people that can afford large housing in Paris definitely can afford alternative solutions. -Having a large family and having to care for it by yourself means you rather have a car (e.g. to drive children to school, activities, vacations, etc). Having a car in Paris is not a good idea. -Cities outside paris are usually more friendly to families : it's easier for schools to take the kids in woods for sports activities or hikes, sports facilities are more accessible, etc. -Also, more families outside of Paris means that your children will grow in a neighbourhood with families. There's little for children to do outside of home/school in Paris.
Btw, your grocery list feels like your family is around 15-20 people. Families are considered large from 2 adults/4 children here. While it was common before the boomers' generation, families with more than 6 children are almost non-existent now. Also housing 15-20 people decently in Paris probably means you could hire people to take care of groceries...
(also lasting snow is maybe once-a-year in Paris these days, and it's usually chaos these days)
Outside of Paris is supposedly not very French anymore, and not very safe. It doesn't seem like a place you'd willingly live with kids. Maybe you mean really far away, far beyond the suburbs.
Your culture goes extinct if you don't make more.
I have 12 people, including one who is 198 cm tall and still growing. Standards for "decently" vary; large families normally cram people into a normal-sized house (140 to 280 m²) almost like the pre-boomer generations did.
I do not know where you get your information but you may have to change your sources. It seems very "FoxNewsy"
I wouldn't do any better by following news that refuses to cover anything that doesn't mesh well with the liberal agenda.
Those riots in the Paris suburbs... did you not hear about them, or do you think they were faked, maybe like the Moon landings? What about the sunbathing lady in the park? What about the people who claim to have been harassed and worse by neighborhood sharia patrols while doing things like carrying alcoholic drinks? None of this is safe, and it sure doesn't sound very French to me.
People have become content in their ways and are no longer hungry for improvement/change.
Economic growth is not the be all end all of human existence.
Just because they don't agree with English-speaking media and their vision of the world, it does not mean they are not hungry for change. They are so hungry for change, in fact, that they've been rioting for weeks. What they are not hungry for, probably, is the obsession for worldly riches and conservative consumption-driven lifestyle that Asian and American interests keep pushing. That might not be a bad thing.
It is valuable to have a culture which makes these fundamental requirements accessible and normal. There is no point in squeezing out every short term marginal improvement in economic efficiency regardless of the health of the people who are supposed to be reaping the economic rewards.
(potatos are heavy, and potato chips/crisps are bulky, so you'll have to settle for instant mashed potato powder)
There is no "time to spend with friends and family" if you have to make numerous trips to get your food.
I'm sure someone more in favor of the French approach could describe it in more favorable terms, but to my American sensibilities it seems almost totalitarian.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2015/09/24/paris-ca...
I see these kind of regressive economic policy as an obvious (and probably unintentional) attack on the poorest members of the community. Sure, I can afford to pay a little more and shop locally. It's a luxury to pay more for something because you enjoy the shopping experience more. Some people can't afford that luxury, and should be able to decide for themselves. Some people need to shop paying very close attention to the dollar value.
my experience when I lived in Paris that this is highly neighborhood dependent. If amazon was to decimate the faux authentic stores of Montorgueuil or Montmartre, I don't think it'd necessarily be a bad thing.
If they vote for people who have this type of curation as part of their manifesto - sure they are.
Paris happens to possess among the most polluted air of any major first world city. So based on your premise, the French value their diesel pollution over their clean air - they found a (very low) price to put on it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-20/breathless...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-19/paris-smog...
To this add strong nationalism and the fact that Amazon is un-French (and the French have few problems strongarming their citizens to be more French: see the French-language TV/radio content quotas).
The US has seen a few of the attitudes (see: any food truck dispute) but never really had the same types of power structures ... with the exception of the Depression-era National Recovery Administration (quickly deemed unconstitutional by 9 out of 9 Supreme Court justices).
"About 40 percent of Americans tell pollsters they favor boycotting French products"
Including the wonderful Freedom Fries by misunderstanding of what the french meant in french fries.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/why-boycotting-w...
In Europe the regulatory framework is called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals), while the US uses a regulatory framework called TSCA (Toxic Substances Control Act).
There is a major difference:
(from http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-825) :
REACH requires companies to develop information on chemicals' effects on human health and the environment, while TSCA does not require companies to develop such information absent EPA rule-making requiring them to do so. While TSCA does not require companies to develop information on chemicals before they enter commerce (new chemicals), companies are required to provide EPA any information that may already exist on a chemical's impact on human health or the environment. Companies do not have to develop information on the health or environmental impacts of chemicals already in commerce (existing chemicals) unless EPA formally promulgates a rule requiring them to do so.
While the US approach is certainly better for commerce I very much prefer the European approach. I consider the general health of the population much more important than the money that can be made by private companies.
And I think the example pretty nicely demonstrates the difference in attitude between the continents.
There's a feedback loop in the cost of innovation. Better medicines, fertilisers, preservatives, insulators, et cetera have increased both the health of the populace and wealth of their creators. Ceteris paribus, in a world with more innovative potential than downside, the less cautious society will outcompete the more cautious one.
Sure but we don't know how bad the negative externalities of accumulation of human-made chemicals in our natural environment are until we get there.
We could be outcompeting in the short term with very large negative societal effects in the long term.
Similarly, in chemicals regulation, an unregulated industry works towards the cheapest, most effective solution for their problem, but ignores the externalities. If the pesticide increases your yield, why would you care if it lowers the insect life which pollenates the crops for the neighbouring farms? The neighbouring farms aren't paying your bills. If your furniture treatment is cheaper than the alternative, who cares if it causes marginal damage to the health of the people using it over 20 years? In any case, it will be very difficult for anyone to tie any damage back to your product, so the reputation risk is limited. Again, the regulation is required to set a standard of progress - you don't just want innovation in cost and efficacy for the manufacturer, you want innovation relative to an objective standard which takes into account other impacts.
I do agree, though, that reducing cost for testing is also very important, to reduce the barrier to entry. Making testing too expensive also does damage. The EU actually had a clinical trials directive which proved to be too onerous, made the trials too expensive, and some measures had to be repealed. So it is a balancing act, but to me it's clear that both sides are important.
Maybe the service reduces traffic and pollution? If people stay at home and order groceries instead of taking their cars to the supermarket you probably reduce traffic. One delivery truck on an optimized route should drive fewer km than individual cars.
Follow those arguments with coherence, and you can quickly and painlessly reach the conclusion that older people "had a good life but it's time to go now". Why don't we do that? Because we hold other values apart from economic efficiency and other systemic measures. This is just a very quick and direct way of stating it.
Then it's unreasonable for you to assume any intervention to stop Amazon is unwarranted. You've already read the motivations, so there is no point in me re-stating them; but you prefer efficiency above Parisians' quality of life and economic stability. So I say fine, let's prefer efficiency above everything.
I've not attacked anybody, I've just shown you the limits of a system of thought based on economic efficiency. It's not my fault if they look bad.
I do not assume that. Maybe they can figure out a reasonable intervention. But the reasons in the article just don't sound honest or strong to me.
>but you prefer efficiency above Parisians' quality of life and economic stability.
I don't. I think that giving Parisians the option to buy their groceries in more ways, should increase their QOL. And I don't see how it could significantly threaten economic stability. I would love to hear a real argument to the contrary. But it's also fine for me not be convinced, and for you to be.
>I've not attacked anybody, I've just shown you the limits of a system of thought based on economic efficiency.
Yeah, which no one in their right mind proposes, I certainly did not, and is therefore irrelevant, and an utter strawman. And, as I said before, a classic slippery slope fallacy.
Related link: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/french-workers-are-protesti...
And then there's this:
"France’s unemployment rate rose 1.1 percent in the month of February, pushing jobless numbers to a record 3.591 million people, the Labour Ministry said Thursday."
http://www.france24.com/en/20160324-french-unemployment-hits...
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Uber's illegal activities have been challenged in court and closed. The reason for the particular way it happened is mostly that the company tried to bully its way through regulation by ignoring it like it did in some US cities. The police then decided to search of french Uber executives' homes, and they came to their minds quite fast afterwards.