Hacker News Reader

Comment by MrDresden | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how many of those commenting here have actually lived in a Dutch city for any amount of time.

Their walkability (apart from Rotterdam perhaps) is extremely high. Bike lanes everywhere, and pedestrian traffic is king (compared to most other western cities).

With such city planning there happen to be small shops everywhere for people to pop into. Often there are 2-3 grocery stores in the same street.

These fast delivery stores are not serving an actual need in these places. And given that they just take up space that might otherwise be used for an actual corner grocery store, I would go as far as saying that they are not needed anywhere except perhaps in the car centric cities of US & Canada.

View on HN

> These fast delivery stores are not serving an actual need in these places

If they're not serving the "actual" needs in these places, wouldn't they go out of business?

I'll quote from the article

> "a global urban phenomenon heavily backed by billions of dollars in venture capital"

> "[...] Gorillas, Getir, Flink, Zapp, and a number of other goofily-named startups that, according to reports, lose up to $150 per order."

They are certainly not making break even, let alone a profit.

So they're transferring billions of venture capital money to people that use these services. And that's bad because...

Theyre using public resources in a way that disrupts the community and for no reason since they will likely go out of business.

It was never mentioned that it was bad, only that this amount of VC funding is what is keeping them afloat rather than any actual income stream that covers their operational costs. Which was you question, remember.

> These fast delivery stores are not serving an actual need in these places.

Who are you to tell anyone what they need? If there's a consumer demand for it, and companies willng and able to serve that market, you're free to use them or not. But you don't get to determine how and where people get their groceries, that's none of your business.

I realize that in some Dutch cities the council is long used to shaping infrastructure in order to force things, but call that what it is: forceful local government shaping cities according to some guiding principle.

That is very far removed from dismissing dissenting opinions to the point of there being "no need" for them.

(sorry for the rant, just very pissed off with this far-left assumption of always being right, and presenting opinions as obvious fact)

As a european I agree but that's Europe for you. The city, government, "experts", or just the "majority" of people know what's best for everyone and you have to shut up and suck it up otherwise you are labelled as undesirable.

>As a european I agree but that's Europe for you.

It's not much different in America, it's just that corporations make the decisions in their interest rather than politicians.

No, it's politicians here too. Look at all of the corporations that wanted to be open at the beginning of lockdown, but that the politicians decreed non-essential.

Easier to ignore a corporation than it is to ignore the law.

Not if the corporations are making the laws.

I haven't witnessed the Dutch situation in person, but it seems the "willing and able to serve the market" might be predicated on being able to make the streets squalid, and in some cases displace profitable businesses by burning through speculative VC funds. It seems entirely reasonable that local government would want to stop this.

The libertarian fantasy that each individual or organisation should have unfettered freedom to do whatever they please would be more attractive if such individuals or organisations were also compelled to pay the costs of whatever negative externalities they create.

> sorry for the rant

No worries, you are forgiven.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com