Comment by cinquemb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cinquemb | Hacker News Reader

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> Are you implying the existence of an alternate universe where I buy lettuce online direct from the farmer with EBT

I'm implying it should be available.

> , and they deliver it to me?

> Distributors as intermediaries are more efficient for almost all cases.

Except it should be possible for someone to grow in their local community at any scale desirable (esp important for urban agg entrepreneurs) and accept EBT from anyone near by. As kid, i helped a lot in a few community gardens in the city where i lived (where there also happened to be a lot of people already on government assistance within walking distance) and being able to sell produce and accept EBT would have changed the economics completely and incentivized way more productive economics beyond the donation model.

Current distributors would also have way more competition for the same pie of funds allocated for EBT, and help make the program more efficient.

If the availability for funding for something that is considered a public good is not broad and supportive of the smallest possible economic interactions, it is doing a disservice to the populations it is meant to support, esp for building wealth (esp for those building wealth in those communities have to subsidize big co distribution system).

I can understand arguments against if they were framed in the context that these gov programs didn't have the infra in place historically to support this in May 16, 1939 - but that is far from the case today.

I live in an EM country now that has a simmilar program to how food banks operate in the US (except the gov is doing it) abbreviated as SEMBAKO, and nothing like SNAP/EBT. Yet with technology, private banks are willing to finance peoples purchases of food online while paying full price at the local "stores" people choose to order food from (which is a big deal if you go out sometimes and talk to some of the sellers who would have no access otherwise to the markets they are selling into, some even going as far as sending hand written thank you notes on delivery).

> Except it should be possible for someone to grow in their local community at any scale desirable (esp important for urban agg entrepreneurs) and accept EBT from anyone near by. As kid, i helped a lot in a few community gardens in the city where i lived (where there also happened to be a lot of people already on government assistance within walking distance) and being able to sell produce and accept EBT would have changed the economics completely and incentivized way more productive economics beyond the donation model.

Farmers markets allow this, at least in my area.

I don't think your objection is specific or related to EBT or delivery services, it really seems to be an objection to how economics works. Urban Agg is basically always going to (in the US) be vastly more expensive than (still localish but rural) agg.

> Current distributors would also have way more competition for the same pie of funds allocated for EBT, and help make the program more efficient.

There's like a dozen stores that sell produce and accept EBT within 3 blocks of where I live. None of them (that I know of) are chains or franchises.

Like, independently owned corner stores that contract with a farm whose name I know, and farmers markets that sell direct to consumer aren't subsidizing "big-co" distributors. I'm really not sure what you're getting at.

> Farmers markets allow this, at least in my area.

In the area I grew up in, having to pay fees to sell at a farmers market stall with everyone else was already way more overhead than desired.

> Urban Agg is basically always going to (in the US) be vastly more expensive than (still localish but rural) agg.

People growing in what space they have available at no extra cost to them and selling at the same/lower or even higher prices (at whatever volume) than stores (or thru a farmers market) should still be able to accept EBT. People should be able to sell out of their section 8 housing (1937 gov program) and accept EBT.

> I'm really not sure what you're getting at.

Clearly, I'm getting at that people should be able to sell without having a extra physical overhead any kind of store or incorporating (or paying without fees to those who do) and still be able to accept EBT.

If you ever come to Jakarta, you will quickly see what I'm talking about. Can use the same app to buy from a big/small grocery stores as from someone selling out of their corrugated metal roof "house" and have it delivered. Banks finance transaction volume regardless, no gov sponsored channel available to any actor over others in the apps.

So your objection isn't at all particular to delivery apps or uber or EBT, it's broadly an objection to "regulation". Cool.

I understand and am broadly supportive of the idea that deregulating welfare is good, but it's a soapbox that isn't particularly relevant to the rest of the discussion, hence my confusion.

> People should be able to sell out of their section 8 housing

What produce are you going to be growing in your third-story apartment?

> So your objection isn't at all particular to delivery apps or uber or EBT, it's broadly an objection to "regulation". Cool.

If you think once something has been enacted into law, will remain effective throughout its history and in the same way, then there's nothing really you will be able to understand.

If any particular regulation benefited the people it is supposed to serve the most on a more holistic basis, beyond some narrowly defined definition (more than those who can afford to bear the direct monetary costs of conforming to it), I wouldn't be against it. SNAP served a much bigger role in 1939 in supporting those who needed it most than it does today in 2023 via EBT. There is no political will to correct for the institutional graft in the US (and arguably in a lot of "developed markets") the poorer off will suffer more, until things slowly fall apart under its own weight. There's a balance to be had, and we're a long ways from that going on stateside and across the north atlantic.

> What produce are you going to be growing in your third-story apartment?

Me, nothing (minus some herbs/onions). Less than 100m from my 20+ story apartment people are raising chickens and goats and selling the meals they make thru them to me on the same channels I could buy from carrefour, also less than 100m from me. Having that choice matters more to those worse off than I, than trying to pretend that if they could be givin some permissioned credits to buy only from carrefours (and to the exclusion of those raising chickens and goats next door, unless they become subservient to the carrefours). Indonesian people are lucky in that the institutional graft from 1998 has yet to build up like SNAP from 1939 in the US, yet people can still benefit from the advancement of technology since 1939 in how to go about their lives esp when it comes to building up wealth in their local communities and meeting their own needs as how they define them.

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