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Comment by wskinner | Hacker News Reader

> the benefits of the automation goes solely to investors and owners

Totally false. The benefits go to anyone who buys or sells goods that pass through the ports.

> Totally false. The benefits go to anyone who buys or sells goods that pass through the ports.

Mostly true. Only if there is huge competitive pressure will the prices be forced to go down. Otherwise, those owners simply make more profit now and keep prices the same.

With ports, you don't have much competitive pressure because a competitor can't just another mega-port next to the existing one, there is no such space available.

If that is true, then what stops port operators from raising prices from their present level and pocketing the free money? In reality, demand curves slope down and the surplus from efficiency improvements is split between buyers and sellers. And with the lower costs that result from efficiency improvements, ports will be able to move more goods per unit of time. Even with the unrealistic assumption that the surplus is entirely captured by the port operators, buyers and sellers of goods will benefit from the increased volume.

> If that is true, then what stops port operators from raising prices from their present level and pocketing the free money?

They do raise prices, gradually.

But raising prices is harder because users complain in many ways. Keeping prices the same while reducing your costs (thus improving profits) is much easier, nobody notices.

Only if the automation is cheaper and more efficient and that improvement/saving gets passed on to the (un)loading fees and then to the companies doing the transport and then to the marketplace middlemen and then then to the buyers/sellers.

It is, and it does. US ports are far less efficient than the more automated ports in Asia and Europe.

It's not clear the automation change in isolation would improve the situation. They can get automated badly and be even less efficient.

Ah but that's because Rotterdam competes with Antwerp and Hamburg for example.

How many terminals are there on the West coast of the US that can handle the biggest vessels?

Two, and they both make heavy use of automation. (The port of LA and the neighboring port of Long Beach).

In my opinion, port costs never go down with automation. If anything, they go up when automation is deployed (this essentially means unmanned reach stackers, more cranes and eventually new TOS (Terminal Operating System) to compensate investment. This is interesting document (PDF) with port performance index for 2023. Page 11. https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/0990603241145396...

The port costs might not go down now, but they also might increase as much as they would otherwise in the future.

Only if the dock owners reduce the price of unloading goods, but why would they when they could just pocket the savings from firing everyone? It's not like there is much competition.

It'd be nice right? Too bad the maritime shipping industry is an oligopoly.

You're operating under the assumption the cost savings are passed onto consumers. I see no reason why this would be the case - the cost savings would do much better as expansion of capital, and consumers are already happy with the current price.

>anyone who buys or sells goods

so, not the workers or the larger populace. Just more business that is continuing to make life more expensive.

These are all subjective, so this is neither true nor false.

Everyone buys stuff.

Yes, and buying stuff got worse over the years, not better. The consumer is not benefiting from this to begin with (as if thars an argument to not pay your labor).

Is this the trickle down argument again? Are there still people around honestly believing it? Even Wikipedia says there's zero proof, but nice to peek at the last century fads once in a while.

Unlikely because the "trickle down" argument doesn't exist as a positive policy. It is where the opponents of a policy argue that it won't work because the value will accrue to the wealthy.

In this case the original argument was that capital investments at the port will create value to the port users. It is likely correct - if the port invests in robots then it is extremely reasonable to expect that users of the port will get cheaper and better service. The port owners might make more money or they might get squeezed by economics, that part is much harder to work out.

> extremely reasonable to expect that users of the port will get cheaper and better service.

Better, sure, cheaper? Almost certainly not.

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