Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sillysaurus3 | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know what to think. Devilishly clever. Instant new market. But so detrimental if it catches on...

People who live paycheck-to-paycheck wouldn't be able to afford this. If it becomes very popular, those without disposable income may be unfairly abused by the system. Till now, finding a spot has been random lottery. Pay-for-privilege will leave struggling families out in the cold (perhaps literally).

Yet to punish a company so harshly before the phenomenon has proven to be a problem in practice seems draconian. The gap between theory and reality is large. Something that's harmful in theory can sometimes prove itself advantageous in unexpected ways.

And what if the company wasn't based in California? Would there be any recourse for California to exert regulatory pressure over a company based in another state? Pg's quote "if you outlaw the future, it will just happen elsewhere" seems relevant. Maybe it's a matter of time until this app catches on in other large cities. Nobody likes spending ~30 minutes searching for a parking spot.

But it's difficult to shake the feeling that the whole concept is, well, douchey. I dislike that word, but it seems quite applicable here. Sitting in a parking space for longer than you need it in order to personally profit is pretty much the definition of a dick move. Yet should that argument alone be sufficient reason to outlaw the entire market? I don't know.

It's not draconian; it's counter to the goals of paid public parking.

Public parking is designed to ensure spots are available. This is why many cities have meter parking with a 2 hour limit; to discourage people from parking on the street all day long (there are garages for that).

This type of app encourages people to occupy spots by camping out in them and selling them to the highest bidder. If your goal is to ensure parking spots are available to people that need them for short-term parking, allowing that behavior seems counter-productive towards your goal.

Seeking rent from public property is a a problem in itself.

You pay to get in and pay to get out. Doesn't really seem like seeking [net] rent as much as it is efficiently allocating available resources.

It's not efficient if you park longer, waiting for someone who's going to pay you, rather than just pull out and let anyone else in. Drivers are being paid explicitly for making the allocation less efficient for everyone apart from the app user. It's the tragedy of the commons again.

Closer to racket[1]: causing a problem in order to get paid to fix it

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(crime)

How is it a problem that the public entity responsible for the property charges rent to individual users?

EDIT: Or is the problem you are referring to what the app is doing? I read it as that the app wasn't the problem, but that the underlying idea of paid parking which it sits on top of is wrong, but I realize that it might also be read the other way.

Maybe it's a matter of time until this app catches on in other large cities. Nobody likes spending ~30 minutes searching for a parking spot.

More likely, cities will find a way to auction off parking spaces, in real time, as a source of revenue. This can be zoned to high-congestion / high-activity neighborhoods, like anything else. Not much different from parking meters, in basic conceptual terms (which I've heard also weren't so popular when they were first introduced). Or congestion pricing.

But the idea that people "own" the parking spaces they're sitting on, and have an inalienable right to extort as much money as they'd care to fancy from the next hapless driver -- let alone that the "market" for this kind of an activity has an inalienable right to exist (just because someone created an app for it) -- is, well, very Silicon Valley.

Well it does meet the definition of a private good (excludable, rivalrous.) Maybe it should be treated like all other private goods and rationed by price. I guess in theory the money can be given to poor (if it's done by the city which owns the parking spots.)

I'm not saying that it's the best solution, but it does seem arbitrary to have some private goods rationed by price and others rationed by lottery. Just because "that's the way it's always been". In any case this app or rather the people using it don't rightfully own the parking spaces, but they are taking advantage of a market inefficiency.

Your logic applies equally to private jets. Guess what? There are other modes of transportation than cars. Shhhhocker.

Reality: This will harm middle class people who live paycheck-to-paycheck, not struggling families.

And that is better how?

> And what if the company wasn't based in California? Would there be any recourse for California to exert regulatory pressure over a company based in another state?

If the company is doing business in California and has assets or income streams in or coming from California then there are probably avenues for enforcement.

And if that wasn't the case, there wouldn't be an issue here in the first place.

> What if the company wasn't based in California?

The article says it was built in Rome, Italy.

I assumed that California couldn't issue fines against a company unless the company is based within its borders. Every app is de facto international nowadays, so does that mean California can issue fines against any company with a popular app? I'm rather ignorant of the legal dynamics in play here, so it'd be wonderful to hear from someone with experience.

California isn't issuing fines, San Francisco is. And, yes, either can issue fines to a company irrespective of where its headquarters is located, though its ability to actually collect fines may be limited.

OTOH, any company doing business in the San Francisco probably has assets or income streams that are going to be subject to the jurisdiction of courts through which either the City and County of San Francisco or the State of California could act to enforce fines.

You can get paid for the spot when you leave it in the same way you paid for it when you took it. So I don't see how this is supposed to disproportionately affect poor people.

Because you need a smartphone with the appropriate app to be in the market in the first place!

Oh come on now.

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