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Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Not only are they shifting risk onto workers, but they are replacing small, local, owner-operated businesses with Wall Street funded national corporations. They're seeking to put people like my cleaning lady (who runs a small business with a couple of employees) or the local Chinese laundromat out of business. I'm not saying that's a bad thing (frankly, big Wall Street funded corporations are much more efficient than small local businesses), but I do detect some cognitive dissonance in people who rail against big corporations but also support companies like Uber.

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A really good point.

Of course I think it's still possible for a small owner operator to use one of these services to gain a consistent customer base (and even get referrals from that customer base) and then cut out the big corporation that gave them the contacts in the first place. And operate on their own.

Work like this is done on relationships. I'm still using the same painter for projects that was referred to me by a realtor that sold me a property. Although there are tons of other painters I can get bids from (cheaper) I'd rather go with someone that I've used that I know can get the job done with little aggravation.

that's certainly true, but there are no economies of scale to that model, so those small, disaggregated market players will have little to no effect overall. at best, collectively they may have a minor bounding effect on wages but that's unlikely to change the overall market dynamics (even the US, as the largest oil consuming country in the world by far, cannot dictate the price of a barrel of oil).

Efficient for whom? Starbucks and Mc Donalds sell worse and more expensive products than local places. Amazon is cheap, but I'm constantly getting damaged books (bent pages, water damage, single pages that are printed in light gray instead of black ...) and scratched DVDs. I've never seen any of this in a physical bookstore.

You could argue that the regression in quality is efficient. If Item X is comically flimsy yet 99% of consumers never use it more than once or twice, it could be seen as an economic win to avoid wasting the resources to make the good high-quality.

How do you get scratched DVDs from Amazon? I didn't think it was possible to scratch a DVD inside its case, without literally crushing it to splinters.

In Europe customers have the right to return online purchases within one or two weeks. It is possible that a previous "customer" damaged the DVDs and returned them.

In that case, excellent online stores would sell the items in a separate category at a reduced price.

Wait, they can return it, opened? And it is resold as new?

I have a theory about the success of McD and Starbucks

You're absolutely right it's worse than a local place. But it's predictable.

It makes the process of choice easier: I can go to McD and I know what I'm getting or I'm trying this new place, with unpredictable results.

When I went back to the States recently I was shocked by just how bad Starbucks coffee has gotten. And, it was not predictable at all - the three drinks I got there (all the same drink) were each terrible in their own special way. The only reason I went back a second and third time was sheer morbid curiosity. I didn't bother going to a McDonald's, but then again McDonald's was already like that when I still lived in the US anyway.

Starbucks coffee in Japan isn't great, but it isn't fucking gross either. And it is very, very consistent.

I think it's mostly a herd need. Going to this place that is all around and everybody else is going.

Not necessarily having to do with the predictability of the coffee or the experience of drinking a coffee in a place.

I would't know about McDonald's, but at least where I live Starbucks offers a lot better and in many ways different service than local cafes. It's also very different from what I have seen in the US.

I made a real effort to go to the local places, but they just don't offer what I need. In a Starbucks you can come in and sit for a few hours reading magazines, studying or working. Nobody bothers you. The place offers a variety of couches, chairs and tables which you can pick based on what you plan on doing. In a local cafe once you're done with your coffee or tea you get pressured into leaving by constant questions about your other orders. Local cafes offer uniform seating which often is completely unsuitable for a laptop or a stack of books.

Ah yes, there's that as well

Starbucks is a good Wi-Fi provider, worldwide.

Fast food places killed off all the poor quality local places, so the only ones who can survive are those who are either dirt cheap (e.g. food trucks, hot dog stands), have a captive audience (e.g. movie theatres, ball games), or are low capacity so can't compete with the quickness of fast food.

But before this, you could see poor quality local food places on highways. McDonalds and co came in and create a price/quality floor. You couldn't be worse than them.

>(frankly, big Wall Street funded corporations are much more efficient than small local businesses)

Efficient in money making, maybe (then again, it was those Wall Street financiers that need a trillion dollar bailout).

But not necessarily more efficient at doing what you pay them to do (i.e competent) than a local business.

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