Fun with Magic

As a person who grew up poor-ish [1] but is now reasonably well off [2], I have developed a little theory on why the market of make-your-life-slightly-easier-by-hiring-a-human-through-an-app services is booming so much right now. Everything from Uber to Washio, Handy, and Task Rabbit falls into this market for the purposes of my theory.

We are lazy. Very lazy. We think we're busy, and to an extent we are. We've been brought up by frugal parents.[3]

As a result, we don't know how to get things done for us. We feel bad hiring somebody to do something for us. We don't know how to handle the idea that we can afford to have people working for us.

Using an app makes this easier. It reduces the emotional impact of it all. You're just using an app after all, you're paying a company to hire a person to do something. You're offloading your bad feelings onto a company.

To top it off, we don't even know where to get someone to do things for us. We didn't grow up with an infrastructure of hired help, we grew up with an infrastructure and worldview of working for others. The idea of having people work for us is fundamentally alien.

Apps help.

[1] low middle class single parent kind of poor where you'd rather spend two days painting your own apartment poorly than pay a professional to do it. And by poorly I mean, have your high school age son do it (me).

[2] software engineer in San Francisco

[3] either because we used to be poor, or because we weren't the rich kind of middle class (here I'm making the distinction that upper class are people who don't need cashflow to support their lifestyle)

> Average people really try to be efficient with their money, and don't pay money for that many things they can do themselves.

Are those actually "average people" or are they "ideal people?"

I do not know Justin and I can't speak for him, but it seems to me that he has earned every penny that he has.

> So the question I have here is, was he aware of how outrageously douchey this article comes off with the examples being off the cuff entirely over-the-top money blowing that he apparently regularly indulges in, or are rich people so in their own world that they don't even realize how normal people live and that writing something like this comes off as absurd to most people?

Your comment is more absurd than his spending habits. You are suggesting that he should be socially restrained in one form or the other from spending his hard earned money. From exercising his financial freedom (yes, the ability to spend money without worry is a hard won freedom) because of your own perceptions of class narratives.

To apply your logic to you, do you sacrifice 100% of your disposable income because some children somewhere are starving? Do you go out? Do you drink when you go out? Do you believe that those dollars couldn't save the life of someone dying from AIDS in a developing country? If yes, then why don't you work to give away every single penny you have to that cause? Why do you buy that beer and by doing so condemn that person to death?

Clearly you can see the fallacy over here. Not only are these problems something that can't be solved by throwing money at them - people have tried and failed at that, but there isn't a fixed pie or some upper limit of the gross value that can exist in this world. That Harley he bought paid for engine research in one form and the creation of a supply chain that could be used to build engines that can be adapted to the conditions of rural Zimbabwe.

However, beyond those fallacies lies the idea of freedom I initially talked about. It is important for us to make our own choices. In other words, what Justin does or does not do to solve broader social problems is his and his decision alone. He pays his taxes. You pay yours. What he does or he doesn't do with his dimes is quite simply none of your business.

> Do they not care about these types of people and their problems because it simply not relevant to them?

Let me ask you a question: Would you rather sell to people with money or to people without money?

Personally I try to sell every product I make to people who have money. It's easier.

I really don't see how his spending makes this article come off as douchey.

Speaking purely to the professionalism and responsiveness of Magic, yes it's pretty impressive.

How much are you paying though? The service is undoubtably being heavily subsidized by VC money. This is the classic silicon valley model, a model I love, but there has to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

As noted in the OP, this also reminds me a lot of Exec, and Exec didn't work. In the post-mortem, JK makes a very interesting point:

> if a job request came in and there were no Execs available to run them ... we sent someone from the office to run the jobs ourselves. Unfortunately, this gave us a false sense that the quality of service for our customers was better than it was, as the average competence of our employees was higher than our average recruitable errand runners. [1]

This is a critical problem that any service business like Magic will run into. Training and quality becomes much harder at scale, and the more you have to pay for "Magicians", the more you have to charge. And if it costs too much money, it isn't "Magical" anymore. Yes, they have advantages over Exec because they can arbitrage less expensive labor overseas, but quality at an efficient price is still going to be a huge issue.

1: http://justinkan.com/exec-errands-post-mortem

I thought these were great examples. He demonstrated that he was able to solve reasonably challenging, atypical problems with Magic, and that the service brought a lot of value to the table by being thoughtful (knowing to provide KBB reference values without having to be asked, being able to negotiate prices down on behalf of the buyer, having paperwork sent over by a driver etc). It's true that a lot of back and forth was involved, but they facilitated a process which would have taken days of effort on behalf of the buyer (buying the bike) via a few text messages. I personally was both highly amused and very impressed.

I thought the guy was trolling.. until they actually got him a helicopter.

You don't have to pay the high fixed cost of hiring someone fulltime or even part time.

Anyone can pay for single use assistant service. Making that work though is hard.

Much better! Mostly because it wasn't simultaneously rubbing my face in the economic gap between myself and the author.

The flight change was done via Magic because he couldn't use their website on his mobile. Still, you'd think it would be easier to call up a friend.

Around $2,460, at least[0]. Also, I suspect you pay for fuel and time although I have never rented a helicopter. There is also a fee from Magic for booking through them.

[0]http://www.newyorkhelicopter.com/charters/charter-rates/

edit: > All additional expenses will be passed on at cost landings, parking, late operations, overnight expenses or other charges directly incidental to the flight requested.

> Charter prices are one-way and don’t include Landing Fees from the Manhattan Heliports.

A fee for landing at JFK was likely levied.

> raises the question

FTFY

Use Magic and ask it.