this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] [email protected] 134 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Of these, I'd like to point out that unironically Uber is the obvious choice for Best. Hear me out...

  • Outside of the really big cities, taxi service was trash. You had to find a number and a phone, the price was almost impossible to figure out in advance, and none that I am aware of were doing anything to keep up with the times or improve anything. The competition that it hurt deserved some pain.

  • People can now paw drunkenly at their phone and generally arrive home safe. Easy access to rides has almost certainly saved lives. I don't think you can say that about any of the others on the list.

But wait! I'm not saying that Uber is good. I'm just saying that, theoretically, you could start a service like Uber that isn't hot garbage, that has employees or at least better paid contractors that take home a more reasonable share of the money. Hell, a local government could create a ride hailing app that passes the entire amount back to the driver, and it would be a net benefit to society. Though at that point, maybe they should have just been looking into better public transportation and planning instead.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 10 months ago (1 children)

No Uber driver ever scammed me into paying double fare or refusing credit cards.

Uber is objectively a cancer upon society. They should legally employ their drives and pay a fair wage with prices to match.

All I’m saying is, it takes a real shitty industry for Uber to still be the better option. Every “innovation” in the picture is a complete joke and should never be used even for practical purposes, except Uber…

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Every “innovation” in the picture…should never be used…except Uber

It’s the holidays, there are a dozen(+) people in your family, and you want folks to fly in from out of state and have the kids play together in a living room while the adults cook together in a kitchen.

VRBOs are sold out.

Is Airbnb OK, if you respect the neighborhood (as best you can while still doing a short term rental)? If you rent from a family who happens to be out of town and not from a superhost with a hundred homes?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Like with most things that are successful on this list, AirBNB isn't inherently bad, and there's no reason why you can't hypothetically have an ethical, positive experience. But it followed the typical late-stage capitalist enshittification script, and to have that experience you have to fight through many many barriers erected by both the company and hosts to maximize profits.

I've had some very nice experiences with AirBNB back when it was a startup, and when you were interacting with hosts who actually lived in the places you were staying. But at this point I've fully stopped using AirBNB and hotels are now a better, cheaper experience unless you find a unicorn property/host. 19 times out of 20, AirBNB is just a nightmare of hidden/high fees, abusive corporate "hosts," and AirBNB being absolutely, reliably unwilling to help mediate or solve any problems.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Have you seen AirBnB pricing and some of the policies/fees the owners of properties have implemented? Cheaper to buy a camper.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 10 months ago (3 children)

I say this every time this comes up, Taxis are trash, the only reason they're decent in big cities is because that's the only place you've got real competition.

Everywhere else has a single company, at best, and a lot of the times it's a one person LLC. Even my midsize city has a single person LLC taxi and Uber.

Uber the company is cancer, Uber the service (Or idea/concept whatever) was exactly what was needed. No more calling dispatch and being told "It's just around the corner" for 3 hours or them realizing I'm not local and taking me the LONG way around or even just taking fucking card lmao

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Enough people were pissed off at cabs that Uber took off. Instead of cabs looking inward to improve, they decided to act worse. I know Uber has room to improve but if that is the reaction from big cab, Cabs should be completely removed from society. Cabs were a complete fail.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Budapest banned Uber due to pressure from taxi drivers union which ended up implementing an app and matching services. It took a while to mature, but the quality of the service definitely beats that of Uber now.

Alas, public transit is already really good in Budapest, so mostly only people that were using Taxis before Uber existed are using the services now. Except that you are less likely to get scammed on fares and be the victim of CC fraud due to the streamlined app process.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Wait before you hear of inter-city transit and a company called BlaBlaCar. While by their own claims they just organize people to give someone a ride while going to the same town, the way to really min-max it was to get a retired, nearly scrapped bus, act like multiple virtual vehicles, and then carry 10+ people without any legal safeguards for them. The've got some pushbacks and the service now is less tolerant to such cases, but that's still insane. Yet, for various reasons, people take it over dying public infrastructure like official bus depots, trains, for it's cheaper and stops when it crosses town instead of being based in a distant station on the edge of city limits. They weren't great, but they were at least career drivers looking into each other with some minimal checks, timetables, that municipal power could regulate. And then there's a rando (even if ex-driver) who bought an old vehicle and drives it until it either pays off or they get asleep behind the wheel on a highway leading to dozens dead.

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 10 months ago (3 children)

Airbnb has destroyed housing market for young people trying to get out of their parents' homes in all major Western European cities

[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago (2 children)

What if we all just move into airbnbs and refuse to leave

[–] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'll be going in front of a venture capital roundtable tomorrow with my idea for Squatter.home, a web site where you can find unoccupied properties and occupy them for a VERY reasonable finder's fee.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago

Sounds like someone who's never called the police for something like this. More likely than not they'll tell you it's a civil matter and they can't do anything without a court order.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Outside america where police violence usually involve deadly shooting and they usually happy to do so, it takes more than police to evict someone.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

What're they gonna do if you refuse to leave tho? Stay there until you comply?? No sir, I cannot be forced to quarter troops!!

(This is a joke. I'm aware they'd just use force lol.)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Interesting. I thought it was just the US and Canada where AirBnb was messing up housing for new buyers (as well as taking away options from renters).

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

Same for Malaysia. Lot and lot of highrise are build for exactly this purpose. High cost, "luxury" looking design, and boasting a "mall" just below the highrise. The result is a tons of dead mall, empty apartments, empty house, and unaffordable housing.

The government then regulate it, where they allow these place to continue to run but only on "commercial building", which mean only on these highrise build for the purpose of short term renting. It still doesn't solve the fundamental issue but at least we have law to combat these.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Everytime this pops up I have a brief moment where I'm like "what the hell is an illegal crab company?"

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Crabtocoin. Basically you pretend a PNG of a crab is worth something.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

"I have an NFC."

"Don't you mean NFT?"

"No. It's a non-fungible crab."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (2 children)

As opposed to fungible crab...

Yes...

I know they're bugs.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

brief moment

Speak for yourself. I read your comment and it still didn't hit me until like 5 minutes later

[–] [email protected] 35 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Plagiarism machine"

Ironically, this is a repost

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

So is the screenshotted post (afaik)

[–] [email protected] 24 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fake money for criminals bought me a lot of fun drugs back in the day so...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Right? Thanks Ross Ulbricht!

Edit: Ulbricht not Ulbrecht

[–] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How is the usd a tech innovation 💀

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

I think they're justbtalking about crypto

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Uber (and other similar apps) are expensive than traditional taxi where I live.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (4 children)

You couldn't pay me to take a taxi again, Uber can get as expensive as they want (Eventually it'll start to be cheaper to just rent a car for the day lmao)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'll still take an Uber because I'm an average drunk and I don't want to be behind the wheel (you don't want me there either). I'll walk 10 miles before I take a taxi though.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’d still take that over ever using a taxi again.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Most are a lot more like Uber and a lot less like taxis of 15 years ago now.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (11 children)

I’d rather an illegal cab company doing things right because the ‘official’ unchecked cab company is corrupt doing illegal things and people finally got fed up with it. that shouldn’t have been a thing that needed to happen to get a safe(and reliable and relevant i mean you could enter your credit card for fuck sakes that should have been updated in cabs by then) and affordable enough ride anywhere. That is a sign of a broken system when the word ‘legal’ in application lost all relativity to who it was supposed to protect in that situation. Heck, I’d drop it from all use in this case.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

You forgot extensive algorithmic protection for art thieves.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

The fact that GenAI is the top choice is just more proof.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

So its just violations of capitalism. Perhaps the problem isn't the tech.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Are you implying that capitalism is violating or being violated?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don't think the poster was blaming tech for the problems that resulted. The intent seemed to be to point out that these ventures weren't so innovative as popular media would have had us believe until recently. Plenty of blame to go around for the companies' exploitative practices, for media that just repeats what's in the press release/ads uncritically, and for government regulators, as well.

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