

Private infrastructure - katm
http://www.aaronkharris.com/private-infrastructure

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wfo
I think the general point to take away from notions like this is that many of
these very profitable opportunities (Uber, airbnb, instacart, even private
MOOC to replace education) are all responses to public infrastructure failures
as our voting population becomes more and more self-centered and focused on
individualist (i.e. extremist capitalist/Libertarian) economics and less
willing to fund public infrastructure, be it in transportation, education, any
public good really.

The solution that is always suggested is some form of leaning in harder to
Libertarianism and trying to explain away how private control of
infrastructure with a profit motive is somehow a good thing. Which makes sense
taking the world view that [private profits == good, market economics are the
only solution to any problem] for granted and if you're likely to be the
private person controlling the infrastructure and its corresponding enormous
untouchable profits. Incidentally, the private structures are even certainly
better for everyone than the broken dilapidated infrastructure that exists
right now (see: Uber) and so it's a net gain for the public in the short term,
but it's dystopian in the long term.

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dylanjermiah
The public infrastructure which you've described didn't 'fail' because of lack
of funding, it 'failed' because of lack of aligned incentives. Please
specifically outline how Uber and similar services are good for only the
'short term' and will be 'dystopian' in the long, I'm very curious.

~~~
wfo
Of course it did -- public transportation, the alternative to mass widespread
use of taxis/private cabs most certainly dies in most of the US because of a
lack of funding.

And you're right I left that dystopian comment vague -- let me clarify, having
a large private monopoly own a necessary piece of transportation
infrastructure is my idea of a dystopia, incidentally especially when their
business model is built around using ownership of the name and app to exploit
people who really need to use it (i.e. surge pricing) and people who work to
provide it (i.e. the "technically private contractors but really just
employees without benefits").

The point is transportation is something we all require and should be provided
by the public (it already is in the form of roads, but that's not good
enough): taxis are a crappy but elastic solution that's there to fill in the
gaps. I think their awfulness is a good thing: private cars driving people
around are a terrible solution to the real problem which is transportation
infrastructure. As soon as a terrible solution starts to look and feel okay to
a lot of (wealthy or middle-class) people, that's dangerous. Because things
like Uber don't look and feel okay to the very poor. That's why I describe it
as dystopian.

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Daishiman
Another self-serving Libertarian-themed post that works under the flawed
premise that market forces can replace all natural monopolies efficiently, as
well as surpass the laws of physics.

There's a whole bunch of reasons why you don't want infrastructure to be
privatized, the biggest of which being because infrastructure will not be
profitable everywhere, yet that doesn't take away its strategic value not the
idea that there are some fundamental services that should be reasonably
available to all citizens.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
I didn't seem to read the same vulgar libertarian subtexts that you did. It
was more an outline of computer technology enabling an easier proliferation of
alternatives to state-provided services. There isn't much of a value judgment
being made, in fact it notes that "opportunities are being exploited by a
range of startups and companies who are essentially building private
infrastructure, mainly for the relatively wealthy".

~~~
Daishiman
I see the absence of a value judgement in the observation of the
infrastructure of a developed country falling apart and as explicitly saying
that it doesn't really concern him.

As a citizen, investor, _whatever_ , that fact should be frightening for all
sorts of reasons. The investment opportunities are, if anything, a minor
consolation.

I don't think you'll find a lot of people cheering for obscenely bad causes,
but you'll definitely find a lot of people who have very neutral opinions and
opportunistically seize business opportunities without much regard of the
externalities and systemic effects.

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ealexhudson
I don't really see how Instacart can be considered "infrastructure", at best
it's a marketplace-driven service. There are lots of examples of private
infrastructure - e.g. the internet - which don't suffer the various problems
described, and all the examples cited still rely on actual infrastructure to
exist..

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bastian
I don't think Instacart is, or ever wanted to be an infrastructure. At least
not as a transportation infrastructure. There is an argument to be made that
it is becoming an infrastructure "within" a supermarket, mainly because of
their pick & pack infrastructure (this is probably what Aaron is referring to)
and understanding of inventory. Compare that to what we're doing at Postmates.
We're in the process of creating a transportation layer by combining tens of
thousands of people with cars and bikes or on foot into a "programmable layer"
that can be accessed through our API and utilized by third parties. Both have
huge potential.

~~~
fraserharris
It's infrastructure so far as it is a supplementary good to physical
infrastructure. You could think of it as virtual infrastructure. By the time
you are cooking dinner, there is no difference between having an accessible
grocery store vs Instacart. Similarly, when you are at your destination, there
is no difference between having taken the subway and having used Uber.

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trengrj
The food desert comment was interesting but I guess it depends on your
definition of a food desert. I imagine if everyone is delivering their food
then food deserts (as defined as regions with walkable grocery stores) would
increase as there would be less grocery stores around (replaced by gigantic
food warehouses).

