
Silicon Valley thinks it invented roommates. They call it 'co-living' - guuz
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/16/silicon-valley-thinks-it-invented-roommates-they-call-it-co-living
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humanrebar
> By “convenient” they mean anonymous people on minimum wage clean up after
> you.

Hey, let's not stigmatize the upper middle class actually hiring people to do
worthwhile work. That's how jobs, small businesses, and economic growth
happen.

> As was quickly pointed out by numerous people this is basically a “bus”.
> Just, you know, without the poor people.

Likewise, this is a good idea. People sharing rides in smaller buses that can
service different routes is good. _Public_ bus systems should really be
exploring a smaller vehicle model more. It gets everyone where they need to go
with fewer cars (and therefore pollution and traffic).

~~~
dtech
> Public bus systems should really be exploring a smaller vehicle model more

I asked someone from my local bus service once. Their answer was that it's not
economically viable for the public bus service, as the only major saving was
fuel cost and the extra services don't provide enough revenue to offset the
employee cost (otherwise they could service it with the large normal busses).

So basically this becomes viable with increased ticket prices or self-driving
busses. The technology isn't quite there yet for the latter, and governments
don't like price differentiation in bus lines.

* Maintenance cost per line might go slightly down, but apparantly overal it's more expensive because they need to maintain technicians and parts for more models.

~~~
snowAbstraction
Two comments:

1\. Something between taxis and buses could theoretically be viable.

2\. Many cities already have rush hour fees on public transportation (or
equivalently discounts for off-peak passes) so some price differentiation in
bus lines seems possible.

~~~
seszett
> _2\. Many cities already have rush hour fees on public transportation (or
> equivalently discounts for off-peak passes) so some price differentiation in
> bus lines seems possible._

I have never seen that anywhere in Europe or Canada, does that mean there are
two different tickets with different prices, and you have to have both if
don't know exactly when you're going to take your bus?

Also, I wonder how it works with a monthly or yearly pass.

~~~
wastedhours
I've seen it in a few places, and it's common on the London Underground where
you have a peak/off-peak fare - you're charged for pay as you go and it's your
responsibility to know which fare you're going to be charged for the journey.

It's also common on the trains, where most have a peak price (usually only in
the morning).

For season tickets (monthly, yearly), all fares are usually included (i.e.
your pass allows you to travel any time, very rare to find an "off peak only"
seasonal pass, although some people, like OAPs have them).

~~~
yellowsir
imo: this makes no sence, soudn't their be rushour discounts, so cities have
more space without all the cars arround?

~~~
seszett
It makes sense in large European cities because people won't take their car
(if they even have one) because transit is more expensive during rush hour,
instead they will try to adjust the time they use transit.

And yeah, to answer GP I had forgotten that London has such a system that
makes it quite easy to implement different fares for off-peak travel, I'm more
used to places with fixed fares.

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emiliobumachar
> Earlier this year, for instance, the ridesharing start-up Lyft launched
> Shuttle, which allows you to “Ride for a low fixed fare along convenient
> routes, with no surprise stops”. [...] As was quickly pointed out by
> numerous people this is basically a “bus”. Just, you know, without the poor
> people.

Implicit Nirvana fallacy. Yes, ridesharing is worse for society then using
(and voting to improve) traditional public transportation. But it's still much
better than the popular default of each person owning and solo driving a car,
which sits idle most of the time taking up valuable urban space.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy)

~~~
ProblemFactory
The author isn't arguing that any of the services or products are a bad idea.

She's arguing against the over-the-top marketing for something entirely
ordinary. "We will revolutionise transport with this new invention" instead of
"we started a bus route".

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chrisseaton
I think the author is being deliberately uncharitable. I think what these co-
living spaces are proposing is more similar to an officers' mess, if people
here have experienced that, than roommates, in that it's sort of like a
private permanent hotel with private rooms, dining areas, kitchens, libraries,
and staff waiting on you. As a young person it's a really fantastic way to
live, very efficient, and it fosters community.

~~~
brandelune
Student dorms. While we're at it, let's rethink the whole social mess we're in
with nuclear families. Vastly inefficient, totally anti-social. We need more
communities.

~~~
humanrebar
Do you mean single family homes?

Nuclear families seem to be empirically less poverty-prone than other family
arrangements. And there seem to be higher order effects to the success of
entire communities when there are relatively fewer nuclear families in the
neighborhood.

~~~
yorwba
> And there seem to be higher order effects to the success of entire
> communities when there are relatively fewer nuclear families in the
> neighborhood.

Do you mean as opposed to singles or to extended families? In either case, I'd
be interested in a source.

~~~
humanrebar
Well, there are an infinite number of lifestyles to be lived. I doubt there
are good numbers on dormitory-style lifestyles, for instance. But current
numbers show that married households fare well.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States#Poverty_and_family_status)

[https://www.ssa.gov/retirementpolicy/fact-sheets/marital-
sta...](https://www.ssa.gov/retirementpolicy/fact-sheets/marital-status-
poverty.html)

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/)

~~~
brandelune
Married households fare well because the tax system and plenty of other
institutions favor married households. It doesn't have to the the case.

Marriage is mostly a "capital" redistribution system and with strong public
services (ie shared services) there is much less need to focus on the nuclear
family as a protection (sharing of ressources) network.

Ex. When a few years back pension laws changed in Japan and housewives got the
right to get a pension separately from their husband, the rate of divorce
boomed.

There is nothing in the nuclear family that makes in a natural fit to what
humans are as social animals.

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seanmcdirmid
I recently read an article in the Chinese press about the new innovations of
the shared eceonomy being made. One innovation was a bunch of “shared” washing
machines that could be used by anyone as long as they paid a small fee. In
other countries, this would have been called a laundromat, but apparently they
never existed in china.

~~~
est
Alternatively some startups call themselves "O2O sharing books"

It's called a library.

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wruza
Capitalism: when capitalist class reinvents communism for middle class without
explicit rebel/gulag risks.

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charlesdm
Co-living.. cause no one can afford to live on their own.

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bigboy678
i think one problem with buses are the routes are absolutely terrible. in my
morning commute i see a bus stop 3 times within 6 blocks, i kid you not. if
you have to go from the end of 1 bus route to another it would easily take you
over an hour. honestly remove some bus stops and make people walk anb extra
block. i feel the same way about our metro system too.

~~~
peatmoss
This is the trade-off between accessibility and mobility. Stops in the US
(assuming this is where you are) _are_ typically spaced closer together than
stops overseas in comparably dense environments.

In general I’d tend to agree that public transit in the US would benefit from
sparser stop placement. I’d also offset the loss of accessibility with more
investment in paratransit service / reimbursement for accessible taxis. On
that basis, I’d get rid of wheelchair lifts on busses, due to the
inefficiencies of loading and unloading. But again, that loss of accessibility
would need to be totally offset by paratransit / taxi provision.

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mmjaa
"Silicon Valley thinks it invented ..."

Honestly, this got me thinking. There are so many things that in fact, SI just
_re-invent_ , but .. don't sort of get .. the re-invention.

Is this not just 'the thing' about SI? That all human activities can be
computerised. So, its not about 'inventing', but rather 'optimising through
computerisation'?

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narrator
I call it "Rent Hacking".

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sjg007
The other word might be "commune".

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sneak
Most people don’t have 20-40 roommates. Fake news.

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chvid
This is honestly a terrible opinion piece. Luckily guardian with their ideals
of bureaucratic welfare state politics is a thing of yesterday.

