this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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'It's definitely backfiring': Seattle ordinance intended to help app delivery workers is 'hurting' them::undefined

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Did the ordinance specify that the app companies would have to absorb the costs and NOT pass them to the users? No? Ah, well, that explains it then.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

How exactly would they absorb the costs? Most of them aren't even turning a profit as it is

Edit: Not sure why the downvotes. I support the ordinance, minimum wages are great. But the cost is obviously going to the customers, where else would it go?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

the cost is obviously going to the customers, where else would it go?

People have this idea that you can bleed money from corps and that corps will magic the money from somewhere other than customers.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I mean, they could, they just won’t. Lower the pay of the higher ups and you’d have more free money magicked up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

They don’t need magic the money out of anywhere, they already have it. They just have to want something other than to exploit whatever they can for profit, which is something they won’t consider.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

By decreasing billionaire executive bonuses, of course. You realize apps like Uver give shitty pay to the drivers and keep most of the profits for the execs, don't you?

Repeat after me: They are MIDDLEMEN.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

How would that work, really? I can't figure out how that could be regulated.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (4 children)
  1. Establish a wage floor.

  2. Establish a price cap.

If the corporation can't make a profit from this, then perhaps their business model was not viable in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

A price cap seems to be based on the premise that not having a service at all is better then having it be too expensive. I find that idea very questionable.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

"Let's treat our workers like slaves or else the entire economy will suffer" is a far worse take IMHO.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

i don’t think that is what they meant. is that a strawman you’re slaying?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Replace that price cap with a wage cap for the people at the top that is based on the wages of everyone else in the company and companies it contracts (to avoid the obvious loophole as well as giving an actual mechanism for "trickle down").

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

How is the price cap determined?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

"No fair! Our business model was very simple: price gouge the customer while exploiting our labor force!"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Thats not how economics works, if the cost of a product goes up one way or another, the price goes up, one way or another

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

And oddly, the price of a product can go up even if the cost of the product doesn't change or goes down.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I drew the arrow one way, just because you want to invert the arrow doesn't mean it's correct 🤷

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Only if customers are willing to pay for it.