Silicon Valley Techno-Utopianism

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/24/after-an-abrupt-shutdown-muncherys-small-business-vendors-are-the-ones-picking-up-the-bill/

if only I had a local munchery

I’m having trouble articulating just how deeply angry this one makes me. Partly bc the entire category has always been bullshit, partly bc of a VC culture that dismisses skepticism as a character flaw, partly bc jesus fkn christ the specific managers flying this particular zeppelin knew what was coming way in advance.

I’m sure there’s a bridge loan that didn’t come through or whatever and steady as she goes and blah blah blah but leaving employees and vendors holding the bag while setting 150 million dollars on fire... I hope none of these people ever work again, and I guess I’m also furious bc they’ll just fail upwards.

yeah fuuuuuuuuck those assholes. i would contribute to a gofundme to pay off these businesses, would go gangbusters in "fuck those assholes" circles i bet.

following this clusterfuck live:
https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

tl;dr version: facebook was using a VPN company they bought as a way to figure out what people do, by watching all of their traffic. apple dumped their app, so they've been pretending it's something called "facebook research" and paying people to install it manually.

shit got real earlier today when apple invalidated their app-signing certificate. a no-brainer, considering they're supposed to be only used for companies to have in-house apps that aren't publicly available, or for internal testing.

it turns out the geniuses at facebook had exactly one enterprise account, and now none of their internal company apps, including one they use for transportation (?) are working at all

story on that latter point

https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/30/18203551/apple-facebook-blocked-internal-ios-apps

love imagining thousands of software devs milling around not knowing how to get lunch

aw yeah this is extremely my shit

using their enterprise cert... I don't even know what the fuck they were thinking. it's just a dumbass move of epic proportions

this is an unusually good scoop from fundamentally unserious fool josh constine

https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1003329836574654464/pDmyoRm9_400x400.jpg

that’s... a lot of looks

caek otm, I was in awe that he did some decent reporting without sounding like he was firmly wedged up the ass of a new startup that sells electric propeller hats

ou sont les biddles d'antan

lol: https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/30/googles-also-peddling-a-data-collector-through-apples-back-door/

After we asked Google whether its app violated Apple policy, Google announced it will remove Screenwise Meter from Apple’s Enterprise Certificate program and disable it on iOS devices.

oh shit guys they saw us, run!

https://undark.org/article/junk-science-or-real-thing-inference/

Several articles on the site argued against the theory of evolution, for example, and at least one dismissed the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. Later, through tax documents and interviews, I would learn that all of Inference’s funding came from a surprising source: Peter Thiel. Since Inference’s start, Thiel, a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist, has donated at least $1.7 million to the outlet.

Peter Thiel has been funding a junk science publication that whitewashes their bad takes on evolution and global warming by paying legit scientists and writers to contribute real content

oh yeah, and apparently it's likely run by an intelligent design dude

Oh, Peter! Peter! Peter! What are we going to do with you?

Thank you for all of the love and support you have shown us over the years, for sharing us with your friends and family, and for including us in your special life moments.

ewwwwww gross

this is like crossover w/the Innocent Smoothies thread ...

i'm more surprised at this point when something evil _isn't_ being funded by peter thiel

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/02/youtube-doesnt-like-dislike-mobs-will-try-to-prevent-dislike-button-abuse/

so youtube was fine with mobs brigading the dislike button until mobs brigade-disliked _their_ video

*white supremacists and misognyists garner millions of views, flood youtube recommendations with rightwing content*

youtube: i sleep

*users mass-downvote youtube's own video*

youtube: REAL SHIT

I guess vertical integration has its upsides

our CSA just posted this screed, I tend to agree:

If you live in the SF Bay Area, you have probably heard the news about the prepared-meal delivery company Munchery, who shut their doors and their bank accounts recently without paying their vendors or employees. I'm sorry for anyone affected by this incident.

Many TFF subscribers have already read my opinions about venture capital-funded start ups that promise to "shake up" the food business. They offer things that existing business owners know are simply too good to be true: Extensive freebies and free delivery along with dubious claims that all their ingredients are locally sourced from organic and sustainable farms. And they all claim to do this in the interest of "revolutionizing the food system". But their only real goal is to make themselves wealthy if and when Wall Street takes them public in an IPO.

There are numerous problems with this model. The first is the idea that food should be cheaper than it already is, and technology can make this happen. That is simply untrue. The profit margin in the farming and food businesses is low; there is literally no fat to be removed. And nothing that companies like Blue Apron or Munchery did fundamentally changed those economics. The founders who ran these companies were either naive, ill-informed, or simply lying. And as stories from inside these businesses start to leak out, it is clear they were also poor and inexperienced managers.

Second, food is a mature market with a relatively fixed demand. Munchery and the others have not created new products, but rather taken market share from existing restaurants, supermarkets and other companies. Their only advantage was the free money from venture capital. Other businesses could not afford to spend more than they make in order to compete. Thus, the VC-backed startup model in this instance was not "disruptive". It was profoundly anti-competitive.

Third, the companies they were competing against are better run. Lots of people can run an unprofitable business if they have an endless source of someone else's money. Established business owners are the ones who have figured out how to be sustainably profitable. And yet these were the businesses that Munchery and the others were impacting or eliminating.

Fourth, Venture Capitalists are not held accountable. Sure, VCs are putting their money at risk when they finance companies like Munchery. But that risk should not be limited to the funds they have already invested. Munchery shut down without paying its employees or vendors, and it's unlikely many of the creditors will get much out of their bankruptcy. The VC firms that retain an ownership stake in a startup should be legally required to make good on all the company's debts when it fails. This would raise the bar on what type of companies venture capitalists fund, forcing them to spend more time evaluating the viability of startups and ensuring that they retain enough funds to pay their debts if and when they shut down.

In the end, the business model of Munchery, Blue Apron and so many others in the sector had only one real goal: to take business from thousands of small businesses and outsource limited profits to Wall Street. It was a terrible idea all around, and certainly not good for our economy or society as a whole.

I have sent a letter to my state Assemblywoman asking her to look into legislation requiring VCs to cover the debts of the companies they fund. I believe it is in the interest of the state of California to more strongly discourage VCs from funding companies that they do not have absolute confidence in. Small businesses in this economy need all the protection they can get, and face numerous layers of regulation that raise their costs and lower their profits. Wealthy Venture Capitalists should be subject to regulation and oversight that is just as strong, or stronger.

sounds about right

I have only experienced my friends' experience with Blue Apron and I don't think the proposition is cheaper food, though. It's very much about packaging the exact ingredients and proportions and you're paying them a pretty big premium for the planning, packaging, and delivery. The market among my peers is more of the "I don't know what to make, the family gets mac and cheese again" crowd.

I have absolutely no doubt they squeeze the suppliers and underpay their employees, though

is Blue Apron a recipe/ingredients delivery service? there are a couple here trying to take off.

yeah, they ship you a box with the meat/vegetables/sauce ingredients and a recipe card in a box. I think they recommend you have a small set of things they don't include (salt and pepper, mostly) but there are even little individual portions of herbs and tiny bottles of red wine vinegar

I just kinda hate this manbaby economy of "I don't know how to do anything and I don't want to go anywhere, can a robot just deliver it for me plz"

just learn to fucking buy food and cook already, these are literally some of the most basic human activities ever

a neighbor once gave us a blue apron delivery they didn't need and yeah that is the deal

it was ridiculous

xp

those services make me angry

I feel like grocery store mismanagement/consolidation has killed part of the ability to effectively shop in my area. Stores are either too large because they include eight different hot food counters and have banks and a starbucks built in, or they have bad produce suppliers and it's a crapshoot whether things will be any good. Target's grocery area is about as useful as the local grocery store, and it still feels like a grafted-on appendage

It's not as bad as I'm making it out to be, but when the store proportions and selection are more reasonable at the sole Whole Foods store, with all the baggage that comes with, things aren't doing great in grocery world.

I guess the best disruption strategy right now would be: reasonably-sized neighborhood grocery store

Trader Joe’s?

There is one Trader Joe's in a suburb that I visit when I go to Costco and run errands every few weeks. It's 9 miles from my house.

support your local co-op

TJ's produce is of questionable quality and limited selection.

I only go to TJs for meat and random specialty stuff my kids like (herb popcorn! or whatever the fuck)

but tbh what really galls me about these services that are based *in the Bay Area* is that we live in the total opposite of a food desert. It is probably easier here than anywhere else in the country to get great, local, sustainable produce

"I don't know what to make, the family gets mac and cheese again"

this is a strong family

I think blue apron is a good substitute for cooking classes and a reasonable way to "just learn to fucking buy food and cook already". Most younger people need to overcome the urge to say fuck it and get $7 take out that'd be approximately 1000x better than anything they can make themselves (Treesh thread). Groceries are expensive, and that little bottle of red wine vinegar might make sense for a person starting out, uncertain if they want or need a full sized bottle (especially if it's sherry vinegar, I mean fuck). I agree that a blue apron type package is not a sustainable way to eat your home cooked meals over a long period of time, which is probably what it needed to be for the stock to not tank.

I think that's a reasonable take

the local grocery chain, which is pretty good outside of my smaller/oddly-stocked store offers things like pre-ordering with curbside pickup, meal boxes, and other services now and it makes sense in that format

having a big cardboard box with cold packs in it shoved on your doorstop, less so. really we just need to start a service that has straighforward recipes to choose from (or a few that are selected for you based on preferences) that are handed to you when you pull up at the grocery store

was going to say a partnership with someone who had a cookbook like mark bittman's simple one would be ideal, and wouldn't you know, nytimes already made a page similar to the concept: https://cooking.nytimes.com/ourcooks/mark-bittman/my-recipes

another really irritating thing is how these companies act like grocery delivery is some sort of groundbreaking concept, and not something that, y'know, grocery stores used to do all the time in the first half of the 20th century

there are so many start-ups that are providing services that fell by the wayside as stores stopped offering them or creating a level of convenience that existed when stores weren't huge and were more local

so I get why some of them seem like a great idea, but we did it to ourselves

There tends to be a lot of magical thinking about the ability of apps to transcend or alter certain physical and economic realities.

I just kinda hate this manbaby economy of "I don't know how to do anything and I don't want to go anywhere, can a robot just deliver it for me plz"

just learn to fucking buy food and cook already, these are literally some of the most basic human activities ever

― legislative fanboy halfwit (Οὖτις), Wednesday, February 6, 2019 2:12 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The funniest thing about this sort of thinking is that it's very much the blindered mentality of silicon valley workers projecting their own lifestyle onto the rest of the country. *I* don't like going to the grocery store or have time to do it and would rather pay 30% markup to have drones bring me my groceries, so it must be that everyone feels the same way.

lol yeah. honestly I really like going to our local grocery co-op, the people there know me and my family, the selection's awesome, there's cheese samples...

A couple of times lately I've used instacart to do my costco shopping, but even there (1) I prefer to go in person (esp to see the produce), (2) the markup is insane, and (3) they randomly don't have certain items. I assume they try to lower their own costs by treating the instacart shopper like an uber driver and making them an independent contractor who pays his own expenses, but you still have to pay them enough to make it worth their while to spend the time going to costco, shopping, and delivering, plus maintaining their own vehicle, paying for parking at the costco, etc., and then you have to somehow deliver profit on top of that. I just don't get how the model can work. They claim to be profitable but I'm guessing we'll see a different story once an IPO forces them to start reporting financials.

And Blue Apron I REALLY never got -- you pay not much less than takeout cost per meal and do the labor yourself.

I've been using Instacart lately, due to a health thing I'm dealing with (nothing major, but basically I was told not to carry anything heavy for a while, and since I was regularly shopping at Bi-Rite in the Mission and walking home, thus the switch). Since I'm using it specifically for Bi-Rite I'm at least supporting the same place, and pretty much I tip the driver at 20% in cash, though I would rather just wander in as I can -- it's not on my direct route to and from work, though, so there's that. On the bright side I still hit up the Ferry Building farmer's market every Saturday and get further groceries there that aren't too much to deal with, and I always see my regulars when I go.

yelling “learn to cook” at programmers is truly the yelling “learn to code” at people who lost their jobs but have life skills

lol just kidding