[HN Gopher] Grocery delivery "dark stores" in Amsterdam
___________________________________________________________________
Grocery delivery "dark stores" in Amsterdam
Author : tzs
Score : 87 points
Date : 2022-02-20 16:42 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| periheli0n wrote:
| Isn't running noisy 24/7 businesses in residential areas and
| repeated threatening behaviour from riders something that the
| cops should be able to shut down relatively easily?
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| My thoughts exactly, does amsterdam not have zoning
| restrictions?
| matsemann wrote:
| Most cities in europe prefer mixed zoning, so one doesn't get
| those crazy suburbs. So it's normal to have businesses in the
| lowest floors with apartments around. But those are often
| small stores, cafes, restaurants etc, making the city feel
| alive and provide services to the residents. Not covered
| windows and buildings you cannot enter, and being a nuisance.
| Ekaros wrote:
| The amount of barbers and hairdressers here is something to
| behold at times. Or even offices for some types of firms. I
| think it is reasonable and makes lot of sense to have these
| types of businesses being available near where people
| actually live.
|
| I'm not really too keen on dark stores that aren't
| available for general public. I would much prefer regular
| store to one, even if that store would only be counter and
| pick-up only.
| periheli0n wrote:
| But mixed zoning usually comes with rules regarding opening
| hours, and a requirement to respect the neighbors' sleep.
| If a business repeatedly breaks those rules they get shut
| down.
|
| That's how in works in my city. The rules might be
| different in different cities/countries, but at least
| nightly harassment shouldn't be something that one has to
| tolerate.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| In the U.K. there are plenty of pubs in residential areas
| (as there have been since long before zoning was a thing)
| and they may often be noisy in the evenings. Some people
| will buy a house/flat next to a pub and then discover
| they don't really like the noise.
|
| There are rules about when businesses may open (and when
| they may sell alcohol) but a lot of them are historic
| Sunday trading laws or designed to give convenience
| stores an advantage over larger supermarkets. I think
| there are rules about where industrial buildings may be
| located. I think there are very few rules about where
| offices may be (and they can be open whenever) and there
| are probably some generic night noise laws, but eg the
| pub example above isn't breaching them (you may see a pub
| with a sign outside asking people to be considerate or
| more rarely a pub with a sign that says something like 'a
| pub has been here for X years and our neighbours should
| have known that it would be noisy in the evenings')
| wiradikusuma wrote:
| I'm confused, isn't the neighborhood who protest about these
| stores are also the same neighborhood who want them (that's why
| the stores are there in the first place)?
|
| Or _some_ people in the neighborhood want convenience at the
| expense of others?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Presumably, the problems do not affect those not in immediate
| vicinity of the warehouse/shipping operation. Those
| experiencing problems could be much fewer in number than those
| being able to be serviced by the warehouse while also being too
| far away to experience the problems.
|
| Which is a way zoning laws start to be introduced.
| jstanley wrote:
| Similarly, _some_ people in the neighbourhood want it to be
| quiet at the expense of others.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Within reason. I lived near a noisy neighbor (drug
| dealer/user etc). If you got work next day in a 9 to 5 job
| (like normal people) you don't want noisy drama at 3 AM.
| j4yav wrote:
| The stores have a relatively large range, but create a nuisance
| within a small portion.
|
| Neighbourhoods debate all kinds of things that some people want
| and others don't: strip clubs, coffeeshops, prostitution. All
| are legal here, but have rules because even though presumably
| some people find them convenient, others less so. Does that
| help clear up the confusion?
| Scarblac wrote:
| The stores are there because some large enterprises want to
| turn really quick delivery of groceries into a business model,
| so far they are making a loss.
| mshockwave wrote:
| similar things can also be found in Taiwan's food delivery where
| IIRC there is a dark store who takes orders from 5 different
| "restaurants" (kinda like shell companies) on major platforms,
| like Uber Eats.
| guruz wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_kitchen
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| I saw restaurants like these in Seattle! There was a food truck
| parked by China Harbor that would serve for several restaurants
| on Uber Eats. I'm pretty sure Uber labels these as virtual
| restaurants or something.
| ewoodrich wrote:
| These became extremely common by the time I stopped doing
| Uber Eats in early 2021. As a driver I loved them because
| their business model was 100% aligned with delivery services
| and would always have food ready to go, be polite and
| responsive (unlike how many restaurants treated drivers),
| occasionally give a free water bottle as a thank you, etc.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I love how pizzeria/kebab shop me has 3 different store fronts
| on same service... All selling pizza... At least the other one
| have just two and one for wings etc. with different branding,
| though over double the transport cost... Go figure that mess...
| bombcar wrote:
| These are actually older than delivery foods - twenty years ago
| I worked at a hotel where the "cheap" restaurant and the "very
| fancy" restaurant had the same kitchen/cooks.
|
| The food offered was mostly different but you certainly could
| order the exact same meal at the fancy restaurant for almost
| double the cheaper one.
| ruuda wrote:
| There's a crackdown in Utrecht as well:
| https://www.duic.nl/algemeen/utrecht-legt-flitsbezorgers-aan...
| (Dutch)
|
| It does feel magic to order groceries and have them at your
| doorstep in 10 minutes (literally). But it's rarely useful.
| awillen wrote:
| It's useful if you're disabled, or your work schedule makes it
| tough to shop or any number of other reasons. Just because
| something isn't useful for you doesn't mean it's not useful.
| elsjaako wrote:
| A lot of the supermarkets in the Netherlands have delivery
| options, without all the nuisance. It's just that you have to
| think in hours, not minutes, for delivery.
| qw wrote:
| You have a valid point, but the article states that they
| place darks stores in residential areas to decrease the
| delivery time.
|
| There is a need for these services, but we also need to think
| about all those who are negatively impacted by this.
|
| By placing the warehouse outside the residential area, they
| may increase the delivery time by 15-20 minutes. Isn't that a
| good enough compromise for the customers? Saving 20 minutes
| on grocery delivery is not worth the human cost.
| mvanbaak wrote:
| They will switch to cars for delivery. No thanks. I agree
| that the current situation is bad. How about using all
| those empty properties in ahopping centra?
| mnd999 wrote:
| That's a pretty small market that in no way justifies pumping
| enormous amounts of VC cash into putting convenience stores
| out of business.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I thought about offering something like this to neighbors (for
| small orders) just so they don't drive their car to the bakery
| (I use a bike).
| k1rac wrote:
| Its very useful for couples with kids living in the center of a
| city.
| rapfaria wrote:
| Last New Years Eve I was cooking with my SO and among other
| things, we were planning on having rice. I realized at that
| point that I had bought brown rice by mistake, instead of white
| rice (small package, both look the same around here). 10
| minutes later we had white rice from one these dark stores.
|
| That one time it was _really_ useful.
| pxtail wrote:
| Damn, that's the dedication - triggering whole complex
| operation where multiple people and systems are engaged and
| consume energy just to get _slightly_ different kind of rice.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I'm just thinking of the overhead. That is how much it cost
| to get that packet of rice in 10 minutes... With all the
| people involved in whole processs.
| nomdep wrote:
| A _completely_ different kind of rice. I love regular white
| rice, but find disgusting the texture and flavor of brown
| rice.
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| That's nothing. Think about the immense scale of operation
| required just to let you instantly comment on someone
| relating that story. We have massive ships that roam the
| seas to keep your connectivity alive.
| pxtail wrote:
| bombcar wrote:
| I've had a similar experience - was out of something for
| Christmas dinner iirc, and five minutes later I had it after
| running over to the 24-hr gas station which has a
| surprisingly large convenience store.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > It does feel magic to order groceries and have them at your
| doorstep in 10 minutes (literally). But it's rarely useful.
|
| Please speak for yourself. It might not make much of a
| difference for you or perhaps many people, but a lot of people
| like me also find it to be highly convenient. When I'm tired
| and out of time instead of ordering an unhealthy meal from
| $FOODDELIVERYAPP$ I can (and very frequently do) buy something
| relatively healthier from such a site. Of course, the negatives
| need to be countered too, but their high popularity does
| indicate I'm unsurprisingly not alone.
| [deleted]
| BossingAround wrote:
| OP talked about usefulness, you talk about convenience. The
| two are different.
|
| > Of course, the negatives need to be countered too, but
| their high popularity does indicate I'm unsurprisingly not
| alone.
|
| Popularity and demand is behind, among others, deforestation
| and global warming. What people want and what we can have is
| not always the same. I don't know if that is the case here, I
| am simply stating that popularity alone is not a great
| indicator.
| consp wrote:
| The people profiting of it (like you) are usually distinct
| from those suffering from it. If you didn't sleep because of
| the noise of the thing you are using you would think twice.
| Typical NIMBY problems.
|
| It's the same with the stupid electric scooters and bikes
| which get dumped all over the place and clutter the streets,
| but those streets are usually not where those people live who
| use them.
| lucb1e wrote:
| At the same time, I'd much rather have electric
| transportation devices strewn across the street, than cars
| (especially the smoking kind) on the street rushing by all
| day long as they currently are. The number of accidents
| with these 1000kg blocks of aluminium (more if it's
| electric) or their energy needs for individual whims...
| we're going to be 8 billion people soon, smaller individual
| transport is not a bad thing. If something needs to be done
| about the placement, well, we have plenty of space over if
| we could convert even just 50% of the roads to something
| other than broad slabs of obstruction-free flat space.
|
| (Edit: I'm not the downvoter. I don't agree but that
| doesn't make it a nonuseful perspective.)
|
| Edit#2: Observing the votes on this comment, presumably
| from car lovers/haters, is quite interesting. Not sure it's
| a good sign if I wrote engaging but not generally agreeable
| content.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Except that these app-rental bicycles, mopeds, and
| scooters don't actually replace cars. They reportedly
| replace use of public transport, privately owned
| bicycles, and just walking. They appear to be a net-
| negative to society in their current incarnation.
|
| Cars are way too dominant, even here in bicycle-friendly
| Netherlands, but these app-rental things don't change
| anything on that front.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > They reportedly replace use of public transport
|
| Because most people still use a car for anything further
| than a few streets away, presumably. I'm not going to
| electric-scooter my way from Roermond/Weert to Eindhoven
| every day but I know a lot of people that drive or train-
| ride that distance daily (pre-pandemic).
|
| Can't it be considered public transport as well if
| they're owned by a transportation company, to be used by
| the public, and not an individual? Right now it'll fall
| outside of laws that require things like accessibility
| for sure, but that's bound to change if this takes over
| as a better alternative to crowded buses.
|
| If you have a link and/or some keywords I'd also be
| curious to read your source material btw!
| Freak_NL wrote:
| > Can't it be considered public transport as well if
| they're owned by a transportation company, to be used by
| the public, and not an individual?
|
| Sure. But then you would have something that is actively
| managed and planned by the local municipal government
| (implemented by a commercial or semi-governmental public
| transport company). It wouldn't look like the current
| mess where coverage is decided exclusively on the basis
| of profitability, multiple companies battling for
| dominance in the same area, and externalities such as
| misuse of public space left completely unaddressed
| (because not technically illegal).
|
| A proper solution that could be considered part of public
| transport would have rentable (e-)bicycles with fixed
| terminals to retrieve and return from/to. Like Citybike
| Wien or StadtRAD Hamburg.
|
| > If you have a link and/or some keywords I'd also be
| curious to read your source material btw!
|
| I read it in a column in NRC, the source referred to is
| this report by the Amsterdam municipality:
|
| https://docplayer.nl/221773234-Tussentijdse-rapportage-
| deelv...
| lucb1e wrote:
| Just one little note, not to disprove your argument or
| anything, but there's this little paragraph in the middle
| of the report:
|
| > In de open antwoorden wordt door gebruikers meerdere
| keren aangegeven dat het openbaar vervoer wordt gemeden
| vanwege besmettingsgevaar.
|
| ("In the open answers, multiple users indicate public
| transport is being avoided due to the contagion risk.")
|
| So it's also partially a covid thing, but yeah I don't
| expect that this will be the majority. Personal transport
| is favored over mass transport by virtually everyone
| after all, everything else being equal.
|
| Also interesting in relation to sibling comments is this
| part:
|
| > Fout en hinderlijk parkeren is een vast onderwerp op de
| reguliere overleggen tussen gemeente en aanbieder. In de
| vergunnings-uitvraag is specifiek gevraagd om een
| klachtenafhandelingsplan. De vergunning verplicht de
| aanbieders om binnen een bepaalde tijd klachten af te
| handelen, waarbij beide aanbieders in hun
| klachtenafhandelingsplan hebben aangegeven dit nog
| sneller dan de gemeentelijke criteria te doen. In de
| eerste voortgangsrapportage (15 januari 2021) werd
| duidelijk dat dit door aanbieders is gehaald.
|
| Loosely translated: incorrect parking is always an item
| on the agenda between municipalities and service
| providers. The permit to operate the service requires a
| complaint procedure to be in place and the processing
| speed requirements from the municipality were more than
| met in the first evaluation.
|
| People seem to keep bringing this up, saying the scooters
| are a curse that would be eradicated from their city if
| it were up to them, not even considering that there could
| possibly be a fix for this. Well...
| consp wrote:
| If those things would be operated like bikes/scooters
| people own themselves sure as that usually means some
| form of restraint. The problem is that these are not and
| are put in places where the do not belong like in front
| of doors or the middle of the curb blocking the path for
| everyone. People don't care and the businesses use public
| space like it's their own parking space to the detriment
| of others and there is little to no penalty for abuse.
|
| That is a general problem with the ride sharing with
| small transportation as well as with these stores: As
| long as you only reap the benefits it's less likely to
| see the problems associated and felt by others.
| lucb1e wrote:
| > People don't care and the businesses use public space
| like it's their own parking space to the detriment of
| others
|
| That's what we have laws for. Right now they're
| insufficient because the phenomenon is new and not
| widespread enough to urgently overhaul things for.
|
| Just because, right now, there are problems and some
| people exploit the legal situation, that doesn't mean
| this is how it will always need to be if we are to keep
| small electric personal transportation devices as a
| concept.
| FpUser wrote:
| I can't imagine buying produce without actually seeing it.
| matsemann wrote:
| (disclaimer, I work for an online grocer)
|
| It can actually be better buying online. For a normal
| grocery store the apples first have to go to some
| distributor on big pallets and wait there. Then some of the
| apples are sent with other goods to a grocery store with
| the next delivery. There they will lay up to a week in non-
| ideal conditions with multiple people touching them.
|
| Online, they can be distributed almost instantly when they
| arrive to the customer, and in the meantime they are stored
| perfectly. Also less waste, since one doesn't have to ship
| excessive amounts that won't be sold to all the small
| stores, to avoid any store running out.
|
| This doesn't apply to these smaller darkstores/instant
| deliveries, though, as they are basically small grocery
| shops with the same negatives of inefficient distribution.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I've used produce delivery services before and rarely have
| I received a quality that isn't decent. These people don't
| benefit by providing poor service, don't benefit by
| providing poor produce.
| will4274 wrote:
| Why? You see it when it comes to your house. If it doesn't
| look good, you throw it away and don't order from them
| anymore. It's the exact same as delivery food or just
| eating in a restaurant, for that matter.
| [deleted]
| GrumpyNl wrote:
| Buy a fridge and you can order order within 24hrs.
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| > When I'm tired and out of time
|
| Without wanting to pass judgement but as someone who
| experienced burnout in past positions, if you don't have the
| time or energy to do some form of weekly shopping (even if
| online) and cook some food, it feels to me that the solution
| is that you need to work less and rest more, rather than rely
| on 10 min delivery because you're mentally drained to do
| anything else.
| aaron695 wrote:
| fivea wrote:
| > Without wanting to pass judgement but as someone who
| experienced burnout in past positions, if you don't have
| the time or energy to do some form of weekly shopping (even
| if online) and cook some food, it feels to me that the
| solution is that you need to work less and rest more,
| rather than rely on 10 min delivery because you're mentally
| drained to do anything else.
|
| That escalated from "I like online shopping with fast
| deliveries" to a needlessly antagonistic and judgemental
| "you are living your life totally wrong".
|
| I love ordering stuff online and barely having to wait any
| time at all between clicking a button and getting it on my
| door step. I love how everyday shopping ceased to be a
| logistics problem. It's simply not possible to argue
| against the benefits to your everyday life of having the
| closest there ever was to a star trek replicator at the
| press of a button.
| chapium wrote:
| This can break down with roommates/partners. You may be
| wanting to prepare a meal only to find out something you
| knew you had plenty of is suddenly wiped out. Having a
| quick delivery service may be a great alternative to
| someone who is pinched for time and would rather not order
| out something unhealthy.
| mattlondon wrote:
| Not just work - there is real life too. Try an 8 hour day
| book-ended by several hours of childcare. You start at 6am
| then it is go-go-go with kids-work-kids until 8-9pm. There
| is not time to then fit in a grocery shop (plus are you
| going to leave kids alone in the house asleep while you hit
| the shops?) then cooking.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| Does 10-minute-delivery offer value over next-day
| delivery in that situation though?
| lucb1e wrote:
| > the solution is that you need to work less and rest more,
| rather than rely on 10 min delivery because you're mentally
| drained
|
| That is presumably the goal of everyone in such a
| situation. In the meantime, it can help them get through it
| (I'm thinking of having a newborn here in particular, but
| there are also various other stressing times in an average
| life), though it makes me wonder if this
| inadvertently/indirectly supports this state of being
| because there is less incentive to change it back to
| something more healthy.
|
| Edit: For my future reference, this comment is
| nonconstructive how? (Sometimes I wonder what the effect
| would be of showing the downvote button only after a
| comment has any replies at all, anything that's bad enough
| not to engage with should be flagged after all, but then
| it's very hard to measure objectively if that makes people
| get better feedback and use it for the better or not.)
| meesterdude wrote:
| > Please speak for yourself.
|
| Why the attitude? It's disingenuous to infer they were
| stating anything other than their opinion.
| [deleted]
| noobermin wrote:
| This article is really downplaying the racial element to the
| stories, the complaints about "smoking, making noise, bikes
| blocking walkways" in a city like Amsterdam is a bit telling. Not
| that dark stores can be a nuisance but it's clearly a dimension
| in this story.
| LaurensBER wrote:
| Although I have no doubt that there's an element of racism in
| there it doesn't seem to be the root cause here.
|
| Keep in mind that Amsterdam is a very diverse city and in
| general racism tends to be quite low. I'm guessing (hoping)
| that some of the racistic comments were spoken in a moment of
| frustration (which given the noise and general disturbances
| 24/7 would create plenty of opportunities) and do not signal a
| changing attitude towards "foreigners" in Amsterdam.
| boh wrote:
| It's interesting that class prejudice is exclusively expressed
| as a racial issue these days.
| MajorBee wrote:
| When certain races are disproportionately represented in
| certain classes, you can't help but draw a parallel between
| the two issues...
|
| I'm not claiming that's the case here (I have no idea if
| these "riders" referred to in the article are mostly
| immigrants or not), but it is certainly a common phenomenon.
| vinay427 wrote:
| I'm unsure how you interpreted "downplaying the racial
| element" and "a dimension in this story" in the GP comment to
| mean "exclusively." There are numerous alternatives I can
| think of that the commenter could have used to indicate
| exclusivity, but their phrasing seems to clearly (IMO)
| indicate that it's simply an element that is underplayed in
| this article.
| danielfoster wrote:
| I viewed the Instagram created by one of the residents and
| based on what I can see from photos of "the problems," this
| seems like a classic case of NIMBYism and perhaps racism.
| periheli0n wrote:
| This is not the only hole in the story. When I would get
| harassed at 2am by an employee of a half-illegal business I
| would a) call the cops to shut down the noise, b) team up with
| a few neighbours to obtain legal counsel how to shut them them
| down. Why are the residents not doing that, or rather, why is
| the article not writing about that?
|
| Edit: I don't want to talk down the racial component. It is
| certainly sad that the article glosses over that part of the
| story. But still I wonder why the residents are not doing the
| obvious and call the cops--or if they did, why the article
| doesn't talk about it.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Interesting, could you elaborate? Is there anyone in particular
| they could have in mind complaining like that?
| noobermin wrote:
| The article says it towards the end. Generally immigrants are
| riders for these shops I'm assuming and a rider is quoted
| saying riders are acting defensive:
|
| >Ramzy Labidi, a student who spent five months as a rider for
| Gorillas, believes some riders are responding to the "weird,
| racist comments" they receive as they deliver orders around
| the city. "Eventually, I think [some riders] get frustrated,
| and they go on vigilante mode and try to do something about
| it," he says, adding that this might motivate some riders to
| pick fights.
| kingcharles wrote:
| There is one of these around the corner from my home in Chicago.
| I know what street it is on because I somehow managed to find it
| on the map recently. I was curious because I ordered some online
| groceries and _less than five minutes_ from clicking the order
| button a mad guy turned up at my door, "YOU WILL REMEMBER ME! MY
| NAME IS IVAN! I AM RUSSIAN!", handed me the bag and sped off.
| mrep wrote:
| I'm in Chicago, what app are you using?
| qnsi wrote:
| u do remember him which made me introduce myself in this way in
| rhe future
| ljm wrote:
| These services have been popping up all over London too. I
| actually wondered if they're a front for something, because
| almost every other week there's a new grocery delivery service
| with a forgettable name.
| analog31 wrote:
| They could be like the scooter rental start-ups, which seemed
| to have every hallmark of existing primarily to absorb venture
| capital.
| everyone wrote:
| How can you run a small warehouse in a residential street? What
| about zoning?
| noobermin wrote:
| Zoning in the netherlands is nowhere as onerous as it is in
| America.
| everyone wrote:
| A big reason the Netherlands is such a great country is that
| that it's well planned out. They must have a shittone of
| planning rules and procedure to achieve that. They do promote
| mixed use development, mixing business and residential. But a
| warehouse is more industrial, I assume they dont want to mix
| residential and industrial?
| [deleted]
| noobermin wrote:
| Sure, I guess I don't know whether these qualify as
| warehouses or shops, I suppose that's the ambiguity the
| start-ups are trying to exploit.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > assume they don't want to mix residential and industrial?
|
| Why not? Residential buildings and light industry can exist
| in close proximity without too much trouble as long as
| everyone behaves properly.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I think big issue is that these warehouses and dark
| kitchens actually take out of the retail space otherwise
| available, thus making the services to those in immediate
| vicinity worse.
| Khelavaster wrote:
| This link goes to an error page
| dang wrote:
| Looks like a bug in our software that tries to detect canonical
| URLs. I'll look into it.
| bobcostas55 wrote:
| Is there any evidence that dark stores are more disruptive
| than...normal stores? A regular supermarket gets tons of traffic,
| trucks unloading goods, etc. What's the difference?
| bogomipz wrote:
| Anecdotal and personal observations:
|
| Regular grocery stores have dedicated service entrances for
| deliveries. These dark grocery stores are often just using
| whatever repurposed single door retail space they could get,
| i.e places that were built for regular foot traffic retail.
|
| Also the amount of ebikes and delivery scooters coming and
| going on the sidewalks in front of these places, as well as
| blocking them, has become something a nuisance for pedestrians.
|
| While not necessarily "disruptive" but certainly somewhat
| dystopian feeling - these dark grocery stores just put up paper
| over the windows. Not transitionally but permanently. It's
| really not any kind of an improvement over the blight of an
| empty storefront.
| himlion wrote:
| These shops in Amsterdam are even using converted residential
| apartments.
| fock wrote:
| the normal supermarket (or any non-gig-business) here in
| Germany has to provide:
|
| - parking (bikes/cars/none if only pedestrians are there)
|
| - some rest/change area for employees
|
| These things cost quite a bit of money.
|
| Now, as with most gig-economy "startups" (or should you call
| them moneybaths?), the "dark stores" require these things too,
| but at least with the locations I saw, they don't really do
| that. Essentially their fronts look like a branded homeless-
| camp. No thanks.
|
| Also: can someone explain to me, how this concept will (like
| that of any other gig-economy company) be realized in any semi-
| equal society (aka no slavers state). Essentially you'd
| probably need 2/100 people working for that, nonstop. These
| people will basically do something which nowadays everyone but
| the richest people have heavily optimized already, just that
| it's not supposed to be optimized, because I don't think the
| idea is a soviet-style "hey, I bring you your allocated food,
| once a week".
|
| The explicit promise is that whoever can afford this, can just
| call these services on a whim, meaning this is super-
| inefficient from a societal view (how do you optimize 10min
| delivery time?). Then, just letting the price decide and having
| all of services structured that way, you'll essentially get the
| slavers state, neolib. edition(tm). Because a lot of people
| working in these sectors will then be forced to choose the
| soviet-style solution outlined above (and you already see
| this!), just without being allowed a say in that matter,
| because that's how the system is supposed to be, no?
|
| What a brave new world!
| Nextgrid wrote:
| > how this concept will (like that of any other gig-economy
| company) be realized in any semi-equal society (aka no
| slavers state). Essentially you'd probably need 2/100 people
| working for that, nonstop
|
| It can work, just not in a way that Silicon Valley VC bros
| want it to.
|
| Most countries already have a legacy version of this system
| in place: the post office, as well as a few private courier
| companies. Those systems' "tick rates" are typically one day
| - packages are collected at depots/sorting offices early in
| the morning, assigned to couriers who then spend the rest of
| the day delivering them.
|
| Increasing the tick rate of such a system is possible
| especially with smaller goods as well as being able to take
| advantage of more "depots" (for grocery deliveries,
| supermarkets are essentially the depots) - the costs will
| obviously be higher, but not prohibitively so.
|
| The problem with the current delivery services is that it's
| fragmented - every company has their own couriers,
| restaurants/supermarkets, etc where not only is the supply &
| demand unbalanced, leading to situations where one company's
| couriers may be sitting idle wasting time loitering (leading
| to potential antisocial behavior) where anothers' might be
| overloaded and delivering a poor customer experience with
| regards to wait times. The system also has the overheads of
| people staying idle which is currently subsidized by treating
| these workers like shit and denying them employment
| rights/benefits.
|
| A single marketplace providing an API for moving goods from
| point A to point B priced by weight, special requirements
| (refrigerated transport, etc), timeliness and the current
| state of the market (dynamic pricing) could work. This will
| allow the system to maximize the efficiency of the people on
| the ground, being able to consolidate deliveries and reduce
| waste (bikes or vehicles sitting idle, couriers loitering
| around, etc). This could be operated by the existing postal
| system and even use this same infrastructure for mail/package
| delivery.
|
| The above system would undeniably cost more than the current
| VC-subsidized services which also underpay their workers and
| treat them like shit in general, but not by an exorbitant
| amount. Its costs overheads would scale linearly though which
| is a bad fit for VCs looking to monopolize the world, however
| as a public service similar to the post office it should be
| viable.
| astura wrote:
| I suppose you could operate a dark store in a residential
| neighborhood where it would be impractical to impossible to
| operate a regular store.
|
| Or maybe it's a fluke in zoning laws where they can legally
| operate a dark store but not a regular store.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Brings to mind the FreshDirect trucks squatting in the
| streets of NYC, acting as a mini-warehouse for the bike
| couriers; its literally free real estate:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/NYCbike/comments/n6oi0v/a_freshdire.
| ..
| woudsma wrote:
| AT5 (local Amsterdam news station) recently made a video about
| darkstores.
|
| https://youtu.be/Owf3Uo3NC8o (Dutch, but auto-translate subtitles
| work pretty well)
| spicybright wrote:
| > For orders to be delivered within apps' 10- or 20-minute
| targets, delivery companies need real estate within residential
| areas, forcing locals to live next door to the businesses.
|
| Do zoning laws not effect this?
| monocasa wrote:
| They might not. Commercial zoning around me involves a
| storefront or front desk. I run a startup out of my house
| legally because of that (which is really just my office).
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| I use Flink a lot in Vienna. Largely also because shopping hours
| are so incredibly restrictive here that using Flink is even more
| convenient than elsewhere. Grocery stores are required by law to
| close at around 8, but Flink operates two hours longer. And
| having even larger orders show up within 10 minutes obviously
| makes this even more convenient.
|
| I'm pretty sure this type of business actually fills a niche
| here.
| vanusa wrote:
| There's no doubt that a business niche is getting filled.
|
| It's just a question of what are the true net costs of these
| services - and who ends up really paying for them.
| jaybong wrote:
| I used to live on Fagelstraat (the street quoted in the
| article), directly opposite this garage. Within 4 minutes you
| can walk to 2 different supermarkets which are open 8am-10pm
| each day.
|
| I've used one of these services (Gorillas), and while it is
| amazingly fast with pretty decent pricing, I'm not convinced
| its filling a crucial in densely populated Dutch cities, due to
| already easy supermarket access.
| cehrlich wrote:
| I use it for the same reason. But to be honest the real
| solution is to expand opening hours of normal grocery stores,
| or to allow something similar to Off License in the UK / Spati
| in Germany. It doesn't make sense that it's cheaper to have
| someone bring me beer than it is to go buy it myself.
| mns wrote:
| > But to be honest the real solution is to expand opening
| hours of normal grocery stores.
|
| Well, those hours need to be filled in by someone. Just like
| Uber, these services managed to drive down costs by paying
| some "contractors" to deliver food to mostly rich and well-
| off people. Maybe we should offer better working schedules
| for everyone, instead of exploiting some. Living in a state
| in Germany where stores close at 8 and on Sunday, I really
| got used to it and managed to adapt, and I'm sure a lot of
| the people working there do like the fact they don't have to
| work until 10 or on Sundays.
|
| > It doesn't make sense that it's cheaper to have someone
| bring me beer than it is to go buy it myself.
|
| Yeah, because some of those costs come from the guy
| delivering your stuff not being an employee.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| As a student, I wasn't able to work a 9-5 job, but 5PM-10PM
| and weekend work was a good way to make money. The
| alternative for many people with other obligations besides
| work isn't to simply work comfortable hours, it's to lose
| their job entirely.
|
| Also, at least in the US, you'll often see different crowds
| shopping at night compared to during the day. The
| privileged person has a flexible work situation or a
| partner who goes shopping during the day, but someone who
| has has inflexible commitments during the day appreciates
| the opportunity to be able to shop at irregular hours.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I see no reason why opening hours should be regulated. Then
| again I'm partial to the hyper market near me being open 24h
| every day since the change in law. Ofc, during night some
| services aren't available. And on other had it probably
| remove competitive advantage from small stores and gas
| stations. Still, the opening times often don't seem
| unreasonable.
| Fnoord wrote:
| On bottom it says this is originally a Wired story [1]
|
| [1] https://www.wired.com/story/amsterdam-dark-stores/
| vondur wrote:
| Wow. I thought one of the cool things living in a European city
| was how many local stores within walking distance of most housing
| in urban centers.
| Vinnl wrote:
| Yeah, I can't imagine this ever being worth the VC money where
| I'm from for this reason. But who knows.
| itronitron wrote:
| In my opinion, most of these ventures will fail (or be
| consolidated) because they aren't charging as much as they
| could for the service. As a result most of their business is
| probably delivering pints of Ben and Jerry's to people after
| all of the stores have closed.
| Vinnl wrote:
| How much could they charge, and why? At least where I'm
| from with a supermarket always nearby, the convenience
| factor is going to be worth something, but they'll always
| have to compete with just picking things up yourself, which
| I'm assuming will always cost a lot less. Doesn't feel like
| there's room for a whole lot of margin on top of that.
| itronitron wrote:
| There are probably two main segments of customer for this
| service. Customer A cares about convenience, and customer
| B cares about saving time (also logistics). One could
| argue that they are the same thing, but there is a
| difference in degree.
|
| Customer B can arguably save an hour of their time by
| having a large order of groceries delivered. How much is
| that time worth? Ten dollars/euros is an easy minimum
| value to set. That will probably turn away most
| prospective customers but the remaining customers that do
| use the service will be buying a lot more groceries per
| trip.
| TillE wrote:
| I'm truly baffled about how these services seem fairly popular
| in Berlin.
|
| I literally live across the street from one supermarket, and
| within a 5 minute walk from 3-4 others. Yet one of these
| grocery delivery services has a warehouse right down my street.
|
| If you have a disability or you're quarantining it seems
| fantastic, but otherwise...just go to the grocery store??
| mrep wrote:
| Are they evenly distributed? I'm in lake view chicago and
| there are 5 in a 15 minute walk they just happen to be like
| all 15 minutes as I'm like right in the middle of all them.
| There are clusters though where you could go to any of 5
| different grocery stores within a 5 minute walk.
| agp152 wrote:
| I don't like waiting in line. Also, German grocery stores are
| not as nice as in the US or NL. Basic food, long lines, very
| rude staff.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > German grocery stores are not as nice as in the US
|
| I've used both and German stores seem to me to be ok. US
| stores are also ok although the quality of fresh produce
| seems to be less good and generally the fresh baked goods
| are much worse.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| I'm in your exact situation, but... going to the store.
| Putting stuff in a cart. Waiting in line, like sibling said.
| Unloading it from the cart. Reloading it in the cart.
| Carrying it home.
|
| I just described several steps that are a complete monotonous
| waste of my time and that I consider unpleasant and that
| someone else is willing to do for me if I give them a sum of
| money I can afford not to care about.
|
| That's amazing, imo. (At least for me; I don't know how
| amazing it is for them, even if I tip highly.)
|
| It is kind of funny, but, hey, humans are kind of funny. I'd
| rather not even walk outside for a minute to throw my trash
| into the bins; if I could leave it outside my door and have a
| person/robot pick it up, that'd be sweet. :p You can take
| this to an extreme, where you eliminate every unpleasant task
| via some magical means, and that world sounds like paradise.
| Cue dystopic collapse of some kind.
| itronitron wrote:
| >> Cue dystopic collapse of some kind
|
| You mean like living out your days in a life-sustaining pod
| that automatically flushes your waste products away while
| your body provides electricity to the grid?
| bombcar wrote:
| I live minutes away from a Walmart and I've still ordered
| stuff for delivery a few days later, as it's a minimum 20-30
| minutes to get something. Even the grocery store across the
| street is a 15m trip. I could see people not wanting to spend
| the time.
|
| (However, most grocery items are a pain in the arse to find
| online and order, so it's often shorter time wise for me to
| go to the store.)
| bogomipz wrote:
| Yes that is one of the cool things and it's not just European
| cities but it's true for living in any walking city or even
| living in a walkable part of a city. And yet here we are. These
| have sprouted up in NYC and London as well, with all the same
| concerns. What I can't understand is why someone would pay all
| of that money to live in a city like Amsterdam, London or NYC
| and not wan't to go out and interact with their environment and
| neighborhood. What's further confounding is that after 2 years
| of forced isolation via lockdowns and work from home that
| people would not relish the opportunity to get out of their
| small apartments and appreciate the walking, window shopping,
| and people watching that comes with it.
| alkonaut wrote:
| If you are running a business you need permits and those permits
| obviously include writing about how much traffic your business
| can generate, noise levels at specific times, how trash is taken
| care of, and so on.
|
| Here it sounds like someone set up a garage business and didn't
| fill out the paperwork.
|
| Either that's illegal or the city is some kind of anarcholiberal
| extreme (which could well be the case in this example seeing as
| the Netherlands is often on the liberal side of business
| regulation, but it wouldn't generalize to other cities so it
| wouldn't really be noteworthy)
| j4yav wrote:
| For what it's worth, Amsterdam doesn't have anarcholiberal
| zoning rules. The article describes how the situation led to a
| ban that was put in place here, which presumably wouldn't fly
| in an anarchist city.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Sounds like everything works as intended. Except that here a
| specific ban shouldn't be necessary, regular rules around
| traffic etc should be enough.
| bogomipz wrote:
| A similar article regarding the same phenomenon in both NYC and
| Berlin from last week:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/11/nyregion/gorillas-rapid-d...
| analog31 wrote:
| I'm reminded that almost every culture has a version of a folk
| story such as "The goose that laid the golden egg." Someone is
| given a power to do something that can make them wealthy, but
| they lose all sense of restraint and destroy the thing that is
| giving them that power.
|
| When a new business idea is introduced and someone asks: "How
| will this be carried to its logical extreme and become a
| nusiance," that's dismissed as a slippery slope argument. But
| it's ultimately why we have things like zoning laws. My own
| reaction is that new things tend to arrive in my town relatively
| slowly, and it's good to see how they pan out elsewhere before
| arriving here.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-20 23:02 UTC)