The one counter is that commercial real estate is way cheaper than it used to be. The potential savings of putting everyone in a full open floor plan aren't as high as they used to be.
(Still don't think it will happen - but that shift occurred when leases on commercial real estate were at all time high)
I do think everyday behaviors have more single point of failures than they used to. The complexity has just gone up (with the example of needing to use the internet to get a parking spot) so almost by definition there are more ways it can go wrong.
That being said, I think you are just glorifying the past a bit. Watching on-demand television was impossible 15 years ago. People were still using tivo's you had to set ahead of time. I personally call my barber because its easier than the computer - and most places have both options.
The fact it was bad in the past doesn’t mean it isn’t weirdly, differently bad now.
Like navigation applications where you can see the instructions because every oddball application is notifying you and hops over the navigation, sometimes WHEN YOU REALLY NEED THAT INFORMATION.
I am not too in the weeds on this particular issue, but it seems not that crazy to me that "the biggest four companies" produce 55% of the US's chickens. Presumably that means there is much more than four who register in at above a couple percent nationally and possibly even at a local level different players. Its also for one market. While I eat a lot of chicken, I could substitute it for other foods or meats.
To be clear I think these companies would manipulate prices if they knew how and could get away with it, but having trouble seeing how "four companies control under 60 percent of one food's market" is that alarming. That seems like more competition than at any point in human history.
That's fair. Price fixing is a specific thing, while I was more referring to facts like:
>BigAg’s consolidated power throttles the price discovery process.
and
> Over time the share of feedlot-to-meatpacker sales done via contract has increased to 72%, so BigAg sets the price outright with no price discovery process at all.
I'm tired and can't even think what to call this except 'undue influence', which is too vague. Though that said, I'd still be shocked if there wasn't price fixing going on, given the state of things.
While I'm here, OP seems to miss that this is 4 players controlling "roughly 85% of the total hog, cattle, and poultry processing market", focusing on chicken where the number is lowest. It's really, really bad; and not something to dismiss based on wild historical speculation.
If you were a random person in a town 1600 - how many people do you think you could buy meat form? I honestly dont know. I guess if everyone had subsistence farms with some chickens it in theory could be a lot, but not sure if it would be over 10 or not.
Its not like they had efficient shipping or storage back then.
>But Mayor Femke Halsema complained last year that cruise tourists were let loose for a couple of hours, ate at international chains and had no time to visit a museum, consuming the city but doing little for it.
My guess is most of HN is relatively pro-market pro-business so this probably won't be controversial, but this seems like the type of thing that a government will regret in ten years. So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services. I realize Amsterdam is very wealthy, but feel like we've seen countless times cities discouraging visitors and then surprised when tax revenues drop.
Cruise ship tourism isn't necessarily type of tourism you want to encourage. Specially if you are already popular and well enough connected location for all strata.
The tourist arriving with ships already have paid for their board and food. So they are less likely to spend money in the city. And then it is possibly they go on tours run by the ship thus most money not going to locals.
In the end many cities in Europe especially don't need this type of tourism. They have enough organic self-grown much more profitable tourism already. Does not mean there isn't some places where local economy depends on it. And even then cruise companies are trying to capture also the gains there.
Because the knock on effects aren't just in the tourists not spending money, but clogging the streets (go to central Amsterdam on a Saturday evening sometime, it's insane) causing trouble, and even if there's money that's not going to the cooks, servers, museum docents etc.
There is likely still a price at which point the strain would be reduced enough that the taxes levied on those left would be worth it if e.g. used to improve local services or reduce local residential services fees or taxes.
But maybe it's not worth the hassle to figure out for some cities.
In addition cruises are often marketed to people looking to save money, so you have even less of a chance of them spending in a meaningful way, even beyond the rationale you've already laid out.
A government's primary purpose is to act on behalf of its constituents, and if these daytrippers are substantially detrimental to Amsterdam's livability, they should be discouraged from going there.
Or, to put it in more financial terms, the cost of compensating for the negative effects of these tourists might be much higher than the tax revenue they bring in.
I think the counter is that in almost every town locals hate tourists, but an average citizen hasn't thought through the consequences of not having the tax base support them.
As someone who currently lives in NYC it would be great for me if tourists stopped coming to the city and magically the level of restaurants, sanitation, and public transit didnt change at all.
Amsterdam's old town is tiny if you compare it to NYC, if you have limited capacity it's also rational to prioritize tourists who are likely to spend more per capita (I'm not sure if this will necessarily be the long-term outcome of the band though).
I live in NYC too, but imagine if all of Manhattan was midtown. That's basically Amsterdam these days. The suburbs are fine, but it's a nightmare in the city center. Imagine Times Square but like 6x the size.
> I realize Amsterdam is very wealthy, but feel like we've seen countless times cities discouraging visitors and then surprised when tax revenues drop.
Care to cite some examples? Because I certainly can't think of any.
Sure, tourism can be a double edged sword, but all the cities I can think of that want to limit tourism (e.g. Venice, Barcelona, etc.) don't appear to have had any negative effects from their campaigns to limit tourism. If anything, these cities are trying to keep the "soul" of their cities intact, to keep their appeal that attracted so many tourists in the first place.
Bhutan (the country) has done it by requiring tourists spend at least $250/day in the country and book through a tour operator. Post-covid they changed things to a flat $200/day tourism tax and eliminating all the other restrictions. They've mitigated a lot of the overtourism issues that have affected their neighbor countries.
Wow, thanks for posting that. Your comment led me to read that Bhutan banned mountaineering in 2003 out of respect for local beliefs. I think that's pretty cool given how rare I think it is for local and national governments to take an approach that aligns with the will of most of their people as opposed to "do what makes the most money, consequences be damned".
Amsterdam doesn't seem to be discouraging ordinary tourists; this appears to be targeted exclusively at cruise ships.
Over 5 million tourists visit Amsterdam a year[1]; only a small fraction of that probably come from cruise ships. If banning those ships improves local quality of life and the tourist experience for non-cruise tourists, then it's probably a net win in terms of tax revenues (besides everything else).
Not just cruise ships, though. British stag nights were also notorious for the excessive nuisance they created. Amsterdam is getting pickier about its tourists, and also about its tourism industry. A lot of shops that were aimed just at tourists have also been closed, or are at least harder to open. They want shops that (also) serve the locals.
People were complaining that the city had turned into a theme park, and that's not fun for the people living there, but ultimately also less attractive to many tourists, who prefer a vibrant, living city, and want to taste the local atmosphere.
> So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services.
This is in opposition to your quote. Mayor Halsema said the tourists are at international chains, you're talking about paying locals. Money spent at these chains isn't contributing to the local economy as much as actually spending money at local shops is.
Locals still work at international chains and they pay taxes though.
It’s not as much as local businesses but it’s more than nothing, unless the mayors claim is that those international businesses are negative impacts on the economy, in which case why not ban them rather than the cruise ships?
I’d guess the cruise ships are just an easy scapegoat because they are considered unfashionable.
Or because they’re the only vector by which tourists interact with Amsterdam in a <24hr span?
Thousand and thousands of people arriving, confused and not necessarily having been excited about Amsterdam in particular, and then leaving within 8 hours?
Seems believable that cruise tourists are unlike any other type.
I live in a town that has cruise ships come in (in New Zealand) and it seems they often have activities planned as they hop on tour buses, minivans etc and go off to do things for the day.
I imagine the same would apply to ppl arriving in Amsterdam - being aware of activities to do in the city.
They are unlike other tourists, but I wouldn't jump to assuming that's a bad thing.
Their passengers don’t pay hotels, often eat most of their meals on board, inject far less into the economy than someone staying in a hotel but still take up valuable resources of the city.
This kind of thinking gutted small towns across America. Main Street businesses folded and were boarded up, replaced by mcdonalds and shartmart. Economic death for the town.
I think what I’m suggesting is that if you think McDonalds and Walmart are a net negative (I’m sympathetic) you just ban those businesses. Not some derivative customer base.
> This seems like the type of thing that a government will regret in ten years
Then in ten years, they can reassess and easily re-open the dock. I don't think you're right, but there isn't really a big risk here even if you are right. Even if the dock gets repurposed to something else, if this somehow devastates the city's economy, it is easy to reverse.
People will still want to come to Amsterdam, even more so if they weren't able to stop there on a cruise. The only thing that can really stop tourists from coming to Amsterdam is if its reputation somehow falls below its historical postcard allure and libertine reputation. The main threat to that is the city becoming so packed with rowdy tourists, although even still the hotels and hostels will all be full, just not able to charge $100/night for a hostel bed or $300/night for a tiny bedroom like they can now. But if you're right and the city reverses course, I am sure that the cruise ships will be fighting each other for a spot.
So many municipalities would kill for a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services.
A cruise ship can be a giant loophole that leaves all externalities to others. Even AirBNB model leaves more money to locals.
Tourists - fortunately - don't get to vote in the municipality elections. Not that Halsema would care because we don't vote for mayors in NL. But she got this one right. I'd be even happier if they jacked up the landing taxes for Schiphol to 10x of what they are today.
I still think the solution lies in either curbing Airbnb, or banning it.
They tried before and failed, I hope they try again.
Having visited Amsterdam over the last 14 years semi-regularly for work, one of the things that struck me is after AirBnB took off, things quickly got worse there.. Even in off-peak seasons it's just a nightmare downtown.
Yes, it stopped being funny long ago. Lots of former rental properties have been converted to short stay hotels. And plenty of the owners are living abroad so Amsterdam is hollowed out from two directions at once like this (space wise and finance wise).
There is no affordable space in the inner city anymore. Nothing. When I grew up tourism wasn't a thing, now it looks as though the whole city has essentially been given over to it with everything else secondary. Really happy to see Halsema make some sensible moves to curb this. But it's lots too late and probably way too little.
I agree it's bad. However. Two of her initiatives I disagree with.
Moving the red light district into a building isn't going to end well. Right now it's out in the open, it's easy to see and monitor... Putting it somewhere kind of out of sight isn't the way.. I do understand that the cops are stretched thin between lots of places. But there has to be a better way.
Closing the weed shops is also not going to end well.
Both these things, the sex tourism and the weed tourism have one thing in common. Tourism.
Limit that.
Also once your neighbouring countries legalize weed you'll find the tourism for that spreads out.
Yes, agreed on the RLD, not sure about the weed shops, that will at least break the connection with tourism though locally it will just go underground.
Weed shops always were legally grey for several reasons.
But I'd rather have them limit the tourism first, that would automatically reduce prostitution and drug sales to the point that those industries would likely shrink with some reduced crime as a side benefit.
When there's a will there's a way. I think what will end up happening is that locals will just buy the drugs, and then sell to the tourists.
Pushing something underground or away, or making it illegal etc... It never works, it only makes it worse.
The war on drugs has lost, and if anything I hope that it's shown us that with both drugs and sex work, you can never stop it, so the goal should be harm reduction.
That said.. I do like the idea of taxing flights into Schiphol. Especially those from England.
Every single time I go, it feels like the English are just the worst offenders.
>a large number of people to come in, pay locals and local taxes, and then leave without using any social services
Sounds like you're describing Downtown SF. I imagine right now many in the city wish the area had been less reliant on people coming in from elsewhere.
There is an active effort to spread the tourism to other municipalities. Amsterdam is a world famous brand that attracts lots of tourists, so the Dutch tourist industry has been branding other parts of the country with it too.
For example, Zandvoort (which is not Amsterdam, and separated from it by another city, Haarlem) gets branded Amsterdam Beach. The most egregious example I've seen was the Frisian lakes, which is great for sailing and other activities on and around water, got called the Amsterdam Lake District, despite being in a completely different province and on the opposite side of the IJsselmeer.
But if that helps tourists to visit some other parts of the country instead of just drinking themselves senseless in Amsterdam, I guess that's good. Though the branding really rubs me the wrong way.
Ultimately, it's hard to tell. SF spent many years decrying tech, tourists, and folks coming in to work across the bridges. Now that's mostly all gone and the city is shite but few in the city associate the two, expecting similar services with vastly less revenue.
The tourists in Amsterdam are so bad it suppresses residents and businesses in a similar though obviously not identical way to the street residents of San Francisco.
Harvard posted that 70% of their legacy admits were white and 30% non-white. That's higher than the population of 18 year olds but maybe not as extreme as some would think.
I'd actually love to see more data on this. My cynical take is that now people donate to schools they didn't even go to - and are concentrated anyways in a few big donations a year. So banning legacies could still just allow wealthier people to buy their in, even if not their own former college.
The other benefit is simply seeing the current subscriptions, even if you had to cancel elsewhere.
I should be able to see on my Bank of America credit card which companies are going to bill me within a month - and either be able to block it or click a link to cancel.
I feel like I've seen some smaller financial services which have this feature, but most people want to use a major credit card.
I just put all of my recurring charges on a single credit card (car insurance, Netflix, etc.), and then don’t use that card for anything else, it makes it so much easier to track/manage.
That double dipping doesnt make sense unless they are doing something more complex - like limit supply or time swings in the market.
Let's say there cut is 2%.
If I sell a ticket for $50 list price to StubHub and then they sell it for $50 list price then they got 1 dollar from me and one dollar from the eventual buyer. That's $2 total.
If I sell a ticket to someone else on Stubhub for $50 then they also get $1 from me and $1 from the seller. The "double dipping" doesnt work out even before you factor in the overhead.
This is not to say they aren't manipulating market. Maybe they think they can make more money because humans are risk adverse and sell tickets for less than they should to optimize EV, or somethikng.
I considered that, but consider that shell companies are buying and reselling the tickets - then the main Stubhub entity collects all of the fees from each transaction. Now they get to show higher revenue for the Stubhub entity. Stubhub is trying to IPO and this feels like a way to boost numbers in order to boost valuation.
The SEC would catch you for that. There are all kinds of tricks like that for inflating revenue they have outlawed.
Thats why for example, if you work for Walmart you aren't allowed to buy walmart food for the team party and expense it. Expensing it is fine, but inflating the revenue figures by buying your own product is not.
It could make sense if someone lists the tickets for less than their market value - perhaps they're trying to be nice and are reselling at face value, or just need the tickets to sell quickly.
In this case, StubHub could buy them and re-sell them to arbitrage the seller's price and the true market value.
But consider that there is Stubhub and there is the shell company intermediary. Now Stubhub recognizes $1 from the buyer and $1 from the seller for the first transaction, and again $1 from the buyer and $1 from the seller for the second transaction.
This smells like an accounting trick to boost published revenue numbers, and seems plausible given that Stubhub announced they were on IPO track last year.
Yeah the other commenter got it, but just to be explicit:
Case A:
Sale 1. Ticket holder sells to [shell company]: +$1 for Stubhub
Sale 2. [shell company] sells to ticket purchaser: +$1 for Stubhub
Case B:
Sale 1. Ticket holder sells to ticket purchaser: +$1 for Stubhub
It doesn't matter who the buyer or seller is, Stubhub says "This is a ticket sale so I will take a cut". Case A makes twice as much money for the parent company, and that's what's under suspicion in this thread, although there are other realistic reasons for the domain name behaviour seen by OP. And Case A makes assumptions about ticket pricing, e.g. if the shell company bought too many tickets and couldn't re-sell them all then whoops
I almost feel like it is competing more with FB than anything, which could possibly work. None of my friends use Facebook but presumably there is still a need for people to ask what restaurants or good or if anyone is available to be a babysitter?
People can obviously post on their stories - but I think there is something about a photo based medium that makes some people reluctant to post at all or slide into other people's DMs.
I am surprised by how little takes on this seem to address the fact this is likely to be bureaucratic. There are many people or departments who would benefit from increased fundings in these areas.
Not seven saying its overt corruption. But if you work for the military in collecting sightings on unidentified objects and earnestly dont know what 10% of the sightings actually were, it behooves you to fan the rumors on it a bit.
(Still don't think it will happen - but that shift occurred when leases on commercial real estate were at all time high)