Every day, the same, again
DoorDash was providing delivery services for his nondelivery pizzeria: taking web orders without his knowledge, phoning in for takeout and sending a DoorDash delivery worker to pay and pick up the food, and often delivering to a customer who would be annoyed that the pizza arrived cold. And then he was surprised to see DoorDash was selling his $24 pizzas for only $16. This meant he had an arbitrage opportunity: Order his own pizzas at $16, sell them to DoorDash for $24 each, and pocket the difference. This worked even better if he didn’t put real pizzas in the delivery boxes. But how on earth was DoorDash ever supposed to make money selling his pizzas at a loss? […] A mental model that a lot of people have for these businesses is that they are waiting to establish a dominant market position, at which point they can raise prices to a level where they will be profitable. That is, in the future, restaurants and customers will pay even more in delivery fees, and DoorDash will make money. The problem with this view is that “the future” never seems to come. Uber has been providing rides for ten years. When does the “profit” phase of its business show up? [NY mag]
New York Times phasing out all 3rd-party advertising data
Our findings indicate that Pennsylvania counties with fracking activities have higher rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia infections (7.8% and 2.6%, respectively), as well as higher prostitution related arrests (19.7%). [Economics & Human Biology]
we find no evidence that fracking increases prostitution when using our national data, suggesting sex work may not be the principal mechanism linking fracking to gonorrhea growth [Journal of Health Economics]
The Wonderful, Transcendent Life of an Odd-Nosed Monkey
a word that does not exist, invented and defined by AI [reload for new word]
