It is increasingly becoming apparent that American society, in order to survive, needs to identify the most pressing desires and initiatives of the technocratic society and STAMP THEM OUT. Or as I call them "the app people". They are hellbent on destroying the social contract.

It's whatever app is that thing that lets you sell something that doesn't belong to you.

A better system would be on demand parking prices. More demand the rate goes up, less demand the rate goes down. If there's no open spots, price is by definition too low.

I really wish the police had just installed the app and started handing out tickets for people who did this. I recall from other stories that the ticket was around $350.

Same as taking a highway lane, which taxpayers such as myself bought and paid for in the past, and turning it into a HOT/HOV lane?

When private companies do this you wail. But when centralized governments do the same thing, you praise.

This was a fun one to follow. The CEO was using some really hilarious verbal gymnastics to defend the app, citing freedom of speech and explaining how they're just connecting two people, etc. Not to mention an app designed to be used while driving? Good stuff.

MonkeyParking may be an Italian company, but they've really nailed the most idiotic side of Silicon Valley.

If memory serves Charles wrote a scathing piece on "entrepreneurship" a few months back http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…. This seems only a high tech version of the same corruption and manipulation of a system.
While I like the idea of a system that better directs drivers to open spaces, apps like monkeypark etc . . . reward the creation of artificial scarcities and that is hardly ever an idea that makes the society a better place.

@5 - Not the same thing. Managing infrastructure is the government's job. The app in question is more akin to selling picnic spots in a public park.

It only works because San Francisco isn't charging market rate for valuable real estate. It creates the opportunity for parking spot campers to claim public resources for themselves to sell on a secondary market.

Free parking is just corporate welfare for suburbanites.

San Francisco's answer shouldn't have been to introduce further regulation in order to prop up their market distortion, it should have been to charge an appropriate amount for the use of that public good. But San Francisco is so behind the times when it comes to urbanism it isn't worth mentioning.

I live near San Francisco. When this was on the news a couple of weeks ago (when the cease and desist order was first discussed), roving reporters found a bunch of people who all thought this app was an excellent idea. All smug, male, 20-something tech types. They'll pay for anything rather than have half a minute of inconvenience.

Jeebuz Bailo, even for you that's scraping the bottom of the Barrel O' Stupid.

Don't forget "https://reservationhop.com" another "innovation" by a SF tech.

His idea? It was hard to get reservations at many SF restaurants. So he started making fake ones, tying up all the free tables, and then selling them to people.

He calls it a "secondary market".

After a "crazy holiday weekend" he had to do a "soft pivot". The blog post is a fascinating mix of utter narcissism and what passes for business speak.

http://brianmayer.com/2014/07/reservatio…

It is neither conservative nor libertarian to suggest that this kind of app is in line with a level playing field for what is otherwise available for anyone and has no impact on public safety and commerce. Those are things that liberals, conservatives, and libertarians are all concerned about. This app is stupid. Sorry @5.

I'm going to create an app that allows me to block my street off and turn it into a toll road. Everyone cool with that? The app will have a really cool name and a nice color palette so that makes it ok, right?

@13 - Oh good god that's full of gems: " ...the market is heading that way as people awaken to the inefficiencies in the current system"? Dude, first-come first-serve is about as efficient as it gets.

I want to see a lawsuit filed assuming something like this ever happens. Imagine if you will you sell your spot to someone, see someone waiting to take the spot that isn't the person who paid. What do you do? Tell them to leave? What if they don't care. Do you just sit there until someone blinks? Like some kind of game of parking chicken? If the spot is sold, money is given for the spot, and someone else takes the spot, how does it go to court? This is hilarious.

I think it would be pretty neat if there were an app that could tell you what parts of a neighborhood have more available parking spaces. Although obviously it would also be inherently dangerous to encourage people to play with their phones as they're driving. It also would be nice if there were an easier way to figure out which parking lots are at or near capacity before you basically drive up to them.

But "selling" a public amenity? Balls.

@15:

It's going to be a freeware app, right? 'Cause I ain't payin' for that shit.

@18:

Many parking garages downtown already have exterior reader boards to let drivers know the number of available spaces. Not really efficient as an app because the number is going to change constantly, so without a direct tie-in to the ticket procurement system, availability is going to be different between the time you check it and the time you actually get there.

Speaking as a bona-fide San Francisco techie: this app was stupid and the people who wrote it were stupid, and I am delighted to see them faceplant. For fuck's sake. Even holding aside any questions about the ethics of "reselling" parking spots (but let's not do that, because it's awful), the only way this app works is by encouraging more drivers to watch their phones instead of the road. No, just no.

(Ditto the "reservationhop" app, which is not only stupid but seems designed to make life difficult for restaurateurs. Fuck those people specifically.)

#9 is, however, entirely correct. It's actually even worse than that: our idiot mayor just brought back unmetered parking on Sundays, because apparently we have no traffic congestion problems and the SFMTA is so flush with cash that they can easily hand back 1/7th of their parking revenue. (Spoiler: both of those things are the opposite of true.)

@1

What's becoming increasingly clear in a technofied America is that the prevailing "social contract" (wealth redistribution) is being defied by technology and entrepreneurialism's ability to adapt and expand faster than the bureaucratic state.

Ideas, people and financial capital can (and increasingly does) move anywhere, anytime, and ultimately prevail. You can try and stamp out progress (Luddites!) but with it goes the tax base on which the socialistic State ultimately depends.

Check it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLX…

@15, @19 There is a site (not an app) for real-time parking information for many of the downtown garages:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/ep…
though I have to agree with those who despair of people fiddling with their phones while negotiating downtown traffic.
SDOT has considered a site that would indicate available street parking spaces, but that would require some kind of sensor at each space, which is pretty daunting at this time.

Hey Paul, just remember that cannabis legalization was also an "asshole libertarian idea" that liberals stole (liberals actually pushed prohibition and supported the war on drugs until a decade or two ago)
And the 99% vs the 1%? Yep, another "asshole libertarian idea" that liberals stole: http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/20…
That being said, this app is so damn stupid. Who the fuck is gonna sit in their car all day, waiting for someone to want their place? The restaurant one makes sense, because if a restaurant has that much business to be booked all the time they're probably expensive so people with less money couldn't afford it anyway and no one is getting screwed but rich folks who'll pay for anything.
Bottom line: don't like this service? Don't use it.

@23: I don't know about where you live, but in Portland, there are plenty of popular restaurants that fill up fast that are NOT overly expensive.

Tying up tables and taking bids for the reservations is profiting from the restaurant's popularity without adding anything of value. It's crap like that that leads some places to sell non-refundable tickets to their meals.