What tech jerks can teach us

Fat cat bankers swimming in taxpayer subsidies. Oil barons battening on indigenous peoples. Corrupt media moguls poisoning politics. To the familiar gallery of corporate monsters, a new horror has been added: tech jerks making money through parasitic smartphone apps.

The term #JerkTech was minted recently, complete with hashtag, by Josh Constine, a San Francisco-based writer for the technology website TechCrunch. Constine pointed at ReservationHop, which aimed to make reservations at popular restaurants, then sell the reservations on to eager diners; and at MonkeyParking, which allowed people parked in a public parking space to auction it off when they left. (San Francisco’s city attorney had already sent MonkeyParking a cease-and-desist letter threatening substantial fines to users.)

There are several other examples, and it seems that the world was waiting for the word JerkTech, which spread as fast as the latest internet meme – and nothing spreads faster. Before long, both MonkeyParking and ReservationHop announced a pause for reflection.

The outrage was as much a reflection of Silicon Valley’s tarnished image as about these particular business models. Stories have circulated about a misogynistic “brogrammer” culture in some tech firms, while protesters in San Francisco have objected to Google sending free buses to the city to pick up employees, thus driving up rents. Constine himself made the link between JerkTech apps and contemptible behaviour elsewhere. As with bankers, oilmen and newspaper proprietors, the debate is emotionally charged by the broader sense that technology companies may not have our best interests at heart.

At the risk of injecting a dose of logic into the debate, it seems worth asking what exactly is objectionable about JerkTech apps themselves.

What are the common features? First, commodification: they sell or take commission on the sale of something that previously wasn’t a commodity at all: a reservation to eat at a popular restaurant; the opportunity to park in a public space. These things have always been valuable but they’ve been hard to buy and sell.

This is an odd complaint. Trading something such as sex, or a kidney for transplant, might be said to change the nature of what is being traded. But a restaurant meal is already a commercial transaction. Although one restaurateur has complained that such apps are wrong because “hospitality has no price”, all the restaurants I know do expect me to pay for the food at some stage. It’s odd to insist that the reservation itself occupies a separate, almost spiritual domain.

A second complaint is that such apps rob the poor (the government, a small business, the everyday consumer) and give to the rich (people who are willing to pay a premium). This objection is also odd. Genuinely poor people rarely own cars, and being willing to pay $5 to find an otherwise-free parking space hardly requires you to be a billionaire. None of the people hoping to secure a reservation at a Michelin-starred restaurant is poverty-stricken.

The critics are on stronger ground when they point out that JerkTech firms are appropriating someone else’s property. A driver has the right to park on the street but she does not own the space that will be vacated when she moves on. A restaurant reservation service might make a reservation under a false name (“Dick Jerkson”, suggests Constine) then sell the details to a customer who will actually show up and buy a meal. If the reservation is unsold the restaurant will lose out but the JerkTech start-up faces no loss. Most reservations are made on a trust-based system, and restaurants always run the risk that this trust will be abused. But JerkTech can exploit that trust on an unprecedented scale.

This is more than an argument about propriety: JerkTech might also have consequences. Restaurants might have to demand a credit card from customers, or proof of ID. Parking JerkTech encourages people to park in the street, simply waiting for a bid to move their car. San Francisco’s city attorney alleged that one JerkTech company was planning to pay people by the hour to occupy parking spaces for resale at the right price. This is close to extortion.

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And yet: when a market is being “disrupted”, that is sometimes a sign that the status quo is rotten. Scarce restaurant reservations could sensibly be sold. That is exactly what a few restaurants do – for example, Alinea in Chicago. It would be no surprise to see tech start-ups emerge to help restaurants do exactly that.

As for parking, many cities waste this scarce resource by underpricing it. Instead of paying money into the public purse, drivers pay in wasted time. Their quest for parking spaces burns fuel and causes congestion.

Two lessons emerge from JerkTech: scarce public resources shouldn’t be given away for free to all comers; and simple technology can make it easier to match scarce resources with people who need those resources. Westminster Council, in London, is rolling out a smartphone app that will help drivers find vacant parking spaces and pay for them. If JerkTech can make a market work, there’s probably a JerkTech-free way to make that market work too.

Tim Harford’s new book, ‘The Undercover Economist Strikes Back’, is now out in paperback.

Twitter: @TimHarford

Illustration by Harry Haysom