Man do I feel old now. I remember using that in college when it was brand new. These were in the days when Yahoo practically WAS the internet and Google was a scrappy upstart.
I remember trading mp3s on AOL before it. I remember how much effort it took to download an mp3 over a 56k modem. Every time my brother picked up the phone I had to start over. The first one I succesfully downloaded, after trying for what must have been days but felt like months, was Gettin' Jiggy Wit It and of course it turned out our 386 computer couldn't even really play an mp3 without stuttering.
I remember moving in with two friends, a block from campus, and putting a $2,500 Gateway computer (bought from the Gateway store in the strip mall, of course) on a credit card because we were going to split it three ways. You can probably guess how that ended up. Even though that was equivalent to about $5k today it was a midrange computer at best and, of course, was replaced a little over a year later. But, we did get broadband and it could play Starcraft and online poker just fine. Worth it!
I remember after Napster exploded, it had gotten bogged down with new traffic and they started offering multiple servers, and someone wrote some third-party software that let you switch between them at will until you could find the song you wanted without too terribly much wait.
I remember my first mp3 player, a Diamond Rio 500. It used a USB cord that, of course, had the pins reversed, so you couldn't just use any USB cord. It held about one hour of music, 1.5 if you bought a very expensive 32mb flash card. It ran for a week on one aaa battery. It cost almost $300, which would be like $500 today. God did I love that thing.
I remember the RIAA and MPAA suing file sharers. I remember lots of tech bros saying what idiots they were for trying to use the legal system to put the toothpaste back in the tube. I remember one particularly astute, well-known tech guy saying at a YC dinner (must have been 2007 or 2008) in response to a sneering question about it that not everyone who chooses a career outside of tech is an idiot, the people who run the media companies might know more about media than you, certainly understand that selling physical media's days are numered, and that what they were doing was really a delaying tactic while they figured out how to monetize content in the digital age. (The answer, it turned out, was things like Netflix and Spotify, but those were still a few years away. Netflix's first original content wasn't until 2012!)
I remember after Napster got sued into oblivion there were so many others. The toothpaste was out of the tube on file sharing. Limewire. Edonkey. Bittorrent. For every one they killed two more appeared. Fragmentation wasn't even an issue since everyone ran (and thus seeded) several.
1. Most homes aren’t in an HOA, so you have plenty of options if you don’t like it.
2. It prevents all sorts of tragedies of the commons.
3. HOAs would have no power at all if you could opt out. It has to be part of the contract. They can be dissolved entirely, but that’s the only mechanism for getting out.
4. We believe in individual freedom, which includes the ability to chose to trade freedom for certain benefits. I trade my freedom to leave a rusty old boat in my driveway for the benefit of not having my neighbors do that. Most of us don’t have or want the sorts of things that bring down property values and don’t want to suddenly find ourselves living next to people who do.
This is perhaps a symptom of a larger problem: homes are very expensive. If homes were cheap and moving were easy, perhaps HOAs would never have been invented. But for most Americans who own one a home is a substantial portion of their net worth. We want to protect it.
People who complain about HOAs existing are the same as the people who complain about EVs. If you don’t want one, don’t buy it.
==If homes were cheap and moving were easy, perhaps HOAs would never have been invented. But for most Americans who own one a home is a substantial portion of their net worth. We want to protect it.==
It may not have been the reason for their invention (I can't find information on that), but they certainly exploded in popularity in an effort to restrict people from selling their homes to non-white people (see: Racially Restrictive Covenants). It's kind of ironic to see people laud them as a form of "freedom" while their history as a tool of blatant racial discrimination is available for all to read.
==People who complain about HOAs existing are the same as the people who complain about EVs. If you don’t want one, don’t buy it.==
Doesn't this act as a type of restriction on housing supply thus increasing the upward pressure on housing costs by limiting options? Not to mention the actual costs of funding the HOA, which directly increases housing prices.
I would not be surprised if it once served a racist function, a lot of things did, and I’m glad that’s now illegal. I wouldn’t be surprised if it still happens sometimes but I’m sure it’s the exception rather than the rule.
Most HOAs don’t even have the right to screen tenants, if you can purchase the house and will sign the contract you’re in and have the same voting rights and responsibilities as the other residents.
==I would not be surprised if it once served a racist function==
It is a verifiable fact found across the country [0]. Many of the covenants still exist today, although they are legally unenforceable. That said, I have read many comments on this site about how non-competes have long been considered legally unenforceable, but can still have a chilling effect on those impacted (Thankfully, this has recently changed).
I think the more interesting aspect, in regards to today's world, is how HOAs lead to even higher housing costs during a housing affordability crisis. This happens through both explicit expenses (monthly HOA dues) and implicit expenses (lawn maintenance, regulation of architectural changes/additions, rental restrictions, etc.) on homeowners.
> 1. Most homes aren’t in an HOA, so you have plenty of options if you don’t like it.
That'd be an interesting stat to see, I assume it varies greatly by location.
> 2. It prevents all sorts of tragedies of the commons.
How so? Collective power can make tragedy of the commons problems worse. While a single family likely wouldn't buy up an adjacent piece of woods to clear for a neighborhood park, an HOA may be able to do that before someone else buys and develops the woods.
> 3. HOAs would have no power at all if you could opt out. It has to be part of the contract. They can be dissolved entirely, but that’s the only mechanism for getting out.
HOAs have whatever power the community gives them, there's nothing saying an HOA couldn't be optional. I actually lived in a neighborhood outside of Seattle with an optional HOA, it worked just fine.
> 4. We believe in individual freedom, which includes the ability to chose to trade freedom for certain benefits. I trade my freedom to leave a rusty old boat in my driveway for the benefit of not having my neighbors do that. Most of us don’t have or want the sorts of things that bring down property values and don’t want to suddenly find ourselves living next to people who do.
And that's totally reasonable. My point wasn't that there aren't incentives for homeowners to make that choice for themselves, only that it has always felt like an infringement of rights to legally bind a property to HOA governance.
> People who complain about HOAs existing are the same as the people who complain about EVs. If you don’t want one, don’t buy it.
I'm not sure where you're getting this anecdote, but here I am complaining about HOAs and I own an EV. This analogy really doesn't fit, one person's decision to buy an EV has no impact on other's right to choose what to buy where as an HOA does.
I suppose the commons issue depends on how you define the commons. HOAs often have communal areas like a pool. A communal pool with many owners no HOA would quickly become a disaster and probably form something like an HOA really fast.
An optional HOA would just be opted out of by the worst offenders. If the whole goal is to keep your neighbors from ruining your property value, the ones who do would just opt out. The guy with the car on blocks can just sell himself his own house to get out of it.
How is anything you get into willingly an infringement on your rights? Nobody ever had to buy a house that had to remain inside an HOA. They chose to and can choose not to.
That’s what I meant by the EV thing. You’re complaining about a choice other people made willingly. Why not just not make the choice and let others do it?
That's interesting, I'm not actually sure how a community pool would really exist without an entity that's responsible for it (either an HOA, the city/county, or a private club).
> How is anything you get into willingly an infringement on your rights?
Sure, once you sign the contract you've agreed to it. My point is just that it seems unreasonable for an HOA to effectively claim authority or ownership over a piece of property. I once lived in an HOA neighborhood that was in legal proceedings with a neighbor who refused to play along, the neighborhood was pretty damn close to foreclosing on the property before the owner finally sold and left.
The EV example is still very different though. Buyers can choose to but any vehicle they want, there is no higher authority attempting to claim authority over some vehicles and requiring you submit to their rules and pay a membership fee. Buy an EV or don't, its totally up to the buyer. Additionally, when an EV owner wants to sell they aren't limited to the pool of buyers willing to join a private club, you just sell the car.
Well again, the person who the HOA was in legal proceedings against signed a document saying they would do “x” then did not do “x”. The document also outlined what happens if they didn’t do it, including, at the very end, taking the house. I believe every state has laws that make it very hard for an HOA to foreclose, they do not just do it on a whim. It’s simple contract enforcement, just as you’d get your house taken if you didn’t pay your mortgage or city property taxes. I don’t see what the issue is. I’m sure there are some egregious corner cases, there always are, but as a rule I see no problem with someone who signs a contract being bound by the terms of the contract, in fact I’d see a problem if they weren’t.
My point about the EVs is people who hate EVs and do ridiculous stuff like block chargers are simply getting mad about other people’s decisions that don’t effect them. I don’t want an EV so I don’t own one, but I’m in no way angry that they exist or that you do.
Hating your own HOA I totally understand, there are days I hate mine, but hating the idea that someone else is in an HOA willingly I do not.
> Most homes aren’t in an HOA, so you have plenty of options if you don’t like it.
If we are talking about suburban/urban homes, some large percentage are in an HOA. Most people who own instead of renting do have to contend with HOAs. There are not plenty of options. In many cases, there are no other options at all.
> It prevents all sorts of tragedies of the commons.
What sort of "tragedy of the commons" does it prevent, exactly? That because I was laid off and had to take a lower-paying, higher-houred job, my house goes unpainted a little too long, and now the paint's peeling and chipping? That because of weather, I had to wait 3 extra weekends to mow the lawn (can't do it when I go home after work, not allowed to do it after 6pm or whatever) and now it's too tall?
These aren't tragedies.
> HOAs would have no power at all if you could opt out.
Exactly. But you never bothered to ask why they should ever have power at all. The people who have these powers are people who should never have power under any conceivable circumstances. If there were a way to somehow discover people who craved to be on HOA boards, I would support a constitutional amendment to rescind their voting rights.
> We believe in individual freedom, which includes the ability to chose
Spoken by the sort of person who cheers on as the non-HOA choices dwindle to nothing.
I have a compromise that just occurred to me. If, for instance, only 1.2% of homes within a given region (perhaps legislative districts) could be included within an HOA, and if the HOAs had to bid on an HOA license, such that they're competing with each other to be included in the HOA... then the true cost of HOA apologism could be factored into the market. If you want to live in one, and if that HOA has to pay for a $12 million annual license (they could easily be bid up this high, and if you're honest with yourself you know I'm right), then who am I to tell you HOAs are bad? You're paying a premium for it and it's restricted to a tiny fraction of all available homes.
> If homes were cheap and moving were easy, perhaps HOAs would never have been invented.
Not even close to how this works. The people who favor HOAs are emotionally invested in how others manage their own households. They're not the kind of people who are easily chased away. Quite the contrary, they want to chase others away. You know, the wrong kind of people.
> People who complain about HOAs existing are the same as the people who complain about EVs. If you don’t want one, don’t buy it.
Funny that example, you belong to a political constituency that is doing whatever they can to make it illegal to sell any non-EV.
I thought you were an idiot until the last sentence and now I know it. "Eighty-nine percent of homeowners who live under an HOA say the HOA's rules protect and enhance property values". You can't tell someone's political constituency when they belong to the same group as 90% of people. You're certainly wrong about mine, and nearly everything else you said, to the point where there's nothing here worth responding to. This drivel belongs on Reddit.
That is not how HOAs work. They have a very defined set of rules, and a very defined process for changing and enforcing those rules. You are not at the mercy of anyone.
Local laws supersede HOA rules where they conflict and often cause “grandfathering” when HOA rules change. For instance, my condo board tried to get me to remove my grill. I pointed out that nowhere in the condo bylaws was a grill mentioned. They said something about city fire codes, so I got a note from the fire department. They were unable to force me to do anything.
HOAs in my city have passed rules saying owners may not use their condos for short term rental. But my city law says that changes do not apply to people who owned their rentals before the rules changed. So new owners may not but old ones still can.
Rule of law still applies, and everything is agreed to when you buy the property. You could simply buy a home outside of an HOA, so this is, squarely, freedom of association.
Nobody was implying that other countries do not have this freedom, in fact, he said the fact that they do is why he did not need to justify it.
> That is not how HOAs work. They have a very defined set of rules, and a very defined process for changing and enforcing those rules. You are not at the mercy of anyone.
This. I live in a drama-free HOA and appreciate it for what it is and does. I had to review and agree to the covenants of my HOA as a condition for closing. The rule most likely to be in violation here is something along the lines of “only operational automobiles in good condition are permitted to be parked in the driveway; any boats, recreational vehicles, broken down or unsightly vehicles must be behind a fence”. The whole point is to maintain a clean, safe, attractive, and ultimately desirable neighborhood so as to protect property values on behalf of the association’s members.
Although this homeowner’s actions are characteristic of malicious compliance, I believe the net effect is precisely in line with the stated purpose of the HOA: in compliance with the rules, an elegant mural depicting a pristine boat now adorns a new fence that restricts sight of and access to a boat of unknown condition. Anyone driving by looking to buy might come away with a chuckle and the sense that the neighborhood is committed to maintaining a safe and attractive environment for homeowners.
> That is not how HOAs work. They have a very defined set of rules, and a very defined process for changing and enforcing those rules. You are not at the mercy of anyone.
This is very idealistic, but not quite how it works. HOA boards can and do constantly violate with impunity the rules they are supposed to follow. Most often to embezzle funds but also to enforce their personal will.
You can contest this of course, you can go to court. It takes pretty deep pockets to pay for lawyers and years of persistence. I know multiple people in years-and-years-long legal battles with HOAs. Those who have enough money to see it through often usually win, but it takes a lot of patience and money. Most people don't have that kind of cash to blow on fighting corrupt HOAs.
In many jurisdictions within the United States, an HOA can assess fines for exceedingly trivial violations, then after the fines remain unpaid for a time period as short as 6 weeks, file to sell your home at auction to pay the fees. They can take your home from you, evict you from it, and this is deemed perfectly legal. Do they have to provide proof, for instance, that your grass was actually one half inch too tall? No, there is no adversarial process where they would have to prove that were the case.
> I pointed out that nowhere in the condo bylaws was a grill mentioned. They said something about city fire codes, so I got a note from the fire department. They were unable to force me to do anything.
It must be very thrilling to be able to be an amateur lawyer and win a case. Have fun, because those people tend to hold grudges. My experience is that you'll never have a week of peace for as long as you live there again.
This all happened 3 years ago. I’ve never heard a word from my HOA since. I think the HOA board actually believed it was against fire code, but it turns out that’s only true if you’re not on the ground floor. (My community is 4 stories so 3/4 of people cannot have grills). Other grills have appeared since.
They can only assess you fines for violations of rules you agreed to. And fines are usually small. For instance, in my last HOA, they fined me $15 for having A flag holder. I ignored the warning because it was there when I bought the place and I didn’t really want it anyway, and then when the fine came, I simply removed the flag holder and paid $15. Most of the cases were the end up confiscating somebody’s property is because they are simply egregiously not doing something they had already signed a contract saying they would do. I am sure there are cases, they always are, but it isn’t a legitimate problem.
I have a few of each experience, homes without HOAs, and homes/condos with. (Nearly all condos have them.)
There are, of course, pluses and minuses to either.
I bought an expensive home in a nice suburb, no HOA. My neighbors, who were there before me, suddenly decided to fill their back yard with old rusty cars on blocks they were “working on”. And get a fake deer for target practice. This cost me then of thousands of dollars when I sold my house.
No HOA restrictions I’ve ever dealt with were worse than that so I’m now fairly pro-HOA. I have plenty of freedom and opportunity to buy a house without one but I likely won’t again.
If I were going to work for someone I would prefer to work for a person who is so beloved by his employees that they’d rather quit than not work for him, absolutely.
> If I were going to work for someone I would prefer to work for a person who is so beloved by his employees that they’d rather quit than not work for him, absolutely.
I think it's a stretch to assume he was "beloved by his employees," because they signed that document. Some of those very same people have resigned (https://www.fastcompany.com/91126785/openai-resignations-are...), which is not someone you typically do if you love your boss that much.
Other possibilities are far more plausible. Like fear of reprisal if Altman returned coupled with fear he could cause OpenAI to implode if he didn't, wanting to hit the startup jackpot instead of working for a nonprofit, etc.
Yes, and think how much more convincing the argument would be if it relied on its merits (which are substantial) rather the what amounts to ad hominems.
Yes. This. I think the writing is doubly despicable for discrediting an important argument I agree with. Also I'm irked that the author has so little respect for his readers that he thinks none of them will Google any of the names in his piece.
Yeah. I am sure that arguments that appeal to people like us might be somewhat different than once that appeal to the general public, but this seems like the kind of argument that is aimed at people like us.
I have done a good amount of work with not for profits in the last 10 years and have definitely seen a small piece of the dark side of the industry that he is talking about.
I do a bunch of local politics stuff, and we have problematic nonprofits. You could write a compelling piece about poorly managed nonprofit contracts fucking up their missions, and it wouldn't need to rely on unrelated 20-year-old criminal records.
I remember trading mp3s on AOL before it. I remember how much effort it took to download an mp3 over a 56k modem. Every time my brother picked up the phone I had to start over. The first one I succesfully downloaded, after trying for what must have been days but felt like months, was Gettin' Jiggy Wit It and of course it turned out our 386 computer couldn't even really play an mp3 without stuttering.
I remember moving in with two friends, a block from campus, and putting a $2,500 Gateway computer (bought from the Gateway store in the strip mall, of course) on a credit card because we were going to split it three ways. You can probably guess how that ended up. Even though that was equivalent to about $5k today it was a midrange computer at best and, of course, was replaced a little over a year later. But, we did get broadband and it could play Starcraft and online poker just fine. Worth it!
I remember after Napster exploded, it had gotten bogged down with new traffic and they started offering multiple servers, and someone wrote some third-party software that let you switch between them at will until you could find the song you wanted without too terribly much wait.
I remember my first mp3 player, a Diamond Rio 500. It used a USB cord that, of course, had the pins reversed, so you couldn't just use any USB cord. It held about one hour of music, 1.5 if you bought a very expensive 32mb flash card. It ran for a week on one aaa battery. It cost almost $300, which would be like $500 today. God did I love that thing.
I remember the RIAA and MPAA suing file sharers. I remember lots of tech bros saying what idiots they were for trying to use the legal system to put the toothpaste back in the tube. I remember one particularly astute, well-known tech guy saying at a YC dinner (must have been 2007 or 2008) in response to a sneering question about it that not everyone who chooses a career outside of tech is an idiot, the people who run the media companies might know more about media than you, certainly understand that selling physical media's days are numered, and that what they were doing was really a delaying tactic while they figured out how to monetize content in the digital age. (The answer, it turned out, was things like Netflix and Spotify, but those were still a few years away. Netflix's first original content wasn't until 2012!)
I remember after Napster got sued into oblivion there were so many others. The toothpaste was out of the tube on file sharing. Limewire. Edonkey. Bittorrent. For every one they killed two more appeared. Fragmentation wasn't even an issue since everyone ran (and thus seeded) several.
Good nostalgia for a Saturday,.
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