Agree but this is bigger than an Onstar feature clone. This is data. Now there is always on driving data from everyone with a new ford, not just a Ford AND AA plugged in.
Curious about your food choices. I've been experimenting with IF. More specifically I'd call it more like timed eating because the bulk of my fasting hours and during sleep. I'm down 20 lbs with solid numbers. As a side note I have some genetic factors as well and trying to counter those.
State specific rules are all trumped by IRS rules when federal withholding is involved (always). The reason companies use contractors is to make the contractor responsible for federal withholding as it provides higher cash flow. There is a clear IRS test that almost all of these companies fail. Is the contractor wearing a company branded T-shirt? Yep: Employee. It's not all that grey, it's about enforcement and risk tolerance. However, I'm not arguing the FTE vs. contractor point. It doesn't apply here.
I'm saying, at the most basic level, unless the company is specifically offering a "match making" service, the service provider is stealing from the company by cutting the company out of revenue they expected to collect. None of these services advertise as match makers. Examples of match makers in this space are yelp, angies list, thumbtack, home adviser. They each have a clearly different busines model from Wag.
Like I said though, this applies to any company. If a company has made the effort to attract and close the customer with some expectation of LTV, that value can be realized in a couple of ways. 1. Providing service to that customer in perpetuity. 2. Selling that customer to a service provider at a price that provides a profit. If the service provider cuts the company out without compensation, the provider has taken unfair advantage by being on both sides of the transaction, having nothing invested and being compensated for the work completed before stealing the customer.
*"In the case the match making firm is providing no value, I think most contractors would eventually decide to take a customer on directly."
I think you are applying the idea of value in the wrong place. The company has no obligation to provide anything except agreed upon financial compensation to the service provider. It's the break down in value to the customer where many of these services have fallen. In that case the customer can shop for a new service. It does not mean that the service provider can use their unfair advantage and build a business from the unhappy customer. Because in that case, the "match maker" did provide value. It provided the LTV of that stolen customer to the service provider. This, again, is why Wag is also applying a fee to the service provider. For the provider, stay on the platform, get paid or pay for the customers to build your own thing. What's wrong with that?
In my view theft is the same contractor or not. Both has an obligation to the company providing the work. I agree that a happy employee is less likely to try to steal customers but, the ethics gets a bit muddy for some. In those cases (in my own experience) the threat of a big stick is often enough. This applies to any business that puts trust in it's workers to handle customers or customer information.
With respect to your "enough value" statement, I understand. It also requires regular reminders about the level of service the customer gets from the company, not the individual. But that can't be all. Seriously, lots of businesses are like this. They need to trust their team to hold up their side of the basic work agreement.
Take a bar for example. If the bartender starts skimming cash through one of the various means, that's clear theft and depending on the amount, can be a felony. The threat of getting caught might be enough for most but, it still happens. It's messy dealing with people and we unfortunately need to do things that protect the company.
I'm not sure what valuation and funding have to do with a business model. Walmart looses more than 300mil in in theft per year. Should they be looking to get out of retail? This is just one problem every business has to deal with in one way or another.
Then many more business are equally bad. ETF on your phone contract? Why? Because number portability. Lots of other businesses have implemented something similar. WAG has investment to protect on each customer it acquires. Just adding the thought of additional cost might reduce customer churn. Contractor or not, why is it not thought of as theft if a service provider contacts the customer directly? It seems to me that Wag is providing all the services you describe. In return for that investment they are trying to discourage customers from thinking they can save a buck and contractors from thinking they can build their own businesses on Wags dime.
Lots of mention of disintermediation here. What about the relationship between the customer and the company? There are many ways a company with many employees provides value over the initial "discovery". What if schedules need to be adjusted? What if the service provider is sick? What if the service provider breaks something or worse? The business is offering a service not service provider. Take this another way. What about a smaller version of this business? "Bobs dog walking" grows to more customers than Bob can walk in a day. Bob adds employees. Is Bob just a match maker now?
I see this "match making" idea come up a lot. Why do you consider Wags in the same way as Tinder? If a dog walker (let's call him Bob) was doing well and wanted to scale his business. Bob hires 10 dog walkers by sharing his customer pool and adding more customers. Is it "match making" when Bob sends one of his employees to a new job?
I think Homejoy failed for more reasons than Disintermediation. One major issue all the early versions of this model missed is that a service like this are not a car ride. One time service volume doesn't cover customer acquisition. Logistics and customer service plays a huge role as well. Homejoy had a hard time handling not normal situations like: cleaners not showing up, substandard work (subjective), or locked doors. It appeared to me that scale was the main mission.
BTW, how do you justify cutting out the company in these services? Because they are contractors? If they were FTE's would it be different? Seriously asking because I want to understand.
Not trying to be rude, but have a real question. Why do you feel that it's ok for you to cut Rover out of the deal? Disintermediation is always mentioned in these sorts of conversations. I'm interested to understand how people justify it.
I agree with everything here, except the implication that this is only related to the self employed or ACA. Health Insurance companies have been pushing these high deducible + HSA plans for 15 years. They also raised the cost of the older less complicated PPO types plans. This has pushed even the biggest companies to "encourage" employees to "take control of their health care". Oh and each year, the definition of "high" keeps getting bumped. 10 years ago deductibles were $1500.