I was just listening to a podcast that mentioned Frisco and the "you're paying someone to leave the spot when you arrive" app MonkeyParking.
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/07/michael_munger.html
If you're going to listen to any econtalk postcast then a Michael Munger podcast is a good one to start off with.
Here's a partial transcript (apologies in advance if it's TL;DR):
But Monkey Parking, I signed up and I tried to bid for a parking space. It's in San Francisco, so obviously I wasn't really doing it. But I went through the process. And you can bid $5, $10, $15, or $20. Russ: To do what? Explain it. Guest: What you are bidding for is someone to leave a parking space. So they are very explicit: what you are paying someone to do is to leave a parking space. You're not buying the parking space-- Russ: That you're going to fill. Guest: Well, that's up to you. Russ: You are subletting it from them. Guest: Well, that may be. You are paying them to leave when you get there. Now, maybe you take it, maybe you don't. Maybe you just enjoy watching people leave parking spaces. But they really are careful not to say you are buying the parking space. And that you are going to get it. All they are doing is paying them to leave a parking space. And so, this has several effects. One is that there are people now who instead of sitting at home playing video games, drive their old junker jalopy across the bridge from Oakland and look around for parking spaces. And if they see one, they jump into it; and they pay the minimum amount and then put themselves down. MonkeyParking App has two buttons. One is: I have a parking space; and it looks for your location, because it's a cellphone app. And the other is: I want a parking space; and it looks for your location. And then it matches people that have them with people that want them. And so-- Russ: It encourages staking a claim. It's like people who go out and get a good URL (Universal Resource Locator), hoping that someone will also want it; and then they can re-sell it. So it encourages people to prospect for parking spaces--and make it even harder to find one. Guest: It makes it impossible. It's literally impossible to find a parking space. Russ: Unless you want to pay for it. Guest: On the other hand-- Russ: In which case it's really easy. Guest: And it means that you don't have to drive around for an hour. So there are distributional consequences. I would use it every time. If I bid $5, I'm going to be able to find one not too distant, and pretty quickly. I pay him--and there's no actual payment that takes place. It just matches. It's like Uber--it's a genius thing. I have to have my credit card number; it's credited to his account. No money changes hands. We don't even have to talk. I just pull up; I wave; he's got my information. He pulls out; I pull in. And then I have to pay. I think of it like ticket scalping, actually. Because a ticket scalper buys a ticket that he doesn't intend to use. Russ: An underpriced asset, like the parking space, which is "too cheap"--which is why there aren't any. Guest: Yeah. So it ends up being a 2-part tariff. One is the money that the scalper charges you in excess of the price. And the other is the price that's received by, in this case, the city, which has the parking meters. And so the question is: Is this a good thing? Should it be allowed? And I think the hard part about it is that it means that there are no parking spaces. There are no parking spaces that you can find-- Russ: At the legal price--at the statutory price that the city has set. Guest: Well, again, suppose I'm old, so I have my walker beside me in the front seat of my car, and I don't know about this app. I drive around and I say, There used to be parking spaces here. Russ: Right. Exactly. Guest: Now there aren't any. Russ: Every place is filled. Guest: Yeah. Literally, the only way you can find a parking space is by using Monkey Parking, now. Russ: That's if enough people find it, and get used to it. Guest: Well, let's suppose it's successful. And it seems to be becoming successful. Now if it fails, then, yes, we don't need to worry about it anyway. So I'm assuming it becomes successful. If it does, then either this or some competing software is the only way to find a parking space. I don't drive around. I am able to find one pretty quickly. It's a little bit expensive, but for me it would easily be worth it. I am happy to pay. I think some people would object to paying. What I think is interesting about this is that this has happened in South America for a long time. And you may have seen it in Chile. When I would drive from Santiago over to Viña del Mar--we would visit the Congress; I know some members of the Cámara de Diputados. There are no parking spaces. But there are these guys who provide car-washing services. Russ: Oh, yeah. I've seen this--it used to be you used to have this in New York, by the way. Not just in South America. Go ahead. Guest: Well, in New York, the parking spaces are so valuable--here, there are actually no parking meters. The parking is free, but parking is scarce. It's hard to find. So what they do is they put buckets of soapy water in the parking spaces. And they'll have 3 or 4 parking spaces marked out with these buckets of soapy water. And it's not legal--they don't have any right to do this. But you come in and you say, I want my car washed. And they'll move the buckets of soapy water. You can park. And then they'll wash your car for the next 6 hours. Russ: It's incredibly clean when you come back. It's an amazing thing. Guest: And they also say, if you give them a little bit of money, they'll also make sure that it's not scratched and none of the windows are broken. So it's sort of a protection racket. Russ: That's the service that I'm used to, that I've seen in New York City. You don't see it any more. There's an implicit threat; they offer to "protect" your car. They are offering you the space that they've staked out for you--which is kind. And you get a clean car. And they charge you for it. Guest: Yeah. And it is not in fact scratched and the windows are not broken. Because it's understood that that's your--it is fabulous if you can afford to pay. And I'm a rich gringo, and I can pay. It means that there's no free parking spaces. On the other hand, if you can pay just a little bit, you can just pull right up and be sure there's a parking space, and pull in there, park, give the guy 1000 pesos and then go off to your appointment.
