CameronDev comments on Walmart Tests Onsite Pod Hotels for Workers as Housing Costs Rise

[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago (5 children)

It's still a company town if the company owns the factory, and the only housing that its employees can afford. The end result is exactly the same, the employees become indebted to the company. Will wallmart allow people living in its cubes to find work elsewhere? Or will they have to choose between homelessness and working at wallmart?

As for scrip, all it takes is Wallmart to say "Your pay check now includes 7 cube tokens, valued at $X dollars, we'll reduce your pay by $X to make it fair".

And as for the US not allowing company currencies, you haven't been paying attention, they already do. Robux is well on down that path, and most microtransactions tokens are scrip-lite.

I'm sorry for upsetting you, but it's not me you should be mad at.

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (4 children)

EDIT: I apparently fell for a fake news Lemmy community. Its explained in the sidebar. I gave the OP the benefit of the doubt that they couldn't link the real new story, but trusted the attribution to APNEWS. If you enjoy participating in OPs social experiment on posters you're in the right place. I'm not, so I'm out.

Robux is well on down that path, and most microtransactions tokens are scrip-lite.

In-game currency? Seriously? Let me know when you can pay for groceries, housing, or healthcare with Robux.

Forgetting your slippery slope hyperbole, what is your alternate proposal? Bar Walmart for providing a form of affordable housing and kick those folks back out on the street?

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[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

Roblox is paying third party developers in in-game currency. And that they can't use it to buy groceries is exactly the problem. Thats the problem with scrip, its worthless outside the "company town". They are doing real work, for not real money.

The government (or another 3rd party) should be supplying the affordable housing. Having the employer house the employee just hands way too power to the employer. If wallmart wants to build these pods and sell them to a government entity to operate, then great, that's fine. But if wallmart operates them, then this is a terrible idea.

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 point 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Roblox is paying third party developers in in-game currency. And that they can’t use it to buy groceries is exactly the problem. Thats the problem with scrip, its worthless outside the “company town”. They are doing real work, for not real money.

If what you're saying is true (I'm not going to research it myself), then contact the IRS. What Roblox would be doing is tax evasion and the government will come down on them hard.

The government (or another 3rd party) should be supplying the affordable housing.

I completely agree, but the government isn't nor is anyone else.

Having the employer house the employee just hands way too power to the employer. If wallmart wants to build these pods and sell them to a government entity to operate, then great, that’s fine. But if wallmart operates them, then this is a terrible idea.

So since the government isn't building the housing we both want, you'd tell the homeless person its better for them to be homeless than to be in company owned housing?

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[–] CameronDev@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago (1 child)

I don't know if it is tax evasion (I am not a US tax expert), as it would be up to the receiver of the Robux to declare it as income and pay tax? Correct me if I am wrong there, but from a cursory google, you can be taxed on all kinds of income, including bartering, so it should be possible to pay taxes on it. As for whether it is true, there was a long YT video, and a few news articles about it some time ago. Cant find the original, but here is some discussion, and the top comment links to the original video:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28247034

TLDW: Mod/item developers are paid in Robux, which can theoretically be converted back to dollars, but it was quite difficult to do so. It is well down the path towards being a scrip, and despite the publicity, nothing happened to the company.

I would at least be completely honest with the person, and tell them that the choice is either be homeless or effectively owned by Walmart. But I don't think its correct to frame this as a binary choice, there are other options. Homeless shelters do exist, even if there aren't enough, and Walmart could donate these cubes to a shelter organization to operate them independently.

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[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I don’t know if it is tax evasion (I am not a US tax expert), as it would be up to the receiver of the Robux to declare it as income and pay tax? Correct me if I am wrong there, but from a cursory google, you can be taxed on all kinds of income, including bartering, so it should be possible to pay taxes on it.

You're mostly right, but missing a few key pieces of US tax law. Roblox can hire the developers you're referring to either as W-2 employees, which would require Roblox to withold taxes (and pay into our nation pension system called Social Security). The other way is to hire the developers as "independent contractors", but this means Roblox would be required to hire them as 1099, which means they Roblox doesn't have to withhold taxes, but does have to report the money they're paying to the contractor. The contractor would then be obligated to pay the taxes on all earnings themselves.

If Roblox is neither 1099'ing these devs nor W-2'ing them, yet Roblox is employing them and paying them, then Roblox would be in violation of US tax law, and the IRS (Internal Revenue System) which handles individual and corporate taxation in the USA, would come in with enforcement resulting in potentially heavy fines and additional audit requirements to Roblox for years to come.

I would at least be completely honest with the person, and tell them that the choice is either be homeless or effectively owned by Walmart. But I don’t think its correct to frame this as a binary choice, there are other options. Homeless shelters do exist,

I would be surprised if a homeless person would not be aware of homeless shelters. If you look into homelessness, you'll find there are some very real concerns with shelters and some elect to not use them. Others are simply at capacity and more homeless remain unhoused.

even if there aren’t enough, and Walmart could donate these cubes to a shelter organization to operate them independently.

That assumes Walmart is trying so solve homelessness. Walmart isn't. Walmart is looking to increase its staffing pool. A reduction in homelessness is unintended side effect.

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