The infamous MonkeyParking app that last year ran afoul of public sentiment and the law is back with a new business model that offers residents the chance to auction that most precious of commodities—urban parking space.
"This month, MonkeyParking quietly returned to San Francisco in a below-the-radar beta mode," reports Joe Eskenazi. The re-appearance of the app includes an all new business model. According to Eskenazi, "[in] its new model, rather than enable users to peddle public property—which is both illegal and morally dodgy—MonkeyParking is now focused on private property: driveways, to be specific. If you pull out of and pull into your driveway for five minutes a day, [MonkeyParking CEO Paolo] Dobrowolny says, then a valuable resource is lying fallow for 23 hours and 55 minutes a day."
Eskenazi cites a deputy San Francisco city attorney to note that the new business model is, in fact, legal, unlike its predecessor, which would have auctioned off public parking spaces.
The opportunity for the 100 test users enlisted by MonkeyParking to test the new model in San Francisco is actually the space on the street in front of the driveway, where property owners are allowed to park or grant others permission to park, because most driveways in the city are not large enough to fit a car without blocking the sidewalk.
Read the full story: MonkeyParking Is Back and Ready to Disrupt Your Driveway
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The MonkeyParking app works similarly to sharing economy stars Airbnb or Uber, except for sale is an inside line on parking spaces. That means that private users would be auctioning the use of public space. That can't be legal, can it?
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