@chris_germano yeah... My first reaction was "wait... What" then "huh, that's an interesting business concept.." then I thought about the ppl who would let their dogs out at the same time as those whose owners are paying for the service.. I am seeing the worst case possible scenarios and it looks pretty damn ugly. At this rate, I wouldn't put it past humans to surpass that ugly expectation.

@chris_germano Dog poop collection is a business that pops up on /r/entrepreneur all the time and I'm always a bit blown away that it's a real business. I mean, I'm as guilty as any dog owner is of letting the piles pile up a bit, but it takes less than 2 minutes to go out and clean the yard. The primary use case I've seen that makes sense to me is post-winter clean-ups. During a snowy winter apparently it can be hard to pick up, and come spring the yard is a minefield. But other than that? Well, I guess if someone's willing to pay for it, then it makes sense to offer it as a service.

@chris_germano Yeah that was my first reaction too, "really, is this real?" but then I actually thought a little and, we get people to clean our gardens, our homes, look after our kids, walk our dogs, so why not clean their poop too?

@rossdcurrie Fair point, I've only owned a dog in an urban environment so the responsibility was always "pick it up now, or you're a jerk". While you're not wrong about "if someone's willing to pay for it, then it makes sense to offer it", I worry about how low our standards will fall for what's expected and offered within the gig economy (ie. how much lower can we go than "Uber for dog poop"?) A related service, which I haven't seen yet, would be aquarium maintenance. Sure, there's some poop-picking involved there as well, but a trained professional to analyze fish health, water cleanliness and levels, and properly trim plants would be a critical service to those who love aquatic pets but find it difficult to set aside enough time for regular upkeep (speaking from experience)

@chris_germano Well I live inner-city-suburban, I just have smallish, enclosed backyard - I'd be more worried about why people are looking over my fence. If your dog poops in the front yard, I guess that's a different thing. If he's pooping while you're out for walkies, yeah, gotta pick it up right away. (fun fact, my dog learnt that if he poops at a certain place, we walk across the street to the park, where there are doggy dumpage disposal bins. He thinks he's trained me to take him to the park, but really I've trained him to poop at a certain place so I don't have to carry around a little bag of excrement for the next 30 minutes. >(ie. how much lower can we go than "Uber for dog poop"?) I mean, human seems the next logical, lower rung.