Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
locusmag.com
Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
1–10 of 128 posts
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#2The closest thing we have to a meta-service is Meta-Elsevier, more popularly known as Sci-Hub, which works so well simply because it doesn't care about legality. It's hosted outside the US on a slowly changing list of TLDs, and so it doesn't have to worry about any form of copyright law, not just the DMCA.
I think if you wanted to build more services like this, you'd have to go this approach: instead of building an above-board app that uses the Uber API and has developer info on file with Apple and Google, anonymously develop a tool for jailbroken phones that injects itself into the Uber app and monitors requests. Instead of building a website that scrapes Amazon centrally, build a browser extension with permissions on amazon.com. And so forth.
The arms-length approach of meta apps helps here, because then individual ride-sharing coops and bookstores get plausible deniability. They're not telling you to use the app, it's a shadowy foreign group who decided to link to them.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#3I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#4Thoughtful article. Wonder why you couldn’t have a meta ride app that would tell you which ride share app(s) to install based on your current location or on a search (say if you’re about to visit Austin for SXSW). A simple API for people to submit apps (and perhaps reviews) and no need to hack the incumbents’ apps (although there would be some karmic justice in that, I don’t think it’s right, and would probably lead to incumbents doing worse things to the apps trying to displace them).
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#5I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.
I was appalled that the the existing taxi system (essentially a protected monopoly) wouldn't immediately create an Uber/Lyft app when ride-sharing first appeared. Then I realized that building such a thing would only benefit drivers and customers, and those are the two constituents that the existing taxi system doesn't care about.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#6I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.
White label ride sharing apps are plentiful nowadays.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#7I think this downplays the anticipated response from Uber and the like. DMCA and CFAA are just tools used, not the entirety of the barrier to further co-op based disruption. There's nothing to stop Uber / Lyft from banning their drivers from the service completely if they are caught using the hypothetical Meta-Uber app.
I understand that this example is just an illustration of the spirit of the article and doesn't represent Cory's argument, but I feel that the "felony contempt-of-business-model" is only one pillar in the structure, rather than the whole thing.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#8He's making a very important point here about the free market. In what sense is it free? What is a reasonable thing to hold someone to, contractually?
There's a real lack of thinking about what the free market should actually mean. It's almost always couched in industrial era terms when it does come up, esp in relation to Uber and the gig economy. "Labour" has a very different meaning now to what it meant back in the 1800s.
Good episode of South Park talks about this, "The Human CentiPad". Basically the boys fall foul of an Apple agreement and something bad happens. Really bad.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#9The main challenge to successful (i.e., market-dominating) cooperatively-owned platforms like the ones Cory wants is that usually there are no incentives that motivate individuals to dedicate their lives and souls in the creation, launching, running, and perpetual improvement of such platforms for the benefit of others.
The exceptions, including successful projects like GNU and Linux, tend to be led by rather unique individuals, like Richard Stallman and Linus Torvals, who are almost religiously zealous about their mission, and they maintain their commitment year after year, and decade after decade, without any personal profit motive.
Barring these exceptions, Capitalism seems to be the "least-worst solution" to this problem that human civilization has evolved over millennia, so far.
Re: Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me
#10I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.
There is a long line of people willing to subsidize cab service. A white label app can not compete with them.
After investors decide it's a sure way to lose money, it may happen.