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We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

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Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#191

Post by skohan »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #178

The problem is incumbents get lazy and start profit-seeking. Competition is the only way we know to have a chance of fighting it. The taxi industry got away with ripping off customers and having terrible service for ages. In my country they would regularly overcharge or take longer routes. Or you call and they decide not to come, or you walk around waving your hands frantically at a taxi hoping they stop. As a touris…

So I agree with some of your points: I.e. I think people would generally agree the user experience of Uber is an improvement over taxis even if the labour conditions are a regression.

The problem I see is that even the potential for disruption is consolidated in fewer and fewer hands. With IP law the way it is, Google and Apple acting as gatekeepers to mobile ecosystems, Amazon owning e-commerce and squeezing or competing with vendors who depend on it - the world is increasingly becoming a place where a project has to be blessed by one of a handful of giant corporations to be allowed to exist.

And it’s making things worse for consumers. For instance Disney buying up entertainment properties and putting them behind a walled garden, or MS doing the same with game studios.

Silicon valley made its name as a place where a couple people in a garage could invent something to change the world. It’s debatable whether it’s even worth trying anymore, since it’s such an uphill battle to compete with the giants. If you ask me that’s a problem and we should seriously think about the way IP law is handled.

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#192

Post by Jensson »

odiroot wrote: post #124
ChicagoDave wrote: post #104

The loss of innovation has zip to do with the Uber Economy. Try the fact that the middle class has been gutted by an unfair tax structure that shreds responsibility away from the wealthy and corporations and has created peripheral damage in high college cost and low public school expectations. Bring back the tax rate where people making over 540k (the 1980 equivalent of the top tax rate $225,000) pay 50% on anything…

> Try the fact that the middle class has been gutted by an unfair tax structure > Our tax structure is insanely out of balance. That's the number one core problem in the United States. This is actually even worse in many places in EU. I completely agree with your diagnosis and would also like to see your solution implemented. I have an impression, taxation here in Europe is used as a political tool to play middle cla…

The huge difference is that in USA most of your taxes goes to the federation while in EU most of your taxes goes to your local authorities while EU gets very little of your money. People are more willing to pay taxes when they know it wont be sent thousands of kilometres away.

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#193

Post by jlokier »

akvadrako wrote: post #139
herunan wrote: post #116

Can we get an open source gig economy app where 75% of the profits go to gig workers? Then 7.5% would go towards employee rights and benefits of gig workers, 7.5% towards contributors improving the software, and 10% towards customer support and legal third parties.

It's called a platform co-op and many exist, but it's hard to compete with VC money. Uber is losing money so I don't know think drivers want a slice of the profits.

What, if anything, is preventing for-profit platform co-ops from obtaining VC money and chasing a similar growth-to-unicorn curve?

Is it just cultural inertia, i.e. nobody has tried yet?

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#194

Post by mike-cardwell »

iso1631 wrote: post #126
mike-cardwell wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that was a common experience, Uber wouldn't have grown to the size it has and we wouldn't be having this conversation. I don't doubt that you have had bad experiences with Uber, and also that other people have. But you would find it very hard to convince me that people have better experiences with non Uber taxis on average.

I used to have a great experience with Uber. Looking at the app store reviews in the UK of Uber, sorted by most recent 1* - Lost my trust 1* - Has gone downhill 1* - Uber Scammed me 1* - Can't get an Uber anymore 1* - The worst experience I have ever had 2* - Uber is deteriorating 2* - waiting times have increased 3* - Cancelled rides 1* Deteriorated over lockdown etc. All referring to the same problems I see, rides…

Those latest 9 reviews happened over the space of 5 days. If Uber was generally bad, given the number of trips they're doing, I'd expect to see a lot more negative reviews in those 5 days than 9.

I'm not surprised to see no good reviews. I can't imagine people going out of their way to leave good reviews for Uber at this point. Their overall rating is 4.5/5 though

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#195

Post by missedthecue »

amelius wrote: post #105
ALittleLight wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's Uber's problem though. Essentially their billionaire investors subsidized car rides for lots of people. Maybe it'll work out for Uber in the long run. Maybe not.

It will work out for them when/if they have destroyed the competition, that's the point. And in any case the founders are still billionaires.

Are there any slide decks or investor material out there that confirm this is the business model? I hear it all the time on HN but it just doesn't make sense. The barrier to entry in the taxi market is too low. You can't kill off competition and start monopoly pricing. The competition will always reappear.

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#196

Post by simonbarker87 »

amelius wrote: post #161
unmole wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did people take to Uber outside the US if there wasn't a need?

Because Uber subsidized the rides.

This, they used their VC money to undercut the local market. Everyone complained when China did it with steel but not when Uber did it with taxis

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#197

Post by bregma »

Both innovation and disruption are useful tools to keep in the chest.

A completely free market economy is rife with undesirable downsides, so it's necessary to introduce regulation. Regulations in a capitalist system is rife with regulatory capture usually used to artificially restrict supply. Regulatory capture needs to be disrupted. Disruptors quickly become rent seekers (nice system... shame if something should happen to it). The way around disruptors is to innovate, until the capitalists seek to capture regulations on the innovative.

It's a dynamic system constantly seeking equilibrium. It's not perfect but it seems to be working OK.

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#198

Post by gonzo41 »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #78
heurisko wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that writing software is comparable to literacy. I think it's more similar to any other profession, with a skillset you can learn if you're interested, or learn to get paid. Not everyone is interested in writing software, and that's fine. It has also never been easier to tinker with things, as root VMs are cheaply available, in comparison to 20 years ago, when you really were just given a cpanel interface,…

>I think it's more similar to any other profession Could not disagree more. I run a small business selling used video games online, and come from a SWE/EEE background. The fact that we've got processes in place that are built from the ground up to be scalable and automatable, as well as the simple Python scripts to perform this automation has basically tripled or quadrupled our productivity. I could see much the same…

I honestly think what you're describing will take about 25-50 more years to happen, if ever. Whilst people are getting smarter and more capable, HN is a bubble of people who'll put in the effort to do the stuff you're describing. Systems like SAP/Salesforce and other mega ERP and management systems are filling that space. I expect people will just be learning to live in ecosystems. Similar to whats happening with the cloud in the present day for developers.

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#199

Post by Ankaios »

throw-nocoiner wrote: post #144
servytor wrote: post #32

I just find it really weird that there wasn't a thinktank in 2005 or so, that said "Okay, what are the next big phone applications?" and invented Uber and a few others. What is the point of these thinktanks if they can't predict 3 years ahead along our current technological advancement curve?

IMHO a bigger problem is equating innovation with digitization. In the end, living standards mostly stem from our interactions with the physical world, not digital. After all, rich people buy yachts and mansions, not Adamantium armor++ set Venture capital ought to have it's hand on the pulse of technology. The most impactful tech of the last 5 years, with massive societal and financial returns, was mRNA vaccines. Yet…

My understanding is that Moderna basically started as a result of a venture firm recognizing that mRNA drugs might lead to valuable new things (https://www.flagshippioneering.com/companies/moderna).

Re: We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption

#200

Post by satyrnein »

a-dub wrote: post #92
mftb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're sample is simply not representative. If we could go back in time to 5 years before Uber's founding, I could show you the taxi system on the entire west coast of the US was non-functional, from San Diego to Seattle, service, pricing, availability were all abysmal. FWIW, I actually agree that the "Gig Economy" is riddled with problems, but at least in the case of Taxi's where Uber started, the existing system wa…

as a counterpoint, there were places like nyc where the cabs and black cars were very reliable, fast and cheap and there were both drivers and family owned black car bases that were keeping the overheads rather than see them sent elsewhere. many drivers were first generation immigrants.. owned homes in queens, were putting kids through college, looking at their name come up on the medallion wait-list in a few years a…

For some people, yes. Black folks routinely had issues getting cabs to pick them up, cabs would ask where you were going before you got in and then drive away if the answer was Harlem or outer boroughs, of course you could barely find a cab in the outer boroughs, everyone's credit card reader was "broken", etc.

Meanwhile, many of those immigrants were working off of someone else's medallion for peanuts, so the medallion owner could book Nicki Minaj for his kid's bar mitzvah.

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