We must return to an economy fueled by innovation, rather than disruption • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by nradov » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 1:58 PM UTC

skohan wrote: post #191

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 comp…

Every week there are startups in Silicon Valley (and other places) building great products, getting more funding rounds, getting acquired, and going public. There are an infinite number of potential new market segments where the incumbent tech giants have no IP. Invent something new.

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

#202

Post by AlexandrB » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:01 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #76

simonbarker87 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already had access to this exact experience with a taxi firm in Newcastle where I used to live pre Uber - so yeh, I don’t see what benefit Uber brought. Also, the firm that had that app had clean cars, with driver in clean clothes and they knew the roads well.

>I already had access to this exact experience with a taxi firm in Newcastle where I used to live pre Uber - so yeh, I don’t see what benefit Uber brought. It seems like the benefit of Uber was that it provided better service for many who didn't have the superior taxis in Newcastle. If all the other replies (including some UK ones) in this thread contradicting your personal experience don't convince you, would that b…

The same can be said about people complaining how taxis in their cities were dirty, inconvenient etc.

Now instead of having this patchwork, we have one giant monolithic taxi provider (Uber) that threatens both the good and bad taxi services of old. And because Uber is more than happy to subsidize rides thanks to VC funding having an equal/superior experience is often not enough to compete.

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

#203

Post by nradov » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

talkingtab wrote: post #180

We do not have an economy built on disruption, we have an economy built on the myth of disruption. No better example than Theranos. And we have an economy built on lock-in. No better example that Apple, or perhaps Google and Amazon. These are both ways to extract value from the economic system, not ways to improve it. The Apple Tax, Google Adsense.

It wasn't long ago that customers were locked in to IBM mainframes and DEC minicomputers. How did that work out? Eventually some new disruptive technology appears and the incumbents miss the market shift.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma?wpro...

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

#204

Post by datavirtue » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:02 PM UTC

Our lack of research funding in the US over the last few decades has been appalling. It makes no sense to pull back they way we did after making such wild gains on the back of it.

Open source knowledge is literally the greatest thing since sliced bread. By some odd chance, a few people at Sun open-sourced Java and literally changed the world for the better. Look at the productivity and opportunity that is now available to everyone because of it. Look at how it spurred real competition and gave birth to new technology. It lit a fire under everyone's ass! One small example of how unleashing academic innovation can help lift everyone.

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

#205

Post by Ambolia » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

Uber if anything makes taxis less productive and efficient, a big taxi company can take care car repairs in a very efficient way.

The magic of Uber is taking those hidden costs and pushing them on the drivers, now the cars get fixed in a much less efficient way, but the ones taking the risk are the drivers, so Uber wins overall.

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

#206

Post by datavirtue » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:05 PM UTC

heurisko wrote: post #6

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #4

My take on the productivity paradox is software is a form of literacy . We have put a pen and paper onto every desktop and every pocket but almost no-one can read or write. Edit: And those that can find that only a tiny fraction of the fold is written down (accessible through the virtual cyber world). Amazon's secret to success was forcing every service to live behind a "public" API.

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,…

Not everyone is interested in writing books...so no reason for them to learn to read or write.

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

#207

Post by datavirtue » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:06 PM UTC

lordnacho wrote: post #98

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,…

Literacy is known at the top for things like the Iliad or the works of Shakespeare, but the major benefits are actually much more mundane, like allowing doctors to write prescriptions or being able to have instructions in a manual. Similarly, you may never write an OS or a AAA game, but being able to just automate a teeny tiny bit of your Excel spreadsheet, that's where software literacy will benefit the most people.

And what you describe is what leads to innovation.

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

#208

Post by enraged_camel » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:07 PM UTC

heurisko wrote: post #19

verve_rat wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not writing software, using it requires software literacy. How many people do you know that refuse to learn the software they use everyday? How many times have you helped a friend or colleague with some problem just by googling it even when you don't really understand what they do for a living? It's not that we need everyone to create software, but it would unlock huge productivity gains if everyone stopped pasting s…

> How many times have you helped a friend or colleague with some problem just by googling it even when you don't really understand what they do for a living? I think sometimes it is also the case of knowingly what to Google for, and being able to pick out the correct answer. For example, recently I was involved in a cache issue for an android phone. One of the answers on Google was to download some sort of cache clea…

>> I think sometimes it is also the case of knowingly what to Google for, and being able to pick out the correct answer.

To me this is a part of literacy: how to know what to search for, and how to know which results are relevant.

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

#209

Post by nradov » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

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…

In large companies, accountants already spend much of their time building custom reports for management. A lot are in Excel, but other specialized tools are also common.

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

#210

Post by belval » Sun, Mar 13, 2022, 2:12 PM UTC

Ambolia wrote: post #205

Uber if anything makes taxis less productive and efficient, a big taxi company can take care car repairs in a very efficient way. The magic of Uber is taking those hidden costs and pushing them on the drivers, now the cars get fixed in a much less efficient way, but the ones taking the risk are the drivers, so Uber wins overall.

I don't like Uber, but it became popular because of convenience, not because of costs.

Pre-Uber/Lift in my city you'd have taxi companies that were operating like a cartel and giving a shitty service. Drivers were borderline rude. You had to call a dispatcher that was also usually rude and then wait 20 mins for a cab to show up.

Uber changed that process for the best by actually allowing me to get a taxi from an app in 30 seconds, they usually showed up much faster and the driver, fearing a 4-stars review, is usually incentivized to at least keep their car clean. It's a game changer and I wouldn't go back.

So no, the magic of Uber is not passing those hidden cost to the driver, it's actually offering a service that I want to use after +40 years of a corrupt industry that couldn't give a shit about improving.

Now that Uber gave them a big scare, they actually improved, but the idea that they would have evolved without an existential threat is madness.