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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

#211

Post by beepbooptheory »

650 wrote: post #179

I’ve been using delivery apps on and off for the past few months. Between the promos I’ve received, I’ve gotten groceries delivered for less than the items cost let alone the gas and time to deliver them. I’ve had multiple food items delivered at a lower cost than me walking there and buying in store as well. Talking to a few drivers for the companies - its tough, but they make a decent amount in the city (4-7k a mon…

> its tough

It is so tough, like beyond just the general psychological toll of your rent being a gamified award, there is little reprieve. No vacation, no security at all.

I have had so many jobs, and being a GrubHub deliverer is perhaps the most alienating, and in long term, exhausting ones ive had. I used to think "well at least people can have flexible jobs, use their vehicles", but these days I just so no reason for labor to ever be like it for anyone. Its not a model that thinks about the actual worker at all.

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

#212

Post by Eddy_Viscosity2 »

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…

This is absolutely true, entrenched monopolies, or even a group a companies which have long since decided to stop competing with each other (e.g. canadian banks and phone companies) begin to charge more for less over time. Some of this is intentional too, like the way cities artificially limit the number of taxi licenses. Disruption can be good, but it only gives temporary improvements as a new monopoly will eventually take hold. It's a fundamental feature of the capitalist market system that over time industries consolidate into monopolies (or groups that act like a monopolies) because that's the best way to maximum profits.

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

#213

Post by buran77 »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #163

Disruption in our economy means "losing billions of euro for years". The race to the bottom I'm seeing in e-commerce is just hilarious. Great for consumers. Not so great if you are a delivery driver.

Disruption these days is mostly about playing by a set of rules you invent for yourself to get an edge on the competition and calling it innovation. It's rare that real innovation is used to disrupt.

Imagine disrupting any industry where some form of accreditation is required by making an app which allows any person to perform those services. Anyone could be a doctor, lawyer, notary, etc. with no license needed. That's not disruption, that's breaking the law until the company is big enough to bribe (lobby) to change the law to allow that. That's literally Über-style "disruption".

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

#214

Post by qgin »

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.

The economy is built on companies like Theranos? That doesn’t seem right to me.

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

#215

Post by amelius »

missedthecue wrote: post #195
amelius wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think it might be kept implicit, so investors will not start questioning it.

I think the logic is to own the portal to taxis and become a gatekeeper, by being the only app that the user has installed for hailing taxis. So the barrier to entry becomes large because you have to convince people to install your app.

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

#217

Post by datavirtue »

solatic wrote: post #115
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…

Excepting star-power labor (professional athletes, entertainers), most of the income in the upper tax brackets goes to the owners of capital. When stocks pay dividends, the dividends are taxed as income. If you raise taxes on upper-tax-bracket income, you just promote stock-based compensation instead: compensation in stock options (which are taxed as capital gains when realized, not income), stock buy-backs instead o…

Before the stock yields anything the corporation is taxed. To follow that, allowing unprofitable companies to be publicly traded is corruption. As others have mentioned above, we are also suffering from a lack of financial regulations.

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

#218

Post by MrMan »

belval wrote: post #210
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…

the previous poster makes a very important point - Uber re-externalized the costs for fleet maintenance and many other costs and push them outside their balance sheet.

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

#219

Post by giraffe_lady »

nradov wrote: post #201
skohan wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's funny because they didn't talk about funding or getting acquired they talked about small groups of people inventing things.

Whether that ideal was ever the norm or not, it's clear that it's not an important marker of a contemporary startup.

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

#220

Post by mofosyne »

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.

Is there any known platform cooperatives to support that has some traction so far?
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