Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

greg-satell.medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 318 posts

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

#241

Post by SilasX »

MrMan wrote: post #218
belval wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, it’s just a bad point. Uber was popular even when just the black car service, which wasn’t externalizing anything that didn’t already work like that. No magic accounting there, no exploitation of confused drivers.

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

#242

Post by EMM_386 »

jasode wrote: post #140
Beltalowda wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could just phone a cab, no? That's what I did anyway; it's less convenient than an app, but back in the day you didn't have mobile phones either so not much option really. I don't really see how an "app" is fundamentally all that different, and it's kind of an obvious thing to add once smartphones become popular. I agree that Uber injected some fresh energy in a somewhat complacent market, but the real "innovatio…

>You could just phone a cab, no? That's what I did anyway; it's less convenient than an app, [...] I don't really see how an "app" is fundamentally all that different, It's more than just a substitution of tapping an icon vs dialing a phone number. The Uber business model of non-medallion cars and geographic matching algorithm builds up a "distributed mesh" of drivers to serve passengers -- especially those who are n…

> Because the taxi meter only runs when that passenger is in the car so it punishes suburb-to-suburb trips

Most taxi companies in the suburbs would be a flat rate that the dispatcher would tell you before you got picked up (or the driver would ask the dispatcher curbside), they often didn't use the meter.

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

#243

Post by horsawlarway »

Retric wrote: post #225
version_five wrote: post #171

Where I was during uber's ascent, uber's defining value proposition was circumventing the artificial monopoly created by the taxi medallion system. This "disruption" was actually great, it shook up an industry that needed shaking up (ironically I now use cabs because they have become better than uber where I am. This would not be the case if uber never existed). But even if it did some good "disrupting", I think the…

What’s missed in these discussions is these regulations had a point to them. It’s obvious Uber driving around without passengers increases congestion. Really look at AirBnb, Bird, etc and they all offload externalities from the company and it’s customers to everyone around them. When the basic building model is to break the law, chances are the law had a point and people are going to want a return to normal eventuall…

> What’s missed in these discussions is these regulations had a point to them.

This varies a lot by area - For example, I'd say the NY medallion regulations had a point to them, and that point was to systematically abuse cab drivers for the profit of the local government and banks.

Then for example - in my area (Atlanta) medallion supply was capped at 1600 - the result meant cabs basically didn't exist outside of the airport. Need a ride home from a party? Called a cab company? They won't show up. At all. They will dispatch cab after cab after cab that simply will never EVER show up.

Cabs would show up to exactly two places - Nice hotels that paid them under the table to make sure they kept coming, and the airport. Conveniently those two places tended to make circular trips.

So are there negative externalities to ride-sharing? Sure. Is it currently better than the previous cab monopolies? I'd argue yes. Do Uber and Lyft really represent a sustainable model? I don't think so.

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

#245

Post by iso1631 »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #194
iso1631 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Look through the last 12 months, hardly any with more than 2 stars

The overall rating is based on the last decade of reviews

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

#246

Post by [deleted] »

adamqureshi wrote: post #233

Back in the day my cousin was driving yellow cab in NYC. He would work 6/7 days a week 12 hour shifts. He eventually took our a mortgage ( loan) to buy a yellow cab medallion. Cost was like $1M. And BAM! uber came on the scene and the value for his medallion DROPPED. X 10k yellow cab drivers and those who bought medallions with a ridiculous loan. What did uBER do? that was so innovating? they simply put guys like my…

[deleted]

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

#247

Post by dominotw »

Retric wrote: post #225
version_five wrote: post #171

Where I was during uber's ascent, uber's defining value proposition was circumventing the artificial monopoly created by the taxi medallion system. This "disruption" was actually great, it shook up an industry that needed shaking up (ironically I now use cabs because they have become better than uber where I am. This would not be the case if uber never existed). But even if it did some good "disrupting", I think the…

What’s missed in these discussions is these regulations had a point to them. It’s obvious Uber driving around without passengers increases congestion. Really look at AirBnb, Bird, etc and they all offload externalities from the company and it’s customers to everyone around them. When the basic building model is to break the law, chances are the law had a point and people are going to want a return to normal eventuall…

> people are going to want a return to normal eventually.

Except now airbnb is accepted by city regulations and cities give out permits and make occupancy dollars.

Same with uber.

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

#248

Post by autotech »

adamqureshi wrote: post #233

Back in the day my cousin was driving yellow cab in NYC. He would work 6/7 days a week 12 hour shifts. He eventually took our a mortgage ( loan) to buy a yellow cab medallion. Cost was like $1M. And BAM! uber came on the scene and the value for his medallion DROPPED. X 10k yellow cab drivers and those who bought medallions with a ridiculous loan. What did uBER do? that was so innovating? they simply put guys like my…

Indeed, one of the things Uber disrupted was many lifelong taxi owner-operator’s retirement plans. An NYC taxi medallion was a valuable asset. It was a promise for exclusive market access. Giant $1M loans were taken out to pay for this privilege. NYC just turned around and gave it all away to Uber. When the value of NYC taxi medallions fell, while Uber was heavily subsidizing fares, small business owners were going bankrupt. Several people committed suicide. Real people lost their livelihoods while Kalinick and his buddies congratulated each other.

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

#249

Post by pessimizer »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #172
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.

So, Amazon's business model?

Amazon's business model was being first and not having to pay taxes for a decade and a half.

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

#250

Post by spacebanana7 »

Beltalowda wrote: post #117
whitepaint wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but didn’t produce anything that truly raised the economy… that’s the point. Utterly false. They produced people taking way more rides. More rides = more people going out to different places.

It's not like people would be stuck in the house otherwise. It's just that people would have taken public transport, their own car, or went by foot or bicycle before. I'm very skeptical of this claim that Uber increased mobility.

It’s hard to get empirical evidence for the general claim that Uber increased mobility after adjusting for substitution effects from walking etc. However, I think one can make the case from economic intuition that price reductions generally increase consumption in a category of normal goods.

E.g - a reduction in the price of wheat will increase food consumption even after accounting for people switching from other crops. Conversely, an increase in the price of Lego will reduce the amount of toys the average child gets, even after adjusting for the substitution to action figure etc.

Post reply on HN