
Disrupting Uber - azuajef
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/uber-drivers-app-ridesharing-taxis-sharing-economy/
======
pfarnsworth
Good luck with the co-op idea.

The problem is that drivers feel like their services are worth a lot, and
passengers simply don't believe it. The reason why Uber is a success is that
they created new demand by dropping prices. Everyone I know, including myself,
would never have taken an Uber as frequently as we do if the prices were as
high as taxis.

You can't replicate this unless you keep pushing prices down, and this is what
Uber is doing.

So, as long as drivers want to keep their prices high, the riders won't come,
which will prevent more drivers from entering the co-op, which will mean
riders will wait a long time before their drivers arrive, which means they
will just go to Uber, etc. The co-op will never reach critical mass that way
and will fail.

The article doesn't even mention the massive amounts of driver incentives that
they pour back into the drivers. One driver told me that if they worked 2 hrs
during rush hour, Uber would guarantee $50/hr. That's $100 for 2 hrs worth of
work, which is pretty damn good and makes the rest of the day less stressful
about trying to hit your numbers to become profitable.

~~~
svanderbleek
Read the article more carefully, "they might be willing to switch to a co-op
model that offers a cheaper price and solid service". A co-op can have lower
prices and pay it's members more because they don't have to funnel profits to
support the bloat of a central corporation like Uber.

~~~
nickparker
Can they, though?

The corporation isn't some money-sucking black box. It's dispute resolution,
software development to match rides efficiently (Uber Pool is tricky), and
advertising.

Yes, it also skims money off the top to pay for things like driverless car
R&D, but is a small, likely disorganized co-op going to be efficient enough at
all the above to take advantage of that margin?

~~~
Kalium
It's highly unlikely that a small, disorganized co-op is going to be efficient
enough to take advantage of the situation and be able to out-compete Uber.

That said, the reality is irrelevant here. Jacobin is the kind of magazine
where economic reality is treated as a suggestion, to be discarded as is
convenient.

~~~
svanderbleek
That's how economic reality should be treated. Our own reality is primary. We
will take back our lives. What Jacobin is working towards is admirable. We
believe in progress, that a better way is possible, and that the current state
of affairs is suboptimal. We should encourage alternative economic thinking.

~~~
Kalium
I am in favor of encouraging plausible, workable economic thinking. Jacobin is
better described as leftist fever-dreams with roughly that level of connection
to any reality.

Could things work differently? Absolutely. Are they going to work differently
because some hack gets off fantasizing about how in abstract theory, the
services Uber performs could be better performed by a co-op that pays workers
more? No.

All the co-ops I've encountered or dealt with fall into one of three
categories:

* Non-functional, incapable of making decisions or delivering value.

* Functional but completely unscalable. May depend on bizarro local economic conditions or be in one of the few cities where people are willing to pay 30% extra for pizza because it's a co-op.

* Function, scalable, and does not operate much like a co-op at the level of service delivery. REI falls into this category.

Uber works because it's functional, scalable, and reliable. You can go to
almost any major city in the US, boot up your Uber app, and reasonably expect
to get decent service. It is, abstractly, possible for a co-op to do that. You
and Jacobin are completely, totally, 100% correct on this point. Things could
be different and better for the people who Jacobin has decided matter.

In fact, we all live in a framework where such a thing is possible! If only
someone was brave enough to put their labor where their mouth is. Maybe the
propagandists at Jacobin could... nah. They wouldn't go for that. They much
prefer theory.

~~~
tanderson92
> * Function, scalable, and does not operate much like a co-op at the level of
> service delivery. REI falls into this category.

No true scot? The definition of a co-op is a group organized to meet economic
or social desires through jointly owned business. What does this have to do
with any particular approach to service delivery? You appear to be defining
cooperatives as some unworkable theoretical concept and then any actual
successful example of implementation is an exception. Convenient!

Vanguard also falls into this category but is absolutely a cooperative.

~~~
Kalium
Workers at REI get sub-$12/hr. REI is structurally and technically a co-op.
They are just a co-op that does not exhibit the benefits of a co-op that
Jacobin would suggest will flow from being a co-op.

If it's structured like a co-op and exhibits none of the benefits of a co-op,
what's been gained? I'm saying that co-ops generally have to sacrifice at
least one of: structure, functionality, scalability.

~~~
thatsso1999
REI is a consumer-owned co-op, not a worker-owned one. The entire co-op is
designed around saving consumers money, not making the workers more.

So yes, REI does deliver the benefits of a co-op to its owners - high-quality
goods at a lower price than they would be unable otherwise be able to get.
This is the entire point of a consumer co-op. Workers can also be member-
owners of the co-op, and frequently are, but the benefits are geared towards
getting better discounts on the goods REI sells. This is in addition to the
implicit benefits of being an owner of the company and having a say in its
direction.

~~~
malandrew
But the prices aren't actually lower than what can be had elsewhere even with
the dividend you get back each year. The primary benefits of REI is how easy
it is to return products you don't like or don't have a need for and the fact
that you can get a product the same day if you live near one.

------
skybrian
What they're missing is that higher wages depend on some barrier to entry
(there are many kinds) that protects the people who have jobs at the expense
of anyone who is looking for a job.

As someone who works for a company with high hiring standards and
correspondingly high pay, I have mixed feelings about this. It seems like
there should be some jobs that are easy to get without much training, and taxi
driver is a good candidate for this. If we build fences around every kind of
job, life gets even harder for the unemployed.

So I'm not automatically on the side of workers with more "skin in the game."
I'd need a stronger argument about why we should support them rather than
part-time drivers.

~~~
ma2rten
I think the most valid complain about Uber as an employer is that it is
advertised as well a paying job but that there are hidden costs that most
drivers won't consider.

It's similar to how programmers often look at consulting rates, but don't
factor in non-billable hours.

~~~
paulddraper
Does Uber have substantially more hidden costs than, say, a pizza delivery
driver.

~~~
thrill
Nobody looks twice at the car the pizza is delivered in. Pick up a few riders
in a car that smells like pizza, and you'll no longer be an Uber driver.

~~~
paulddraper
So keeping a clean car is one of the hidden expenses?

~~~
niuzeta
I'd say keeping a care _desirable to warrant a 5-star rating_ is, or any
upkeep cost you would have to pay that Uber does not subsidize. I'm not a
driver so I can't comment on specifics, but I doubt Uber pays for fuel, unless
you're a full-time driver.

------
davidf18
These "disruptors" need to work on wealth creation and not installing
"economic rents." Economic rents, a term in Microeconomics, is trying to
achieve profits beyond those in an efficient market (for example, creating
artificial scarcity). The appear to be complaining because Uber is lowering
the cost of overly expensive taxi fares when they should be working on a
system that provides rides for less money while still helping drivers get more
pay (if that is important to them).

In NYC, because of the legacy taxi medallion system which artificially limited
the number of medallions to 13,000 (resulting in a medallion market value of
$1.2 million now down to $700,000 after Uber/Lyft), taxi fares are still about
twice that of many US cities. The artificial limit of medallions created
artificial scarcity which resulted in "economic rents" thus ultimately
requiring passengers to pay much higher fares that then went to the medallion
owners.

One example would be to lower gas usage by using electric vehicles or hybrid
cars (NYC Yellow Taxis are converting to hybrids) which not only lowers fuel
costs but lower air pollution. They could make a financial deal with the city
or state showing the lower health care costs from lower air pollution and have
the cars financed.

~~~
tanderson92
> _The[y] appear to be complaining because Uber is lowering the cost of overly
> expensive taxi fares when they should be working on a system that provides
> rides for less money while still helping drivers get more pay (if that is
> important to them)._

This is a magazine for American Leftists, so they're really quite clear what
they want: they want valuable services rendered to people with profits shared
among the workers, not the gatekeepers to an arbitrary app. More than creating
wealth, they want that wealth to be owned by the workers. To quote from the
piece:

> _This doesn’t mean drivers are better off working for a traditional taxi
> company. While Uber’s burdensome cost-shifting has come to define
> Uberization, the company merely digitized the taxicab industry’s already
> exploitative practices. The taxi medallion system, which requires drivers to
> pay their cab’s medallion owner at the start of each shift, deserved to be
> “disrupted.” But Uber’s employees face serious costs and risks nonetheless._

> _The possibilities don’t have to be so restricted however. Ride-share
> drivers usually already own their vehicles, so in theory they could enter
> the ride-share marketplace themselves. By ditching Uber’s predatory
> practices for a cooperative model that uses the same technology, driver-
> owned apps could democratize the ride-sharing marketplace, fulfilling the
> initial promise of the so-called sharing economy._

Uber is really a place where the leftist case makes the most sense, because
the means of production is _already owned_ by the workers and are in effect
paying a portion of their profits for the right to take part in an economy.

~~~
abannin
1) There is an assumption that Uber is not only profitable, but wildly
profitable. There is no data to support this claim outside of Uber's press
releases (obviously biased) stating "oh, yeah we just raised another billion
but I promise we're profitable in a few markets". To argue that Uber is
withholding profit from drivers, one would first have to prove that Uber is
making profit, not just a positive contribution margin.

2) The high liquidity of drivers would imply a functioning market (not to say
that it's perfect). The most obvious solution for drivers who are unhappy with
the pay would be to get a different driving job, right?

3) The core issue is that the barrier of entry to driving for Uber is very
low, increasing labor competition. This also keeps the price of a ride low.
The wage of the driver is the agreement between the rider and the driver for
the service, Uber is acting as a mediator. There is nothing in this article
that comes close to proving that Uber is not fulfilling it's role as a
mediator.

4) It will be interesting to see if the app works, but the strategy seems
flawed. The constrained variable are the riders; there are already plenty of
options. Paying drivers more doesn't seem to be a very compelling reason for
riders to choose a different service.

~~~
thatsso1999
1) Regardless of whether or not Uber is making an actual profit, which is not
the point of the article, it is quite easy to show that Uber is withholding
more revenue from drivers than theoretically necessary - on all rides, Uber
takes a percentage cut of the overall fare, along with ~$1 or so in fees. You
could argue that Uber's cut goes to running Uber itself, but the whole point
of the article is that there is no need for a monolithic company running the
platform in the first place - the software running it is fairly easy to create
(given that there are hundreds of ridesharing apps worldwide) and the server
costs are minimal - if the average Uber fare is $10 and it takes a 20% cut, it
is ludicrous to suggest each ride costs $2 in server time. $0.02c might be
more accurate (or even $0.20, if you add in other operational expenses), but
that's a delta of $1.98 or $1.80 not going to the drivers for every fare.

2) Yes, to a company that is owned by the drivers and gives them back the
maximal share of the revenue, taking into account the (minimal) operating
costs.

3) To call Uber a "mediator" when both the customer and the driver have no say
in the cost of the fare is laughable. Uber unilaterally sets the price, and if
you don't like it, you're shit out of luck.

4) Like the point I made in 1), Uber takes a much larger cut than what is
truly necessary. Even if the hypothetical ridesharing co-op had the exact same
fares as Uber, a much larger proportion of the fare goes to the driver. And I
would disagree that riders are the only constrained variable - there is almost
zero switching cost between different ridesharing services for not only the
rider but the driver as well. If only Uber and the ridesharing co-op are the
only options for ridesharing in a given city, and they have the exact same
fares for customers, but the co-op pays the drivers better than Uber, any
driver would logically switch to the co-op since they would be paid more, and
the customers would quickly switch to using the co-op's app as well, since the
waiting times would be shorter compared to Uber.

------
imgabe
> Yet again, an investigative report has found that Uber underpays its
> drivers.

Aren't the fares proportional to how many drivers are available? If the fares
are too low, don't drive. If enough people stop driving, the fare will go up.

~~~
Avshalom
If you're driving for beer money you won't care that the fares are low. If
you're driving as a career you can't just not work and hope the fares go up.

~~~
brownbat
It's an important point, that these concerns are always about careerists, not
the beer money group. But there are two groups here.

The beer money group could be significant: retirees, students, people who want
extreme flexibility because they have another primary job or responsibility.
Half of all drivers is a significant block.

On the other hand, careerists legitimately face an impossible situation, since
so much of their life is in the hands of one company that's constantly
tinkering with its economics.

The common policy response across similar situations seems to demand every
single job must work as a 40 per week career with benefits, killing any pure
beer money jobs.

I don't know whether that's a wise policy solution or not. Maybe the benefits
do outweigh the costs. But it's certainly not pareto optimal. Restrictive
policy responses hurt one group of people in an attempt to protect others.

I'd feel better about such policies if proponents showed awareness of who they
were hurting. Like if proponents said, "ok, honestly, we're going to hurt
retirees with this jobs protection measure, but we think that's ok, because we
value single moms over retirees."

Though if you get that far, you could just reduce it to a wealth transfer. Let
Uber do what it wants, then tax retirees and give the money to single moms.
Similar effect. One group loses, one group benefits.

Though of course then you'd stop and ask why you're taxing people
supplementing a fixed income. Maybe you'd rather tax some other group first.

And that line of analysis is how you end up supporting deregulation combined
with aggressively progressive taxation where the benefits are targeted to
vulnerable groups.

~~~
tnecniv
> Restrictive policy responses hurt one group of people in an attempt to
> protect others.

That's the definition of Pareto optimality

~~~
brownbat
Ok, pareto optimal describes a state, and I was abusing the term to apply it
to a change of states. Definitely could be ambiguous: Are you moving towards
pareto optimality, or starting at PO?

When I've heard others commit similar abuses, they use "pareto optimal
[change]" or "pareto efficient [change]" as synonyms for "pareto improvement."
ie, moving towards pareto optimality. ie, a change that makes someone better
and doesn't hurt anyone.

But you're right, "pareto improvement" is really the proper term there.

~~~
SilasX
I think the parent was referring to how "you're at a Pareto optimum when any
change has to make someone worse off", and was applying that (incorrectly
IMHO) to the situation you described where a regulation makes someone worse
off.

I say "incorrectly" because "some regulation R makes some group worse off" (as
you were saying) does not imply "all reg changes would make someone worse off"
(Pareto optimality).

------
aresant
"The drivers who don’t completely depend on their work with Uber to pay their
bills — a group that makes up about half of the company’s workforce — depress
full-time workers’ wages."

I bet this creates a larger defensive moat than most competitors assume.

Uber is a supply/demand driven model (eg success w surge pricing) and even
modest additional supply generates lower rates.

Lacking that same supply efficiency in full time driver platforms will keep
their prices higher and without a significant price advantage consumers will
stay with the known brands.

Not to mention the end game which is going to drop human drivers from the
equation all together.

~~~
hiou
Uber is a investment fueled churn machine right now. Supply and demand(even as
overly simplistic that model is) has yet to come into the equation. We will
not have any idea the validity of the business model until the never before
seen massive expenditures in driver acquisition subsides. Which probably won't
be for several years or more.

~~~
pfarnsworth
The CEO already said that the top 30 cities produced over $1B in profits. I
don't think your information is correct anymore.

~~~
massysett
Oh wow, so Kalanick opened his mouth and a huge number came out. Does he have
anything on paper to back this up? An audited financial statement? Even a
napkin with numbers on it?

------
dotBen
> _" competing with Uber might seem intimidating, but in many respects the
> company is a paper tiger. Its massive valuation, which stood at $62.5
> billion in January, comes from intellectual property — its brand and data —
> rather than from tangible assets."_

Right... except that the brand is what creates the demand side of the market,
the data is what makes the platform efficient and the IP provides strong
defense against 3rd parties like this one.

Just to point out this is a thought-piece in a very socialist political
magazine - and while I love Bernie as much as the next guy, this piece is a
political folly and not really grounded in any business or technical fact.

~~~
rdiddly
Uber's brand did not and does not create the demand for catching a ride. The
400-year continuous existence of some form of ride service, starting with
horse-drawn hackneys, tends to indicate a pre-existing demand, as does the
fact that "taxi" is the same word in different languages all over the world.

~~~
morgante
You were able to pay a stranger to drive you around long before Uber came out.
Even today if you loiter around any major airport you'll have plenty of people
approaching you to offer a ride.

The difference is that I have 0 trust in a random person offering me a ride. I
trust the Uber brand though.

------
jsemrau
I still believe that Uber artificially creates a market by subsidizing a price
point that is attractive to the drivers.

~~~
zaroth
If their unit economics are positive than this is not true. If their unit
economics are negative then it will be a spectacular show when the music
stops. This is aside from promotional costs for the first few months when they
enter a new market, as long as those costs actually decrease within the first
year in a new market.

~~~
corin_
That view doesn't look at the big picture - it's very possible that they are
allowing for, and happy with, losing money to grow market share for many more
years, maybe even until they can offer driverless rides to turn market share
into profit.

~~~
Frondo
Waiting for driverless cars to make them profitable seems like one of the
worst bets you could make. Even if they were content to wait, say, 20 years,
when driverless cars hit the market, what's to stop _anyone_ from buying a
small fleet of them and tossing their own uber-like app up on the store?

Heck, I can even see it in the distant future, turnkey Uber-like businesses,
you get your choice of franchise to buy into. You supply the cash for the
cars, they supply you an app and a little branding.

Saying "Uber's playing a long game by waiting for driverless cars and THEN..."
just seems totally implausible.

~~~
stale2002
Its not playing the long game. Its playing the short game. Self driving cars
are going to be here for consumers by 2020.

What protects Uber is the network effect. Even if I had a million self driving
cars right now, nobody has my app installed, and I don't have an optimized
pricing and logistics set up yet.

And if you have your own fleet of self driving cars, why would you build the
whole setup yourself? Why not just rent them to Uber?

~~~
_delirium
> Self driving cars are going to be here for consumers by 2020.

I doubt this is true, at least if you're talking about all-weather driving.
Not even the optimistic researchers I've chatted with are _that_ optimistic;
this timeframe would require all-weather driving to be basically solid at the
research level by 2018 or so, which is not totally impossible but unlikely.
Maybe if it's limited to Uber Phoenix, though.

~~~
Hydraulix989
To be fair, a lot of the self-driving car testing and research thus far has
been done on rather linear freeways in immaculate California weather. It's
pretty easy to become overoptimistic.

At least, Uber ATC is in Pittsburgh, where it can become more grounded in
reality by potholes, haphazard construction, thin windy two-way roads without
markings or lanes, and unexpected acute precipitation.

------
morgante
I know it's Jacobin, but where do they come up with the leading thesis that
Uber "underpays its drivers." Relative to what? Even after expenses, Uber
drivers make well above minimum wage.

Ultimately, it's impossible to satisfy all parties, particularly drivers. They
want to be paid more, but most reports say Uber is not profitable. A co-op
cannot rely on VC money to finance its expenses, so to pay drivers more they'd
either have to charge more than Uber or avoid most of the expenses Uber
incurs. I don't see either scenario leading to a competitive option: either
you're the expensive option, or you offer a subpar experience.

------
neves
The greatest problem of coops is that they don't have any incentive of getting
rid of riders. With the feedback in Uber, an abusive driver would be kicked
off soon. I'm tired of taxi drivers that don't take me where I want. I never
had this problem with Uber.

~~~
Consultant32452
Have you tried being white?

~~~
neves
I'm an adult, white guy with lots of gray hair... but I live in Brazil.

BTW, other day I was talking to a black guy friend of mine. He was complaining
that the taxis didn't even stopped for him. More than one he had to ask as
policeman to stop a taxi for him. As a funny guy, he says that he asks the
policeman: "Would you please stop a taxi for me. I'm not able to do it, maybe
they are thinking I'm black!".

------
Callmenorm
Uber is trying to keep prices low by removing the driver in the medium term.
Any driver-owned service is going to have a hard time competing with that.
There are less than 10 years of human driven transportation in urban settings.
Still time to make a living, but not a career.

------
Paul_S
Here's a crazy idea for solving the problem with uber and taxis: public
transport.

~~~
michaelvoz
As someone who has lived in the Bay Area 17 years - it just never seemed to
materialize.

Disclaimer: I work for Uber.

------
imh
This prompted me to try to understand what a co-op really is. I read the
wikipedia page, and still don't really get what keeps it separate from a
regular business, except for ideals. At a co-op like this, they would still
need programmers to fix inevitable bugs in the app, marketing/logistics people
to figure out how to get traction (because that doesn't just happen by itself)
and expand to new cities, and managers to coordinate, and everything else a
regular company needs (financial, HR, etc). It ends up sounding like what I
think of as a regular company. What's the difference?

~~~
fineIllregister
The employees would own the company, including any programmers, etc. There
would be no shareholders to pay out to, so the money that would have been paid
out as dividends could be saved by consumers and/or given to employees.

------
zer0gravity
Uber has all the cards here. They came with a system that enables the drivers
to use their time more efficiently, which dropped the price for the end user.
Also lowered the entry barrier. Almost anyone with a car, smartphone and a
driving licence can do it, which is why they afford the high turn over.

Is it worth it trying to compete with them? Definitely .

Will this lead to increased drivers profit ? Not really. Because the value
that they provide is massively accesible,and with the advent of autonomous
cars, fully replaceable.

Bad times for taxi drivers are coming quickly, and there's not much anyone can
do about it...

~~~
cbHXBY1D
They truly don't. They own the best technology but no driver OR customer
loyalty.

If a cooperative treats their employees better and with higher wages then why
should the best, most active drivers stick with Uber?

~~~
xseven
because that is where the customers are

~~~
fineIllregister
If a coop doesn't have to pay investors, they can split that between the
drivers and the consumers. Customers will switch apps for cheaper fares, all
else being equal.

------
moflome
Hi, we have found our "peer-to-peer ride share app" to be surprising
popular[0]... in a different era, this was called carpooling. Which
theoretically could disrupt Uber with "free" rides, but the article's premise
seems to be on disruption through disintermediated profit sharing. Our app
seems to indicate, at least in suburban areas, profit motive isn't the only
driver in this market.

[0] [http://www.snapridesapp.com/](http://www.snapridesapp.com/)

------
eistrati
It looks like post-Austin exit of Uber and Lyft, smart guys jumped on the
opportunity to fill the gap. I really hope Arcade City will be able to provide
sustainable & scalable solution!

P. S. I have no affiliation with either Arcade City or Christopher David. Read
about this effort here: [http://www.vocativ.com/327333/a-world-without-uber-
dispatche...](http://www.vocativ.com/327333/a-world-without-uber-dispatches-
from-austin)

~~~
cyan_atrus
you're betting that a facebook group is a scalable solution?

arcade city is a great example of unintended consequences -- instead of safer
rides, austin's regulations led to consumers choosing a __much __riskier
ridesharing option (no GPS tracking, no recourse when something goes wrong, no
background checks _at all_ , etc)

[http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2016/06/21/austin-
cra...](http://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2016/06/21/austin-cracks-down-
on-unsanctioned-ridesharing.html)

[http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/06/dwi-arrests-
skyrocket-...](http://countercurrentnews.com/2016/06/dwi-arrests-skyrocket-
uber-lyft-kicked-austin/)

~~~
orblivion
> you're betting that a facebook group is a scalable solution?

As I understand, they had an experimental phone application. They took down
support for it, and are building a next version.

~~~
cyan_atrus
Ah, interesting, hadn't heard that -- is it the same as
[https://austinstartups.com/rideaustin-turns-tnc-lemons-
into-...](https://austinstartups.com/rideaustin-turns-tnc-lemons-into-
lemonade-df841accfd32#.idfh3zxsv) ?

~~~
orblivion
I think the company is actually based in New Hampshire.

[http://arcade.city/](http://arcade.city/)

------
tymm
Even in the unlikely case that the co-op could temporally get more customers
than Uber, Uber could just artificially lower the prices for
customers/increase rates for drivers and win customers/drivers back. A co-op
could not do that since they have no money in the bank.

Except when all this happens on an own blockchain where people can invest in
the co-op via tokens on that blockchain? Maybe this could even be combined
with a prediction market which decides how to counteract attacks (on prices)
from Uber?!

------
free2rhyme214
Vic Vaiana is naive. Co-op apps aren't 10X better than Uber so it's unlikely
people will download them, let alone get people to switch from Uber and retain
them long term.

~~~
alecdbrooks
I don't think the barrier is nearly that high. I could see people downloading
co-op apps if they hear that they have more drivers or better drivers. Getting
to that part is difficult, sure, but not out-of-hand impossible.

------
rdslw
There is one big problem I have with uber: Uber takes PERCENT (20%) of ride
value, while it has fixed cost associated with ride.

In fact it's a uber clever way to tax (sic!) workers.

I believe uber will be disrupted, either by nations (goverment must be ultra
blind to allow burden its citizens by foreign corporation paying no corp taxes
(EU case) plus having most of the cost in different country (all but US case)
or by people themselves.

------
woodandsteel
A driver's co-op is an interesting idea, but how long until the drivers are
all replaced by self-driving cars?

------
guaka
It's a bit silly to leave out any mention of self driving cars in an article
called "Disrupting Uber".

Driving around cars around all day is a silly job, ideally a job that should
not exist in 5 years from now. We'd better discuss basic income instead of co-
op taxi companies.

~~~
jessaustin
I'm trying to think of a job that isn't "silly", in the sense that it couldn't
eventually be done by robots, and I'm drawing a blank... Do you intend to say
that working is "silly"?

~~~
back_beyond
The silly spectrum, as defined culturally.

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rgbrgb
The app in the article looks like vaporware (hope to be proven wrong). Anyone
else trying to build P2P apps where the worker sees the full value of their
work? I get the theory, it seems possible, but it been a few years since we
started talking about building stuff like this on the blockchain and I've seen
0 activity. Every developer (including myself) who I've discussed this type of
thing with has basically said the same thing: if I had a bunch of money in the
bank and wasn't already working on a project that seemed
interesting/important, I'd be down to try building it for some labor vertical
(delivery, taxis, farming). From my vantage, it's public service in the same
sense that doing a sabbatical with 18F is public service. Maybe 18F should
try?

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davidf18
Does anyone know why I would be downvoted for taking the time to explain what
is going on. Does someone have a problem with lowering overly high taxi fares.
Uber has been doing that which is a good thing.

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powera
There are barriers to entry to most jobs than don't fit your saying they are
all harmful "economic rents".

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abannin
Correct, but the article is advocating that full time drivers capture rents
from the market. This is justified by implying (without evidence) that Uber is
engaged in rent seeking against the drivers.

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hansfr
(deleted)

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coredog64
I think this belongs in the "Hitler Uses Docker, Annotated" thread.

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sunnytropic
This is standard Uber practice. Use billions in its warchest to incentivize
drivers into joining it, and offering huge benefits that gradually become less
generous as it comes closer to market saturation.

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paulddraper
What's a warchest?

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sunnytropic
I am referring to the billions it has got to spend, which it is using to fuel
growth. War chest literally means " a reserve of funds used for fighting a
war.". Seemed appropriate, since Uber is waging a war for market share

