[acdha]

> this dude is forgetting about some other cool advances, such as the sharing economy (Uber/Lyft and airbnb) which kind of changed the world a little

Beyond the “sharing” misnomer, those were proven concepts with existing industries. So far what's been proved is that if you're willing to pour billions of dollars into a company you can produce a better app than the incumbents, and that you can see short-term gains if you're willing to break the law and/or subsidize heavily.

> if you showed google maps to someone from 2000, they would think it is magic.

By 2000 the most likely reaction would have been “oh, it's like MapQuest but faster”. Google Maps reflects a lot of evolutionary improvements but the big change was the rise of the advertising model meaning that you didn't have to pay a third-party for GIS software or a subscription service to get annual map updates.

[dragonwriter]

> > if you showed google maps to someone from 2000, they would think it is magic.

> By 2000 the most likely reaction would have been “oh, it's like MapQuest but faster”.

Depends on context. Sure, maybe if you showed it to them on desktop with basic operations (e.g., turned off traffic display, etc.)

Show using it on mobile for navigation with “Ok, Google, navigate to...” with turn-by-turn navigation and real-time, traffic-based route adjustment with voice promoted and confirmation, and it's at least as far beyond 2000s MapQuest as that version of MapQuest is above a dead-tree book of maps.