[andrewfromx]

"There’s a thought experiment I find illuminating: Imagine that Lyft announced tomorrow that it was going to shut down its app and lay off most of its staff. Then it was going to open a bunch of call centers and hire people to book taxi rides over the phone instead. When a passenger wanted a ride, they would call a toll-free number (1-800-GET-LYFT, perhaps) and provide pickup and dropoff locations. The operator would then relay this information to drivers, perhaps in a group chat or over an old-style radio system, and one of them would claim the ride. The operator would provide the passenger with an estimated pickup time and take credit card information over the phone. Here’s the question about this hypothetical version of Lyft: Would it be more or less expensive to operate than the company that actually exists?" Hilarious.

[savanaly]

"What if instead of these expensive apples, we announced tomorrow we were going to start serving you oranges instead?" I don't get the point of this thought experiment. I'm just old enough to remember the pre-rideshare days and I would literally go through the dispatch thing and it was terrible in comparison.

[Coffeewine]

The point of the comparison was to argue that one would expect a system which involved vastly more human labor to be much more expensive, yet the author had figures which suggested it would be less expensive.

The implication presumably being that Lyft must be overspending somewhere.

[binarybits]

Yes exactly.