[nluken]

The “innovations” of many (but not all) post-2008 unicorns are more about creating a legal grey area to bypass regulation than they are actual technological advances. Uber and Airbnb are prime examples. If Uber was forced to used licensed cab drivers or Airbnb forced to use licensed hotels, you would see the breadth of what these companies actually bring to the table, which isn’t nearly as much as their valuations would indicate. That’s before we get into the adverse externalities these services can create (looking directly at Airbnb here)

[fallingknife]

Yes, if Uber was forced to use the government cab cartel, then it wouldn't be better than the taxis. The entire point is they made taxis that actually work by getting around the taxi cartel.

[CPLX]

But that's only half the story.

The other half is that they used nearly free money provided by the US central bank, routed through VC firms, and engaged in anti-competitive predatory pricing.

The pricing issue is stark and impossible to miss. I produce events for a living and I'm in a different city every week. The cost of an uber ride now is invariably 2-3x higher than it was a few years ago at minimum sometimes 5-10x higher.

I remember tooling around Chicago and getting fares that were like $2.17 and $3.22 a couple years ago. Any fares within downtown Brooklyn were $8, period, often discounted via a promo to $4-5. Now they're routinely $25, maybe $15-18 on a slow day.

That's where all the VC money went, and it simply wasn't possible to compete with that unless you had access to all that free money too, which local business didn't.

[hef19898]

Outside the US, well, Uber is not directly emplying their drivers. If Uber had all drivers on their payroll, taxi cartel or not, Ubers story, and financials, would look a lot different, wouldn't they?

[marcosdumay]

People still choose to be Uber drivers, despite jobs that pay minimum wage existing. So, I'd bet the story would be way more complicated than your picture.

The main thing they get from offshoring the driving is scalable renting of capital. But well, I have no idea if one could not just rent it without the labor.

[mtnGoat]

Did they make it work though? Function yes, profittably, not yet.

[hotpotamus]

Does Uber use government maintained streets as part of its business?