[mikeash]

I'm curious, do you think all of those "X but on the internet" patents are good inventions worthy of 17 years of government protection? Because this is basically the same thing. Uber provides a service that has been around for centuries, it's just "on smartphones". Is that really sufficiently unique to call other people who do it "a clone"?

[Pxtl]

To be fair, integrating the Ebay-style rating of sellers/drivers does stand out as an important distinction - making that a core part of their app is a bit disruptive. Not a huge deal and not all their competitors do it, but that's something you don't usually expect in that kind of car service.

[mikeash]

I agree, and I don't want to make it sound like Uber isn't doing anything interesting or innovative. I just don't think that what they're doing is interesting or innovative enough that we should consider it all an original idea that others could "clone".

Taking smartphones and eBay-style ratings and integrating it into a smartphone app is great! But imitators, if they are "cloning" anything, are cloning eBay and car services, not Uber. The combination is extremely useful but ultimately nothing special.