[javajosh]

Uber created a marketplace and provided both buyers and sellers with a tool to participate in that market with minimal friction, mainly by taking advantage of GPS radios in people's devices. I, for one, consider this to be rather innovative and clever.

(Note that you can minimize anything with word choice. "Google is just a web spider that looks at links," or "Clojure is just a lisp that runs on the JVM," etc.)

[ulfw]

How is this 'market place' any different from the old school calling-a-taxi company and they radio in "Hey, there is a customer on the corner of 3rd and Broadway" and then the taxi goes there to pick you up?

It's incremental. Not innovation.

[dyeje]

Regardless of how innovative they are, they're breaking the law.