3 ms·
I think the discussion on Uber often misses the point. Uber is not disrupting the Taxi business. Look at the endgame: in most unregulated markets Uber simply be
by soyiuz 11y ago
I think the discussion on Uber often misses the point. Uber is not disrupting the Taxi business. Look at the endgame: in most unregulated markets Uber simply becomes another hail and route management app for an existing taxi fleet.
Uber is therefore primarily disrupting the shit electronics powering the current "yellow cab" style cabs. These include the meter, the dispatcher and radio system, and the advertisement screen. That is the real source of disruption.
The ratings etc. are just noise to poach costumers away from taxis. Or more correctly, to force taxis to adopt Uber as logistics provider. Once monopoly is established the consumer-facing niceties become irrelevant. Nothing prevents Uber from lowering their minimum ratings requirements, for example.
- Steko 11y agoUber pretty clearly has two main innovations: (1) the efficiency of the app/gps combo vs traditional cab dispatch. This seems fairly easy to copy by incumbents and new entrants and in fact being a private company operating your own network has shown some weaknesses (ghost cars injected into map to fool customers, drivers not given accurate pickup info to protect from competitors which delays pickup, etc.) (2) the quasi-legal setup of "we will pick you up and take you to somewhere else for money but we're not a taxi company" that allows them to disrupt the medallion ecosystem where it exists. This advantage only manifests in areas where supply has been heavily and artificially constrained and disappears once the medallion bubble has been burst.