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The article has two insights, which are kinda related in an surprising way. One is tangentially mentioning that car poolers almost always know each other and w
by VLM 11y ago
The article has two insights, which are kinda related in an surprising way.
One is tangentially mentioning that car poolers almost always know each other and will not go with random strangers; I thought to myself, yes, I am not young and I cannot remember ever hearing or seeing first hand a "hitchhiker" style car pool although coworkers helping each other out (critically, without a dedicated app/service middleman) is almost normal. The insightful part is the successful ride sharing services actual business model is psychologically tricking users into pretending to be taxi drivers and taxi customers rather than some random dude picking up anonymous hitchhikers which is what they really are.
The second semi-related insight is when the free market numbers won't work, just demand the government socially engineer a private profit. Specifically the part of the article where the government should artificially manipulate parking prices to make him the billionaire he is entitled to be because he is so much more deserving of a billion than everyone else. As the article implies, the concept of suburban ride sharing IS mathematically impossible as defined and the only hope for that sector is winning some kind of "dictator for a day" lotto to basically oppress and dominate the inhuman locals.
What ties them together is the concept of LARPing, live action role play. In the first insight from the article, you can successfully run a middleman transport business, basically an online semi-illegal unlicensed gypsy cab dispatcher service, by convincing both participants to LARP that they're taxi drivers and passengers. In the second insight from the article, aside from all this complicated mathy stuff which is none the less true, you can tell a business sector is dead when the only serious business plan first involves LARPing like becoming dictator for life or mass social engineering or whatever other wish fulfillment.
The esoteric message of the article, as opposed to the mathy exoteric message, is the sector is dead because the only participants are the business hustler equivalent of joining the SCA and mistakenly thinking that means you're actually the municipal government, rather than the reality of getting drunk with friends in costume. Which is fun, but don't confuse it with actual political rule.
- alistairSH 11y agoHitchhiker-style carpooling is alive and well in DC. http://www.slug-lines.com/ http://www.slug-lines.com/ All the major arteries into DC from Virginia have HOV lanes. At many major interchanges, there are parking lots. If you want a ride that doesn't take 2+ hours, you park at the interchange and hop in a stranger's car.
- VLM 11y agoYes, but its a context switch. You can't build unicorn for a billion people if the maximum possible market size is actually 10K people, or to be extremely generous, we'll say a couple million absolute tops. That is an interesting sized market for a lifestyle business or maybe a government sponsored non-profit to target. Startup with VC money? Not really.
- brudgers 11y agoI agree there's a context switch. But the original article makes one as well. It goes from the conclusion that a ride sharing app can't become a unicorn to suggesting a public policy that raises the costs of parking. So the context of public policy is in the article and I suspect that the conclusion to raise parking prices "in Palo Alto" intends to make all four of its audiences - capital investors, parking consultants, municipal managers, and believers in the new urbanism - happy.
- alistairSH 11y agoSure. I was simply replying to your point about getting in a stranger's car.
- SilasX 11y agoSomeone who looked at the size of the existing taxi and carpool market would have missed how Lyft and Uber significantly increased the number of people willing to take rides with strangers (whether drivers or co-travelers).
- Fezzik 11y agoAlso alive and well in Alameda, CA, heading in to San Francisco (or at least it was last I visited in 2010). Because drivers get a reduced (free?) fare when crossing the bridge passengers queue at random corners that have been established over time, hop into strangers’ cars, and head in to the city. I thought it was one of the coolest things ever.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ddlatham 11y agoEvery morning I ride my bike to a corner in my suburb, lock it up for the day, and usually there are a few cars waiting for people. I jump in the first one, usually the driver is a stranger. The casual carpool has been going on in the east bay for 40 years: http://sfcasualcarpool.com/ http://sfcasualcarpool.com/