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Exactly. I think the author's example of Uber is also way off the mark. Uber did not disrupt the cab industry the way PCs disrupted the mainframe industry. Cabs
by spinlock 11y ago
Exactly. I think the author's example of Uber is also way off the mark. Uber did not disrupt the cab industry the way PCs disrupted the mainframe industry. Cabs did not provide a good service; they provided a bad service that was protected by a government backed monopoly. The cab industry was never worried that it would cannibalize existing businesses by allowing people to hail cabs on their phones. They just didn't care if people had a good experience because they had a captive market.
The Uber story really isn't a "good" business case because there are only so many regulated monopolies. Entrenched businesses, on the other hand, are everywhere.
- exelius 11y agoUber is disruptive -- to the municipal authorities who regulate taxis. Other than that, they're a taxi company with an Internet dispatch system. There are even fewer regulated monopolies that can follow the Uber path (Airbnb is one of them). Uber was uniquely able to disrupt a bunch of municipal taxi regulators because a single taxi regulator does not have a very large budget. Uber can outspend them, set a few precedents in case law, and it was over. The strategy doesn't work in an industry with centralized regulation (USDA, FDA, FCC) or in an industry with a colossal amount of money involved (anything health care related).
- spinlock 11y agoThat is not "disruption" in the technical sense.