Uber did not solve a serious problem. They built a very convenient and useful app that let you call a cab. Which you could do before, but you had to talk to a r

Uber did not solve a serious problem. They built a very convenient and useful app that let you call a cab. Which you could do before, but you had to talk to a real person and take a minute to give your credit card info and now you don't. And they did live in the world. The world of people who rely on cabs/transport. And found it wanting, the primary motivation for starting their company. Then they learned about the industry and tried to fix it and it took years of hard work. Airbnb hosted a nicer-looking craigslist specialized to make it really easy for people worldwide to conspire with each other to violate the terms of their leases to make a couple extra dollars while breaking a law that is hard to enforce. And I think you'll find the founders didn't just come up with this idea out of nothing. They solved a problem that came up in their real lives. Either way, it's entirely predictable for someone in the tech community though gross to compare these silly cash grabs to solving real cultural, social, and political problems that actually effect people in a serious way like FGM, clean drinking water in the third world, mass incarceration.