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The author bashes ride sharing and home rental apps then goes on to talk about how we should improve markets. Both of these served to discover the real market v

by hueving 10y ago

The author bashes ride sharing and home rental apps then goes on to talk about how we should improve markets. Both of these served to discover the real market value of things (taxis are garbage and people were forced to use them so now people flock to uber/lyft/whatever, rent control is literally an attempt to regulate that something is worth less than it is). Then the author asks the ominous "do we want a 150mph thing driving itself"? Self-driving cars are still in development and they are already safer than people. Planes travel 500mph and they fly themselves. A spacex rocket flies itself. I'm starting to think this author is a bit daft and is just reducing things to, "I don't like the change that is happening because it's scary. I'll stick to my horse and buggy."

uola 10y ago
Regulation of markets has a purpose. You might disagree with it, how it was implemented or say that it's not keeping up with reality but that doesn't mean that skirting regulation doesn't give us just another flawed market. People don't seem to understand that we have entered the information age. The challenges are increasingly not technical, but in really understanding the what you're doing.
- oldmanjay 10y ago
  Regulations have a purpose, but using that as a blanket reason to accept foolish regulation is a non-starter. Maybe your comment has some other meaning I'm not divining but that is all I can get from it.
- hueving 10y ago
  Very frequently regulations are blunt hammers that solved one problem and created many more. The people attracted to politics that actually make these rules normally have almost no grasp of economics and pass rules that are completely brain dead. I'm happy companies are willing to take risks to challenge obviously stupid protection rackets.
dilemma 10y ago
>Planes travel 500mph and they fly themselves. Case in point: Why Tesla's naming of Autopilot is misleading.
- return0 10y ago
  Autodriver would be better ?
- mvonthron 10y ago
  Note that the company is named "Tesla" and isn't a Serbian engineer! :)
- taf2 10y ago
  When looking at how autopilot is used in other industries like boats http://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Selecting-an-Autopilot http://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Selecting-an-Autopilot What Tesla uses as the name does not seem far off at all.
  - dilemma 10y ago
    The point is that the parent thinks planes fly themselves.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    Context matters. It's not the same when the context is different (a.k.a "abstraction's downside" - comparing apples and oranges made easy by ignoring - abstracting away - the differences as if they don't matter, without bothering to show that's true).
- uola 10y ago
  It's just a silly comparison overall. A car (electric especially) can't go 150 mph because of kinetic energy, fuel density and drag. If you deal with these things by putting it in a controlled environment, getting an external power source and grouping vehicles you've built a train.
- snovv_crash 10y ago
  Plane autopilots aren't expected to work with a 2 second following distance, or to avoid dynamic obstacles. What Tesla has is actually a lot more advanced, mostly because roads are so crowded compared to the skies.
bugsbunnyak 10y ago
> Both of these served to discover the real market value of things - Airbnb served to discover that someone always pays the cost of negative externalities. - Uber served to discover the above, plus that in an environment with low interest rates and significant underemployment, a company can run losses indefinitely while paying peanuts. Calculate the net wage next time you take an Uber, accounting for their cut, depreciation, and a (generous) 75% utilization. That's only feasible at a loss while using funny money to pay desperate people. The Uber app is excellent, credit them for that. They were in the right place and time and executed very well on mobile+geolocation. But they've discovered nothing about market value. (not interested in the "blah, blah, AI, logistics company" magical thinking. People who say that have short positions in Uber. Uber is Twitter: they could have been a profitable mid-size company making an excellent living selling all sorts of mobile service provisioning; in a capital crunch they cannot afford to pay drivers a market-clearing wage and pay back their over-inflated expectations)

by hueving 10y ago

uola 10y ago

Regulation of markets has a purpose. You might disagree with it, how it was implemented or say that it's not keeping up with reality but that doesn't mean that skirting regulation doesn't give us just another flawed market. People don't seem to understand that we have entered the information age. The challenges are increasingly not technical, but in really understanding the what you're doing.

oldmanjay 10y ago
Regulations have a purpose, but using that as a blanket reason to accept foolish regulation is a non-starter. Maybe your comment has some other meaning I'm not divining but that is all I can get from it.
hueving 10y ago
Very frequently regulations are blunt hammers that solved one problem and created many more. The people attracted to politics that actually make these rules normally have almost no grasp of economics and pass rules that are completely brain dead. I'm happy companies are willing to take risks to challenge obviously stupid protection rackets.

dilemma 10y ago

>Planes travel 500mph and they fly themselves. Case in point: Why Tesla's naming of Autopilot is misleading.

return0 10y ago
Autodriver would be better ?
mvonthron 10y ago
Note that the company is named "Tesla" and isn't a Serbian engineer! :)
taf2 10y ago
When looking at how autopilot is used in other industries like boats http://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Selecting-an-Autopilot http://www.westmarine.com/WestAdvisor/Selecting-an-Autopilot What Tesla uses as the name does not seem far off at all.
- dilemma 10y ago
  The point is that the parent thinks planes fly themselves.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  Context matters. It's not the same when the context is different (a.k.a "abstraction's downside" - comparing apples and oranges made easy by ignoring - abstracting away - the differences as if they don't matter, without bothering to show that's true).
uola 10y ago
It's just a silly comparison overall. A car (electric especially) can't go 150 mph because of kinetic energy, fuel density and drag. If you deal with these things by putting it in a controlled environment, getting an external power source and grouping vehicles you've built a train.
snovv_crash 10y ago
Plane autopilots aren't expected to work with a 2 second following distance, or to avoid dynamic obstacles. What Tesla has is actually a lot more advanced, mostly because roads are so crowded compared to the skies.

bugsbunnyak 10y ago

> Both of these served to discover the real market value of things - Airbnb served to discover that someone always pays the cost of negative externalities. - Uber served to discover the above, plus that in an environment with low interest rates and significant underemployment, a company can run losses indefinitely while paying peanuts. Calculate the net wage next time you take an Uber, accounting for their cut, depreciation, and a (generous) 75% utilization. That's only feasible at a loss while using funny money to pay desperate people. The Uber app is excellent, credit them for that. They were in the right place and time and executed very well on mobile+geolocation. But they've discovered nothing about market value. (not interested in the "blah, blah, AI, logistics company" magical thinking. People who say that have short positions in Uber. Uber is Twitter: they could have been a profitable mid-size company making an excellent living selling all sorts of mobile service provisioning; in a capital crunch they cannot afford to pay drivers a market-clearing wage and pay back their over-inflated expectations)