9 ms·

Good. Good for the drivers, for employee rights, for reducing inequality. Good for the short term. Because within the next few years expect Uber to move to sel

Good. Good for the drivers, for employee rights, for reducing inequality. Good for the short term. Because within the next few years expect Uber to move to self-driving cars. Automating truckers will be a watershed. There will come a time when basic income of some sort will need to be considered by advanced economies, or else expect unemployment, unrest and the rise of populist demagogues who will be much better (worse) candidates than Trump.

JonFish85 10y ago
"Uber to move to self-driving cars" I still don't understand why that scenario requires an Uber. Once self-driving cars are a thing, why does Uber need to exist? Their competitors in that case would be actual car manufacturers, and rental car companies that already have a distributed system for deploying cars (and partnerships with manufacturers). What edge does Uber have? Certainly they have mindshare, but that can evaporate as quickly as it was built.
- kylecordes 10y ago
  It seems to me that there will be a fair amount of consumer inertia. Uber may be able to benefit for a number of years from people thinking of this as the app to go to to get a ride, automated or otherwise. Of course in the long run (or even the medium run) that seems basically moot. There will be a zillion different ways to get essentially the same thing anyone else, I don't see any way for Uber to maintain a long-term advantage.
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    What evidence does anyone have that users are reluctant to uninstall and/or download another app? It takes literally a few seconds to do.
    - IanCal 10y ago
      It depends if there's any real benefit. If I can choose between these situations where I pay basically the same amount of money: * Open app, press hail button * Search for app, install app, setup user details, put in all my card details, press hail button Why would I choose the latter?
      - ethanbond 10y ago
        That doesn't really answer my question.
        IanCal 10y ago
        Well, I rather think it does, I have no reason to download another app unless I know it's going to be a lot cheaper. Otherwise I'm just going to stick with the thing that's easy and already setup.
        ethanbond 10y ago
        Okay, and I have 4 ridesharing apps currently installed, 2 of which were installed and setup while waiting for an Uber to arrive. There, we both have anecdata. I asked for evidence of "consumer inertia." One or two datapoints does not "inertia" make.
  - martin_bech 10y ago
    Im not saying it will happen, but if Tesla is the first company to get to fullautonomous car sharing, by just six months, uber will be toast.
- noir-york 10y ago
  Very true. Uber was just an archetype; it could be Google, Mercedes or Avis.
- aninhumer 10y ago
  Uber has a platform for selling journeys, whereas car rental companies are geared up to selling travel for a period of time. The former makes a lot more sense for self driving cars. It will be easier for Uber to buy a fleet of self driving cars and replace their drivers than it will be for a car rental company to develop a platform for a new business model.
  - serge2k 10y ago
    > than it will be for a car rental company to develop a platform for a new business model. How much money and how long would it really take to build out a basic uber type system? Uber does have an advantage in that they are already around and have that market share. Plus they have the system built and can start focusing on adding nice to have features and really polishing the experience.
- dbbk 10y ago
  Uber are the first private hire company to have global mindshare. The app works the same whenever you go to a different country. I suspect that will prove to be very valuable.
- ThrustVectoring 10y ago
  Network effects. Car manufacturers will still want a place where they can find many riders so that they can maximize utilization (and thus, profit), while riders will want a place where they can find many available cars (so they don't have to wait). There's going to be some platform that connects riders with self-driving transportation, the only questions are whose, how many, and how much value they extract out of being the platform.
- Golden_Narwhal 10y ago
  > What edge does Uber have? They have a service that already exists in the market so there's very little pivoting to be done, a brand that's recognized as a transportation network, a user-base, and I'd argue "getting an Uber" is becoming a neologism much like "Googling" is. I think those points give them a pretty strong advantage over the possible competitors.
ryandrake 10y ago
> There will come a time when basic income of some sort will need to be considered by advanced economies, or else expect unemployment, unrest and the rise of populist demagogues... Hard to imagine that basic income will be politically possible in the near or medium term. Our culture is so wrapped up in the idea of the necessity of jobs that I predict we will see government programs to pay 1/2 of the people to dig holes and the other 1/2 to fill them in, before we see basic income.
- theseatoms 10y ago
  So basic income + penance.
- TillE 10y ago
  A WPA-style infrastructure program isn't the worst idea, but yes, eventually you're going to run out of useful work to be done. The <5% unemployment that's managed to sustain a capitalist society seems like a quirk of history.
- noir-york 10y ago
  It will be easier to introduce basic income in certain parts of Europe. The US will be an altogether different challenge; for basic income to be feasible in the US, there needs to be proper health care reform. I see that very difficult to happen anytime soon, even making non-competes unenforceable is gonna be hard let alone introducing a national health service.
  - kwhitefoot 10y ago
    My US colleagues tell me that if you are genuinely poor in the US then healthcare is already de facto free. I suspect that it might not be quite the same degree of care as someone who's insurance company is paying though.
    - lovich 10y ago
      Eh, you can get emergency care or go to an emergency room as a doctor and not get turned away, but the bill still follows you. Additionally getting any sort of preventative medicine is basically impossible. When I was poor right out of college I had health insurance and was still denied coverage on a prescribed medication because it was available over the counter. Even though the OTC price was 3 times my copay for prescribed medications. When you are poor that means you just don't get any healthcare until you in a pretty bad way
falcolas 10y ago
Self driving cars are more than a "few years" out. All fully automated proofs of concept so far operate in light traffic with clear skies and high quality roads. These conditions are not prevalent in most of the US. I believe that even truckers will be safe well into the next decade. They don't add all that much cost to the overall costs of shipping goods (when compared to fuel, maintenance, and insurance).
- noir-york 10y ago
  I hope you are right, but the progress with deep learning and AI has snowballed in the last few years. At least that's my perception. > I believe that even truckers will be safe well into the next decade. They don't add all that much cost to the overall costs of shipping goods I do not know about the US, but in Europe labour costs are high and there are laws on number of hours that truckers can work. Self-driving trucks can be on the road 24 hours a day all year round, with no unions or human resources to manage.
  - throwawayReply 10y ago
    No human resources? Who's gonna fill up the tank? Fewer human resources, certainly. But humans are very flexible. In the containerised shipping world that doesn't add huge value, but for a taxi some flexibility is a value-add, be it changing your mind about your destination or falling ill suddenly (when you probably can't just log in and change your destination) are examples of when people are well served by human operators. Self automation has to become cheap enough that the premium of having people drive is worth losing compared to the price difference. It isn't enough to just have tje technology at a level it can serve.
    - sokoloff 10y ago
      Fewer people would likely die from falling ill suddenly and undetected than currently perish from human-caused accidents. I suspect fewer would perish from sudden medical events in cars overall as a medical event no longer means a likely crash.
- 10y ago
ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
>>unrest and the rise of populist demagogues who will be much better (worse) candidates than Trump. you do realize that it's the "democrats" who are promising free stuff to the masses by "taking moar moneys from the evuhl 1%". Doesn't get much more divisive and populist then that. So now on the "republican" side there is also some level of exploiting of the archetypal beliefs that can be considered "populism", such as the ubiquitous "wall on the border" but that carries very little targeted appeal to the unemployed or poor segment of the populace per se.

JonFish85 10y ago

"Uber to move to self-driving cars" I still don't understand why that scenario requires an Uber. Once self-driving cars are a thing, why does Uber need to exist? Their competitors in that case would be actual car manufacturers, and rental car companies that already have a distributed system for deploying cars (and partnerships with manufacturers). What edge does Uber have? Certainly they have mindshare, but that can evaporate as quickly as it was built.

kylecordes 10y ago
It seems to me that there will be a fair amount of consumer inertia. Uber may be able to benefit for a number of years from people thinking of this as the app to go to to get a ride, automated or otherwise. Of course in the long run (or even the medium run) that seems basically moot. There will be a zillion different ways to get essentially the same thing anyone else, I don't see any way for Uber to maintain a long-term advantage.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  What evidence does anyone have that users are reluctant to uninstall and/or download another app? It takes literally a few seconds to do.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    It depends if there's any real benefit. If I can choose between these situations where I pay basically the same amount of money: * Open app, press hail button * Search for app, install app, setup user details, put in all my card details, press hail button Why would I choose the latter?
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      That doesn't really answer my question.
      - IanCal 10y ago
        Well, I rather think it does, I have no reason to download another app unless I know it's going to be a lot cheaper. Otherwise I'm just going to stick with the thing that's easy and already setup.
        ethanbond 10y ago
        Okay, and I have 4 ridesharing apps currently installed, 2 of which were installed and setup while waiting for an Uber to arrive. There, we both have anecdata. I asked for evidence of "consumer inertia." One or two datapoints does not "inertia" make.
- martin_bech 10y ago
  Im not saying it will happen, but if Tesla is the first company to get to fullautonomous car sharing, by just six months, uber will be toast.
noir-york 10y ago
Very true. Uber was just an archetype; it could be Google, Mercedes or Avis.
aninhumer 10y ago
Uber has a platform for selling journeys, whereas car rental companies are geared up to selling travel for a period of time. The former makes a lot more sense for self driving cars. It will be easier for Uber to buy a fleet of self driving cars and replace their drivers than it will be for a car rental company to develop a platform for a new business model.
- serge2k 10y ago
  > than it will be for a car rental company to develop a platform for a new business model. How much money and how long would it really take to build out a basic uber type system? Uber does have an advantage in that they are already around and have that market share. Plus they have the system built and can start focusing on adding nice to have features and really polishing the experience.
dbbk 10y ago
Uber are the first private hire company to have global mindshare. The app works the same whenever you go to a different country. I suspect that will prove to be very valuable.
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
Network effects. Car manufacturers will still want a place where they can find many riders so that they can maximize utilization (and thus, profit), while riders will want a place where they can find many available cars (so they don't have to wait). There's going to be some platform that connects riders with self-driving transportation, the only questions are whose, how many, and how much value they extract out of being the platform.
Golden_Narwhal 10y ago
> What edge does Uber have? They have a service that already exists in the market so there's very little pivoting to be done, a brand that's recognized as a transportation network, a user-base, and I'd argue "getting an Uber" is becoming a neologism much like "Googling" is. I think those points give them a pretty strong advantage over the possible competitors.

ryandrake 10y ago

> There will come a time when basic income of some sort will need to be considered by advanced economies, or else expect unemployment, unrest and the rise of populist demagogues... Hard to imagine that basic income will be politically possible in the near or medium term. Our culture is so wrapped up in the idea of the necessity of jobs that I predict we will see government programs to pay 1/2 of the people to dig holes and the other 1/2 to fill them in, before we see basic income.

theseatoms 10y ago
So basic income + penance.
TillE 10y ago
A WPA-style infrastructure program isn't the worst idea, but yes, eventually you're going to run out of useful work to be done. The <5% unemployment that's managed to sustain a capitalist society seems like a quirk of history.
noir-york 10y ago
It will be easier to introduce basic income in certain parts of Europe. The US will be an altogether different challenge; for basic income to be feasible in the US, there needs to be proper health care reform. I see that very difficult to happen anytime soon, even making non-competes unenforceable is gonna be hard let alone introducing a national health service.
- kwhitefoot 10y ago
  My US colleagues tell me that if you are genuinely poor in the US then healthcare is already de facto free. I suspect that it might not be quite the same degree of care as someone who's insurance company is paying though.
  - lovich 10y ago
    Eh, you can get emergency care or go to an emergency room as a doctor and not get turned away, but the bill still follows you. Additionally getting any sort of preventative medicine is basically impossible. When I was poor right out of college I had health insurance and was still denied coverage on a prescribed medication because it was available over the counter. Even though the OTC price was 3 times my copay for prescribed medications. When you are poor that means you just don't get any healthcare until you in a pretty bad way

falcolas 10y ago

Self driving cars are more than a "few years" out. All fully automated proofs of concept so far operate in light traffic with clear skies and high quality roads. These conditions are not prevalent in most of the US. I believe that even truckers will be safe well into the next decade. They don't add all that much cost to the overall costs of shipping goods (when compared to fuel, maintenance, and insurance).

noir-york 10y ago
I hope you are right, but the progress with deep learning and AI has snowballed in the last few years. At least that's my perception. > I believe that even truckers will be safe well into the next decade. They don't add all that much cost to the overall costs of shipping goods I do not know about the US, but in Europe labour costs are high and there are laws on number of hours that truckers can work. Self-driving trucks can be on the road 24 hours a day all year round, with no unions or human resources to manage.
- throwawayReply 10y ago
  No human resources? Who's gonna fill up the tank? Fewer human resources, certainly. But humans are very flexible. In the containerised shipping world that doesn't add huge value, but for a taxi some flexibility is a value-add, be it changing your mind about your destination or falling ill suddenly (when you probably can't just log in and change your destination) are examples of when people are well served by human operators. Self automation has to become cheap enough that the premium of having people drive is worth losing compared to the price difference. It isn't enough to just have tje technology at a level it can serve.
  - sokoloff 10y ago
    Fewer people would likely die from falling ill suddenly and undetected than currently perish from human-caused accidents. I suspect fewer would perish from sudden medical events in cars overall as a medical event no longer means a likely crash.
10y ago

ChemicalWarfare 10y ago

>>unrest and the rise of populist demagogues who will be much better (worse) candidates than Trump. you do realize that it's the "democrats" who are promising free stuff to the masses by "taking moar moneys from the evuhl 1%". Doesn't get much more divisive and populist then that. So now on the "republican" side there is also some level of exploiting of the archetypal beliefs that can be considered "populism", such as the ubiquitous "wall on the border" but that carries very little targeted appeal to the unemployed or poor segment of the populace per se.