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This may be an unpopular opinion on HN, but after going through all the comments, and reflecting back on the general ethos of 2016, it's worth saying anyway: I

This may be an unpopular opinion on HN, but after going through all the comments, and reflecting back on the general ethos of 2016, it's worth saying anyway: I received the Black Swan by Nassim Taleb for Christmas, and there is a lot of "disruption leads to winner take all" talk in the book. I don't necessarily disagree with Taleb, but it's amazing that our lives are dominated by only a handful of companies (I'm willing to bet 90% of our daily time will be attributed to using a product made by either Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook). Now, the aforementioned companies generally do require scale, so my assertion is a bit hyperbolic, but in Uber's case... does freight really NEED scale? I've never needed to order freight, so I can't speak from experience here, but it seems like the social cost to having Uber win all may be far greater than the benefits in efficiency. I can imagine a future where we arrive at a new Era of Barons and legislation is passed to break them up (ala Rockefeller, Vanderbilt...etc.). Last but not least, we seem to be push for "Universal Income" as a means to assuage the pain caused by the Winner Take All economy, but I don't think that's fair to a lot of America. I think we should solve the problem in it's root before we talk about Universal Income- I don't mean to sound negative, but it just seems like a convenient cop out to the problems at hand.

marcosdumay 10y ago
Truck companies do need scale. People don't buy truck trips, they buy goods transportation. That means your company must at a minimum send stuff everywhere. Also, scale permits all kinds of cost-cutting that are the difference between failure and success on a low margin market like trucking. About universal income, I'm curious how do you think people could solve the winner take all problem at its root.
hx87 10y ago
IMHO, the solution to the "Winner Take All" economy isn't to prevent the winner from taking it all, but to make the "all" smaller so lots of people and companies can be winners of their own nonfungible markets. In effect, Winner Take All (of a niche) instead of Winner Take All (of everything).
- neon_electro 10y ago
  Does this approach impact income inequality?
golergka 10y ago
We don't live in a society where we get to design the future after considering all positive and negative sides. It's been tried, and results were disastrous. Instead, we live in a society which is shaped by comleting self-interests. You're asking of freight NEEDS scale - for whose benefit? Ubers? Yes. His small scale competitors? No. Customers? We'll have to wait and see their verdict. All of us together? We don't have enough interests in common for this virtual entity to have any real meaning.
- al2o3cr 10y ago
  There's a long, long way between the free-market utopia people seem to believe currently exists and Uber's "set prices at half of the cost of providing the service & set VC money on fire until we have a monopoly" approach.
  - golergka 10y ago
    You're describing these two concepts as if they were different things. Why?
wavefunction 10y ago
The truth is the companies you have mentioned are big corporations with a lot of profit, but there are many other firms with just as much market cap, revenue, and footprints just as significant but they operate quite a bit more 'quietly.' Where would Apple be without other firms extracting the raw materials and FoxConn fabricating and assembling their devices, for example. But the SV firms sure do seem to dominate the news (especially general business news) to the exclusion of all else.

marcosdumay 10y ago

Truck companies do need scale. People don't buy truck trips, they buy goods transportation. That means your company must at a minimum send stuff everywhere. Also, scale permits all kinds of cost-cutting that are the difference between failure and success on a low margin market like trucking. About universal income, I'm curious how do you think people could solve the winner take all problem at its root.

hx87 10y ago

IMHO, the solution to the "Winner Take All" economy isn't to prevent the winner from taking it all, but to make the "all" smaller so lots of people and companies can be winners of their own nonfungible markets. In effect, Winner Take All (of a niche) instead of Winner Take All (of everything).

neon_electro 10y ago
Does this approach impact income inequality?

golergka 10y ago

We don't live in a society where we get to design the future after considering all positive and negative sides. It's been tried, and results were disastrous. Instead, we live in a society which is shaped by comleting self-interests. You're asking of freight NEEDS scale - for whose benefit? Ubers? Yes. His small scale competitors? No. Customers? We'll have to wait and see their verdict. All of us together? We don't have enough interests in common for this virtual entity to have any real meaning.

al2o3cr 10y ago
There's a long, long way between the free-market utopia people seem to believe currently exists and Uber's "set prices at half of the cost of providing the service & set VC money on fire until we have a monopoly" approach.
- golergka 10y ago
  You're describing these two concepts as if they were different things. Why?

wavefunction 10y ago

The truth is the companies you have mentioned are big corporations with a lot of profit, but there are many other firms with just as much market cap, revenue, and footprints just as significant but they operate quite a bit more 'quietly.' Where would Apple be without other firms extracting the raw materials and FoxConn fabricating and assembling their devices, for example. But the SV firms sure do seem to dominate the news (especially general business news) to the exclusion of all else.