5 ms·
Building any sort of standard organization around anything Uber-esque is inherently a short-term deal. Uber could be replaced tomorrow by a peer-to-peer app th
by otakucode 9y ago
Building any sort of standard organization around anything Uber-esque is inherently a short-term deal. Uber could be replaced tomorrow by a peer-to-peer app that needs no server farm, cutting Uber out of the loop completely. And the same holds true for any company that expects it is going to set itself up as a software-mediated middleman. Their only actual 'service' being provided is the servers, and servers are not necessary. (Some credit should be given to them for their marketing, though, as if a p2p app existed today it would face the problem of gaining widespread acknowledgement... although I imagine all the Uber drivers who would say 'hey, book through peerDrive next time and it'll take Ubers cut and let you keep half and let me keep the other half!' and that would unwind Ubers influence in a weekend.
- derrida 9y agoI think Uber has intangible assets and a fortress (it's competitive). It's more like a Coke. It's not a technology company, really. It's a highly competitive logistics company with intangible brand. But I can see how from the prism of hacker news and Silicon Valley it looks like a technology company. The technical part was their at conception but I think its innovation is more a style of business utilising precarious labour that is highly competitive & fierce (for better or for worse). It's like Toyota in its innovation in how to conduct business. For instance, I would say Google is clearly a technology company. But I think Uber has introduced a new style of business and organising labour, as Toyota did. So it's more an industrial innovation.