9 ms·

Disruption for Thee, But Not for Me

252 points by cribbles 8y ago

evrydayhustling 8y ago
> An investor in the audience stood up to tell me how full of shit I was: I had no idea just how complicated Uber’s app and infrastructure were, and there was no way a bunch of grubby drivers would ever be able to match its expert coding and administration. Silicon Valley's technical skills and ethos are good at discovering disruptive business models. It is incredibly hard to pivot operations at scale until you get the market properly sorted out. Investors would love to believe that this also imploes a moat for replicating and administrating the system... but there is no reason one flows from the other. Of course, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair
golemotron 8y ago
It's so frustrating to read Cory on economics. It's like: market reasoning, market reasoning, market reasoning, pitch an idea and then forget about market reasoning.
HillaryBriss 8y ago
probably a dumb question: how does the "unique code" part of his idea work? how could the apps on both the driver's and passenger's phones both reliably generate the same globally unique code?
- icebraining 8y ago
  It could be simply a combination of the specific information of the ride: username of rider + username of driver + origin + destination.
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    thank you for the response. i'm wondering how my meta-uber app would obtain my origin and destination. is Doctorow proposing that the user manually enter origin and destination into both the actual uber app and the proposed meta-uber app?
    - icebraining 8y ago
      I believe the idea is that the meta-uber app would programmatically control the actual uber app, hence the CFAA and DRM concerns.
      - HillaryBriss 8y ago
        Ah. Ok. Got it. Thanks. So, meta-uber would need to embed within itself a hacked copy of the actual uber app, or just very carefully mimic calls to Uber's backend somehow. Or meta-uber would need to somehow have the permission to run and inject data into an authentically installed instance of the Uber app (not quite sure if or how, say, the Android platform's security model would allow this.) Hmmm.
        icebraining 8y ago
        It could also use an embedded browser and load https://m.uber.com/ https://m.uber.com/
PaulHoule 8y ago
I find it ironic that the one problem w/ the cooperative model in Austin is that it doesn't serve the fancy shindig (SXSW) that shows up once a year and then blows out of town. Meeting the needs of Austinites is a more sustainable business because you don't need to handle the burst capacity. Somehow the market of people who are flying around all the time seems to get a disproportionate amount of attention from marketers who make catalogs full of stuff like: https://www.coolthings.com/motorized-monocycle-looks-fun/ https://www.coolthings.com/motorized-monocycle-looks-fun/ Fortunately the "yellow cab" model works just fine at the airport where people show up at predictable times. I did not grow up with the habit of taking cabs, and I've never taken one in NYC, but I learned at some point that if I didn't have a better plan to get away from the airport such as http://web.mta.info/mta/airtrain.htm http://web.mta.info/mta/airtrain.htm I could walk up to the taxi stand and be on my way and yeah it is kindof expensive... But often about the same or less then I'd spend on parking alone for a rental car in a congested city. On the way back I learned I could go to the front desk of the hotel and have a cab ready for me when I want to go at 4am or whenever I need to catch an early flight.
- ghaff 8y ago
  For the most part, for airport to hotel and back, Uber/Lyft are mostly interesting relative to cabs because they tend to be cheaper (sometimes substantially). For one trip I do a number of times a year where I need to take a cab from and to the airport at my destination, the only reason I tend to use Lyft is that it's about $15 cheaper than a cab ride. In general though I don't use Uber/Lyft or cabs all that much when I travel (which is frequently). But, anecdotally, a lot of people seem to have gotten into the habit of pulling their phone out of their pocket whenever they need to go more than a couple of blocks.
geofft 8y ago
The closest thing we have to a meta-service is Meta-Elsevier, more popularly known as Sci-Hub, which works so well simply because it doesn't care about legality. It's hosted outside the US on a slowly changing list of TLDs, and so it doesn't have to worry about any form of copyright law, not just the DMCA. I think if you wanted to build more services like this, you'd have to go this approach: instead of building an above-board app that uses the Uber API and has developer info on file with Apple and Google, anonymously develop a tool for jailbroken phones that injects itself into the Uber app and monitors requests. Instead of building a website that scrapes Amazon centrally, build a browser extension with permissions on amazon.com. And so forth. The arms-length approach of meta apps helps here, because then individual ride-sharing coops and bookstores get plausible deniability. They're not telling you to use the app, it's a shadowy foreign group who decided to link to them.
- IWeldMelons 8y ago
  Sci-Hub is Kazakhstani creation actually.
  - lowry 8y ago
    Which enjoys the same level of independance as Saudi Arabia because of its natural riches.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Fins 8y ago
    It's Putin's creation to much greater degree than Kazakhstani, Elbakyan is not Kazakh at all, she just happened to be born there.
    - IWeldMelons 8y ago
      You've never lived there I guess, in the former USSR. Elbakyan is of Armenia ethnicty, who was born in Kazakhstan (hence she is Kazakhtani, not Kazakh). And her native language is Russian, so is the native language of many Kazakh people who lives in the bigger cities of Kazakhstan.
ykevinator 8y ago
I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.
- officemonkey 8y ago
  I was appalled that the the existing taxi system (essentially a protected monopoly) wouldn't immediately create an Uber/Lyft app when ride-sharing first appeared. Then I realized that building such a thing would only benefit drivers and customers, and those are the two constituents that the existing taxi system doesn't care about.
  - sigmaris 8y ago
    In the UK there's an app available, https://gett.com/ https://gett.com/, which is very similar to Uber but hails regular, licensed taxis.
    - tomp 8y ago
      But I don't want to ride regular, licenced taxis. They're still a cartel. They charge a premium for having to learn all the streets of London by heart, but that's not a premium I'm willing to pay (or that I consider valuable) in the modern day'n'age of Google Maps and the likes.
  - pnongrata 8y ago
    We've had taxi hailing apps in Brazil since before Uber arrived. Once Uber got here, though, no one could compete with its prices.
- icebraining 8y ago
  White label ride sharing apps are plentiful nowadays.
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  There is a long line of people willing to subsidize cab service. A white label app can not compete with them. After investors decide it's a sure way to lose money, it may happen.
reubenswartz 8y ago
Thoughtful article. Wonder why you couldn’t have a meta ride app that would tell you which ride share app(s) to install based on your current location or on a search (say if you’re about to visit Austin for SXSW). A simple API for people to submit apps (and perhaps reviews) and no need to hack the incumbents’ apps (although there would be some karmic justice in that, I don’t think it’s right, and would probably lead to incumbents doing worse things to the apps trying to displace them).
- wffurr 8y ago
  Google Maps is that app, but they are missing a lot of the white label services, and only have the larger regional services like Uber and Go-Jek. https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7245278?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7245278?co=GENIE.Plat... They also do meta search against other modes too, like walking, bicycling, and public transit.
- icebraining 8y ago
  If you want that, you can just go to the App or Play Store and search for "rides <city>". What Uber provides, and what Cory's proposal piggybacks on, is trust: just like when you ask for a Big Mac, you know more or less what you're getting when you're matched an Uber driver with 4.8 starts, yet the same is not true for some other ridesharing app you've never heard of. But that also backfires on his argument about Uber's rates and goal of replacing it; they can charge an higher rate because they provide a service that others don't - a reasonably consistent experience worldwide - and one can't get rid of it without harming the meta-app itself.
rkachowski 8y ago
I think this downplays the anticipated response from Uber and the like. DMCA and CFAA are just tools used, not the entirety of the barrier to further co-op based disruption. There's nothing to stop Uber / Lyft from banning their drivers from the service completely if they are caught using the hypothetical Meta-Uber app. I understand that this example is just an illustration of the spirit of the article and doesn't represent Cory's argument, but I feel that the "felony contempt-of-business-model" is only one pillar in the structure, rather than the whole thing.
- not2b 8y ago
  If they tried that, it would undermine their argument that their drivers are independent contractors. You can ban an employee from working for a competitor, but you can't ban a contractor. Many drivers drive for both Uber and Lyft; in an area with a good co-op, they'd probably start out driving for all three, and if the co-op pays them more they'd take as many rides from the co-op as they could get.
lordnacho 8y ago
He's making a very important point here about the free market. In what sense is it free? What is a reasonable thing to hold someone to, contractually? There's a real lack of thinking about what the free market should actually mean. It's almost always couched in industrial era terms when it does come up, esp in relation to Uber and the gig economy. "Labour" has a very different meaning now to what it meant back in the 1800s. Good episode of South Park talks about this, "The Human CentiPad". Basically the boys fall foul of an Apple agreement and something bad happens. Really bad.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  I'm glad you warned us that the something that happens is really bad. I wouldn't have guessed from the episode title... b^)
cs702 8y ago
The main challenge to successful (i.e., market-dominating) cooperatively-owned platforms like the ones Cory wants is that usually there are no incentives that motivate individuals to dedicate their lives and souls in the creation, launching, running, and perpetual improvement of such platforms for the benefit of others. The exceptions, including successful projects like GNU and Linux, tend to be led by rather unique individuals, like Richard Stallman and Linus Torvals, who are almost religiously zealous about their mission, and they maintain their commitment year after year, and decade after decade, without any personal profit motive. Barring these exceptions, Capitalism seems to be the "least-worst solution" to this problem that human civilization has evolved over millennia, so far.
- zozbot123 8y ago
  Creating a federated platform is technically quite feasible. E-mail, the Web, Usenet (before it was overrun by spam anyway), IRC... plus these days, stuff like PeerTube and Mastodon. Sure, not every one of these is "successful", but the trend is there.
  - blfr 8y ago
    The trend is definitely not there. The trend is away from IRC towards Slack, away from open web to walled gardens (or trashpiles) of Facebook, away from Usenet towards unfederated forums like this one.
    - simias 8y ago
      I agree but: >[...] away from Usenet towards unfederated forums like this one. We're actually one step beyond that already, the era of forums is behind us, now people open a Facebook page or Subreddit when they want to create a community around a given topic instead of powering up a new PHPBB instance like they might have 15 years ago. Forums like HN are getting increasingly niche. I don't like this trend but I think it makes complete sense. Centralized solutions offer generally better user experience (you don't have to monitor 10 different websites or watch your emails for notifications, you don't have to create dozen of accounts etc...), they're easier to develop, easier to maintain and, perhaps critically, easier to monetize. These days I only see the cryptocurrency communities betting on a decentralized future (instead of merely wishing for it without much hope like I do).
em3rgent0rdr 8y ago
This article is a good time to plug LibreTaxi: "Free and open source alternative to Uber/Lyft connecting passengers and drivers. LibreTaxi makes ridesharing affordable by getting rid of the third party between passengers and drivers. Negotiate the price before the ride is confirmed, pay cash upon arrival. 1-minute hiring for all drivers." https://libretaxi.org/ https://libretaxi.org/
- jstanley 8y ago
  Amazing. It's a shame it is still quite centralised (as far as I can tell) but definitely moving in the right direction. Do they have a process for dealing with abusive users/drivers? E.g. if someone gets enough complaints can they get banned from the platform, or is that not possible by design?
- Kiro 8y ago
  Who has cash nowadays though?
  - Retra 8y ago
    Gas station ATMs, mostly. And anybody who uses them.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Especially when traveling I'm not going to assume that my credit card will be accepted everywhere.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    Someone who doesn't carry cash is someone who doesn't do anything interesting...
    - Kiro 8y ago
      What is that supposed to mean? In my country cash is virtually non-existent.
      - 8y ago
frumiousirc 8y ago
A meta ride share app needs development effort (money), infrastructure (money) maintenance (money) and integration with local co-ops (money) and all that money needs an administrative hierarchy (more money). All this overhead needs to be put in place without any direct income from riders. Either it come's in the form of a service that co-ops subscribe to and pay for or it comes in the form of a collective formed of individuals already in the co-op. Whatever the formation, it's activity that needs funding from the drivers. This "meta" layer is then ready for abuse. Once the drivers are connected to this top-level coordinating layer the individual co-op layers become mere middle-men and are ripe for cutting out. Then we just get back to Uber. It would be interesting to learn ideas how such a meta system could be created while limiting the overhead costs levied on the co-ops and retaining a decentralized cooperative system that allows drivers (and the higher layer workers) to retain their power.
- zanny 8y ago
  There is absolutely no reason for ride sharing to not be a protocol. Drivers join a federated network of other drivers they "agree" with and you pick the driver pools you want (and they could be local drivers, or they could be drivers that meet some criteria or vetting process). You could have any number of ride share apps that use the protocol and interface with server infrastructure of each network. If you distribute the authority in the system you decentralize the power structures that produce hostile actors like the brass of Uber and Lyft. Nothing says each city can't have its own app and own driver cooper so long as my app from my city can speak your cities language when I'm there.
jstanley 8y ago
> Today, DRM is used to force people with artificial pancreases to buy proprietary insulin Wow, that seems especially evil.
- dTal 8y ago
  It's worth exploring exactly what's meant by "proprietary insulin". Insulin can't be proprietary - it's a natural, widely available molecule of publicly known composition. What's actually proprietary in scenarios like these is some encryption key that will persuade the device to work - the fact that the key is embedded in a memory chip glued to the container is a red herring. In the case of a life-essential substance that is consumed at a predictable rate, there is no logical distinction between this and a Mafia protection racket - pay them periodically forever, or die. It shouldn't be surprising that companies will do this if they can. There was an episode of Doctor Who not too long ago where employees on a space station had to buy oxygen from the company store.
  - favorited 8y ago
    I remember someone making a claim about insulin, but it wasn't the insulin itself – it was proprietary consumables for insulin pumps.
srikanthkalin 8y ago
thats really a bad one
orblivion 8y ago
Cory, if you're reading this, don't call it Meta-Uber. Call it: Co-opt
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  Co-opt is a clever name, but, if I'm not mistaken, Doctorow believes naming it 'meta-uber' would be critical to discovery of the app by end users. I mean, I think Doctorow's idea is that users search on Google Play for 'uber' and not only does 'uber' appear in the results, but so does 'meta-uber'
geggam 8y ago
In Germany you have to use mytaxi https://us.mytaxi.com/index.html https://us.mytaxi.com/index.html
lkdjjdjjjdskjd 8y ago
If they had such a great coop going, I don't understand why they went back to Lyft/Uber?
- dwighttk 8y ago
  Because thats where the passengers were. (In both cases)
- VSerge 8y ago
  Found this piece in which Lyft boasts that they had more driver upon coming back to Austin, and where RideAustin states that their numbers have dropped from 50k weekly rides to 20k rides, which is their minimum number to remain relevant. Drivers probably signed up again with Lyft/Uber simply because these apps had again a significant volume of business to offer. Also, I saw on reddit that RideAustin had closed its onboarding office, which seems like the best way to send drivers to their competitors. http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/07-27-17-ride-sharing-companies-austin-rideaustin-fasten-uber-lyft-return/ http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/07-27-17-ride-s...
dwighttk 8y ago
He shows an example of a successful co-op app that worked (as long as the government was keeping Uber and Lyft out of the city that annually experiences surges of traffic of tech savvy users) but never gives an example of one of his meta apps in action... How much rent would one of those apps be allowed to seek? Or would they just be run out of benevolence?
- ph0rque 8y ago
  Also, what happens if a competing co-op opens up shop in the same city?
jawns 8y ago
Yes, it's true that by essentially hacking Uber and Lyft's systems, you could create an app that siphons away business from them. But what would happen if such a technique were to become legal and ubiquitous? Suddenly, no one wants to invest in a company that requires significant capital, because they know that as soon as the company becomes successful enough to become a target, there will be other companies that will swoop in and attempt to exploit its technology so they themselves don't need to invest significant capital. The damage to the market would be severe. That said, as a fan of distributism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism I am also a huge fan of cooperatives, and I think worker-owned co-ops can be successful in the ride-sharing space without needing to resort to such tactics.
- WhiteMonkey 8y ago
  > Suddenly, no one wants to invest in a company that requires significant capital But this is the point: the reason Uber is successful isn't particularly because of their technical excellence or innovation, it's because they've used massive amounts of capital to very knowingly buy the market. This is an example of one of the nefarious sides of capitalism -- a flaw -- not a celebration of how great it is at solving problems (which is genuinely is in a lot of circumstances). If Uber didn't have as much capital, smaller distributed co-ops may well have prospered.
  - jawns 8y ago
    I am no cheerleader for capitalism, but for any business whose core offering is a marketplace (as with Uber/Lyft, who connect buyers of rides with sellers of rides), then building out that marketplace requires solving the chicken-and-egg problem, and typically that is done through advertising, marketing, pricing, customer loyalty, etc. Much of that requires capital, and the asset you end up with after investing that capital is a large user/subscriber base, which can lead to other competitive advantages. It is true that having a large user/subscriber base does not imply technical excellence or innovation, but it is a business asset nonetheless. But if that asset can be easily siphoned off, then there is less of an incentive to build it out to begin with.
  - 8y ago
nova22033 8y ago
>Uber also eliminates safety checks for drivers (and allows them to illegally discriminate against people with disabilities, people of color He has it exactly backwards. Taxicabs would routinely racially profile passengers. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/04/nyregion/danny-glover-says-cabbies-discriminated-against-him.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/04/nyregion/danny-glover-say...
jelling 8y ago
Doctorow, per usual, writes with the certainty of an out of shape sportswriter playing Monday morning quarterback. He just doesn't know what he's talking about. For example, he says "Uber...allows them to illegally discriminate against people with disabilities" Does he really not know the long history of cab drivers not stopping for black passengers? This has been frontpage news on multiple occasions, most famously with Danny Glover. Multiple friends have told me how much Uber/Lyft have improved this situation. Meanwhile, Doctorow's meta platform idea literally steals revenue from people who have added tremendous value not only at time of transaction but after via the reputational system and other customer service functions. Nevermind that it would be trivial for Uber to squash this via cancellation fees and driver derankings. If you want to form a co-op app, go for it. But find a better thought leader than Doctorow.
- yipbub 8y ago
  Most of the people who actually put work into it don't make their money from profits. Their salaries are paid. Plus, these companies basically burn VC money to starve competition.
- cribbles 8y ago
  The racist cab pickup issue occurred to me too, but it’s not in conflict with his overall argument. Doctorow allows that the ride hailing app experience (not to be mistaken with to the “ride sharing” business model) is, in most respects, a foundational improvement upon the old taxi pickup experience. This is not mutually exclusive with the claim that Uber, et al.’s business practices (i.e. circumvention of any and all possible tax and labor laws) introduce a unique set of problems for riders and drivers alike.
  - jelling 8y ago
    You may be right about the tax issues. My criticism was of his attempt to hang all of society's ills on Uber/Lyft/etc... It's inaccurate at best.
    - sangnoir 8y ago
joshuaellinger 8y ago
He missed a couple of points on the Austin side of things. 1. Uber/Lyft went to the state to get the regulations overturned in a bit of venue shopping. They don't have to do fingerprinting. Happens a lot around here. 2. He failed to mention Austin Taxi Co-op. Some old hippies got together and helped form a normal Taxi company but made it owned by the drivers. It has an adequate but clunky app that is slowly getting better. They grabbed about 2/3s of the regular taxi drivers. We won't really know how the ride-share market plays out until the subsidy goes away. It reminds me of when Standard Oil would go into town, undercut the local gas station until it fold, and then recoup the cost by raising prices. It is one of the things that the Antitrust laws were specifically designed to stop.
mcv 8y ago
I don't see why meta-Uber has to hitch on the backs of Uber and Lyft. Just have an app (I'd suggest "Ride") that knows all these local co-ops and contacts an appropriate one. Ride Austin when you're in Austin, Ride Shanghai when you're there. Make it trivial for anyone to start such a co-op in a new city, and the drivers will come. There's no need to first book on Uber.
- icebraining 8y ago
  The reason why Cory wants to hitch on Uber is because he knows people trust Uber more than a random app they've never heard; he says so himself, when he recounts his Shanghai experience. So you'd find the driver on Uber (borrowing its trust network) before switching to the other app. But that also shows why his argument against Uber is flawed: they can charge more money because they actually provide a better service by being available worldwide, unlike these local apps. If the Meta-Uber were to kill the host, it would destroy itself.
  - mcv 8y ago
    But people who don't trust the other app are not going to use the other app anyway. If you want to hire a co-op driver, start with the co-op app first. Hoping Uber will accidentally send you a driver who also happens to be in the co-op seems like a pointless exercise.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      As a rider, I need to trust the app to do two things: give me a decent driver and provide me with a reasonable estimate of the cost of the trip. By first making the reservation with Uber, I can get both of those from them, making me much more willing to use the local app to do the actual transaction.
- notahacker 8y ago
  This. If the co-ops exist, the meta-app is not a difficult app to build. Geolocation to match you with the local collective and an API to send the booking request to them (unlike Uber they want to work with metasearch companies). Done. Let the collectives handle the certification, pricing and local routing. (I know someone who founded a business effectively doing meta-search for a ride with local minicab companies via nationwide telephone enquiries, so it's not like the basic idea wasn't possible even with yesterday's technology). Trouble is, for the most part these cooperatives don't exist. Which makes the meta-app less useful than Uber in most parts of the world. Uber has every incentive to discourage people from using a meta-app as their first port of call for ridesearch, and so even if their TOC were completely unenforceable they'd just find ways of blocking a meta-app from accessing Uber data. Blocking people and drivers who are obviously hacking Uber's service to co-locate each other, not paying for the ride via Uber but both ending up in the destination anyway is even easier. A non-profit meta-app isn't going to win an arms race with a multibillion dollar enterprise whose business depends on being a more reliable way of booking rides. Legal restrictions on reverse engineering their software isn't their moat. The problem is that Austin is an edge case. Drivers got together and formed it and raised money to build the app and set up a vetting process the city govt approved because they'd lose their livelihood if it didn't exist. RideAustin doesn't exist in most other cities because drivers and passengers aren't really set up for collective action, particularly not against the company sending them rides, the costs of getting the service working aren't trivial and any nascent startup would have the problem that Uber was more recognised (and would likely try to kill their app stone dead by subsidising Uber rides with VC money). If you want more local cooperatives, you need to bring down the software development and vetting costs to run a service like RideAustin, not reverse engineer Uber's iPhone app. Or lobby more local governments to find reasons to bar Uber and Lyft from more city centres. And the market will see more cooperatives happen organically if/when Uber tries to squeeze more profit out of rides...
mightypirate 8y ago
Citymapper is meta-Uber (in London at least). It also throws in bike sharing companies in the comparison.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
luord 8y ago
I'm trying to find how Ride Austin was built. I assume that the money for the developers and the servers must've come from somewhere. If it was the drivers themselves, isn't that basically the 25% they pay uber up-front? Mind you, that's still better than Uber, since they own the app, but it's not exactly the surge in income that the article later tried to paint it as. That doubt aside, I mostly agree with this.

252 points by cribbles 8y ago

> An investor in the audience stood up to tell me how full of shit I was: I had no idea just how complicated Uber’s app and infrastructure were, and there was no way a bunch of grubby drivers would ever be able to match its expert coding and administration. Silicon Valley's technical skills and ethos are good at discovering disruptive business models. It is incredibly hard to pivot operations at scale until you get the market properly sorted out. Investors would love to believe that this also imploes a moat for replicating and administrating the system... but there is no reason one flows from the other. Of course, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" - Upton Sinclair

golemotron 8y ago

It's so frustrating to read Cory on economics. It's like: market reasoning, market reasoning, market reasoning, pitch an idea and then forget about market reasoning.

HillaryBriss 8y ago

probably a dumb question: how does the "unique code" part of his idea work? how could the apps on both the driver's and passenger's phones both reliably generate the same globally unique code?

icebraining 8y ago
It could be simply a combination of the specific information of the ride: username of rider + username of driver + origin + destination.
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  thank you for the response. i'm wondering how my meta-uber app would obtain my origin and destination. is Doctorow proposing that the user manually enter origin and destination into both the actual uber app and the proposed meta-uber app?
  - icebraining 8y ago
    I believe the idea is that the meta-uber app would programmatically control the actual uber app, hence the CFAA and DRM concerns.
    - HillaryBriss 8y ago
      Ah. Ok. Got it. Thanks. So, meta-uber would need to embed within itself a hacked copy of the actual uber app, or just very carefully mimic calls to Uber's backend somehow. Or meta-uber would need to somehow have the permission to run and inject data into an authentically installed instance of the Uber app (not quite sure if or how, say, the Android platform's security model would allow this.) Hmmm.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        It could also use an embedded browser and load https://m.uber.com/ https://m.uber.com/

PaulHoule 8y ago

I find it ironic that the one problem w/ the cooperative model in Austin is that it doesn't serve the fancy shindig (SXSW) that shows up once a year and then blows out of town. Meeting the needs of Austinites is a more sustainable business because you don't need to handle the burst capacity. Somehow the market of people who are flying around all the time seems to get a disproportionate amount of attention from marketers who make catalogs full of stuff like: https://www.coolthings.com/motorized-monocycle-looks-fun/ https://www.coolthings.com/motorized-monocycle-looks-fun/ Fortunately the "yellow cab" model works just fine at the airport where people show up at predictable times. I did not grow up with the habit of taking cabs, and I've never taken one in NYC, but I learned at some point that if I didn't have a better plan to get away from the airport such as http://web.mta.info/mta/airtrain.htm http://web.mta.info/mta/airtrain.htm I could walk up to the taxi stand and be on my way and yeah it is kindof expensive... But often about the same or less then I'd spend on parking alone for a rental car in a congested city. On the way back I learned I could go to the front desk of the hotel and have a cab ready for me when I want to go at 4am or whenever I need to catch an early flight.

ghaff 8y ago
For the most part, for airport to hotel and back, Uber/Lyft are mostly interesting relative to cabs because they tend to be cheaper (sometimes substantially). For one trip I do a number of times a year where I need to take a cab from and to the airport at my destination, the only reason I tend to use Lyft is that it's about $15 cheaper than a cab ride. In general though I don't use Uber/Lyft or cabs all that much when I travel (which is frequently). But, anecdotally, a lot of people seem to have gotten into the habit of pulling their phone out of their pocket whenever they need to go more than a couple of blocks.

geofft 8y ago

The closest thing we have to a meta-service is Meta-Elsevier, more popularly known as Sci-Hub, which works so well simply because it doesn't care about legality. It's hosted outside the US on a slowly changing list of TLDs, and so it doesn't have to worry about any form of copyright law, not just the DMCA. I think if you wanted to build more services like this, you'd have to go this approach: instead of building an above-board app that uses the Uber API and has developer info on file with Apple and Google, anonymously develop a tool for jailbroken phones that injects itself into the Uber app and monitors requests. Instead of building a website that scrapes Amazon centrally, build a browser extension with permissions on amazon.com. And so forth. The arms-length approach of meta apps helps here, because then individual ride-sharing coops and bookstores get plausible deniability. They're not telling you to use the app, it's a shadowy foreign group who decided to link to them.

IWeldMelons 8y ago
Sci-Hub is Kazakhstani creation actually.
- lowry 8y ago
  Which enjoys the same level of independance as Saudi Arabia because of its natural riches.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- Fins 8y ago
  It's Putin's creation to much greater degree than Kazakhstani, Elbakyan is not Kazakh at all, she just happened to be born there.
  - IWeldMelons 8y ago
    You've never lived there I guess, in the former USSR. Elbakyan is of Armenia ethnicty, who was born in Kazakhstan (hence she is Kazakhtani, not Kazakh). And her native language is Russian, so is the native language of many Kazakh people who lives in the bigger cities of Kazakhstan.

ykevinator 8y ago

I love this. It indirectly calls out that uber has relatively easy to clone tech. A co-op network is a great idea and a white label or open source uber application is probably a great idea.

officemonkey 8y ago
I was appalled that the the existing taxi system (essentially a protected monopoly) wouldn't immediately create an Uber/Lyft app when ride-sharing first appeared. Then I realized that building such a thing would only benefit drivers and customers, and those are the two constituents that the existing taxi system doesn't care about.
- sigmaris 8y ago
  In the UK there's an app available, https://gett.com/ https://gett.com/, which is very similar to Uber but hails regular, licensed taxis.
  - tomp 8y ago
    But I don't want to ride regular, licenced taxis. They're still a cartel. They charge a premium for having to learn all the streets of London by heart, but that's not a premium I'm willing to pay (or that I consider valuable) in the modern day'n'age of Google Maps and the likes.
- pnongrata 8y ago
  We've had taxi hailing apps in Brazil since before Uber arrived. Once Uber got here, though, no one could compete with its prices.
icebraining 8y ago
White label ride sharing apps are plentiful nowadays.
marcosdumay 8y ago
There is a long line of people willing to subsidize cab service. A white label app can not compete with them. After investors decide it's a sure way to lose money, it may happen.

reubenswartz 8y ago

Thoughtful article. Wonder why you couldn’t have a meta ride app that would tell you which ride share app(s) to install based on your current location or on a search (say if you’re about to visit Austin for SXSW). A simple API for people to submit apps (and perhaps reviews) and no need to hack the incumbents’ apps (although there would be some karmic justice in that, I don’t think it’s right, and would probably lead to incumbents doing worse things to the apps trying to displace them).

wffurr 8y ago
Google Maps is that app, but they are missing a lot of the white label services, and only have the larger regional services like Uber and Go-Jek. https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7245278?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7245278?co=GENIE.Plat... They also do meta search against other modes too, like walking, bicycling, and public transit.
icebraining 8y ago
If you want that, you can just go to the App or Play Store and search for "rides <city>". What Uber provides, and what Cory's proposal piggybacks on, is trust: just like when you ask for a Big Mac, you know more or less what you're getting when you're matched an Uber driver with 4.8 starts, yet the same is not true for some other ridesharing app you've never heard of. But that also backfires on his argument about Uber's rates and goal of replacing it; they can charge an higher rate because they provide a service that others don't - a reasonably consistent experience worldwide - and one can't get rid of it without harming the meta-app itself.

rkachowski 8y ago

I think this downplays the anticipated response from Uber and the like. DMCA and CFAA are just tools used, not the entirety of the barrier to further co-op based disruption. There's nothing to stop Uber / Lyft from banning their drivers from the service completely if they are caught using the hypothetical Meta-Uber app. I understand that this example is just an illustration of the spirit of the article and doesn't represent Cory's argument, but I feel that the "felony contempt-of-business-model" is only one pillar in the structure, rather than the whole thing.

not2b 8y ago
If they tried that, it would undermine their argument that their drivers are independent contractors. You can ban an employee from working for a competitor, but you can't ban a contractor. Many drivers drive for both Uber and Lyft; in an area with a good co-op, they'd probably start out driving for all three, and if the co-op pays them more they'd take as many rides from the co-op as they could get.

lordnacho 8y ago

He's making a very important point here about the free market. In what sense is it free? What is a reasonable thing to hold someone to, contractually? There's a real lack of thinking about what the free market should actually mean. It's almost always couched in industrial era terms when it does come up, esp in relation to Uber and the gig economy. "Labour" has a very different meaning now to what it meant back in the 1800s. Good episode of South Park talks about this, "The Human CentiPad". Basically the boys fall foul of an Apple agreement and something bad happens. Really bad.

jessaustin 8y ago
I'm glad you warned us that the something that happens is really bad. I wouldn't have guessed from the episode title... b^)

cs702 8y ago

The main challenge to successful (i.e., market-dominating) cooperatively-owned platforms like the ones Cory wants is that usually there are no incentives that motivate individuals to dedicate their lives and souls in the creation, launching, running, and perpetual improvement of such platforms for the benefit of others. The exceptions, including successful projects like GNU and Linux, tend to be led by rather unique individuals, like Richard Stallman and Linus Torvals, who are almost religiously zealous about their mission, and they maintain their commitment year after year, and decade after decade, without any personal profit motive. Barring these exceptions, Capitalism seems to be the "least-worst solution" to this problem that human civilization has evolved over millennia, so far.

zozbot123 8y ago
Creating a federated platform is technically quite feasible. E-mail, the Web, Usenet (before it was overrun by spam anyway), IRC... plus these days, stuff like PeerTube and Mastodon. Sure, not every one of these is "successful", but the trend is there.
- blfr 8y ago
  The trend is definitely not there. The trend is away from IRC towards Slack, away from open web to walled gardens (or trashpiles) of Facebook, away from Usenet towards unfederated forums like this one.
  - simias 8y ago
    I agree but: >[...] away from Usenet towards unfederated forums like this one. We're actually one step beyond that already, the era of forums is behind us, now people open a Facebook page or Subreddit when they want to create a community around a given topic instead of powering up a new PHPBB instance like they might have 15 years ago. Forums like HN are getting increasingly niche. I don't like this trend but I think it makes complete sense. Centralized solutions offer generally better user experience (you don't have to monitor 10 different websites or watch your emails for notifications, you don't have to create dozen of accounts etc...), they're easier to develop, easier to maintain and, perhaps critically, easier to monetize. These days I only see the cryptocurrency communities betting on a decentralized future (instead of merely wishing for it without much hope like I do).

em3rgent0rdr 8y ago

This article is a good time to plug LibreTaxi: "Free and open source alternative to Uber/Lyft connecting passengers and drivers. LibreTaxi makes ridesharing affordable by getting rid of the third party between passengers and drivers. Negotiate the price before the ride is confirmed, pay cash upon arrival. 1-minute hiring for all drivers." https://libretaxi.org/ https://libretaxi.org/

jstanley 8y ago
Amazing. It's a shame it is still quite centralised (as far as I can tell) but definitely moving in the right direction. Do they have a process for dealing with abusive users/drivers? E.g. if someone gets enough complaints can they get banned from the platform, or is that not possible by design?
Kiro 8y ago
Who has cash nowadays though?
- Retra 8y ago
  Gas station ATMs, mostly. And anybody who uses them.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Especially when traveling I'm not going to assume that my credit card will be accepted everywhere.
- sincerely 8y ago
  Someone who doesn't carry cash is someone who doesn't do anything interesting...
  - Kiro 8y ago
    What is that supposed to mean? In my country cash is virtually non-existent.
    - 8y ago

frumiousirc 8y ago

A meta ride share app needs development effort (money), infrastructure (money) maintenance (money) and integration with local co-ops (money) and all that money needs an administrative hierarchy (more money). All this overhead needs to be put in place without any direct income from riders. Either it come's in the form of a service that co-ops subscribe to and pay for or it comes in the form of a collective formed of individuals already in the co-op. Whatever the formation, it's activity that needs funding from the drivers. This "meta" layer is then ready for abuse. Once the drivers are connected to this top-level coordinating layer the individual co-op layers become mere middle-men and are ripe for cutting out. Then we just get back to Uber. It would be interesting to learn ideas how such a meta system could be created while limiting the overhead costs levied on the co-ops and retaining a decentralized cooperative system that allows drivers (and the higher layer workers) to retain their power.

zanny 8y ago
There is absolutely no reason for ride sharing to not be a protocol. Drivers join a federated network of other drivers they "agree" with and you pick the driver pools you want (and they could be local drivers, or they could be drivers that meet some criteria or vetting process). You could have any number of ride share apps that use the protocol and interface with server infrastructure of each network. If you distribute the authority in the system you decentralize the power structures that produce hostile actors like the brass of Uber and Lyft. Nothing says each city can't have its own app and own driver cooper so long as my app from my city can speak your cities language when I'm there.

jstanley 8y ago

> Today, DRM is used to force people with artificial pancreases to buy proprietary insulin Wow, that seems especially evil.

dTal 8y ago
It's worth exploring exactly what's meant by "proprietary insulin". Insulin can't be proprietary - it's a natural, widely available molecule of publicly known composition. What's actually proprietary in scenarios like these is some encryption key that will persuade the device to work - the fact that the key is embedded in a memory chip glued to the container is a red herring. In the case of a life-essential substance that is consumed at a predictable rate, there is no logical distinction between this and a Mafia protection racket - pay them periodically forever, or die. It shouldn't be surprising that companies will do this if they can. There was an episode of Doctor Who not too long ago where employees on a space station had to buy oxygen from the company store.
- favorited 8y ago
  I remember someone making a claim about insulin, but it wasn't the insulin itself – it was proprietary consumables for insulin pumps.

srikanthkalin 8y ago

thats really a bad one

orblivion 8y ago

Cory, if you're reading this, don't call it Meta-Uber. Call it: Co-opt

HillaryBriss 8y ago
Co-opt is a clever name, but, if I'm not mistaken, Doctorow believes naming it 'meta-uber' would be critical to discovery of the app by end users. I mean, I think Doctorow's idea is that users search on Google Play for 'uber' and not only does 'uber' appear in the results, but so does 'meta-uber'

geggam 8y ago

In Germany you have to use mytaxi https://us.mytaxi.com/index.html https://us.mytaxi.com/index.html

lkdjjdjjjdskjd 8y ago

If they had such a great coop going, I don't understand why they went back to Lyft/Uber?

dwighttk 8y ago
Because thats where the passengers were. (In both cases)
VSerge 8y ago
Found this piece in which Lyft boasts that they had more driver upon coming back to Austin, and where RideAustin states that their numbers have dropped from 50k weekly rides to 20k rides, which is their minimum number to remain relevant. Drivers probably signed up again with Lyft/Uber simply because these apps had again a significant volume of business to offer. Also, I saw on reddit that RideAustin had closed its onboarding office, which seems like the best way to send drivers to their competitors. http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/07-27-17-ride-sharing-companies-austin-rideaustin-fasten-uber-lyft-return/ http://austin.culturemap.com/news/innovation/07-27-17-ride-s...

dwighttk 8y ago

He shows an example of a successful co-op app that worked (as long as the government was keeping Uber and Lyft out of the city that annually experiences surges of traffic of tech savvy users) but never gives an example of one of his meta apps in action... How much rent would one of those apps be allowed to seek? Or would they just be run out of benevolence?

ph0rque 8y ago
Also, what happens if a competing co-op opens up shop in the same city?

jawns 8y ago

Yes, it's true that by essentially hacking Uber and Lyft's systems, you could create an app that siphons away business from them. But what would happen if such a technique were to become legal and ubiquitous? Suddenly, no one wants to invest in a company that requires significant capital, because they know that as soon as the company becomes successful enough to become a target, there will be other companies that will swoop in and attempt to exploit its technology so they themselves don't need to invest significant capital. The damage to the market would be severe. That said, as a fan of distributism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism I am also a huge fan of cooperatives, and I think worker-owned co-ops can be successful in the ride-sharing space without needing to resort to such tactics.

WhiteMonkey 8y ago
> Suddenly, no one wants to invest in a company that requires significant capital But this is the point: the reason Uber is successful isn't particularly because of their technical excellence or innovation, it's because they've used massive amounts of capital to very knowingly buy the market. This is an example of one of the nefarious sides of capitalism -- a flaw -- not a celebration of how great it is at solving problems (which is genuinely is in a lot of circumstances). If Uber didn't have as much capital, smaller distributed co-ops may well have prospered.
- jawns 8y ago
  I am no cheerleader for capitalism, but for any business whose core offering is a marketplace (as with Uber/Lyft, who connect buyers of rides with sellers of rides), then building out that marketplace requires solving the chicken-and-egg problem, and typically that is done through advertising, marketing, pricing, customer loyalty, etc. Much of that requires capital, and the asset you end up with after investing that capital is a large user/subscriber base, which can lead to other competitive advantages. It is true that having a large user/subscriber base does not imply technical excellence or innovation, but it is a business asset nonetheless. But if that asset can be easily siphoned off, then there is less of an incentive to build it out to begin with.
- 8y ago

nova22033 8y ago

>Uber also eliminates safety checks for drivers (and allows them to illegally discriminate against people with disabilities, people of color He has it exactly backwards. Taxicabs would routinely racially profile passengers. https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/04/nyregion/danny-glover-says-cabbies-discriminated-against-him.html https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/04/nyregion/danny-glover-say...

jelling 8y ago

Doctorow, per usual, writes with the certainty of an out of shape sportswriter playing Monday morning quarterback. He just doesn't know what he's talking about. For example, he says "Uber...allows them to illegally discriminate against people with disabilities" Does he really not know the long history of cab drivers not stopping for black passengers? This has been frontpage news on multiple occasions, most famously with Danny Glover. Multiple friends have told me how much Uber/Lyft have improved this situation. Meanwhile, Doctorow's meta platform idea literally steals revenue from people who have added tremendous value not only at time of transaction but after via the reputational system and other customer service functions. Nevermind that it would be trivial for Uber to squash this via cancellation fees and driver derankings. If you want to form a co-op app, go for it. But find a better thought leader than Doctorow.

yipbub 8y ago
Most of the people who actually put work into it don't make their money from profits. Their salaries are paid. Plus, these companies basically burn VC money to starve competition.
cribbles 8y ago
The racist cab pickup issue occurred to me too, but it’s not in conflict with his overall argument. Doctorow allows that the ride hailing app experience (not to be mistaken with to the “ride sharing” business model) is, in most respects, a foundational improvement upon the old taxi pickup experience. This is not mutually exclusive with the claim that Uber, et al.’s business practices (i.e. circumvention of any and all possible tax and labor laws) introduce a unique set of problems for riders and drivers alike.
- jelling 8y ago
  You may be right about the tax issues. My criticism was of his attempt to hang all of society's ills on Uber/Lyft/etc... It's inaccurate at best.
  - sangnoir 8y ago

joshuaellinger 8y ago

He missed a couple of points on the Austin side of things. 1. Uber/Lyft went to the state to get the regulations overturned in a bit of venue shopping. They don't have to do fingerprinting. Happens a lot around here. 2. He failed to mention Austin Taxi Co-op. Some old hippies got together and helped form a normal Taxi company but made it owned by the drivers. It has an adequate but clunky app that is slowly getting better. They grabbed about 2/3s of the regular taxi drivers. We won't really know how the ride-share market plays out until the subsidy goes away. It reminds me of when Standard Oil would go into town, undercut the local gas station until it fold, and then recoup the cost by raising prices. It is one of the things that the Antitrust laws were specifically designed to stop.

mcv 8y ago

I don't see why meta-Uber has to hitch on the backs of Uber and Lyft. Just have an app (I'd suggest "Ride") that knows all these local co-ops and contacts an appropriate one. Ride Austin when you're in Austin, Ride Shanghai when you're there. Make it trivial for anyone to start such a co-op in a new city, and the drivers will come. There's no need to first book on Uber.

icebraining 8y ago
The reason why Cory wants to hitch on Uber is because he knows people trust Uber more than a random app they've never heard; he says so himself, when he recounts his Shanghai experience. So you'd find the driver on Uber (borrowing its trust network) before switching to the other app. But that also shows why his argument against Uber is flawed: they can charge more money because they actually provide a better service by being available worldwide, unlike these local apps. If the Meta-Uber were to kill the host, it would destroy itself.
- mcv 8y ago
  But people who don't trust the other app are not going to use the other app anyway. If you want to hire a co-op driver, start with the co-op app first. Hoping Uber will accidentally send you a driver who also happens to be in the co-op seems like a pointless exercise.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    As a rider, I need to trust the app to do two things: give me a decent driver and provide me with a reasonable estimate of the cost of the trip. By first making the reservation with Uber, I can get both of those from them, making me much more willing to use the local app to do the actual transaction.
notahacker 8y ago
This. If the co-ops exist, the meta-app is not a difficult app to build. Geolocation to match you with the local collective and an API to send the booking request to them (unlike Uber they want to work with metasearch companies). Done. Let the collectives handle the certification, pricing and local routing. (I know someone who founded a business effectively doing meta-search for a ride with local minicab companies via nationwide telephone enquiries, so it's not like the basic idea wasn't possible even with yesterday's technology). Trouble is, for the most part these cooperatives don't exist. Which makes the meta-app less useful than Uber in most parts of the world. Uber has every incentive to discourage people from using a meta-app as their first port of call for ridesearch, and so even if their TOC were completely unenforceable they'd just find ways of blocking a meta-app from accessing Uber data. Blocking people and drivers who are obviously hacking Uber's service to co-locate each other, not paying for the ride via Uber but both ending up in the destination anyway is even easier. A non-profit meta-app isn't going to win an arms race with a multibillion dollar enterprise whose business depends on being a more reliable way of booking rides. Legal restrictions on reverse engineering their software isn't their moat. The problem is that Austin is an edge case. Drivers got together and formed it and raised money to build the app and set up a vetting process the city govt approved because they'd lose their livelihood if it didn't exist. RideAustin doesn't exist in most other cities because drivers and passengers aren't really set up for collective action, particularly not against the company sending them rides, the costs of getting the service working aren't trivial and any nascent startup would have the problem that Uber was more recognised (and would likely try to kill their app stone dead by subsidising Uber rides with VC money). If you want more local cooperatives, you need to bring down the software development and vetting costs to run a service like RideAustin, not reverse engineer Uber's iPhone app. Or lobby more local governments to find reasons to bar Uber and Lyft from more city centres. And the market will see more cooperatives happen organically if/when Uber tries to squeeze more profit out of rides...

mightypirate 8y ago

Citymapper is meta-Uber (in London at least). It also throws in bike sharing companies in the comparison.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

luord 8y ago

I'm trying to find how Ride Austin was built. I assume that the money for the developers and the servers must've come from somewhere. If it was the drivers themselves, isn't that basically the 25% they pay uber up-front? Mind you, that's still better than Uber, since they own the app, but it's not exactly the surge in income that the article later tried to paint it as. That doubt aside, I mostly agree with this.