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> and we're being left in a worse place than before the "disruption" happened. Do you have examples of this? It sounds theoretically right to me but I can't th

> and we're being left in a worse place than before the "disruption" happened. Do you have examples of this? It sounds theoretically right to me but I can't think of any empirical cases of being worse off as a consumer.

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TeMPOraL 5y ago
'TAForObvReasons mentioned Uber - I think it is an example, though they're surprisingly resilient. I believed (and frankly, hoped) they'll run out of money and then crash and burn for years now, but they still seem to be going strong. A stronger example that I had in mind are the various food delivery middlemen startups that popped up in recent years. GrubHub, Deliveroo, and many other similar companies. There have been countless discussions outlining their shenanigans in detail, but they ultimately boil down to exploiting the restaurants, already an extremely risky class of businesses, and hastening their demise. These startups care about building up their valuation and eventually getting sold - they don't give a damn about leaving a broken food delivery market behind. This is the common thread I see, a socially destructive form of disruption: VC-backed startups entering established markets (particularly highly geographically localized ones, like taxis or restaurants), using their infinite funds to offer services below the market price, destroying their competition, and then eventually disappearing, leaving a broken market behind. I see these startups as legal pump-and-dump scams: they don't give a damn about the services they offer, their employees, or customers; their goal is to do anything to pump up the valuation, let the investors make their money back, and then they die, or get dumped onto the stock market, with the public being the patsy left holding the bag.
- Karrot_Kream 5y ago
  > I see these startups as legal pump-and-dump scams: they don't give a damn about the services they offer, their employees, or customers; their goal is to do anything to pump up the valuation, let the investors make their money back, and then they die, or get dumped onto the stock market, with the public being the patsy left holding the bag. Yeah I largely see them the same way, but I can't think of a good way to penalize this behavior without adversely affecting something else. Startup pump and dumps are pretty terrible.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  > TAForObvReasons mentioned Uber - I think it is an example Are we in fact worse off than when taxis were around? I know rideshare contributes to traffic, but the consumer experience is infinitely better than taxis (and still way cheaper, IME)
ghaff 5y ago
Well, the news business has unquestionably been disrupted. There are a variety of reasons why that has had a lot of associated negative effects.

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TeMPOraL 5y ago

'TAForObvReasons mentioned Uber - I think it is an example, though they're surprisingly resilient. I believed (and frankly, hoped) they'll run out of money and then crash and burn for years now, but they still seem to be going strong. A stronger example that I had in mind are the various food delivery middlemen startups that popped up in recent years. GrubHub, Deliveroo, and many other similar companies. There have been countless discussions outlining their shenanigans in detail, but they ultimately boil down to exploiting the restaurants, already an extremely risky class of businesses, and hastening their demise. These startups care about building up their valuation and eventually getting sold - they don't give a damn about leaving a broken food delivery market behind. This is the common thread I see, a socially destructive form of disruption: VC-backed startups entering established markets (particularly highly geographically localized ones, like taxis or restaurants), using their infinite funds to offer services below the market price, destroying their competition, and then eventually disappearing, leaving a broken market behind. I see these startups as legal pump-and-dump scams: they don't give a damn about the services they offer, their employees, or customers; their goal is to do anything to pump up the valuation, let the investors make their money back, and then they die, or get dumped onto the stock market, with the public being the patsy left holding the bag.

Karrot_Kream 5y ago
> I see these startups as legal pump-and-dump scams: they don't give a damn about the services they offer, their employees, or customers; their goal is to do anything to pump up the valuation, let the investors make their money back, and then they die, or get dumped onto the stock market, with the public being the patsy left holding the bag. Yeah I largely see them the same way, but I can't think of a good way to penalize this behavior without adversely affecting something else. Startup pump and dumps are pretty terrible.
wutbrodo 5y ago
> TAForObvReasons mentioned Uber - I think it is an example Are we in fact worse off than when taxis were around? I know rideshare contributes to traffic, but the consumer experience is infinitely better than taxis (and still way cheaper, IME)

ghaff 5y ago

Well, the news business has unquestionably been disrupted. There are a variety of reasons why that has had a lot of associated negative effects.