As for who is going to pay for this, the users can still pay money for the individual apps (perhaps they would get a commission from each ride they enable, unless a Free Software alternative emerged), and the app makers could pay a licensing fee to the third party that provides the insurance check or other reputation metric.
The real unsolved problem is how to decentralise a reputation system without it being subject to Sybil attacks or breaching people's privacy.
Not that I think that this is a bad thing. As a consumer I want somebody else to take care that the things that I can buy don't kill me and I wouldn't trust some random commenters on the Internet for that kind of information.
I think we are in the process of transferring from institutional authority to algorithmic authority.
And when the rep gets bad enough, no worries if it's a censorship/ban free platform. Just start over.
So there are some moral hazards. (Not that they can't be overcome.)
Which is to say, the question "Can a blockchain be used to solve [X]?" is answered "No" for almost every question.
Note: I am not trying to contradict you here, just looking to understand this whole thing from a different angle.
This statement is meaningless. What are the contents of this alleged social contract you're referring to? I bet your answer is going to differ from mine, or from the next person's.
Do you derive emotional satisfaction from putting words into other people's mouths?
> I mean, you haven't asked _me_ anything, you asked some other user.
Then what was the point of your reply?
No one’s going to stop you from using an unfree, censorious system if you want to. However, we’re going to object vociferously if you try to force it on everyone else.
> I want my uber driver to have insurance and a quick background check.
The advantage of censorship-resistant markets is that added features are opt-in. I don’t really care if my uber driver is regulated according to taxi union rules, so I’d rather not pay the associated costs.
You didn't really answer the bits where he was more or less discussing government regulations. Your answer doens't relate to what he stated.
Actually, looking back, which bits are you even talking about?
Development is not free. Users generally want new features over time. A distributed 2000-era netflix service where people mail each other dvds wouldn't survive in 2018. Who does development without a middleman? Part of the reason why something like uber works is because drivers do not have the technical capacity to build their own system.
The idea that cryptoassets and associated systems is going to bring about a revolution that frees people from capitalism is insane to me. Wealth is amazingly concentrated among early adopters and difficulty curves are generally weighted hard towards benefiting a few early people. Why would a distributed marketplace suddenly bring the power to the people? You still need the capital to buy a car to be a distributed-uber driver after all.