We’ve forgotten what “good technology” means.
1) Actually freakin' show up.
2) Not take the lifetime of the universe showing up
3) Accept credit cards
4) Clean their car occasionally
I can go on ...
If Uber/Lyft completely flame out, I would not like to see these things go back to the way they used to be.
The technology is everything that enables these apps (GPS, mobile chipsets, cellular technology, mobile OS, etc.).
My prediction is that Uber and Lyft will either themselves morph into something more like traditional cab companies, or their technology will be bought out of bankruptcy to build something similar. The world will run out of suckers who want to lose money subsidizing their rides and suckers who are willing to wear out their vehicles to drive for them.
Deflation reduces monetary velocity because consumers rightly assume that a dollar tomorrow is worth more than a dollar today, so they spend less. This reduces the effectiveness of monetary policy and various multipliers.
Deflation is great if you're a rentier since fewer people can afford financing given that the low/negative inflation rate won't monetize their debts. So there's less competition for assets.
If you think deflation is good, you should consider the 30 year malaise Japan has been in.
Currency deflation is bad because it causes people to hoard cash in a mattress because it will be worth more tomorrow than the returns on equally safe investments. Then you get underinvestment and economic collapse, which causes more deflation, which causes more currency hoarding. It spirals into a depression.
But that's caused by the value of the currency increasing relative to everything else. "Deflation" in the price of products in a single industry is basically the source of all growth. It's what happens when you make something more efficient. And it doesn't cause anybody to have any reason to hoard cash in a mattress, because it's not the cash that's worth more -- it still buys the same amount of wheat or land -- it's only the computer chips that lose their value. Which just causes people to not hoard manufactured computer chips as an investment, which there is no apparent benefit in anybody doing anyway. (Maybe it would ensure that we have a stock of computer chips available to rely on in a chip shortage, so then instead we get a big price spike when severe weather strikes a major manufacturing region, but that's about it.)
And the lower prices don't even necessarily hurt the industry, because they're a result of lower costs. So the companies are still moving product at a profit, but now at the lower price there is more demand and they move more product. Selling a billion of something for $1 each is more profitable than selling a thousand of them for $100,000 each with the same profit margin percentage. Apple today makes a whole lot more money than IBM did in 1970.
Is this supposed to sound horrible?