The only thing uber has built really, is a way to extract more money from workers with less overhead while circumventing existing worker protection by acting as if they were just the messenger between customers and drivers.
I have the feeling that the real building of the past two decades lies in ever cleverer bussines schemes focused on lock ins, extracting user data, doing as if you are open while there is no practical way anybody could take what you did in any significant way and improve on it. The exiting things always seem to happen outside of that space however.
Re:It’s Time to Build
by catlifeonmars on Sunday April 19, 2020 @03:09AM
(#22914141)
Ubër has also built a service that I, for one, strongly prefer to traditional transportation services. Customer experience is far superior.
They did what's the equivalent of selling $10 bills for $1. No surprise customers like it, they get decent service priced at well below the market rate. For a while, that is, because it's only a way for them to leverage VC money to kill off local competitors. Once that's done, Uber's service tends to degrade, and it eventually will even more so, once their money runs out.
This is only true for their first 5 years. The prices you pay now in US are absurdly profitable for Uber
There is no free lunch, so either the service went down, or prices went way up, or there are no competitors anymore, or all of those.
Re:It’s Time to Build
by aguyfromnb on Sunday April 19, 2020 @06:28AM
(#22914808)
>Ubër has also built a service that I, for one, strongly prefer to traditional transportation services.
This is a big reason why things are the way they are: despite all the obvious externalities Uber (and AirBnb) foists on the public, the rich support if because it benefits them.
Uber externalizes so many costs to its drivers. It relies on someone else's healthcare system to care for its drivers. Someone else to pay to maintain the cars.
So far the gig economy is maybe, half building something which has potential social benefit,half building something which clearly does not.
Now, if Uber was lobbying hard for universal healthcare, then that'd be a different story :). But IIRC they mainly avoid or flout the law altogether.
In summary I don't think Uber is a good example of a company that has tried to 'build' in a prosocial way.