Scale Ruins Everything

Given that we've been throwing cash at every conceivable idea for the last ten plus years, yet when speaking of unicorns we still have to refer back to airbnb and uber, seems like we're well past "peak unicorn" and well into the "horse with a mild concussion" era.

It's also disconcerting how much their success seems to hinge on using technology as a lever to break laws or social expectations, as opposed to technology as something that itself empowers humans to be more productive.

Getting a taxi in my college town in 2005 was agony. Make a phone call from a loud bar and shout at some guy who can barely tell what you're saying that you want a taxi and then maybe if you're lucky they show up in an hour and cost 3 times as much as you expected (and that's on a good night!) vs. "press a button, get a ride" (and have a feedback mechanism for horrible drivers or gross cars, etc.).

Uber has issues but honestly it's night and day compared to what taxis were like. And they decrease DUI's.

Sure, but there's a difference between "that kind of success" and "any success". To illustrate, imagine an alternate timeline with a company called "Rebu", which provides all the same phone-apps and servers and whatnot for thousands of taxi-services across the world to adopt, replacing their shitty old "computerized dispatch" systems.

Do you believe Rebu could that have managed to draw the same level of venture-capitalist money and unicorn-ness and hype, even sharing the same core technologies, code, and product features?

I don't think it would, and I'm asserting that comes from business-plans, labor relations, legal challenges, government lobbying, investor marketing, etc., which in several cases have been, er, ethically-problematic.

I think you're missing a key bit: taxi companies weren't interested in this sort of thing. In most municipalities, taxi service was a protected, government-granted monopoly. The reason taxi service was always so bad was because there was no competition, and no incentive to improve.

So why would they bother to adopt "Rebu"? It's nothing but downsides: their taxi drivers have to work harder, have to be more polite and drive more safely, have to have cleaner cars, and have to be more accountable in general. Not to mention of course Rebu is going to take a cut of all rides booked on their platform.

There was no way to make regular taxi service better without structural and legal reform that the incumbents did not want. The only way to fix it was to go outside the system and do something sketchy. And it worked! For all their issues and controversies, the ride-hailing app experience is amazing, especially when compared to old-school taxi service. Some legacy taxi services have stepped up and improved a bunch since then, and others have just faded into obscurity.

I think we're doing a lot of work to get into the mind of cab companies, but along those lines: they weren't interested because the market isn't really that large. Uber is barely profitable now after raising rates tremendously and aggressively fighting any kinds of workers rights initiative. That means two things. First, people don't think a typical ride is worth very much, and second, people don't really have that many places to go. The destination list is 90% work, the airport, and nightlife. These are not the underpinnings of a multibillion dollar business... unless you invent self-driving cars or achieve a good old fashioned monopoly (a lot of the reason many cab companies went out of business as you say is that Uber failed to invent self-driving cars).

But overall this was pretty bad investment for humanity. Let's just stipulate it's a lot easier to get a ride at a reasonable price and that's a good thing (not a given considering increased traffic and greenhouse gas emissions, plus decreased pressure for cities to move away from car-dependency). Was it worth multiple billions of dollars and software engineering hours? Like, assuredly not. It's a big "LOL" drawn in lipstick on a portrait of the efficient market hypothesis. It turns out the private sector is also great at just setting huge piles of cash on fire.

The problem is cost. For most people owning and driving their own car is much cheaper than hiring someone else to drive them. Many people would like someone else to take care of the car and driving, but drivers need a reasonable income - if a driver works for your 2 hours per day that implies of your 8 hour day at work 2 hours are spent working to pay for that driver (of course drivers typically make less than a "white collar professional" but still a significant portion of your income goes to your driver). Which is why taxis always hung out at airports - often they would wait in line for an hour to pick someone else, with smaller amounts hanging around around hotels and bars - the few places where people who owned a car had reason not to use it.

Self driving is the only way uber or a taxi can be a large business. The cost of labor is just too high and so most people are forced to learn to drive.

Even with the above I question if self driving is really worth it. If you own a car and have it parked nearby it is ready to go when you want to leave, and better yet you can store your stuff in it. Combine that with rush hour - most people are traveling at about the same time every day, and some people wanting nicer cars than others and it is hard to see how it can work out. (unless you live in density such that parking is hard - but then transit must be your answer not individual cars since self driving cannot solve traffic)

The other problem with the business model is with self-driving cars, unless you have exclusive self-drive technology, the barrier to entry to other carpooling options is quite low.

In fact you could easily see car manufacturers offering such services - something like Zipcar but more convenient as the cars can self redistribute.

I find it hard to believe Uber will ever break even ( not on the day to day costs - recouping all that upfront investment ).

Having said that, the likes of Uber have changed the world - so the money wasn't entirely wasted.

I don't think car manufactures will offer that service - it gets too deep into weird monopoly laws and the like that they want to avoid. Plus it is a distraction from their business. They will instead sell to others who offer that service.

Generally shared cars only make sense when someone drives very little anyway. Cars are expensive and so shared cars are either too expensive to be used often, or very hard to get at. Renting a car for a weekend is about half the cost of a monthly payment on the same car, but if you buy the car you have it the rest of the month (and if you buy a car you have used options or keeping the car after it is paid for to bring the total cost down - you will have to pay maintenance costs but those tend to be much less).