The middle men are everyone but the driver and passenger though
Yeah exactly - the proposal here is to have a driver-owned worker cooperative run the app.
I present to you: https://eva.coop/
It's a little bit cryptobro-y, but the intentions are good.
If it has anything to do with crypto the intentions are not good.
Nah it's just that it uses blockchain technology for some reason (hype I guess), but it's not coin related. (Blockchains can be used for other purposes than money).
The Blockhain idea is actually great, crypto-currency is the scam. People need to learn differentiate.
I have yet to see any Blockchain application that wouldn't be better without a Blockchain
Yup, for example it can be used to provide distributed authentication
Or leave an audit trail for a logistics business for example.
There are a gazillion use cases, most overlooked because of the coin stench.
Is it a necessary technology for ride sharing?
not necessarily, but it can be a good idea to have a distributed, tamper proof ledger of transactions.
that way anyone can provide proof for basically anything to do with the service: payment, drive, location, etc.
it might also have advantages from a security perspective for riders and drivers.
there are advantages, they're not entirely necessary, but they may well be the best option for a distributed network (i.e.: no central server infrastructure, at least not beyond some simple software repository for downloads/updates)
Isn't crypto a good use case here actually? No cental database.
Stop using "crypto" as a synonym for Blockchain. Crypto means cryptography and it's used in the communication between your browser and websites.
You are 100% correct. I meant to say blockchain.
That’s a great idea, if someone can bring the software and enough advertising to make it successful. It’s really hard but possible.
It has already been done, that's what the article is about: https://drivers.coop/
Currently based in NYC, but getting ready for a big launch in Minneapolis in response to the incumbent rideshare companies pulling out of the city in protest of increased rideshare regulation. Big opportunity to seize some marketshare without needing that much startup capital if your better financed competitors are removing themselves from that part of the market.
Best of luck to them. I'd love if this became a reality, it would make the whole gig economy a better place.
Past few times I have tried it. No drivers in Denver. I will keep trying but they need more drivers and this is not something that happens overnight
Yeah I think it's pretty much just in NYC for now, with a big launch in Minneapolis in progress. Hopefully they get to Denver soon!
All you need to do is find a way of getting people in touch with you for your service. Mainly the reason I hate these companies is because they do provide a valuable service for the drivers in that they have a system to get the people who need a ride connected with the people who give rides; but they demand too much of the profit for what work they actually provide. The ones doing the real work get peanuts and the tool provider is taking in the big bucks.
I mean, I’m sure we could get a non-profit started that offers the exact same service. Just get drivers to take on the responsibility of covering any accidents, etc. It could run on donations like Wikipedia. The drivers get 100% of the profits…I’m sure there’s be unforeseen snags, but I really wish we could start “disrupting” industries by literally taking these tech fucks’ share of the market and redistribute that shit to drivers.
Rides would probably be cheaper, no surge pricing, and a good ol’ stick in the eye of the tech industry.
The insurance is part of why it works. I looked up commercial insurance rates for a taxi and it's like $2,000 every six months. And while that's doable if rates are the same or only a little lower it's still one hell of a gut check. Because you don't know if you're going to get customers. Uber and Lyft absorbed that risk.
So what's likely to happen in the near future is uninsured or under insured open source ride-sharing that will need to crown a winning app or two before it gets predictable enough for people to pay that.
And that means it also needs to survive that stage with Uber and Lyft strongly messaging normal people about safety and quality concerns.
a lot of people use rented vehicles
fuck it, even add in real ride shares, where you say 'I'm going to x place, I'm willing to go y amount out of my way and pick up z passengers'
Holy shit, why not just read the article? This is exactly what the interview is about.
Why do people read the comments, but not the articles? I don't get it.
Because substack.
I don’t get what happens in the backend, but you can’t convince me that these companies should be multi-billion dollar companies.
Cities should socialize ride shares, delivery shares, bike/scooter shares.
Sure some guy invented an app to make them all slightly easier, and he made a ton a money. Cool. Good for him. Time to make the technology work for people.
I think Berlin did that with MyTaxi
cities should socialize. the rest of the comment is unnecessary actually so is cities everything should socialize everything
Best of luck to them.
It's true in essentially all industries, but it's especially obvious in rideshare that there's a layer of parasites who get paid far too much money for nothing beyond the fact that they won the fight for the position of "parasite who gets paid far too much money for doing nothing."
Anything that might even just decrease the number of overpaid parasites would be a benefit not just to the concerned industry, but to society as a whole.
They're just taking their cut for figuring out how to avoid labor laws.
I bet what they all have in common is that they all used advertising in order to get to their position.
All the pieces exist.... GPS location, mapping, money transfer e-commerce software, the fediverse social platform. What is missing is the social platform integration of all those separate pieces.
You mean Craigslist?
This is the part of the decentralized "Gig economy" model that no one seems to have a good answer for, how do you filter out bad actors or even known threats without an organization calling the shots?
I think the answer is pretty simple, honestly. Have an organization whose purpose is just to filter out bad actors and maintain the technology. Just don't be greedy or heirarchal about it. The tech staff gets paid from a small percentage from the providers.
Should be easy, right? Right??!?
But why do that when I can just make tons of money by taking it away from the good actors?
The tech subs discover taxis
Kind of a dumb point. I suspect you didn't really have much experience using taxis pre-uber. This is all about trying to replace the uber/lyft model with a similar thing, but where most of the profits go to the drivers and not uber/lyft.
I wonder if a P2P ride-sharing system could be made to work. Or if it would be rife with scams and dangers.
Anything is bad. Just like how Uber is shit today, P2P won't be any different. A system where everyone can advertise themselves as a taxi is unnecessarily dangerous. Just use regular normal taxi. Anyone can become a taxi in that system, and that's bad.
Normal taxi still refuse to not be disgusting inside and 20 year old cars with drivers who don't turn on the ac. Not everyone lives in a global city.
Considering Uber is already pretty bad, take a guess.
Idk, considering everyone's parents said never to get into a car with a stranger and they have like somewhere close to fifth sigma error levels in safety, it seems more safe than people would assume. Considering the rumor is you need almost no background check to do it.
Generally speaking, ridesharing is more than 99.99 percent safe whether you’re using Uber or Lyft. However, issues do occur. In 2019 and 2020, for example, there were over 4,800 safety incidents during U.S. Lyft and Uber rides.1 But out of billions of trips total, these companies have safety incident rates of 0.0005 percent and 0.0003 percent...
Am I crazy or is everyone just describing car service? Lots of major cities have private storefronts with a group of drivers and a single person that answers the phones.
The only thing those businesses were ever missing was a good online presence and/or a smartphone app.
The only thing those businesses were ever missing was a good online presence and/or a smartphone app.
Which is, of course, no small thing and the thing that makes uber/lyft thousands of times better than the car service model.
I disagree with this. Uber and Lyft just did it at scale. My local car service can make a website with payment processing without knowing any coding. They don't need a full service app with a global presence. It's not trivial but totally doable.
How old are you? Did you spend any time in the pre Uber days trying to get a cab? Wrong part of NYC? Good luck. Out in the suburbs and you don't know a local cab company's number? Lol never going to happen.
The electronic payment system is not what made it such a big improvement. It's the ability to instantly call a cab almost anywhere, at any time, with no knowledge of anything local. It's the connection between the drivers and the passengers that was the big leap.
I grew up in New York City, called the same car service from my neighborhood wherever I was to get home. The main problem is the suburbs, I agree.
Fuck yea!
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
