I wouldn't exactly call Uber a piece of innovation. It's a phone app for hiring taxi drivers from a pool of cheap labor. You want to claim innovation? Let's find the people torching self-driving cars.
There is a world of difference between "hiring X from a pool of cheap labor" and what Uber does. ODesk is hiring X from a cheap pool of labor. Uber is push a button and you get where you are going.
Fundamentally, Uber is a Walrasian auctioneer that solves the socialist calculation problem within the transportation sector.
Five years ago if I wanted to hire a car to pick me and up and take me somewhere I had to call a taxi company and pray that someone would show up 90 minutes later. Now I hit a button and someone is at my door in ~5 minutes.
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I wouldn't exactly call Uber a piece of innovation. It's a phone app for hiring taxi drivers from a pool of cheap labor. You want to claim innovation? Let's find the people torching self-driving cars.
There is a world of difference between "hiring X from a pool of cheap labor" and what Uber does. ODesk is hiring X from a cheap pool of labor. Uber is push a button and you get where you are going.
Fundamentally, Uber is a Walrasian auctioneer that solves the socialist calculation problem within the transportation sector.
I consider that to be innovation.
Go ahead and consider, but it's an accounting innovation, not a technological one.
Five years ago if I wanted to hire a car to pick me and up and take me somewhere I had to call a taxi company and pray that someone would show up 90 minutes later. Now I hit a button and someone is at my door in ~5 minutes.
Do you think shopping malls are an innovation?
The point is, to be innovative, there should be an innovation. Not just scaling up...