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After Uber's success, nearly every pitch made by starry-eyed technologists “in Silicon Valley seemed to morph overnight into an ‘Uber for X’ startup" with various companies described now as “Uber for massages,” “Uber for alcohol,” and “Uber for laundry and dry cleaning,” among many, many other things. The conventional narrative is this: enabled by smartphones, enterprising young businesses are using technology to connect a vast market willing to pay for convenience with small businesses or people seeking flexible work. Now Leo Marini writes that the Uber narrative ignores another vital ingredient, without which this new economy would fall apart: inequality.
"There are only two requirements for an on-demand service economy to work, and neither is an iPhone," says Marini. "First, the market being addressed needs to be big enough to scale—food, laundry, taxi rides. Without that, it’s just a concierge service for the rich rather than a disruptive paradigm shift, as a venture capitalist might say. Second, and perhaps more importantly, there needs to be a large enough labor class willing to work at wages that customers consider affordable and that the middlemen consider worthwhile for their profit margins." There is no denying the seductive nature of convenience—or the cold logic of businesses that create new jobs, whatever quality they may be concludes Marini. "All that modern technology has done is make it easier, through omnipresent smartphones, to amass a fleet of increasingly desperate jobseekers eager to take whatever work they can get."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @07:25PM
I don't think on demand will take over everything. However, technology makes arranging, and scheduling, deliveries much easier. I think Uber, and gps maps, take away much of the special skills required for an average driver to operate a taxi.
I think that intracity, same day package delivery might become a distinct service, with special, low rates. Maybe 5 hour old pizza, delivered in a special container. DHL, or UPS could muscle into that business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @07:37PM
That is called a courier or hotshot service. At least in Canada, they are prohibited from charging less than Canada Post would for "first class" (letter) mail.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @07:48PM
I am not the OP, but the way I see it differing from courier services is that with a sufficient market base it doesn't have to be one-offs. That a good scheduling system can optimally route the delivery vehicle to pick up and drop off multiple packages in a single trip - maybe even doing away with the concept of trip such that the vehicle is constantly in motion with a real-time queued pick-up list. Seems like a good operations research kind of problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 19 2014, @08:44PM
That is called a courier or hotshot service. At least in Canada, they are prohibited from charging less than Canada Post would for "first class" (letter) mail.
Who cares about mail service. No one would pay a courier less than $1 to delivery things across town anyway. $5 is probably the minimum.