Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

All of that was everyday reality for people outside of the first world countries long before internet was a thing.

1. Flats turned into mini hotels - existed since first highrise appartments started appearing in 3rd world countries

2. Carpooling - old as the world. In smaller Russian cities, people absolutely don't mind driving strangers around for a symbolic sum. In "good ol times" people used to do it for free.

3. Food devilery - phone order pizzas anyone? I remember first internet groceries started at around 1998, and they catered to really rich demographic living in far off suburbs ($30 just for the delivery fee, a daily income of a well off family back in 1998), but later internet only ones started to be displaced by existing grocery chains

4. "Microcommerce" - I don't know why Americans classify just selling anything with an app as such and why it is anything special

5. Regional same day delivery couriers - same story

6. Alibaba thing - classifieds in a newspaper?

All what Americans call the "sharing economy" or "economy 2.0" was what 80% of small business was about outside of the "developed countries"

True, but you had to know/trust the other person. These platforms solve that problem through reviews and handling of payment.

Not so. Ride sharing in other countries often happens without knowing the people you share rides with.

What kind of social fabric do these countries have? What's the crime rate? The US being a very diverse and relatively high crime country makes such acts difficult.

What kind of social fabric do these countries have?

An existent one! In Alaska in the 90's, I also used to get rides from random strangers. In fact, I used to commute to work this way!

> What kind of social fabric do these countries have?

In Germany it is quite common for people to carpool between cities with strangers. We even have websites for pairing drivers with passengers (mitfahrgelegenheit). These have existed since long before Uber.

Say you're driving between SFO and LAX to catch a flight. You put your place/time of departure on the website, and other people can request to ride with you.

Usually there is a small cost to the passengers to split the cost of fuel.

Passengers can then rate the driver/car on things like punctuality, comfort, personality, etc.

>$30 just for the delivery fee, a daily income of a well off family back in 1998

$30/day is $10,950 per year, which in 1998 was only $100 more than the poverty line for a household of 2.[1]

I agree it's a lot of money for a delivery fee, but it's just not true that that's the daily income of a well-off family in 1998.

[1] https://aspe.hhs.gov/1998-hhs-poverty-guidelines

I mean in Russia

What's amazing here is the scale that they're winning at, and doing it in such a rough regulatory environment.

By ignoring regulations.

> Food devilery

Exactly.

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