How Uber and Airbnb Won

wsj.com

17 points·robterrin··5 comments

More discussion on a similar article by the original author:

"The $99B Idea: How Uber and Airbnb Won" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13505818

Airbnb has not won.. yet.

In my city of Bend, Oregon we have an terribly crafted law that treats you like a big business if you want to rent out your house more than 30 days out of the year.

Airbnb hasn't been able to fight any of these absurd laws in small towns.

Uber/Lyft have had a lot of pushback from Taxi companies and poorly written regulations.

Its not over until Airbnb can compete with hotels and Uber/Lyft drivers can compete with taxi companies.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for regulations. The problem is when laws are written to beat down the little guy in favor of large established organizations.

> AirBnb and Uber have regulations applied to them > Less successful > "It's not over until they can compete with [industries traditionally complying with existing regulation]"

Am I missing something -- are there new regulations that hit Uber/AirBNB in ways that incumbents aren't hit, or are they just not successful when their 'competitive edge' (some would call this 'cheating') is taken away?

I would submit they havent won. Taxes have taken a huge bite out of their dominance, especially in a place like Portland where you pay a city, county, and state tax. Zero sum game.

Uber has a >2$B burn rate. I agree with you. I think GM can win if the execute the complex coordinatiom of Lyft, Cruise & Car Manufacturing but I don't see uber winning as anything but an acquisition

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