Read This Before You Build Uber for X | Hacker News Reader

Read This Before You Build Uber for X

blog.ycombinator.com

231 pointscapocannoniere232 comments

I think this misses another critical point.

The platform owner only retains control of the transactions, if they keep the buyer and seller from getting to know one another.

For Uber, thats easy, because the nature of the service means you want a close car (typically, a different one each time)

But for Uber for local babysitting, why would the buyer and seller not just leave the platform permanently after meeting, and transact directly, saving both the fee?

"Sharing economy platform" commercial success depends on avoiding lasting local human connection.

Man, that just kinda feels dirty, but its true. Even for uber! An (ex?)uber driver I know in a semi rural area now just connects directly with locals and runs a charter to and from the nearby city, as those were most of his fares.

It also kinda hurts that the isolation of people is seen as financially viable. I would argue, but with very little to back me up, that there is an intangible (and perhaps a tangible) benefit from closeness to those we associate or do business with, that we are losing.

I've long thought the endgame of Uber is open-source software that continually automatically adjusts how much of the transaction it skims off so that it always has just enough to pay its own AWS bills.

Who would do dispute resolution, driver verification, and background checks? Who would get sued when a driver assaulted a passenger or vice versa?

Just thinking aloud: Uber doesn't actually run driver verification and background checks, they hire other companies for that. In a more decentralized world, drivers would pay for that service themselves and get a digitally-signed certificate that they could upload to the software. Same for being sued: the driver would have to get insurance or escrow a certain lump sum (and upload proof too), so that if someone sued and won, the money could be used to pay for that.

> It also kinda hurts that the isolation of people is seen as financially viable. I would argue, but with very little to back me up, that there is an intangible (and perhaps a tangible) benefit from closeness to those we associate or do business with, that we are losing.

As an introvert, I appreciate that there are services that isolate me from unnecessary contact with people.

Where I live, taxi drivers often try to strike up conversation and get "friendly." Not only that's awkward and uncomfortable for me, here it's also generally not very safe to indulge in chitchat with strangers (you can get marked for scams, muggings or worse.)

I'm an introvert as well...plenty are...but I don't think avoiding "unnecessary contact" is really healthy. Introversion is a weakness as I see it honestly...a negative feedback loop of underdeveloped social skills yielding yet more fear, insecurity around social contact. It's not a binary condition like I'm a Leo or a diabetic. Just saying, it's probably better to view as personal challenge than a condition that needs to be accommodated outright.

Social anxiety and introversion are not the same thing. I am an introvert, and need a lot of alone time to feel properly refreshed. People, even ones I love, wear me out.

But I have no problem whatsoever interacting, and have zero social anxiety. Need me to talk in front of a group? Sure! Meet new folks? Great! And I genuinely enjoy doing these things. But it burns a lot of mental energy to do so. I need quiet alone time, too, and a lot of it.

I say this not to make anyone feel bad about social anxiety, but rather to try and make people not feel like introversion is a defect. It is not, in any way, shape or form. So seriously, don't beat yourself up about feeling introverted, if that is how you are. Anxiety is a different beast, and working on that will help. And if you get it under control, and still enjoy an introverted lifestyle, that is 100% OK, normal, and healthy.

> An (ex?)uber driver I know in a semi rural area now just connects directly with locals and runs a charter to and from the nearby city, as those were most of his fares.

Either he's driving without commercial insurance (very risky) or most of his savings from Uber fees are going towards the same.

Probably the former based on conversations I've had with various drivers. It's a bit more common than people first let on. From the drivers I spoke to that have cut out Uber/Lyft as middlemen, typically they started out on the platform and established a rapport with a customer (almost always a business traveler who has regularly scheduled trips). Customer and rider exchange info and then it's a regularly scheduled under-the-table operation where the circumstances of the ride are incredibly easy to conceal from insurance and even the tax-man.

This is a crucial point. Another way to look at the viability of these casual labor startups is to what degree is the service dependent on trust, and how generic is the delivery?

For the most part, a car driver is the same as any other car driver, but a baby sitter, house cleaner, or dog walker is someone you need to trust with things that you care deeply about. When you find a good one, you'll be happy to pay a premium out-of-network wage to keep them.

Yep, exactly. We're dealing with personal services workers, and in the higher-range, these are not interchangeable. If a client finds a provider and they really mesh, then it's likely they'll directly contact. We'll deal with this by offering very reduced fees for those kinds of repeats. We're also working to expand our services so we still provide value even in such a case, but that can be hard.

A lot of the value we provide is up-front. We verified the providers so we know they perform services and are not LE. We will have verified health status periodically. So if you find someone using our system, that alone is a big endorsement right there. There are multi-million-dollar businesses that only handle that part (and only handle it to a lesser extent).

In the not-high-end range, I think scheduling alone is enough to justify using us. It's annoying to have to message a couple people and wait for their responses versus just having it all automatically booked. Security, too. Plus people are more likely to want to try something new and different.

So, you're going to recruit girls, "try them out", take their pictures, get test STD results, provide physical security for them, verify the identities of their clients, collect payment, provide insurance, and publish an Android app to promote this? And you're going to do it all through Tor because, of course, you need to be anonymous? That is very convenient considering that you're doing a token sale!

I have to say, if I were totally anonymous and my ICO went well I'd probably renege on the whole thing. After all, why would I put myself in serious legal jeopardy by running a form of darknet market when I could just pocket the investors money secure in the knowledge that nobody will feel sorry for them?

Almost: At first the app will be a PWA so that users can use iOS. But yes, the provider side will eventually end up as Android-only app.

These are not really tokens, they are dividend-generating shares that will optionally be recorded via ERC20 tokens. We are using the term ICO only because saying IPO or Blockchain IPO tended to confuse people.

We want to raise secondary rounds to really expand, and screwing Series A investors sounds like the worst way to achieve that goal.

Not necessaarily. A platform can provide value and make a profit. Consider Amazon A2Z Marketplace sellers, who do get to know their buyers. But customers prefer the experience on A2Z over the sellers own website.

See also Android (Google Play Store), where app builders are able to get to know their users (subject to some possibly controversial platform constraints).

Of course one can always do better for oneself by intermediating and rent-seeking on a platform.

the disintermediation issue is actually directly covered in the article. being a commodity service means you're not invested in any perticular service provider, so you don't need or want to escape the platform.

>But for Uber for local babysitting, why would the buyer and seller not just leave the platform permanently after meeting, and transact directly, saving both the fee?

Insurance. Uber/airbnb/rover/etc. provide insurance for both parties. To me that's a critical value add - I want to know that if my dog sitter leaves some chocolate around I won't be out a few grand. The more important the task, the more likely I am to stick with an insured party.

We guarantee payments and provide legal insurance to both sides. But honestly, once you have worked with someone, your trust of them is probably enough for you to decide if you want to keep them on without the insurance.

If you get a worker that is working on a Dog Sitter platform and you've had an appointment or two with them, you're probably going to judge they're OK enough. The insurance is more of a first-time-per-person kind of thing. Same for renting out your house and so on: For the first meeting, yeah it's super important. After that, you'll probably know if you trust them enough to skip the fees.

That is not how insurance works, or rather, people don't just insure against malice perpetuated by untrusted actors.

Example: Say I rent out my house and an electrical fire breaks out. Insurance company says "you were using the premises for commercial purposes at the time of loss and your policy does not cover commercial activity. We won't cover the fire damage." This is a very real possibility you'd find yourself in unless you specifically bought commercial/landlord insurance.

Same for renting out your house and so on: For the first meeting, yeah it's super important. After that, you'll probably know if you trust them enough to skip the fees.

You poor trusting fellow. That's exactly how they get you: pay a few months on time, then stop and live for free until you can evict them. Been there, had it done to me.

I don't usually insure a few thousand dollar risks... I would use a cleaning agency if they credibly promised workers comp... Fixing a damaged human is way more expensive than a damaged dog, or any object I own.

The problem is that as far as I can tell, the maid agencies all use independent contractors, so while they will replace my stuff, I see no evidence they will cover the expensive thing.

Vet bills can easily go up to tens of thousands of dollars, but that's not the point. The point is that I could be away on a mountain backpacking trip for two weeks, and I need to know that the dog sitter has that money easily accessible, because I'm not going to be around to pay for it. Most folks that dog sit don't have huge savings.

I shouldn't say your dog isn't valuable, but I must insist that the human worker is more valuable than the dog.

I do think it is fundamental that an injured worker who was injured on the job is the employers financial responsibility. Anything else creates hugely inefficient externalities and unnecessary human suffering. Worker's compensation law is super important

What should also be addressed is what is keeping users from going to a competitor Uber-for-x. In the case of Uber, there is little lock-in possible. It is relatively simple to duplicate the service (especially compared to the capital that Uber has burned already).

Uber for babysitting could work if it targeted stay at home moms and dads as both users and providers, so I have to watch my kid anyways, why not watch a play date? Or I need a break, perhaps someone could watch my kid for awhile?

Insurance would be a killer, however, and we aren't ones to easily trust our kids with strangers.

Right, but the OP's point is that if I watch your kid for you, and you think I'm doing an OK job, then you and I can reach an arrangement separate from UberSitting. Say UberSitting charges $15/hr, where I get $10/hr and they get $5/hr. When you pick up your kid, I could say "hey, if you pay me $12/hr, then you'll save $3/hr" and then I make an extra $2/hr and UberSitting makes nothing. In other words, once you make that initial connection, you don't need UberSitting anymore.

This is one of the reasons why those cleaning service companies like HomeJoy have floundered, btw.

The on-the-fly nature of Uber is convenient, if you wanted someone to watch your kids NOW, your pre existing relationships might not work out.

Except you would still be more likely to target other parents in the same close-by neighborhood, which would lead to a lot of repeat "business", at which point you would develop relationships with your neighbors with kids of a similar age.

I mean, a business accidentally creating closer, friendlier communities is great, but I think it'd still be a financial failure in the end, because once you've met all your neighbors with kids and trust them, you can just friend them on Facebook and say "Hey, can anyone watch Timmy while I run to the grocery?"

Exactly. This is why Homejoy and every other "repeat by the same contractor" business in this market fails.

The savvy players on the provider side use these companies as a lead generator. Once they've got a new lead, they switch to their private services and they've got a 30% price advantage by cutting out the middleman.

Throw in cash / under the table billing and there's no way to compete against the direct provider. The best part for the providers is they don't even have to advertise the "off the books" offer. Every consumer knows it's there and they seek it themselves.

I love the idea of sharing economy and, since I moved to a rural area, participate in it. Someone, somewhere, has this thing I need currently and they have in excess. Chainsaw, trailer, tractor, scaffolding, baby formula, really long stepladder, time, capable hands, knowledge. I also let people borrow my tools and offer advice/services. Most of the connections I made here were due to a random need and someone who has connected us knowing what the other party had on their disposal. I'm in constant awe experiencing how well it works without apps or platforms. But the crucial part is: no money changes hands in all this. You get something, you give something back to the community.

I have the feeling that the large-scale implementations of sharing use this social interaction as a ground to grow small businesses which offer services to strangers. I'm okay with that, it makes everything more efficient and straightforward, but there's little left of the sharing part of the deal: Hey, why not use your car that would sit in the garage while you waste time to make extra few bucks -> lease a new car and work as not-taxi-driver. Have an empty apartment or go for vacation, let someone occupy it -> get a mortgage for 3 condos and run a totally-not-a-hotel. Tools collecting dust in the shed -> buy a few sets of commonly used powertools and lease it for $xx/day. Etc. "Sharing economy" now means that you cover all the expenses of running a business and share the revenue with the platform that brought you customers. There's very little actual sharing, but the economy works as usual.

I guess my point is: sharing works without intermediaries and there may be no money exchange to take a cut, "sharing" with the intent to make a profit inevitably leads to professionalization and requires the "sharer" to operate a regular business.

I would never lend my chainsaw to an another person.

If they don't own it, they won't take proper care for it.

These things tend to sort themselves out in sharing economies by word-of-mouth. If someone doesn't handle the things trusted to them carefully, no one will share with them anymore.

I don't think the "no money" is necessary. For example, I don't think any drivers in Bla Bla Car do it professionally, since it's not really profitable if you're taking the trip just for the money.

I actually use an Uber for babysitting, Trusted (at usetrusted.com). I think there are a few reasons why I haven't poached a babysitter from the service yet and why it might not happen too often.

1) The cost to me is invisible. I don't know or care what their cut is. I see a rate and pay it.

2) I also get some benefits including online scheduling and pay by credit card.

3) There is an unspoken stigma because it would be a cost-saving measure for the parents but more of a hassle for the babysitter. Would the sitter get more money? Maybe a little? But they wouldn't usually suggest it for the risk of getting tattled on and getting kicked off. Parents might also have this risk. Most good sitters are always booked through the service in SF, so what is their upside?

I'm curious. Do you always use the same sitter? How far in advance do you book your sitter?

We've had a number of babysitters (found via family, recommendations, and job boards), and scheduling is incredibly annoying. We usually have to plan at least a week in advance, and even then there's no guarantee that our sitter is available.

I'd absolutely use a service that connected me to a professional baby sitter who is available tomorrow evening, and I'd pay extra for the flexibility.

(Vetting is also important. We are really happy with our current sitter, but in my experience it's really hard to know in advance)

Or just charge reasonable fees for the service provided (booking, billing etc) and not try to abuse it. If the fee is 2-5% noone would bat an eye

But does the platform necessarily need to profit from every transaction?

Consider a real estate website: They don't get a cut of the monthly rent, they just charge a single fee up front.

The value that these platforms provide is connecting customers with service providers, and this is what should be charged for. The value of the platform goes to zero as soon as the customer/provider know each other.

So here's an idea: maybe the platform should charge only for the first appointment? Sure, revenue per customer is lower, but retention is bigger -- people keep using your service, and next time they need someone on short notice, they will use your website again.

If you run a marketplace, you need to make sure your business model is aligned with your users. If it isn't, you'll fight an uphill battle.

Am I the only one that sees "Uber for X" in a somewhat negative light? In my mind Uber does relate to dominating an industry and getting big, but more in a Microsoft of the 90s sort of way, where there a lot of negative baggage associated with it because of what looks to be unrestrained greed. For example, I'm not sure I would want to advertise my actions as trying to be the next Oracle. That probably only comes across as entirely positive to those that don't know much about Oracle or only care that they make an obscene amount of money.

Is this just me? Or is it perhaps time to retire this idiom?

"Uber For X": "Grab as much as you can by playing match-maker for customers and employees you refuse to classify as employees or treat as employees. Works well if the system you're replacing is so terrible and ossified people are happy to see it go even though drivers may well be making less than minimum wage once gas and other costs are factored in."

100% of the thousands of drivers I have ridden with have said they do not want to be employees and that it's one of the primary reasons for driving for Uber.

The job of professional full-time employed driver already exists and has for decades. Nobody is stopping anyone from doing so and Uber specifically has their Uber Black ride class for it.

You mean 100% of those you have asked, right? Or do you ask that question to every Uber driver you ride with?

I've asked all of them except an early few rides in 2012 when it was only Uber Black in Los Angeles. Talking about Uber is almost always how every conversation has started.

they do not want to be employees

If thats all it was, OK. But the reality is they also don't want to pay their fair share for road maintenance or the NHS or anything else the country provides.

What do you mean? Not being an employee doesn't mean you don't pay taxes on income.

Road damage is almost all caused by trucks and subsidized by car drivers (gas taxes go up linearly with axle weight but road damage goes up parabolically).

They may not want to be considered employees, but by IRS definitions they probably are. Uber has too much control over the schedule and manner in which the work is performed to claim they are truly independent contractors.

What control does Uber have over the drivers' schedule?

Then perhaps it's time to make the law around this more clear, the same as transportation rules themselves have to evolve to allow ride-sharing in all places.

It's used in the context of "convenient mobile on-demand ease of ordering" regardless of complexity or past traditions.

I don't see many looking at is as running a company the same as Uber itself. Either way, it's a tired idiom and hasn't actually described any other company very well.

I think Uber for X is a fine term. It's short and conveys the idea unambiguously.

It also filters out people who can't separate their feelings for Uber from the abstract idea being discussed, which tends to be a net win.

The main issue is that Uber for X is very hard to pull off, as the article illustrates. So it doesn't really matter how you pitch it.

Grubhub is Uber for food, for example. Perfect description and no negative baggage.

"Uber for food" doesn't convey anything to me.

GrubHub is a food delivery service, isn't it?

"Uber for X" became the Uber for analogies and it's definitely not used as much today than a few years ago due to their current situation and issues.

I agree with you.

In my mind, if you have to market your app/service/startup as "uber for X" you've already lost the marketing battle, and possibly the entire fight to get your product to market.

For one, it's lazy. As a consumer - if you tell me your product is like another product, I will automatically and repeatedly compare your product to the original. And no, your product will not ever take the place as the "original", even if they exist to serve different functions.

It's also lazy because you (the dev) can't be bothered to explain your product/app/service in a meaningful, simple way. Instead, you make me (the user) draw comparisons and try to parse what it actually does. This sets the user up for disappointment when the functionality doesn't match up to the "uber" in the equation.

The best way to get around this is to stop using Uber as the golden standard for comparison. "Service platform", "peer to peer service", "on demand service", etc.. are all better choices IMO.

Every time I see the "Uber for X" tagline anywhere near a product I immediately lose interest. It's a shame, because I'm sure there are a ton of good products being over shadowed by the over saturation of Uber in popular vernacular, media, and gossip.

This exclusionary mindset isn't helpful. No matter how much we wish the term would go away, it won't. The article has "Uber for X" in the title for a reason.

The term will go away the same way it came in: through people using it.

Could you explain how it's exclusionary? Not following.

As much as I wish it would go away, I understand it wont because it's low hanging fruit. That's my issue - is that it's lazy marketing at best.

Well, you're looking for reasons to exclude someone. Instead of judging each case on its own merits, you apply a sweeping filter to all cases.

Think of all the things that make you instantly hate someone vs instantly like someone. Which list is longer?

It's easy to argue abstractly that a whole class of ideas are bad just because one instance is unfashionable. But if you only use terms because they're trendy instead of accurate, you're restricting yourself from coming up with the best ideas.

If "Uber for X" is the best way to describe something, then it's the best way. There's no reason to use euphemisms unless you're nervous about public opinion. I think it's more respectable to stick with "Uber for X" even when it's unpopular. People will always hate you for one reason or another, but at least you can resist bullies.

ah I see. Thanks for elaborating.

I get the point you're making, and in general I would agree. However, in this case ("uber for x") the term is so prevalent in tech/start up culture that I find it hard to believe it's the best way to describe every single product it's getting slapped on.

To me it would be the same as labelling every single new fast food chain as "The McDonalds of clam cakes" or "The McDonalds of pizza".

Nice timing. We are working on "Uber for Sex" or "Tinder + Buy It Now". On the lower end of the market, it can be a low skilled job in the sense that a lot of people know how to have sex well enough to satisfy a lot of clients. Certainly going upscale or into niche offerings that doesn't hold true. So our system is somewhat split into people primarily booking on cost and schedule, versus people booking on the entire experience. I think we'll manage to handle both acceptably enough for all parties involved.

On-demand? There are a lot of scheduling difficulties. Getting a sex worker on short notice, even in a popular and mostly-legal city is a nightmare. And it runs into the Airbnb-pre-instant-booking issue: You contact several people, they don't all get back right away. Then an hour later, you have several replies, and since you can't book them all, some end up annoyed you're wasting their time. Not to mention any screening issues or other deal-breakers.

And if someone does have some last-minute availability? They can't easily fill that slot. It's hard to just offer sex work in a few hours here and there - you'll spend all your time answering phones.

But it isn't just the "Uber" aspect that we're working. Sex workers lack cohesive unions and shared resources. We'll be able to pool for things like security agents. We can handle client verification one time and be done.

We'll do photography of workers, then advertising and bring clients in. This benefits less entrepreneurial workers that don't want to try to manage an online presence, deal with SEO, try to A/B test their photos and copy, etc.

There are other similarities. Uber had to avoid LE, so do we. Uber has to deal with partial cash payments and reconcile, so do we. Uber offers some insurance, so do we (legal). But we'll be far less sexist than Uber, that's for sure.

There's no way you survive the eventual law enforcement issues here. Uber circumvented law enforcement on certain issues by operating in a legal gray zone - you're offering a platform that will unquestionably make you a prime target for an FBI investigation, at the very least.

EDIT: And it's not just the sex aspect of what you're doing. Your business model is going to be so ripe as a target for a money laundering investigation.

Assuming that they're in the states.

Or anywhere in Europe! And don't forget that the US legal authorities have a very long arm internationally - especially when it comes to things like money laundering.

> Or anywhere in Europe!

Not sure what you mean there. If you meant their core business is illegal, Wikipedia[0] seems to disagree (of course I wouldn't trust Wikipedia and would consult competent legal counsel if it were me).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostitution_in_Europe

I mean that the money laundering issues put them in the sights of the EU authorities.

They could just kidnap them too. Extraordinary Rendition is possible if unlikely but given the New Zealand GCSB's behaviour they have to assume the local security service/secret police will be out to get them too.

Prostitution is legal in Germany at least.

Surely this post is Satire...

It's not. :/

https://pinkapp.io/ (nsfw)

If it is, then it's very thorough. Looking at the OP's profile, there's a link to the site and everything. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction...

We're completely serious and have already raised some money (doing a blockchain fundraiser right now to get the rest to open our first market). We're operating as an extrajurisdictional company. De-anonymization is a risk, though we are taking a lot of measures to prevent that and, well, obviously we are OK with the risk.

This is basically the only way someone can actually help sex workers. Disclose your identity and do what we're doing and they come after you.

Well... there is a way, it just involves anonymity networks and cryptocurrencies and probably drives away most of the market on both sides.

If you look at our offering, I think we have found a great spot between "lol bitcoin sex workers over Tor" and a full SV startup with a HQ on Market St.

We accept cash payments, so that eliminates a huge barrier to entry. You can use our app, verify yourself, make a date, pay in cash.

The anonymity part applies to the core team and servers so we can continue to operate the platform. We have strong privacy guarantees for workers, unlike Eros.com/Backpage/etc. (For instance, we watermark each picture with the viewing client's ID, so if they leak or repost photos, we know who to ban.)

Our gateway-to-Tor approach lets users access it without using Tor directly. (In the Android app, we will bootstrap connectivity so we don't rely on a domain as a SPOF.) [1]

Talk to sex workers: We offer real solutions to real problems. We aren't just some nerds in a basement thinking blockchain and code can solve any problems.

1: https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-ano... (Original title was about latency for anonymity tradeoff, but we changed it to mention how Silk Road would still be online for the clicks.)

The LE issues I meant that Uber had a blacklist for LE agents using Uber. They actively prevented LE from using the service. This is one of our core features.

First I hoped this was a troll (being American). Then I hoped that it was Australian. Then I saw where you compared yourself to Silk Road. Now I just hope you have lawyers. :)

I know they don't have lawyers, because lawyers would laugh them out of the building. Let's build a company around criminal conspiracy, there's no way that could go wrong.

Why is it conspiracy?

Not everybody lives in conservative religious countries.

I expect that the moment we operate in the US (next year), someone will want to press conspiracy charges against us, regardless of where we are or local laws. Plus living in a place where this is fully legal (very few places) is not a viable defense strategy. We must rely on anonymization technology, limited trusted humans (core cell < 5 people), and probably rotate our core team within a year or two.

High risk, decent reward, and really making a positive contribution to humanity (sex workers are often victimized -- did you know some places won't even recognize rape against a sex worker?).

It might be illegal (hence us operating as an anonymous EJC) but it is very ethical.

Why don't you operate in places where it's legal? Like Germany, UK, Switzerland, Netherlands etc.

Semi legal in the UK. They operate as 'escort agencies' where the agency just provides a girl to escort you as it were for a limited fee and then if you want the other services you pay the girl in cash which is legal in the UK. But for the agency to take a money directly for sex services would end up with prison time.

the_stc might consider something like that? It reduces the legal risk.

Yeah, but doesn't it increase the risk for the worker, if the client doesn't pay or demands their money back?

The long arm of US law is not so easily dissuaded.

Violating the laws of other countries is illegal in the US. Even if you've never set foot on US soil or transacted with any US persons or companies, you might still be liable for your actions elsewhere, especially if you're an international company. Maybe money transits through the US, or data, and boom.

IANAL but it's not so simple as just drawing a bright line around the US and staying out - though that is a significant first step. They can reach out and touch you for things like... money laundering! Which of course sounds a lot like what the_stc is doing, laundering the profits of illegal (in the US) transactions. It doesn't even need to be illegal where you are, or where the clients are.

The thing is, they are actually identifying a lot of real world problems and there is absolutely a market for what they are doing, both in terms of Johns looking for a sex worker, as well as sex workers looking for marketing, security, and insurance. If sex work was legal in more places, this would be a very viable business, assuming they manage to avoid the pitfalls Uber fell into: sexism and harassment, ignoring labor laws, getting involved in corporate espionage.

But in the current legal system, yeah good luck. And good luck raising money.

Yes, they're identifying real world problems, but they're not solving it. You can't simultaneously have anonymity, while providing security for sex workers. These are both stated goals, across their various outlets.

The anonymity is for our core team, so we can stay operational[1]. But that is very few people. Other contractors are trustless. On-ground people will be rotated often enough (and well paid to compensate for that).

Obviously actual workers can't remain anonymous when they meet users :]. But we can screen everyone involved to reduce the risk of LE infiltration. For providers, we will actually take their pictures, check ID, and make sure they actually provide service (just a 2 minute "test"): something an undercover cop will not do.

Or maybe I am misunderstanding, how do you feel we are not solving things?

1: https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-ano...

1) You seem to have gotten your legal advice from Badger, and not Saul.

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/crime-courts/2017/05/07/bill...

Forcing the narc to snort coke is not a viable means of weeding them out.

2) In places where it is illegal to buy, you have to provide anonymity for the buyers. Looks like you're already making plans to do just that. Good for you. You're now no longer capable of keeping your contractors safe.

---

My advice to you: Commit one crime at a time. Even Uber managed to do that. :P

1: I suppose it's possible that enough undercover cops are going to have sex with strangers to make a bust. I agree this does not work for clients (often male) - a cop won't mind having to touch someone for a bit. But a provider (often female), having sex with someone for a sting? I'm not sure that'll be common.

On top of that, for them to collect more evidence, they'd have to continuously engage in having sex with strangers. If they stop, they'll get us to investigate as they'd be red-flagged right away (just like in Uber, if the driver drops you off in the middle of nowhere, you're going to open a support ticket right away). All this to get a few buying prostitution charges?

2: We provide privacy, not anonymity for both parties. We will verify identities to each provider's desired level. The verification stays within Pink's platform and isn't exposed to the provider. So the client can know we're not sharing this info, and the provider knows we have checked out the client. We show a picture of the other person when they meet. If it's not the same as who we verified, they can cancel the date or request security. (We have an article that will go out today explaining our secure in-person date protocol).

You seem to have not considered rewards and informants. Law enforcement doesn't need to personally be party to a transaction to gather evidence of it.

Re anonymity, comparison to Silk Road etc.: do you have a dual BA in math and CS from Rice?

> make sure they actually provide service (just a 2 minute "test")

If that's implying what I think it is, that's an extraordinarily chilling thing to mention as a parenthetical.

It's not chilling, why do you say that?

As part of the onboarding process, the worker will perform sample services. We will pay them for this (along with referral fees if they were referred). Having sex with people is what a sex worker's job is. It's just that the client in this case will report to us and verify their ID.

Seems like a good way to filter out people that are not serious or have ulterior motives (such as law enforcement).

No, it doesn't, though it seems to be the standard method that people ignorant of law enforcement come up with and think they have solved the problem of keeping LE out.

For a start, if soliciting prostitution is illegal, the LE agent doesn't have to perform service, they just have to bust the “client/screener”, and turn them so that they report back properly.

You're correct, this can be subverted. Though it would not last very long. The thing many people seem to forget when talking to us is that this business is already happening. People are working off classified ad sites, like eros.com. The verification procedures are being used by workers charging from $$$ to $$$$. So while this isn't perfect, it's far better than anything existing.

And in the end, what does LE end up with by doing all this? A few individual prostitution "busts", with no real change.

turn them so that they report back properly.

But that only works if the client/screener can actually lead you anywhere.

It also works if you want to keep arresting Johns and make the service unreliable in your jurisdiction, too.

Note that a similar technique also works for criminal gangs interested in robbing Johns who want to exploit your platform for their funnel.

Theoretically you're right. In practice no jurisdictions are actually carrying out a denial of service on escorts. They could. They could buy ads and people to comply and turn over intel and on and on... yet they don't. There's a few busts here and there, mostly when they can take down a whole brother/agency/parlor. Plus low-level arrests, typically against minorities, for prostitution.

> But we can screen everyone involved to reduce the risk of LE infiltration.

Criminal conspiracies always seem to think this, and its a belief that quite often leads to their downfall.

Because (1) law enforcement can pass screenings designed to weed them out, (2) law enforcement informants can pass screenings that law enforcement might not, and (3) law enforcement can turn people after they are screened.

We're probably going to mostly fill our Series A within a week (turning on the site in an hour or two). We have lots of expressed interest already. It's not hard for investors. Use Tor when trading our ERC20 token-shares, or pay with Monero - very hard to trace. We're working on the dividend-payment system, but it's safe to say we will offer high anonymity there, too.

The demand for our solution is HUGE, and it is a lucrative business.

Our starting cities (Dublin or Toronto) have legal sex work, but everything around it is illegal (including buying!). That removes the main risk for our workers, to the point we are offering $25,000 legal coverage for all users.

Our core team is small, everyone else are trustless contractors. We are operating as an extrajurisdictional, anonymous, company. De-anonimization is a risk, but we're familiar with operating this way and are OK with the risk. We're also offering up to $100,000 bug bounty, including for de-anon attacks.

The odds are not in your favor when you're up against a nation state with unlimited resources.

I hope your investors have good lawyers. Prison is no fun and proper opsec forever is not practical.

That isn't the problem. It's more likely that if they are anonymous that they simply take the money from investors and run.

Any measure they take to protect themselves from the law also protects them from their investors, since a lawsuit necessarily relies on the law to enforce an agreement.

We're only raising a Series A right now. To globally expand, we're going to need to blockchain IPO, aimed at January when the first city is running. We are holding back a chunk of stock for secondary offerings because we may need a future raise. We want to grow fast and big, and that's not cheap. It's a highly profitable business so we won't need billions but still.

We're investigating how we can enforce some of the rules via smart contracts, but there's still likely to be loopholes.

As someone who is doing a similarly-shady project without any investment, this whole idea that you can take money via blockchain and get away with it is stupid.

You're going to get caught. Then what?

The only way to do projects like this is to do it free, without receiving any substantial amount of money. I'm probably going to do an ICO, but it's solely to cover my own dev costs. The token won't have any utility. I won't have "investors" in the sense that people are expecting a >10x return. They're only "investing" in the vision and the people, not monetary returns.

You can't just take untraceable money for making a prostitution app and then expect the world to be ok with what you're doing. Heck, people will hate me for my project if it goes anywhere and the only thing that will save me (hopefully) is that I didn't try to turn a profit while doing it.

Raising money and trying to build out a huge team while skirting the law so flagrantly is a pipe dream and it makes me question your motives.

The vast majority of our contractors are going to be hired in a trustless manner and do not pose a risk to Pink itself. The only people that do are well-known, trusted, people that have been though previous projects.

As far as getting the money out, first, a lot of the business is cash and the providers just keep it, just like today. The profits mostly go to investors, so we're talking anyone who buys an ERC20-tokenshare. Use Tor, tumble coins and then run through ZCash and Monero if you're really concerned.

Look at all the indictments for similar projects. So far there's been no real tracing of money, just huge opsec errors.

> We're only raising a Series A right now.

So, just to clarify, your answer to the objection that investors have absolutely no legal recourse against you and no way to enforce their equity stake is to say that you aren't really asking them for that much money, and you might ask them for way more later?

I certainly grant that you might get away with this enterprise. Criminals get away with crime all the time, and sometimes make a ton of money doing it. There's simply no way for an outside investor to make money off of your criminal activity though. If you have no issue with breaking the law, why wouldn't you also break an agreement with your investors, especially when you have a huge financial incentive to? I mean, if you already have the FBI after you, why would you have any qualms about breaking some silly little contract, especially since you are anonymous and by your own admission quite good at protection your anonymity?

There is no way to answer your question in a way that will satisfy you. The best way to assuage your concerns is to hop on Slack and talk to him. He doesn't make himself hard to talk to.

It's always a risk. But investors choose whether to take that risk. And from speaking to at least one of their potential investors, they don't seem to be too bothered by that since they have gobs of ETH. They stand to lose $10k but make much more.

It's a greedy motive that will likely result in them losing their money, but meh. It's their call.

> There is no way to answer your question in a way that will satisfy you.

Most startups answer this question quite well. I am hardly asking for something difficult. What's special about this one? Uber, despite the grey areas in it's business, is legally bound to it's investors. It's founders are not anonymous and can be held to their agreements.

> It's always a risk. But investors choose whether to take that risk.

Usually the risk is that you will lose money if the business fails and make your money back if it succeeds. In this case, the business has no rational reason to pay you anything even if it succeeds. Most startups fail, but for this one, none of it's founders has any skin in the game. They don't even suffer a hit to their reputation if they walk away, because they're anonymous!

> The best way to assuage your concerns is to hop on Slack and talk to him. He doesn't make himself hard to talk to.

Is this your standard? Jordon Belford would have passed this with flying colors. Anyone who is any good at sales knows how to sound honest despite the veracity of their sales pitch.

>If you have no issue with breaking the law

We have no issue breaking an unfair, unjust law that actively hurts people. Example: A judge ruled that the gang-rape of a sex worker was merely "theft of services".

And what is the workflow for filing a claim based on the coverage you offer?

> It's not hard for investors. Use Tor when trading our ERC20 token-shares, or pay with Monero - very hard to trace.

What recourse does an investor have against you to force you to pay their share of the profits, or recover their investment when you have an exit if the relationship is under the table? I'm sure you make it easy for an investor to give you money in a grey fashion, but what enforceable guarantees do they have that they own part of your business?

Or are you taking money from organizations/entities that aren't worried, because they have more "direct" ways of enforcing their claim over you? Every measure you take to protect yourself from law enforcement also protects you from any attempt from investors to sue you or reclaim their money.

They're coming down hard on Backpage - I don't see how this cannot end in tears.

Yes and they will come down on The Erotic Review and others next. (Which is OK, TER is terrible for sex workers and reduces their safety.)

As for tear-avoidance: https://medium.com/@PinkApp/pink-app-trading-latency-for-ano...

This isn't our first rodeo.

That is a good idea for a lot of reasons. It would be a platform that could be built out to incorporate drug sales too since a lot of times someone might want to buy weed in a city they are visiting but not want to root around the streets or the internet trying to find a source. So, there is a lot of potential. I think you should do all of the transactions in bitcoin though, giving the fact that transaction processing is going to be a huge hassle. I can't believe Uber is able to process transactions at all given the illegal nature of what they are doing in most cities.

We are going to take a HARD anti-drug stance to keep the platform clean and reduce issues. Obviously we cannot stop users from consuming, but we will not allow it as a service (no "420 friendly" listing). But introducing drugs puts a higher strain on our security forces, and just makes things messier all around. It'll invite more public criticism. What we are doing improves the lives and safety of sex workers. Adding drugs to the mix detracts.

We are going to accept cash as well as cryptocurrencies (preferably ZCash or Monero). Cash reduces the barrier to entry as people already pay for services in cash. In some markets, in limited cases (higher-cost workers) we may accept credit cards, too, but it's tricky. A lot of workers already do, so it's possible, just a pain.

As much as I like your boldness and ambition for a total anonymous company you forget one thing: Once you work with people (what you do, your team has five members you wrote) you will have conflicts and then you might be blackmailed by your own team.

However, you shouldn't care since you are operating in and for countries where your operation is legal. So, why all this anonymization buzz? There is a founder who does what do publicly as a female CEOs creating huge press awareness (of course not in the US).

There are few jurisdiction where everything relating to prostitution is legal. And once you operate in countries where it's not, you're opening yourself up to attacks and really relying on some country to not be convinced to extradite you or invent charges.

The core team is much smaller than that. There are a couple advisers/seed investors, but they are not all aware of each other (that's the 5 number). In every person's case, this is not our first rodeo. This is one of the key issues and I feel we have it handled. Everyone else will be hired in a trustless manner and investors have no part in day to day operations.

There are few jurisdiction where everything relating to prostitution is legal.

The few jurisdictions where it is legal, it is extremely regulated, and they don't mess around with the rules surrounding it.

The places where it isn't legal, you'll be running up against both governments and criminal organizations.

I really hope this is all a troll, but the fact that I'm not 100% sure worries me.

>The few jurisdictions where it is legal, it is extremely regulated, and they don't mess around with the rules surrounding it.

That is why we are not relying on any specific jurisdiction but operating extrajurisdictionally.

This is not a troll. Two of us have already quit our jobs and have been on this full time for a couple months.

I would say good luck, but I actually think it's a terrible idea, so I hope you fail quickly and move on to something more worthwhile.

> Everyone else will be hired in a trustless manner

How do yo hire people without even telling them your name?

It's a lot easier than you think. The basic outline is:

>people want money

>we give them money

We already even have debit cards by hiring other people to set them up.

so it is more like airbnb.

schedule Management hell. plus lawsuits from everywhere :)

So let's see:

* Accepting the investments and actually delivering what's promised. Massive risk from organizing/coordinating an actual team, pissing off authorities, huge contact surface with many involved people that will happily help FBI trace the founders.

* Running away with the money. Low risk, low contact surface (website + bitcoin, similar to WannaCry?), 100% anonymous. Nobody will run to the police claiming that they have invested into something illegal and looked down upon lured in by a 200% ROI promise and now want they money back.

Stepping into the founders' shoes, I'd say it's much riskier to NOT run away with the money...

We already have a core team, and 2 other trustworthy, known, not-first-time, people to bring on. The rest will be hired in a fully trustless fashion.

Unlike other ICOs[1], we're offering shares with dividends. Plus, we have an actual, real, business model that can generate significant profits.

1: I hate the term ICO for what we're doing, but calling it an IPO generated confusion. We're quick to distinguish the difference, though.

I am not a lawyer, so all ideas from here on are probably wrong either because of something obvious or because of some common law ruling.

In the UK, Prostitution is not illegal, but running a brothel/pimping is illegal. Therefore, I think a sufficiently, generic service might be able to operate in the UK (If it were done on the basis of one prostitute operating their own shop - so to speak). This is of course dependent on whether it is illegal to pimp out oneself.

Not being a lawyer, however, I don't know whether whether an implication of prostitution (even if the service were generic) would be sufficient to prosecute on grounds of pimping/running an e-brothel.

You should call it "Unter".

<ducks>

Along with all the other valid criticism below you also seem to be assuming that the sex working business has a problem to solve. Do you actually have sex workers on staff? Have you talked to an entity like the Prostitute's Collective here in New Zealand (sex working is decriminalised here in NZ and the PC was heavily involved) about what their members would want?

I suspect that Clients and sex workers are really going to struggle with the technical complexity, unknown trust layering and eventual demise. Meanwhile every financial regulator, starting with the SEC, will throw the book at your fund raising, and your baiting behaviour as evidenced here will encourage authorities in multiple jurisdictions to track you down. Sex workers have a tough lot, and deserve a lot better than this.

The way I see it, there are three main things that contributed to Uber's success:

1. As discussed in the article, the service they provide is commoditized making both employee skill and customer to employee relationships irrelevant. If I like the person providing the service, what incentive is there for me to not to continue to work with that person outside of the app?

2. They connect people who are looking for a service with an untapped market of unskilled contractors who can provide that service. I would never become a full time taxi driver but I might consider driving for a ride sharing service if I needed extra cash. A layperson like me is never going to work for an Uber for massages.

3. There is preexisting regulatory capture in the market that allows the new entrant to provide a much better or cheaper service than the incumbents (although here be legal dragons).

Ideas like Uber for massages or Uber for housecleaning don't work because they fail all three of those conditions. Companies that meet multiple conditions tend to be more successful. Postmates for example meets the first two conditions while Airbnb meets all three.

> while Airbnb meets all three

Heh. Given that AirBnB is a year older, really we should call Uber the "AirBnB for car rides".

Perhaps. But Uber found product-market fit faster than AirBnB, which if I remember correctly took a while to grow from being "just for actual airbeds" for concert attendees to offering private rooms.

In the beginning, AirBnB was like Couchsurfer but with payments.

The article doesn't mention providers dealing directly with the customer to avoid paying a percentage to the app. In any service business like housekeeping where you have a long term relationship between the customer and the provider, this is going to be an issue.

The article indirectly discusses this by talking about how an app can provide value to pros in specialties with various characteristics, but I think that it should have started with by saying "if you think you can take a 30% cut of every transaction in a service business without actually providing substantial value in every transaction, it's not going to happen."

If I recall, this is one of the problems Homejoy had. What incentive was there to keep using a matchmaker once you've found your match? It was beneficial for both parties to form their own, direct relationship.

I'm amazed that this article and most of the comments implicitly assume that Uber is succeeding, and therefore useful as a an example of a successful platform startup.

Uber seems to be failing badly so far, losing increasing amounts of money. The ridiculous corporate shenanigans Uber has been generating seem of a piece with a company that had massive investments, with expectations, and no clear path to profitability.

Here's a link to a page that has some detailed, and damning, critical analysis of Uber's prospects.

The gist of his argument is that Uber is gaining market share by substantially selling their product below cost. But they have not found some kind of magic solution to lowering the cost of providing their services by taking advantage of scale or network effects.

The author argues that Uber is actually a high cost provider, in comparison to traditional taxi services.

http://horanaviation.com/Uber.html

This is pretty interesting and apt. One thing I'd quibble with is their claim that many professional skills aren't fungible; this is true in general but there are many cases where a non-fungible skill is fungible for a major use case.

In particular I'm thinking of doctors. I care a lot about having exactly the right doctor (a good one, a specialist, etc) much of the time, but there are many medical services where I simply need anyone competent to pass their boards with a prescription pad. (I have been taking the same three or four prescriptions since I was six for a few common ailments--I don't need someone to tell me special information about albuterol.)

Right. And there is an app for that called Doctor On Demand which is where I have been getting my Albuterol prescriptions.

There are other similar apps I believe but none that seemed too competitive.

The "skill versus urgency" illustration has me wondering if the author foresaw or even intended the resulting arguments over whether or not, for example, web design requires more skill than dog training. It's one way to get people talking about the article, I suppose.

Uber succeeded because they can reliable predict demand for services. They have both historical data (rush hours, regular commute, etc.) and also future data (sporting events, concerts, night life, etc.)

I looked at starting an Uber for healthcare when it was getting hot, but I thought again about the problem. It's not possible to predict who will be sick when and where and doctors are very expensive. Having doctors go to people's homes is a lose lose situation because the time they spend driving is time they could spend helping patients.

Great article.

Another thing to consider before you build Uber for X: there will come a time, perhaps in the next couple of years, when people stop tolerating having monopoly technology companies as intermediaries for everything. Or they will tolerate some business involvement when it really is a deep value add, but there will be much more competition and the types of fees being charged will have to be much more reasonable.

The reason these companies become so huge so fast is of course because what they are mainly doing is managing basic logistics and information flow (payment being part of that).

The reason we need these companies, or think we need them, is because we do not yet have practical and popular decentralized systems that can replace them. Most people are not aware of the existence of decentralized platforms that could possibly replace the centralized servers and banks.

But these decentralized platforms do exist and more innovations happen every day. Popular examples are Bitcoin and Ethereum but that barely scratches the surface of what is actually already a large ecosystem of peer-based systems with many types of capabilities.

And I know that it will be really hard to convince most people that these services could exist without centralized servers or payment intermediaries. But maybe look into places like reddit.com/r/rad_decentralization or r/Ethereum to start to get an idea.

Has that ever happened before in the history of mankind with something significant?

Well, have any two parties ever switched from transferring money via bank to sending each other Bitcoin in the history of mankind?

Have any people switched from using Skype to using a p2p webrtc video chat service in the history of mankind?

Have any people switched from using a proprietary network service like Prodigy to using the internet in the history of mankind?

Not in any significant numbers. Skype is still the king of video chat, most people (all who aren't in tech) have never heard of bitcoin.

Oil. Well, not oil itself, since we're still heavily dependent on oil right now. (Solar and alternatives are shaping up very quickly though!) At the turn of the 20th's century, the oil tycoons like John D. Rockefeller controlled significant percentage of the US GDP. (Google/Apple/Facebook/Snap's billions are a pittance in comparison next to the US' GDP of $18.6 trillion).

Those oil fortunes were achieved via a wide variety of anti-competitive business practices, and those practices are illegal today because the oil tycoons' business practices stopped being tolerated, and US antitrust law largely originates from this era.

Companies still control and distribute oil, even if it isn't monopolistic today, it definitely is not decentralized.

That's my gut reaction to all new cloud services. It has been my gut reaction for over 20 years, in fact. I once thought a lot about building a Dropbox-like service, but I eventually decided it would fail because decentralized services would take over instead. Then Dropbox came along... and did not fail. Against all my intuition, today, it's probably more popular than ever.

I've come to realize my intuition about cloud services is wrong because I consistently underestimate how much people struggle with technology. Dropbox became popular because it solved a problem in a way that was simple for anyone with a computer or mobile device. The same story applies to nearly all consumer-focused cloud services.

If decentralized services are ever going to take the place of cloud services, they need to be at least as easy to use and helpful to common computer users. Personally, I can't think of even one decentralized service that matches a cloud service in ease of use.

That could change with the evolution of the Internet, but I sure don't see that change happening now. I want to be wrong, because I think decentralized is technically superior.

the article nailed it: for an "uber for x" to work, it requires (1) commodity, low skill service combined with (2) on demand scheduling.

one thing it's 2x2 matrix implies is that both taxi services and delivery services share a common appropriateness as "good" automatable services. but that's not true. they certainly differ on the scheduling metric - delivery is not nearly as on-demand as taxi service.

but there is another, more important variable that differentiates these two: lcationality.

while a taxi service can start and end anywhere, delivery services are constrained to start at particular locations, which makes logistics and routing the primary challenge to overcome. you have to get vehicles to the pickup point each time, which wastes time and money. delivery companies try to overcome this in a variety of ways:

1) trying to deliver "anything" (deliv, postmates) to approximate a more even geographic distribution of pickup points

2) subsidizing delivery through membership (amazon)

3) making delivery incidental to the core service (instacart is a marketing channel disguised as a delivery service)

i'm sure there are dozens of other ways that companies are trying to overcome this inherent last-mile logistics problem, but it's a real differentiator between taxi and delivery.

The solution I think is a little more like what a salon does - a good, shared platform.

I think if somebody wrote a Uber for x planning on the 1 on 1 repeat business, they'd be fine... and how?

1) Provide real value for provider - an easy to use billing platform, scouting out of the upfront work and risk, and classification of the customer and (here's what I think would be the big one) work schedule management.

2)Provide real value for the customer, it be being able to evaluate a provider, get good ratings (and here's the kicker) if the preferred provider isn't available, they don't have to go hunting.

3) Let providers recommend each other. Temper that with user ratings and platform specific ratings. Have users report when a job isn't done right, or another visit needs to be made, etc. But the provider peer ratings are like "I have too much work to provide x, you should try John, I trust his work."

4) The categorization of work could have meaningful use to the providers - it lets providers specialize further than they normally could otherwise, and provide a platform to fall back on.

> The reason for this high failure rate is most founders underestimate the intricacies and nuances of the specific service industries they are trying to uberize.

(tongue in cheek) So build a platform which allows startups to build Uber for X. The real market is a desire to emulate Uber with lots of VC money pouring in. This is not unlike selling shovels during gold rush.

This is a decent writeup because it defines what "an uber" is and what it means to be a business like that.

How many "Uber for X" businesses label themselves that way because of interactions like this one, where customers and investors are so focused on Uber as some kind of canonical startup that there's attempts to squeeze unrelated business models into it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syoqjYLDs48#t=19m31 (specifically 21m56s and 24m9s)

This video is four years old, so it's good to know that claims of "Uber of X" are getting long in the tooth. It'll help to start agreeing on definitions and get away from the buzzwords.

This article is excellent.

It takes a common idea (Uber for X), puts it through a simple but appropriate 2x2 lens (skill & scheduling), and produces a valuable insight with broad applicability (most markets are not like taxis).

Thanks to Sam Madden for writing it and to you for sharing it.

The fascinating thing about this writeup is that it's even necessary.

The analysis it presents is a pretty straightforward one. It's the kind of basic contemplation of product-market fit I'd expect anyone starting a new business to undertake before spending a significant amount of time or money on it. In other words, it's a simple sanity check.

What makes this one fascinating is that apparently so many people out there have tried to start "Uber-for-X" businesses without even doing a simple sanity check first that it's necessary for a third party to do it just to prevent even more lemmings from marching off the cliff.

>Technology cannot necessarily miraculously make the pro more skilled at their job

Well, in the case of Uber that's exactly what it did. Uber wouldn't be possible at all without consumer GPS routing apps, that's one of the reasons (at least ostensibly) for regulating taxis. Cf The Knowledge, London taxi drivers' training that is so extensive it actually can be detected on a brain scan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_Kingdom...

"It worked great for local transportation services, so why could it not be applicable across all types of industries?"

Dit it really work that great for Uber? Are the drivers doing all right? Did the company make the world progress? Is it even profitable? Are the clients happy about Uber's service? These are important questions to consider before trying to replicate their model, and I'm pretty sure not everybody feel the same way about this success.

"It is rare that one plans their day around transportation" - it wasn't the main point of the article, but that's not my experience. Many of the people I know who, like me, commute into New York from the suburbs plan their day around the train (when is the express train, when is the last train that runs every 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes, and so on).

Apologies for an unrelated question but, what is the formal name of this chart indicated in the blog? Scatter plot?

https://blog.ycombinator.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Befo...

Yeah, it's a 2d scatter plot.

Submitted this article as I'm curious about what the HN community has to say. Apologies if this is a re-post

You can use the search form in the footer to determine whether a post has been submitted before. In this case, it was submitted two weeks ago, though it garnered very little attention.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15042817

In general, it is good to check to confirm whether it's a dupe. In the case of submissions that haven't had much discussion, it's okay to resubmit.

I think urgency should be driven by lead time (when i want it - when i get it).. for e.g. Getting a web design guy may take you upto 3 weeks or more or 45 days if you hire but if you get the same guy in a week or less then the model still works.

Comparing Web design urgency with taxi doesnt make sense.

What is an example of an on-demand, app-mediated service that is actually profitable, regardless of whether labor is contract, etc.? Is any one in this space actually making money off customers?

Minor side-note, but I think that 'skill vs urgency' graph underestimates the skills required for delivery service providers. Source: I work for UPS.

I assumed delivery in this case meant local delivery like food.

Web design is less skilled than life coaching?

And dog training.

> It is rare that one plans their day around transportation

I do this pretty regularly as do many people who rely on public transit.

I only build the Netflix of Ubers.

I seriously hate these phrases. It's OK to use adjectives, nouns, verbs and to say the word "app".

I was talking to a guy at SBYP once that said he was building "the Netflix of snacks" and I asked the guy how he planned to digitize said snacks and he looked at me like I was the asshole.

I get it but use some words to describe your thing, man.

Way to demotivate other startups!

It should only demotivate doomed startups.

I've actually been working on something that this article applies to and it was refreshing to step out of my comfort zone and reanalyze how things might work out with a fresh perspective. I found it helpful to think through the new challenges that were created by the change in viewpoint and I feel reassured that I have solutions ready.

Insightful article, but a bit hard to distill the distinct points. From my own experience at an Uber for X, there is one overarching theme that dictates the whole dynamic that I think isn't addressed. The article makes the following points.

1. "The more skilled the service, the harder is to gain traction, because quality in service isn't reliable." This is true to some extent, but there is a bigger underlying dynamic, namely that the fewer people can offer that service, the harder it is to gain traction, because it takes longer to get that service on demand (e.g. 20 mins instead of 1 min), which decreases the user experience.

2. "There are services that require more time for for scheduling and some require less." The article doesn't really say which one is better, but the latter is better, because it makes it more spontaneous, people can make the decision to demand the service easier and do it more often.

3. "Maximizing conversion through services where no sales pitch is required, because quality is almost always the same (taxi)." This goes back into point 1, where low skill all have the same quality. It adds the factor that when quality is the same, people are less picky and make more purchases.

4." Maximizing profits through retention to get repeat customers." I didn't understand this point, since critique for Uber for X is that repeat customers would bypass Uber for X, in order to avoid fees, such as it happened with Homejoy, Plumbers etc. This can be prevented through making ratings valuable, i.e. giving pros incentives to not bypass the platform.

The overarching themse is critical mass. All of the mentioned points explain what factors prevent critical mass form being accomplished. Summing up these are

1. The more skill you need, the less service providers you can get per square mile, the longer it takes to fulfill a service, the harder this makes it to get traction.

2. The shorter it takes to schedule the service, the more people will make the decision and book the service.

3. The less the quality is a factor, the less people will worry about making the purchase.

4. Repeat customers is where the money is. Make it easy for the consumer and pro to maintain these relationships, BUT, keep them on the platform.

5. This point I add myself, it is locality and it is the most important point. It means that you have to figure out a way to get traction in a new city in a scalable way, because you can get traction in SF with masseurs and clients, but you need to do it all over again in Fresno, Seattle, London, etc. There is some traction that comes from other cities, but it is little. For some services, traction in a handful city is enough and you cna be a $100m company, but for most, you need to be able to get traction in several dozens of cities quickly.

Uber's main success was to take something that already existed (taxi services) but then found a way to work around local labour laws on a technicality.

Because Uber drivers are all self-employed, they're not unionised or protected in any way. Thus, Uber pays its drivers a pittance, and is able to undercut and undermine existing taxi services who are forced by unions and law to pay drivers a living wage.

That's the key to being Uber for X. Ask: can I use the internet and shady business practices to exploit workers to undercut a business that previously workers were protected in?

If the answer is Yes, then you can be Uber for X.

Which is the main reason why I will never use any Über for anything.

The Taxi medallion system is more exploitative of labor than Uber, forcing poor people to prepay for the right to work. It's as close to indentured servitude as you can get.

Those are two extraordinary claims. Let's see some equally extraordinary evidence.

It's how the medallion system works, you prepay for the right to work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#Meda...

That's true, but that doesn't make it indentured servitude, or even close to it.

Medallions exist to keep the supply of taxis limited. It ensures cab drivers have a certain standard of living. They can also be sold, so if the driver is retiring or wants to change to another career, they can do that.

It's not a perfect system but it strikes a decent balance between worker protection and limiting externalities (e.g. by making sure not everyone decides to become a cab driver and clog up roads).

edit: I guess Uber shills are out in force today.

> It's not a perfect system

I mean, slavery could also be described as "not a perfect system". Medallions in NYC had wholly undergone regulatory capture, so while the system may have started with good intentions, it had since been perverted into a self-perpetuating machine that prints money for a couple of lazy fat cats, to the detriment of everyone else.

>>I mean, slavery could also be described as "not a perfect system".

Medallion system is nothing like slavery. False equivalence.

>>it had since been perverted into a self-perpetuating machine that prints money for a couple of lazy fat cats, to the detriment of everyone else.

The medallion system benefits citizens because it ensures that taxis don't dominate city streets at the expense of regular car owners.

Could you please stop violating the guidelines, which ask you not to complain about voting or insinuate shillage?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So do strippers? And hairstylists? It's rent?

My understanding of those professions (strippers, hairstylists, etc) is they pay the business they work at up front for the night (or maybe week or month) and are expecting to make their money back and then some by the end of that short period of time.

Taxi Medallions are different, especially in large cities. They can cost $300,000 to $1,000,000+, upfront. Most taxi cab drivers have to take out a loan or lease the medallions in order to pay for it, and then they're beholden to the loaner for a long, long time.

This is why taxi cab drivers HATED when Uber starting taking away their business and didn't just shrug their shoulders, buy a black car, and join Uber. They are pretty much stuck and can't easily get out of it.

That's completely different than these other professions where if something isn't working out, you can switch which place you go to or try something else next week or next month.

Most cab drivers lease the medallion from the medallion holder typically (including the car).. so it's the same. The medallion holder has no incentive to drive if they can rent out the right to drive. That was the game until uber. Uber could and probably will just buy all the medallions. Or if not necessary the medallions will just be effectively worthless.

I'd put licensing fees for hairstylists in the same category, but it is the large price of medallions (hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars), and the long term commitment that creates that draws the analogy to indentured servitude. Along with the fact that medallions are government mandated and controlled. At least a hairdresser trying to rent a chair might have options to find other places, or even open their own shop.

Definitely true in NYC but Uber is global, in places like France they are lowering the bar for drivers' working conditions.

Eehh, care to explain ? I just came back from Paris and I used Uber multiple times a day while there, including to go to the airport. It was very convenient. My drivers didn't seem unhappy to be there. So, what's the problem ?

> My drivers didn't seem unhappy to be there

If they look unhappy, maybe the customer will give them bad ratings for bad customer experience…

In Lisbon, Portugal it's like NYC. Any expat or local will tell you that they feel infinitely safer and more comfortable in an Uber than they do in a normal taxi.

That doesn't provide an argument for choosing the lesser of two exploitative systems.

I don't think Uber is a good company, but I also don't think they are exploiting drivers. Even if you do, it is less exploitative than trapping drivers into a system by forcing them to prepay for the right to drive. Choose whichever you think is less exploitive when you need a ride, but don't pretend taxis are some noble system.

Less exploitative is clearly better. If you don't like Uber, make something better or lobby for Uber to change, but don't wish for things to go back to how they were worse.

The medallion system seems to be a US peculiarity.

In the UK you have to also pay fees up front (and pass certain tests) but the fees are relatively modest[1] and the tests include things like knowledge, medical fitness and criminal records, which all seems reasonable. This legally applies to Uber drivers too, although whether it is enforced seems to be in doubt[2].

(I'm not talking about London black cabs which operate on a slightly different system)

[1] The fees for my local council are in section 10 here: http://www.dacorum.gov.uk/docs/default-source/licensing-docu...

[2] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/uber-may-face-21m-...

> The medallion system seems to be a US peculiarity

The equivalent system existed in Ireland until 2000, with taxi licenses changing hands for over $100,000. I'd be surprised if this doesn't persist in other European countries and cities.

In France, licenses have been given for free in limited numbers, and with the right to resell them on the market. So their price have increased up to 200-350k€. So some people made a lot of money there (and they one accept cash, so you know what can happen with the taxes). Recent buyers are in a bad position because they get it for a high price and now risk their value to drop because of the recent competition.

Not sure how the values for a taxi license compare to a NYC "medallion", but Brazil does have expensive licenses as well. Anecdotally, most taxi drivers I've met rent the vehicle from someone else (don't have hard data on that right now, though).

The thing that OP is neglecting to mention about the medallion system is that it's purpose was to limit the number of cars on the road at any given time, which eventually turned into a cartel like market because there was a higher demand for medallions than was decided upon for how many taxis should be on the road to reduce congestion and the number of cars within cities.

In places with good public transit, this resulted in people using public transit to get home when taxis weren't available, now everyone just takes an uber/lyft. Additionally, this also hurts the speed at which busses can travel. However, now you see places like manhattan have far more cars on the road at any given time than before considering the taxis never left, and the number of cars went up to meet demand.

eventually turned into a cartel

It was always so. The medallion system was imposed after taxi drivers rioted, set stuff on fire and attacked the police, since they disliked the competition from unemployed people who tried to make a living during the Great Depression.

"Striking taxi drivers was nothing new–the first strike took place in 1908, a year after the first taxi company was founded. But this strike had a hostile energy to it, as strikers went hunting for scabs to punish. As one driver put it, “the bastids that was scabbin’, we pulled the doors off their cabs.” Independent cab owners, who had nothing to gain by striking, had their windows smashed by blocks of ice and passengers thrown from their cabs. Police who tried restore order had their tires slashed and marbles thrown under their horses. By February 5, angry crowds of driving were brawling in the street with the police and torching independent cab cars."

Uber got closer. They give you a subprime mortgage on your car where the payment comes out of your Uber fees and if you are behind, a remote inhibitor does not allow starting the car.

But then at least you build equity on the car, right? Also, if you already own a suitable vehicle (which is arguably easier than owning a medallion), you wouldn't need the mortgage?

The medallion was a safe investment until Uber broke the law and got away with it.

It makes no sense to "build equity" in a car since the car is depreciating very fast especially if you use it a lot for example because you are driving it to serve your debt to Uber.

It doesn't matter whether the medallion is a safe investment or not. Wikipedia tells me a NYC medallion was worth around 500k in late 2016. Median household income in NYC is around 50k, so that's 10 whole years of gross salary.

The truth is that the average person is not able to afford to drive a taxi without renting the medallion. Even building equity on a quickly depreciating asset such as a car used for Uber is better in terms of not having to pay to work.

Also, a Uber loan would not be the only way to get a car to drive for Uber. Even if you have no means to finance the car for yourself, many more people own a Uber-suitable car than a taxi medallion, so the price you'd have to pay to work for Uber would in any case be lower.

The original discussion was whether Uber or taxis would be more worker-restrictive. I don't think driving a Uber gives total freedom, but I fail to see how driving a taxi is any better for the worker.

The taxi medallion system was put in place precisely to avoid the inherent race to the bottom that is caused by a low barrier to entry (just need a car to be a taxi) and a fixed consumer base (limited number of passengers).

That is not fiction or speculation--it is history. You can look up the problems New York had before the taxi medallion system.

I am by no means defending the taxi system. It was rife with problems (especially outside the very biggest cities): unreliable pickups, long wait times outside of a very small number of areas, not wanting to take credit cards, bad driving routes to overcharge, and a whole litany of other complaints.

The only reason why the whole system hasn't devolved into a free-for-all is that Uber and Lyft have so much VC money subsidizing ride cost that nobody can get under their prices--they are below the bottom.

The real competitor to Uber/Lyft is the company who can take the existing cabs and cab companies and insert them into an app that does real-time bidding on their end and works like Uber/Lyft from the consumer end. Austin, TX showed that once Uber and Lyft quit sucking the oxygen out of the space, competition and new options start opening up.

However, Uber and Lyft will have to both implode first. And the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.

FWIW I tried to use RideAustin when I was there a few months ago and couldn't even get signed in to the app. Ended up using Uber instead.

Well, once Uber and Lyft came back, the alternatives all basically fizzled out. It's kind of hard to compete against VC subsidized rides.

The telling thing to me is that Uber and Lyft came back to Austin with no concessions after throwing a hissy fit and leaving. That tells me that they saw something that scared them and they needed to squelch it before it escaped to other cities.

Edit: I stand corrected. The state legislature overrode the Austin laws. (Side: Wish I could put an overstrike through my comment.)

Make no mistake, this is 1990's Microsoft levels of predatory behavior. It is nothing to be praised.

The reason they left was Austin saying "You need to fingerprint all potential drivers and run them through an FBI fingerprint database."

They came back when legislature said "Actually you don't need to do that."

I'd hardly characterize it as a hissy fit.

City of Austin: "You need to fingerprint all potential drivers and run them through an FBI fingerprint database."

Uber: I don't wanna do that! Uber: stomps feet Uber: goes home Uber: Bribes Texas state into passing laws to force Austin to accept them.

While I am usually an outspoken critic of Uber, I feel this is an unfair portrayal of that situation. If I owned a ride hailing service, I would protest the same law.

Both services return were widely predicted here even before they left. It wasn't a hissy fit, it was a calculated move to reduce business costs, and it worked better than I think they even expected.

Probably the biggest problem with no medallion regular taxis is you can end up with dozens of them trying to pick up a small number of passengers and cluttering the streets and causing congestion. With Uber you don't get that - they seem to drop the prices to regulate the number of cabs instead.

University degrees are also a system by which, effectively, people (some of whom are poor) prepay for the right to work.

You definitely need a medallion if you want to be a taxi driver.

But the medallion isn't an indicator that you're an expert professional driver. So it's different than, say, an M.D. or a law degree that are required because those things are difficult and the public needs protection from frauds.

Some degrees are "worthless", yet are needed as a document to tick off on a list of job requirements.

Of course, the analogy is far from perfect; in fact, I didn't really intend an analogy, as such.

A degree obviously isn't a license token you can move from one person to another, like the taxi medallion.

Taxi Medallion used to cost more than 500k in NYC.

So half or more of your fare are going to some guy that bought the medallion years ago (or some investors actually), and just rents the privilege for other drivers to drive, it doesn't go the driver's pay, or propper car maintenance, etc...

That is pure rent seeking via "regulation", and Uber and Lyft are cutting through it. (and I am glad they are doing it).

If by "cutting through it" you mean "breaking the law" I agree. And sometimes laws should be broken, to make a point. But let's not be under any illusions.

A large part of Uber's early success was circumventing the quite frankly corrupt and intrusive taxi regulations that had congealed everywhere. Drivers no longer had to choose between purchasing a ridiculously expensive license or working for someone else: they could use an existing car and smartphone. At least part of the wage drop was the result of lowering barriers to entry for prospective drivers. Yes, Uber exploits its drivers now, but the existing taxi system was acting as a moat to prevent people becoming drivers in the first place, which was hardly any fairer.

Maybe a better question to ask is: which protectionist laws can my app help circumvent? "Uber for breaking down NIMBY coalitions and real estate developer cartels" would be extremely welcome.

I'm often an Uber critic, can't see how their valuation is justified, appalled by their lack of ethics, etc., however I think your analysis sells them short.

Hailing or waiting for a taxi was a horrible experience in most cities. Leveraging the smartphone platform's ability to track location in real time, along with its ability to be connected and handle payments created a better service. This did compete with existing Taxi monopolies (which had enormous costs associated with rent seeking in many jurisdictions, not just labour costs), but it also competed heavily with non-consumption, car ownership, and car rentals for those on trips. The pattern of social life has changed in many cities where the inconvenience, lack of reliability, and cost of using a taxi had previously constrained peoples' options, and forced reliance on owning a car, driving when they shouldn't, or staying closer to their neighbourhoods or going home early.

It's true that most of what gets called Uber for X is just enabling casual labor, without significantly expanding the market, and that's why so few of them achieve anything close to an Uber-level of success.

Or any time I've only had a 50 peso bill and a 200 peso bill, the ride will cost 100 pesos, and the taxi driver somehow doesn't have change.

Or any time I've tried to hail a taxi among a bunch of other people (after an event or at 2am at the city center when all the bars close) and I'm stuck hoping I'm the lucky chosen one the next time a taxi comes, losing out each time to a group of people.

Or any time a taxi driver took advantage of the fact that they knew my options were limited late at night.

Uber solved major points of frustration with taxi services.

Or the time when my SO and some of her friends took a taxi from LAX, and when one of her friends noticed that the taxi was going a particularly circuitous route, the driver locked the doors while saying "I'll take you anywhere I damn well please".

She won't use anything other than Uber/Lyft/etc. now since they have the GPS constantly running, and a record of who she gets in the car with.

> taxi..horrible experience..smartphone..track location

So I use a taxi app. Real time tracking, payment, etc. No Uber, no undercutting safety standards or labor laws.

Most taxi services don't have apps, or have apps that are just the equivalent of phoning the dispatcher.

So the solution would be to add better apps, rather than skirting safety regulations and undermining workers' rights.

Yes, and in a city such as Berlin where the taxi supply is not artificially restricted through a mediallion system, and sensible safety and labour laws prevail to the extent that Uber is not even able to operate, an app like MyTaxi functions just about as well as "ride sharing" apps in my experience (though it trails in significant innovations such as UberPool / LyftLine).

Of course, after hailing and waiting, and then taking the ride, you had to pay for the taxi. And frequently the credit card machine was "broken" and you had to argue with the driver about not having any cash. In a time when many individuals have moved away from cash almost entirely, that was a huge source of friction, and Uber and Lyft largely solved with in-app credit card payments. Because you had to have the app to hail a ride, payment for individual rides after entering a card for the first one is frictionless for the user.

This happened to me last month, in the US. We were in a popular tourist hotel, so I figured we would take a cab that's already here rather than trying to hook up with a Lyft driver. It was the worst! "Broken" credit card machine, charging extra for bags, etc. It's like instead of trying to compete with better service, the taxi driver wants to get his before the industry implodes.

Uber also made getting a ride while black a significantly easier experience. And their drivers will actually take you where you ask to go whereas regulations be damned if the taxi driver doesn't want to go there he won't.

Unfortunately, many people have a weird fetish for "disruption", and use it to justify pretty much any type of behavior.

They also view laws and regulations as inefficient, and don't understand that they often exist for good reasons (such as consumer protection).

If Uber ends up putting taxi companies out of business and becomes dominant, THEN we will see its true face and start hearing arguments for regulating it.

Private cars services are hardly a 'technicality'. They've always existed and always been competitive with taxis, it's simply that their practice was to hire by the hour, and only do A-B transactions between major landmarks.

Uber was a private car service with black-cars only to begin with and evolved to allow more car types, which made it competitively priced to taxis.

Critically, when they began, they were intended for limo businesses to use to minimize driver downtime, hence the idea that Uber is merely a contract marketplace was normal and non-exploitive.

Now, that people are driving for Uber "for fun" or "to make extra bucks", Uber has found itself dealing with a large unsophisticated assembly of drivers, whom it can be claimed that they are exploiting (i.e. exploiting their ignorance). Is it a fair assessment? I'm not sure, but I can point at other business verticals like residential cleaning services, and moving companies that function as a market of independent contractors who united only under a 'brand' that does client-contractor matchmaking. At least in this respect, Uber is not unique.

I disagree. If I told you break some laws, you'll be protected, you still wouldn't be able to come up with a billion dollar idea and _execute_.

Uber's success hinged on the fact that they did a lot of things right, most importantly building something that's a net positive to the end user. Breaking laws just helped them expand quicker.

The end user for Uber doesn't care at all about wages for the drivers. "Oh that's so sad... but I need to use Uber because it's hassle free."

Uber's killer selling point is not skirting labor laws, it's facilitating connecting labor with demand via an app. Skirting labor laws certainly made them more attractive because it let them charge less, but I use Uber (well Lyft, but same thing) because it's convenient to pay and to get picked up and dropped off.

In addition, it's questionable that those labor laws do more to protect laborers or exist solely to preserve a government-backed monopoly...

If someone doesn't want to drive for Uber, they can be a taxi driver instead...

not when people don't take taxis.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/25/technology/yellow-cab-bankru...

> Because Uber drivers are all self-employed, they're not unionised or protected in any way. Thus, Uber pays its drivers a pittance, and is able to undercut and undermine existing taxi services who are forced by unions and law to pay drivers a living wage.

The fact that Uber drivers willingly and voluntarily engage in that work rather than pursuing alternative work doesn't align well with your narrative.

> Uber's main success was to take something that already existed (taxi services) but then found a way to work around local labour laws on a technicality.

What country are you in? In the USA, taxi drivers are also self employed, not unionized, and paid a pittance.

X11 is getting a rideshare service?

Sigh well I guess it has modules for everything else

Getting remote display working can be a major pain. An app which handles the work of bringing together your X server and a remote client could really be valuable!

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