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Comment by idop | Hacker News Reader

Cutting corners is how these so called "tech companies" disrupt markets. They remove all the bloat; the bloat being safeguards and processes created through years of experience and evolution. And we flock to them, praising them for "showing the traditional companies how it's done". But sooner or later the cracks start to form. The random driver picking you up from that app turns out to be a rapist. That house you found at that other app turns out to be falling apart and you die. That shiny new car turns out to have had zero quality control and is dangerous to drive.

So they have to make changes. They have to introduce the same safeguards that have been standard in their respective industries for decades. They have to raise prices. And before you know it, the only thing that separates them from the traditional companies is that stupid app.

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Well yes and no.

The app is not always stupid. I can't say I am fond of Uber and its business practices but in Vancouver at least the taxi apps are lacking some vital features Uber have -- despite Uber operating briefly in Vancouver in 2012 so it was clear they will be back and indeed in 2020 Uber/Lyft indeed started. Features include easy changing of pickup point which is quite important in the warren of one way streets where I live -- as I see where the car is approaching from, I can easily walk like 1-2 minutes to the next corner to save like five minutes (seriously) of driving around after pickup. Also it works with GPS coordinates -- when I meet with friends it's often at a beach on the weekend and public transit is a bit lacking so I prefer calling a cab/uber and it's practically impossible with cabs because those want a street address, even the app. And then there's the ability to safely communicate with the driver -- and this only needs wifi which makes airport pickups so much easier because I only need airport wifi. Taxi companies couldn't build these features in eight years. Pound sand.

That's true, the apps are sometimes good and they do make certain things easier and more accessible than traditional solutions. I know I didn't mention it explicitly, but the "stupid app" was actually me venting my anger over the rampant, unnecessary tracking and snooping that these apps do.

> the rampant, unnecessary tracking and snooping that these apps do.

It's none of those, at least to them. It's literally their business model, and how they extract the behavioral surplus to turn into huge profits. And as very few people are aware of how it works, and why they should opt out, it's become the new default way of doing "tech companies." Extract all the stuff, process all the stuff, sell all the predictions from the stuff.

It's not an accident that every new app seems to be trying to collect as much as they possibly can. You're not even the product - you're just the field of raw material they're trying to collect and process.

Unfortunately, the only answer I can come up with to object is to opt out of all those systems, which leaves me a bit lacking in some areas.

Vote for parties willing to push GDPR style regulations and push for enforcement. Turn the data from valuable asset into toxic sludge that contains some valuable nuggets that can be carefully extracted, with the remainder not collected or at least discarded. That's the only long term solution

I agree except for the "turn into huge profits" phrase, at least for a lot of these companies.

Bloat also being unionized workers who are incentivized to stay, gain wisdom and skills, and mentor new hires as opposed to the "everyone is fungible, everyone is abusable" worker conditions Elon seems to create.

Also this war on lidar, yet we're seeing these cars crash into trucks and walls, which lidar would have prevented, but lidar costs money, and as such "is bloat." Bloat is anything that keeps Elon and his shareholders from enriching themselves to the maximum degree, and if that means customers have to deal with safety issues, well too bad. The Elon PR machine smooths it over for via marketing efforts and deep ties to corporate media that will sing your song for a price. Life goes on, except for the person killed in the car.

I am not saying you’re wrong in your description of some of the dynamics, but I think it isn’t the only perspective. Another way to look at it is that this fuzzy area where corners are cut or laws are broken is also what makes room for change and innovation and more-efficient markets. Otherwise, the giant barriers to competition (capital requirements, network effects, whatever) become insurmountable and there is no way an entrepreneur can innovate (they would need to find a different country with different laws giving them that space).

The frequency and severity of the issues you call out feels limited to me. Sure these newcomers may end up rediscovering some of those same controls and processes that the old guard companies have in place - but they will still have pulled us forward to a different, better way of doing things in many ways. For example, I certainly prefer hailing an Uber or Lyft over dealing with rude, dangerous taxi drivers. Even if those two companies end up disappearing or putting more controls in place, I will appreciate things like using an app and being able to rate my driver to incentivize the right behavior.

> They have to introduce the same safeguards that have been standard in their respective industries for decades

I'm glad Lyft and Uber have to comply with safety regulations, but I think you're overestimating the quality of old "non-tech companies" and the quality of the services they deliver. The cab companies in my city were frankly terrible and delivered a terrible service for a lot of money.

They made a huge stink about safety, trying to get Lyft and Uber banned from operating here. They trumpeted a whole smorgasbord of safety benefits that they supposedly offered that Lyft and Uber wouldn't, but it's not like their policies and standards actually meant that when you got in a cab you didn't face exactly the same hazards they claimed to protect you against. You still took your chances with poorly maintained cabs, drivers who didn't know or knowingly disregarded traffic laws, frequently a different person driving the cab than on the license, etc. In fact when I got in an argument with a friend about it I only had to do a Google search and, oh yeah, it seems just a few years before there was a cab driver who assaulted multiple women while driving somebody else's cab.

I'm sure everybody in town had at some point heard about that guy who assaulted women while driving a cab, but just a few years afterward, the cab companies were able to use the specter of a rapist driver to argue that we were safer in cabs! It's a cynical exploitation of human psychology. Cabs have been around forever, so we perceive them as safe, yet we're terrified when something new is proposed that has the same risks.

(Cab companies warning about the dangers of Lyft/Uber reminded me of insurance companies warning about the horrors of public health care. Sexual predators picking you up, can't go to the doctor you like, unsafe cars and drivers, massive charges if a drug or procedure you need isn't unauthorized, if you listen to their scare rhetoric, they are both reciting their own known, long-standing flaws.)

Sometimes the result of "years of experience and evolution" is crappy companies and a crappy industry that deserves to be disrupted. I don't know where you live and what kind of cab companies were there before Lyft and Uber, but from my experience you could hardly have picked a worse industry to talk about the risks of disruption.

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