In the case of real estate, the entrenched transaction businesses control both supply and demand, and hence are more able to block new entrants.
In the case of Uber, supply (people who own vehicles) was effectively unlimited and independent.
In the case of Uber, supply (people who own vehicles) was effectively unlimited and independent.
The difference, with Uber, of course, is their cost of capital was relatively low. They didn't have to buy vehicles, for example. (Imagine having to tear down a few multi-billion dollar real estate developments. Yikes.)
Real Estate isn't a regulatory trap; it's an information trap. You can buy and sell property direct. All of the legal stuff is (nominally) done by attorneys. But the association of realtors controls the listing service and makes discovery easy.
Like all salespeople, realtors add "value". When you've been in 2,000 houses, you pick up insights that are useful and learn about neighborhoods. The information is used for both good and bad purposes.
Most of the disruptors do stupid shit with stupid investor money or integrate with the existing players and add some value.
Since 1973. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RE/MAX
No -- you're confusing real estate sales with real estate. Real estate is one of the most highly regulated industries out there. You literally can't make any significant changes to most properties without a significant permitting process that goes through many layers of regulations. Not to mention the many real estate developments that are never even a possibility because of regulation. I'm not against regulation -- it can be a very good thing -- but it is clearly at the core of the real estate problem. Society has decided, via regulations, to starve the supply of housing.
While they did disrupt the taxi market, they are also setting false expectations about what sort of model is viable in the space since _Eventually_ they will need to bring in revenue or could potentially be forced to pay their drivers more which would lead to a big hike in prices and would probably have an impact on how it functions now.