It's always interesting to me how little credit is given to GPS in Uber's story. The existence of space-based, free and ubiquitous semi-precise navigation was an enormous subsidy.
Uber would not exist without GPS. I wonder how many other of the unicorns:
* Twitter without Rails
* Facebook without PHP (I think this is fair but maybe not)
* Reddit without Python
* Tesla and Solar City without huge government subsidies
Crazy to think how many Lake Tahoe vacation homes were transferred thanks to these projects.
GPS and GLONASS use different frequencies and redundant signaling systems is common in aviation.
And Garmin actually works with both for a more accurate location:
https://www.getaway.co.za/gear-reviews/news/garmin-russian-s...
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/invas...
Don’t think Facebook would have succeeded with Perl.
:P
- Twitter without iTunes Podcast Directory (because it killed Odeo, the parent business)
- Facebook without MySpace / Friendster
- Reddit without Digg / Slashdot
Take away GPS and Uber is a fundamentally different product.
I’d say Reddit is literally just a technically inferior version of Usenet.
Reddit was originally written in lisp. It was later rewritten in Python with a trivial amount of effort. And it could have be trivially rewritten in any other language as well. The languages are not that important. Having access to high level languages in general is important, but they are a dime a dozen.
so instead of the languages, maybe open it up to Linux/FOSS in general
Well, I am. I find it too cumbersome otherwise. If I wanted to have a desktop workstation, I would have a desktop PC - with a laptop, I'm working on its keyboard and touchpad, so I can move with it anywhere I want and still be as comfortable using it as usual.
I don't know how does the situation look like with larger laptops as I wasn't interested in them when I was looking around for a new computer the last time.
Now, I'm an old dog not interested in learning new tricks unless it will absolutely postively without a doubt be money making for me. Doing for the sake of doing is no longer something I'm passionate about. I have other things to spend my time that is much more deserving of my passion. That's what the young kids are for, and then brag about their accomplisments on a Show HN. Then I can decide if it is worthy for me.
That’s like saying the English language and calculus are a subsidy. They are definitely shoulders we all stand on, but not a subsidy.
Things like GPS and the internet would’ve been deployed much faster by a private corporation but then they would be dumb monopolies as opposed to the public good they are now.
Also we need a space to work on big dumb ideas and toys[1] and neither Unix, Uber or GPS fit in that category. What is that sweet spot?
1) at least in the USA, access to the internet is not a public good, it is provided by an oligopoly (and in many circumstances a functional monopoly, where service at a given address is only available from a single ISP)
2) why do you believe that either GPS or the internet would have been deployed faster by a private corporation?
While of course, Starlink relied on government know-how, given away for free, the speed of deployment was 2-3x.
In the end we’re left with a monopoly service which sucks. But, it came together quick. Why can’t we have both? Fast deploying public goods.
If you’re going to compare the two you need to control for confounding factors.
More generally, I don’t think “Government works slower then private corporations” is that controversial a conclusion. If we’re gonna try to improve it, we have to admit the problem first.
Lol, this is worse than the infamous Dropbox comment. There are no LEO providers except for Starlink for a reason. Starlink required novel launch techniques, novel antennas, novel network management, and that’s just what we know about publicly.
Social purpose corporation with crowdfunding and transparency seems like it would accomplish much of what you want.
Of course, these days the idea that TCP/IP somehow implements a purely conceptual OSI is so ingrained that people get angry when you tell them the accurate history. So it goes.
IP on the other hand was neither, like much of successful technology.
As a side note, the OSI layers are useful as a mental model, but trying to maintain that separation in actual implementation is a poor idea; that’s one of the things IP got right: it doesn’t really match OSI layering, and does cut through layers when it makes sense.
It doesn't implement the OSI layering model, in other words, even if you can almost make that model fit if you ignore the top couple layers and handwave vigorously the rest of the time.
If you look, you can find a four-layer or five-layer TCP/IP model, but RFC 3439 has a section titled "Layering Considered Harmful" and it's clear that the IETF doesn't always think in terms of layers.
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc3439
Of course, none of that stops the Seven-Layer Model (blessed be its name) from being perpetuated as if it were an absolute.
so, yeah, it's nice that the rider can see the route the driver is taking to feel like they are not being "taken for a ride", but I've been in rides where the drive did not take the same route my app was showing.
however, is this the only thing that makes moder ride share apps a thing?
It is an expectation that we get good services based the taxes we pay.