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Comment by sokoloff | Hacker News Reader

I’m struggling to see how ordering an Uber would be better via a text interface to an app not owned by Uber. By that, I mean ordering an Uber on the Uber app is pretty quick, informative, and some of the interaction is needed.

Similar for social things. I need to coordinate movie tickets, dinner reservations, or tennis courts not just with the supplier but with my friends.

A generalized text interface for consumers would have to be not only as good, but noticeably better in order to create some monetizable advantage.

If this arises, I’d expect it to come from an existing body of users (Siri/Alexa) encouraging suppliers (Uber, OpenTable, DoorDash, movie theaters) to build towards a common API. Without that pump priming with tens of thousands of local users already on the platform with money to spend, it’ll be hard to gain traction I think.

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An in-chat widget letting you coordinate details would be great. I reviewed a pitch deck once for a company trying something like that on a more limited scale - they were aiming for coordination within a family unit, and so less struggle with the network effect of needing all your friends to buy in.

Uber does offer an API, but I think part of the problem is that a lot of these providers either worry about becoming interchangeable, or believe - rightly or wrongly - that their brand is strong enough not to want to let intermediaries cut in.

So I think you're right in as much as that at least in some areas it'll take providers big enough to say "if you don't work with us all of our millions of customers will see your competitors first".

A smaller player will likely have alto start small and be content to not have as broad coverage as they'll like.

Maybe couple with papering over some with human intervention like more traditional concierge services until they can go to providers with proven demand.

This reminds me a lot about Cory Doctorow’s concept of Adversarial Interoperability: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interopera...

Something that was very popular back in the day, and was a great filter for companies, and something that most of the current giants did to their competitors, before declaring via laws that nobody can do it onto them to secure their market position indefinitely.

I believe a text interface can be a lot quicker in many cases where you already know what you want and you don't need to spend time browsing the app (choosing a restaurant, picking what to eat, etc). For social things, this is obviously after you coordinate everything with your friends - it's a lot easier to book the court with one text message than opening an app, finding your club, selecting time, etc.

In regards to the last sentence, 100% - I think this will eventually have to come from one of the big tech

I don’t know your club’s scheduling pressure, but here, we’re trying to find spots on personal calendars that work with the few openings for courts rather than coordinating our schedules and afterwards informing the club when we’ll take a court.

I don’t get the current hype around text (or voice) interfaces. This problem, for example, is much better solved by a calendar interface where everyone including the club can share availability.

If I could choose I’d much rather book by sending a calendar than a text message

Google's generalized interface for ordering food is a good example of something that does not look good. It has menu item titles but not descriptions. I don't order directly through Google half the time because of it.

To their credit, clicking on a restaurant and seeing available ordering platform options with fee info is nice.

Uber only by itself, would be pointless. What about something that could connect to all limousine and taxi services and provide you with the best solution for what you’re asking? “I can’t get you an Uber right now, but it looks like a taxi from your local company is available, shall I book it now?”

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