That’s the grand irony of this whole thing is how a company can change the way transportation operates in hundreds of cities around the world and perhaps never be a profitable company. But I think that they’ve opened this Pandora’s box for both good and ill and now we are left with trying to deal with how these consequences have left the way we operate cities, or left the way culture is formed. Left the way people go to restaurants or eat at home. Left the way that public transportation either functions or doesn’t. I’m not going to say whether they are going to be successful or not. I think they are just still trying to prove out this thesis of being this platform, and have said they need years to do that.
For instance: Uber drivers can’t really decide where they work. They are constantly nudged towards locations where the app wants them to be. And, if they want to make more money, they cannot be choosy about their working hours. The idea of this new boss — an algorithm — is different and more complex in the Gig Economy as we have traded human bosses to AI.