Yeah, the internet continues to demolish established livelihoods… We have a guy here, about 60, who repairs fences. He is very good at it too. He used to be an IFA (financial adviser) making a living out of (mainly) recurring commissions on investments he sold. That business has become very hard through competition and above all online comparisons (rankings) of funds which eventually managed to penetrate into the collective dumb brains of the population at large that most retail investments are crap value. Another Lambo-driving IFA is on his last legs… the changes on commissions did not help, too.
But there are huge new challenges with the internet. In my business (industrial electronics) we used to advertise in the trade mags, £400 for a 1/4 page. Gradually it became obvious that nobody reads them anymore. None, zero, zilch, nada. Two recently launched products have completely bombed, which is completely unheard of. A flop, sure, but zero enquiries, no way. Google now owns the universe and if you aren’t on page 1, you don’t exist. So I throw them £600/month and have someone in charge of the adwords etc. Of course, thanks to David’s brilliant SEO expertise, EuroGA is usually at the very top also 
What are all the people in paper publishing going to do? They have a few more years to run before the remaining advertisers (down ~50% from 5 years ago) wake up and realise their ad budgets are a total waste of money.
Uber won’t be stopped, IMHO. There is too much pressure. Maybe it will be temporarily blocked but other stuff will set up, without fixed servers.
This is Hangar Talk so this is OK… Obviously keep religion and such out of it…
Schumpeter (one of the greatest economists of all times) called it “creative destruction” and it’s a fundamental principle of a market economy.
How great was it when the Federal Postal Service had a monopoly on telecommunication and would rent out 1200/75bps acoustic couplers and — for a major premium — a high speed 2400bps modem. The world was perfect, the pencil pushers had well paid jobs and now I really suffer with my 170Mbit internet connection at home for 30€/month and dozens of companies trying to get me to sign up on their service instead. How I wish my old acoustic coupler back!
Very few people use taxis over here. One reason for that is that they are expensive and not always a great experience. Taxi drivers spend a huge part of their working time waiting (like 2-4h in the queue at the airport) which is why it is so expensive. Whenever I take a taxi from the airport, I first tell them an address 3 minutes from the airport and watch their facial expression 
In New York it is different, taxis are very widely used and comparatively cheap. Uber.com is not terribly successful in New York because the existing competition is not as lame as in other places. Germany only has about 50 000 taxis altogether (like we had maybe 50 000 acoustic couplers). That could become a lot more with private car ownership going down at the same time.
PS: Until 2006 the official German legal term for taxi was “Kraftdroschke” (motored hackney coach/droshky). That tells you how up to date legislation is…
In New York it is different, taxis are very widely used and comparatively cheap.
For me, that is a bad example because for the little money you pay you get almost no service. I once tried tried to go from downtown Manhattan to Teterboro airport. The first driver who stopped (after 100 who just passed without stopping) said: “Sorry, I don’t know where that is” and the next one said: “I don’t go there!” “Why?” “Because that’s in New Jersey” “And why don’t you go there?” “Because I don’t go to New Jersey!” In the end, we took the bus. I rather pay a little more and get a decent service.
I guess you can thank trade unions like VC for that.
I certainly do. They are the complete opposite of what a trade union should be. Fighting for even better conditions for a small elite at the cost of the majority. Every Euro that Lufthansa throws into the throat of these gluttons must be saved at the lower end (ground and office staff and contracted feeder airlines). Lufthansa should just shut down and reopen under a different name, otherwise they will never get rid of this pest.
Fighting for even better conditions for a small elite at the cost of the majority
Perfect example of another economical theory: The insider-outsider theory from Lindbeck/Snower and again a very good reason why government imposed limitations of competition have a negative effect
Lufthansa should just shut down and reopen under a different name, otherwise they will never get rid of this pest.
Which is the business model of the US carriers. Lufthansa survives because its direct competition is as bad or even worse. Look at Air France, they pilots won 100%, turning the management into puppets. It only works because — yet again — the government restricts competition by running this socialist landing slot system and keeping foreign carriers from entering the market. So all we get is bad service in bad airplanes at a high cost.
To have a licence for transporting passengers and proper insurance for a taxi does NOT qualify as “government imposed limitation”. You could just aswell start flying passengers for money with your PPL.
To have a licence for transporting passengers and proper insurance for a taxi does NOT qualify as “government imposed limitation”.
That is only one part of it and not so hard to get (after all there are many more taxi drivers than taxis, a lot of them being short time drivers like students). It is a questionable government imposed limitation because one could argue that it doesn’t any good but that’s debatable. The much more important government imposed limitations are the number of taxi concessions and the fixed fare price decided by the municipality.
I have no problem allowing Uber.com like services but requiring a commercial driver license and insurance coverage. That could be a sensible compromise.
I WAS a taxi driver as a student, and I tell you it wasn’t so easy to get the licence, in Munich that is, and i heard it’s probably even harder today.
Of course – if if Uber drivers had these licences and insurance I would use it too. But (AFAIK) Uber refuses to do so.
Don’t you already need the extra insurance?
In the UK you would. In fact I believe a “pool car” (where say four of you drive to Shoreham Airport dump three of the cars in the car park there for the day, and continue to London in one car) needs specific insurance.
Don’t you already need the extra insurance?
You do and all Uber drivers in Germany (and probably all other countries) break the law. However, it is not criminal law so the police don’t stop them. They have to be prosecuted individually which is a threat to each and every of them but not really happening yet because there are PR aspects (greedy taxi union suing poor student) and they are still working out their strategy. If the taxi unions are not smart, then the legislator will change the law in a way they don’t like.
A bit like Youtube which had the business model of violating copyright law until its market power and huge popularity forced the right holders to agree to terms compatible with their business.
You do and all Uber drivers in Germany (and probably all other countries) break the law.
Not only that, but every passenger of an Uber driver here in Germany must know that in case of an accident he might be without any insurance cover at all and has to sue the driver for compensation. Which he will never get because people who can afford to pay that kind of money do not drive for Uber…
But the same applies more or less to most passengers of privately driven cars, because the (not even mandatory) passenger insurance pays something like 50.000 Euros per head which barely covers your first week in intensive care. This is why private car insurance costs in the order of 300 Euros per year and a taxi insurance 3.000.
