>Uber is nothing more than a rent-seeking middle man and no one cares about how complicated their rent-seeking activities are behind the curtain
The term rent-seeking gets thrown around a lot more lately, mostly from the web3 crowd. Most times its not used right.
It's only rent seeking if the middleman isn't providing any value. Otherwise they're just getting paid for providing a service that people value....
Think about what you're saying. You don't "care how complex it is". Well that complexity determines whether or not it is rent seeking. You say ideally a transaction between two individuals. The major problem being solved here is finding the two best matched individuals based on their current location and destination over time. You need some system to aid this discovery no matter what.
Here's the definition of rent-seeking:
Rent-seeking is the effort to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, and potential national decline
> reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources
Uber and Lyft generate 70 percent more pollution than trips they displace[0]
>reduced wealth creation
Uber and Lyft are pushing drivers into poverty[1]
> lost government revenue
How Uber dodges paying tax in Canada[2]
I don't care about the complexity of the the black box algorithm that Uber implements because I know what purpose it serves. The whole purpose of Uber is to make people entirely dependent on it by driving out alternatives like local cab companies and public transit through low prices subsidizes by Saudi money.
I think it's great that Uber has forced cab companies to modernize and make their services more convenient but we both know what will happen if Uber gets a stranglehold on this market. You'll see jacked up prices for the captive market and declining service.
Their skill lies entirely in breaking laws in a way that allows them to make more money than the fines they pay.
In addition to their legal entrepreneurism their next skill lies in hiding externalities. They push costs to everyone else (drivers, riders, cities by massively increasing traffic, everyone who lives in those cities who have to deal with the noise and pollution of the additional traffic, etc) without having to bear any of it themselves.
The term rent-seeking gets thrown around a lot more lately, mostly from the web3 crowd. Most times its not used right.
It's only rent seeking if the middleman isn't providing any value. Otherwise they're just getting paid for providing a service that people value....
Think about what you're saying. You don't "care how complex it is". Well that complexity determines whether or not it is rent seeking. You say ideally a transaction between two individuals. The major problem being solved here is finding the two best matched individuals based on their current location and destination over time. You need some system to aid this discovery no matter what.
Here's the definition of rent-seeking:
Rent-seeking is the effort to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth. Rent-seeking results in reduced economic efficiency through misallocation of resources, reduced wealth creation, lost government revenue, heightened income inequality, and potential national decline