Hey Paul, I think it is all about time and details.
There are lots of things like ride density (i.e., driver revenue potential) and how long a consumer has to wait to get a car that are…
Hey Paul, I think it is all about time and details. From what I know about the DAO universe, it will be 5 years before DAO state of the art will be able to plausibly construct a software + service offering that is comparable with Uber’s current offering. And, of course, Uber won’t be standing still while that time is passing. The dinosaurs die first and, like them or not, they are still well within the innovative side of their S-curve.
There are lots of things like ride density (i.e., driver revenue potential) and how long a consumer has to wait to get a car that are completely separate from the raw software stack and will present a gap competitive advantage for Uber over any DAO competitor.
My read is that it will be at least 8 years before a highly decentralized competitive platform will be able to be competitive with Uber’s current offering. Once that tipping point is crossed, then the advantages of a DAO will quickly eat the market.
BUT by that time, we will be well into the age of the self-driving car and the human driven market will be relatively shrinking. There are a ton of structural elements in the “car as a service” including the capital cost of cars and the nuance of how insurance plays out that will inure to Uber’s benefit for another cycle.
So we are looking at maybe 15 plus years before the forces that you rightly point out will begin their wholesale dismantling of transportation. Given what appears to be the accelerating pace of the corporate innovation cycle, by that point Uber should be well on the other side of its S-curve and starting to look awfully dinosaur-ish.
Perhaps one of the last centralized companies standing.