Visions or Lies?
by Miki Saxon
When a new innovation is announced do you ever wonder how much of their own Kool-Aid the founders have drunk?
At how often reality doesn’t support the vision?
And to what lengths they’ll go to prove their vision is reality?
Think Theranos.
Think ride-hailing companies, such as Lyft and Uber.
The vision they sold was that they would lessen traffic congestion.
One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead. (…) One study included surveys of 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in late 2017 in the Boston area. Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren’t available.
The reality of that vision is simple. Skip the bus/subway/rail/bike/feet and summon a car to add to the crowd.
And it’s unlikely that antonymous cars will improve things.
If anything, they will likely exacerbate the problem, since they will be even cheaper.
Speaking of Uber and visions.
In spite of the $17.3 billion lavished by investors, Uber’s 2017 loss was $4.5 billion and in its nine years of life it burned thorough $10.7 billion, 2/3 of its total funding — another record.
Wow! That’s some Kool-aid.
Image credit: Rob
