Re: <nettime> Uber Blues

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

Yesterday I took taxi ($30), and then checked Uber pricing - it's 
exactly one half of what I paid ($15). For many people this is a 
non-trivial difference that outweighs moral issues.

The point being: Uber VCs are funding temporary increase of the standard 
of living for some, while destroying the same for some others. The ones 
that temporarily benefit will offset protests of losers, but when the 
game is over and Uber owns the market, everyone except Uber's VCs 
becomes a loser.

But now we know how much it costs to rent the fifth column: $60 per head 
per year (in 2017 Uber had $4,500 million loss and 75 million users.)

At it takes about 3-4% of population to participate in non-violent 
protests ( 
https://rationalinsurgent.com/2013/11/04/my-talk-at-tedxboulder-civil-resistance-and-the-3-5-rule/ 
) for several years for a successful regime-toppling revolution, we can 
now approximately calculate the cost of such revolution:

EU: $120 billion
US:  $80 billion

(Between themselves, Bezos and Gates could pull it off! Soros is 
disqualified.)

The direction of the revolution is, of course, buyer's choice. Make no 
mistake - one is being funded, and you are not the buyer. Time for a 
Kickstarter campaign?

On the more serious note, back to my infrastructure obsession: this is 
another illustration of how difficult/expensive it is to move our 
society. Perhaps it's time to stop doing the easy stuff and focus on the 
hard problem.

.

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