THELOGICALINDIAN - By accumulation bleedingedge technologies likeBitcoin smartcontracts and theselfdriving car ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyftcouldbecomeobsolete as acquittal intermediaries
Also read: Ethereum’s Blockchain ‘Makes Most Sense’ for ‘Gamified’ Ride-Sharing
Uber Testing Self-Driving Cars
Everyone’s aflame about Uber’s latest pilot program to analysis self-driving cartage in the burghal of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But the bedraggled little abstruse is that both Uber and Lyft plan to replace animal drivers as anon as accessible to addition profits. A fleet of “robot cars” won’t complain or unionize for college wages, which the company would abridged for itself.
Uber, whose accelerated acceleration resulted in $1.5 billion USD revenue in 2015, currently takes a 20 percent cut on every ride. Thus, if the company’s “driver-partners” are alone (or at atomic fabricated beneath relevant), the aggregation could rake in about the absolute amount of the ride.
What Is Uber Really?
Despite accession themselves as the beat of the new P2P economy, they’re annihilation but. In fact, their middle-man business archetypal is annihilation new. To be exact, such app-based businesses are alone banking intermediaries. “A banking agent is an article that acts as the agent amid two parties in a banking transaction,” by definition, and Uber absolutely seems to fit the bill.
In the book titled, The Administration Economy: The End of Application and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism, author Arun Sundararajan asked, “Are today’s administration abridgement platforms absolutely ‘markets’? Or are they artlessly 20th-century organizations with a new application model, and appropriately no added than old hierarchies in agenda bottles?”
As Bitcoin expert, Andreas Antonopoulos, explained at a recent talk in LA:
But while one ability altercate that Uber additionally provides insurance, the allowance companies are additionally acquittal intermediaries, he noted. Moreover, this arrangement is all-over because of credit cards, which Antonopoulos sees as a “centralizing force,” area you and your claimed advice are the product.
Credit Cards Are a ‘Centralizing Force’
“Why can’t I pay the person?” he continued. “Because they can’t booty acclaim cards. Why can’t I pay my driver? Because they can’t booty acclaim cards. Why can’t I pay the disciplinarian and the allowance aggregation on the base of a four minute ride to assure me for those four account while I’m in that car? Because I accept to put a acclaim agenda in the middle.”
Today, absolute payments with fiat can alone be done using physical cash, which is increasingly relegated to angled in developed nations.
Disrupting the ‘Disruptors’
But what happens if we brew up these bleeding-edge technologies? Combine smart-contracts with decentralized ride-sharing apps, cryptocurrencies, self-driving cars, and it no best makes faculty to give Uber a allotment of your revenue.
Indeed, decentralized ride-sharing applications such as Arcade City see this as a above business opportunity. The app harnesses the power of decentralization and cryptocurrency to fill the abandoned larboard by Uber and Lyft in Austin, Texas, afterwards actuality banned by the city.
“Even abreast from the absence of Uber and Lyft, abounding of these bodies are annoyed of actuality jerked about by the above ride-share corporations and will be blessed to use a decentralized another that puts added ability in their hands,” Arcade City architect Christopher David told Bitcoin.com. Under such a model, drivers would be free to:
– Set their own rates;
– Negotiate and transact anon with riders;
– Build absolute relationships with riders for a abiding and alternating chump base;
– Self-organize into ‘pods’, co-ops, or their own businesses.
Moreover, Bitcoin technology and acute contracts can additionally accredit a car to be self-owning. To wit, your Honda Civic can finer become its own association and alike its own shareholder with an ability to pay for its own lease, gas, and allowance by giving bodies rides.
Also, instead of sitting in the driveway when not in use, a car could accomplish some assets for its owner. Meanwhile, costs not alone acutely decline, but claimed advice charcoal safe, abroad from centralized institutions.
Disintermediation Ahead
By attractive at Uber’s business model, the “new” sharing-economy actually has the aforementioned old boss. Why? Because the bequest acquittal anatomy charcoal in tact. The P2P abridgement does absolutely accept the abeyant to absolve the ability of crowd-based capitalism. But for this to happen, payments must additionally be peer-to-peer without a corporation in the middle.
By removing banking intermediaries, P2P networks can absolutely alive up to their promise and revolutionize how bodies do business. The role of the army would be transformed from actuality the antecedent of activity and basic to absolutely owning and active the exchange in a decentralized fashion.
Will we see self-driving and self-owning cars in the future? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Images address of BusinessInsider, Arcade City, Shutterstock.
