from Gergely Orosz | by Gergely Orosz

Coming from the person who built Uber in NYC from the ground up, I’m a bit surprised. Uber as a concept has been successful because of the central entity that was always accountable. Customer support & fraud detection was always central and key to Uber gaining trust. t.co/nJZ3om8q6K

This “central accountability” is the reason no peer-to-peer Uber alternative was ever successful. Did a driver rip you off? Uber: “here’s a refund.” Non-centralised version (P2P or web3): “Better luck next time” Same with fraud, safety concerns, need for support…

Finally: regulation. As soon as you have people transported in noticeable numbers, government gets involved on health & safety grounds. This is where it *could* get interesting. How would a government interact with a… DAO/coin facilitating this with no POC or local subsidiary?

On the transporting people with no local entity, I suspect no sane government would allow this. It’s either licensed transport entrepreneurs (aka taxi drivers) who use a P2P/web3 network. Or a local subsidiary registering w the government: just like Uber did in every country.

Don’t let this stop anyone: Uber started as a concept few thought would work (“we have taxis!”) But anyone innovating in space needs to do something better than taxis (individual service providers w some coordination) AND Uber (central entity coordinating on-demand ridersharing)