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CodingJeebusyesterday at 5:23 PM2 repliesview on HN

> To push out the US tech you need to build something that’s better than the US tech. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

Not true at all, a perfect example from the ride-sharing world. Lyft and Uber left Austin a decade ago over a city ordinance requiring background checks, so a couple local tech folks pitched in a very small amount of money, relatively speaking, and built a non-profit version of Uber. Everyone loved it, drivers got paid more, it was cheaper overall because it was a non-profit, the app worked just fine, etc. The app buildout was somewhere in the seven figure range.

All was good until Lyft and Uber came back, artificially undercut the non-profit app until it died, and then drove prices back up.

And that was ten years ago. Today, a rockstar infra expert and product engineer could easily stand up a scalable ride-share clone. And if people are mad enough (and it sure seems like people are getting mad at the US), then the energy is there for users to make a change.


Replies

fookeryesterday at 5:50 PM

Your story makes the point that the nonprofit app only worked under new government regulations and could not survive in the free market?

I do think more infrastructure should be non-profit, but if someone makes a for-profit version that beats you there’s not really much to do other than hoping the government has your back.

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trollbridgeyesterday at 5:33 PM

A ride sharing app is ridiculously easy to create.

Most of the work is in network effects so you have a large pool of drivers willing to work below minimum wage and a large pool of riders interested in paying you a lot more than that.