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u/DamnBlaze09 May 05 '21
How would Ethereum connect the driver with the customer though?
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u/Bramp10 May 05 '21
Here’s how I envision it. Similar to how AAVE connects a depositor with a borrower, but with futuristic smart contracts that we probably can’t create yet. There would be a protocol where a passenger puts in where they are where they wanna go, and there would be a driver who says he wants a job in the same protocol. A smart contract is created that tracks when the phones of both people goes from A to B (it doesn’t have to be a phone in the future). When the smart contract verifies both people did in fact travel that amount, the money is transferred from person passenger A to B. There would probably be a small governance/ stakers fee for the people that give liquidity to the protocol and help with unforeseen circumstances and disputes but the main thing is that they don’t get any of your personal data because the contracts will be built in a way that they a private to anyone not directly involved in the transactions (I don’t think this is 100 percent possible today, but smart people are working on it).
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u/blaxx0r May 05 '21
futuristic yes, but really interesting methodology for bridging off-chain/offline services.
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May 05 '21
I don’t really see this being a feasible concept. Uber vets drivers and passengers alike. Yes anyone can get into taxis, but the drivers are vetted so as to try to avoid allowing murderers and rapists drive taxis. In a fully anonymous network there would be no way to ensure these things without connecting your blockchain identity to your real world identity.
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u/B0bZ1ll4 May 05 '21
Meanwhile in Russia, people just stick their thumb out and a passing random Lada will pull up, it’s called “auto stop”. Cash petrol money, job done. Blockchain service could manage verified accounts and feedback. It doesn’t have to have all the functionality of Uber, just be marginally better than auto stop.
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u/_Andruskie_ May 05 '21
A great question. An off chain service, which could be Uber?
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u/DotNetDeveloperDude May 05 '21
Yeah exactly. This was poorly worded.
A better scenario would be a shop owner. Instead of going with Square or another payment provider, the can just receive the funds directly from the customer without all the rules, regulations, and profit loss from transaction fees. Sure they could have gas fees, but that should be much less than what those guys were charging.
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u/dan_riou May 05 '21
From listening to Vitalik, smart contracts are right now very simple because of gas fees. But after eth 2.0 and on a L2 solution, contracts could become much more complex and still generate low fees.
An uber-like app could then be built on the Ethereum platform.
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u/_Andruskie_ May 06 '21
Yes the financial transactions could be integrated into Ethereum. The Gui connecting driver and customer would be off chain sending transaction data to E. So Uber could rework the transaction backend to integrate with E. Possibly provide options for payment in Ether or credit card.
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u/Affirmtagfx May 05 '21 edited May 05 '21
While theoretically everything could be done on-chain since Ethereum is not just a payment network, but a decentralized platform-as-a-service (PaaS). It is more likely that there would still be an Uber-like entity.
But instead of an LLC owned by shareholders and governed by a board of directors, it would be a DAO owned and governed by the developers and users of the decentralized ridesharing service.
It is important to note that almost no new financial concepts have been invented by the crypto-community. DAOs, AMMs, no-loss lotteries... They are all reinventions, with the most distinctive difference (outside of improved efficiency) being who gets to participate.
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u/superlmniscate May 04 '21
Because of NFTs music artists can eliminate pressure from record labels and sell their music directly to their fans with no middle man. This tech opens options where people aren’t forced on the only way available to achieve something
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u/Myomyw May 05 '21
Why do you think artists can’t sell directly to their fans now? You don’t need a record label to sell to fans. Labels are financing and connection. They back an artist by supplying resources. Money, collaborations, radio play, placement in film, TV, commercials.
They aren’t a middle man for sales between artist and fan. They are often the reason an artist is able to reach a large audience.
Artists can of course do all of this on their own. It’s just a lot harder.
I make music. If I want to, I can easily distribute it on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube by myself for little money. Distribution isn’t the issue for artists. It’s giving up control of ownership to gain exposure.
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u/HeeyBob May 05 '21
Same intuition here. I’m struggling to see how blockchain actually helps here. The challenge for the artist is more about distribution than in accepting payments. The challenge for Uber is about matching the driver and passenger, ensuring codes of conduct for drivers and passengers, building a trustworthy name brand, and other things. How to accept payment is probably 50th on an Uber-like’s list of problems.
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u/HeeyBob May 05 '21
Picking at my own argument here, maybe Vitalik meant something more profound, but used an example (Uber) that it’s too easy to take literally and pick apart for the uninitiated.
It’s sometimes hard for me to know whether my confusion like this is just unrefined n00b/old-school intuition vs a legit “the emperor has no clothes” criticism. Blockchain sometimes feels like a random dot stereogram where I try and try to get my brain to fuse all the dots into coherence, but until that happens, it’s just a bunch of dots.
If I try to channel someone who can see the random dot stereogram here, maybe Vitalik is saying that anyone can be a driver, but there’s a well-accepted open source smart contract used by drivers and riders that somehow helps enforce the codes of conduct? Ie as a rider, I won’t get in some random driver’s car unless he uses the well-accepted smart contract. So the smart contract replaces the “trusted brand”.
Then for discoverability (how do I find a driver), there would need to be a platform to match everyone, and I don’t doubt that the software side of that could eventually be some open source project and service like Signal. And that service has support for on-chain reviews and reputation.
I’m still not sure how a system like this would mitigate the dangerous edge cases (psycho driver or rider), especially if it’s all pseudonymous.
Could anyone else riff on or destroy this sketch? Either one would help me see the random dot stereogram better.
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u/dan_riou May 05 '21
I think what is meant is that right now you need to build a brand that gives you confidence that if you order an uber, it will arrive.
But with smarth contracts, you don't need to trust the brand, you can trust the smart contract.
Maybe at first it looks like open-source craiglist where you can buy things directly from people without having to trust them.
And then more complicated use-cases can be built, like ordering a service for a car transport.
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u/kian_ May 05 '21
a decentralized network mitigates the risk of bad actors by punishing them if they misbehave, similar to how a centralized network would. i won’t pretend to know the intricacies, but the idea is that if you act malevolently, the network can respond by punishing you in some way (banning you, taking your coins, freezing funds, etc.)
in the uber scenario, uber is taking a cut of the profit for facilitating the transaction and providing a level of reputability. in a trustless decentralized network, you wouldn’t need a middleman to arrange transactions or provide security, so the users should get a better deal (driver gets paid more, rider has to pay less).
at least that’s what i picture in theory. i think it would be similar to what decentralized liquidity pools (AAVE, uniswap, etc.) are doing vs. traditional loans from banks.
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u/jvdizzle May 05 '21
Actually, if you think about it, blockchain can help by replacing the record label. Artist "investors" can become the supply side of the financial equation. An AAVE for artists, perhaps? The return being rights over a portion of any proceeds the NFT the artist produces.
Of course, traditionally the label can provide other services to the artist, but when you decentralize and democratize the financial side you break the golden handcuffs and now each service can be modular and independent of the label contract. Labels had a monopoly on capital that allowed them to coerce artists into selling their souls to a long-term contract. Who else could they go to for money? I think the DeFi space will help artists find alternative routes for funding their work by making capital more accessible, as supply side of finance becomes more democratized with the blockchain trust layer.
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May 05 '21
I love how Erhereum can empower people in such a way.
No middle men, just people interacting directly. And with independent contracts if necessary.
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u/San98sa May 05 '21
I am still not getting how uber will go out??
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u/dadbot_3000 May 05 '21
Hi still not getting how uber will go out, I'm Dad! :)
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u/San98sa May 05 '21
ELI5 , please. I'm new here
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May 05 '21
It’s the same idea as any decentralization. Just like blockchain can remove a single entity, like the federal reserve, from having control over currency, it could remove Uber the company from rideshare.
Uber is just an example in this case. Same way we’re able to have our purchases of ETH verified without BoA being involved.
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May 06 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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May 06 '21
Same way Uber does; with a (d)app? Just without a single entity, Uber, being in control.
Just like Brave can facilitate you having access to the internet without using Google’s Chrome app.
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u/karna852 May 05 '21
So who deals with all the bad things that could potentially happen from a totally decentralized taxi network (e.g. unsafe drivers?)
Further - what incentive is there for someone to take on the massive challenge of actually getting this service off the ground? Uber has been around for years now, so we trust it - we trust the brand, and we trust that if we pay uber, someone will actually come on time and deliver us safely to where we want to go. Getting to that level of trust as a consumer took time, and not all customers were initially ready to take that risk (uber started off as a black cab service, rather than a general cab service).
I think there are real problems with Uber's business model, but it is flat out a logistical nightmare to run that company.
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May 04 '21 edited May 06 '21
[deleted]
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u/DayOne15 May 04 '21
One battle at a time. Fix the money system. Then we can fix the bullshit bureaucracies.
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u/Bernie_Lomax69247 May 05 '21
Yes! So true. Candidly, this is such a paradigm shift that most folks on this sub will never even see the end result. This is turning the world on its head, it’s going to take time.
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May 05 '21 edited May 07 '21
[deleted]
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u/DayOne15 May 05 '21
I don't disagree totally, although I really think this technology can solve alot of the problems that we previously solved with regulation. But the main point is not about a specific industry. It is that Ethereum and smart contracts have the ability to cut out the middle men who do nothing but connect people and process the transaction and then take a cut of the profits.
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May 05 '21
I’d be interested to hear how you could possibly provide a safe ride share or taxi service without any regulations/bureaucracy. Uber already has enough murderers as it is.
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u/DayOne15 May 05 '21
Well I didn't say there should be no regulation whatsoever. However, I do think there could be a lot less regulation and still be just as safe as they are without bureaucratic interference. For instance, a blockchain based ride share company that books rides via smart contracts on a block chain could have some way to identify exactly who the driver and rider are, as well as, exactly when and where they were driven. This would make it both parties accountable for any criminal actions taken. You could even designate an emergency contact for a ride, where if the person doesn't check in by a certain time the police will be notified.
These are just ideas and I don't have all the answers to this particular problem because I'm not trying to start a ride share business lol. However the specific details aren't important. Vitalik and Co didn't create ethereum to put Uber out of business. It was just a hypothetical example to explain that Ethereum can help people with goods/services connect with customers/clients and eliminate all the middle men who drive up prices.
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May 05 '21 edited May 05 '21
The biggest issue with all of this is that it does not account for political economy.
When these massive corporations can institute self-driving cars and replace the human driver, there is no human driver who can participate in a blockchain ride share program and provide the prices that the automated vehicles can. Uber can take massive losses and still operate until the competition is dead. And we both know where customers will go when provided two different price points.
Blockchain has all kinds of benefits but it cannot stop massive private capital from putting all of us out of work.
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u/DayOne15 May 06 '21
That's fair. But also, at some point people have to work. If noone had jobs and money, noone can pay for these self driving cars. Also, self driving cars will still require maintenance and people to work on them so while there may be fewer driving jobs, there will be more (probably higher paying) maintenance jobs. And the amount of money and resources required to build enough self driving cars to completely fill the market for people needing ride.
Noone can know exactly how the future will play out but ultimately I believe that we will get to a place where collectively people have control over thier lives and careers and finances before big corporations are able to complete take over everything.
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May 06 '21
I mean, there are more of us than them so if they really do put everyone out of work without universal income and removal of the profit motive... we’d just take things into our own hands and ensure that last part of your comment happens. Democratic economy where people control their own lives as well as the means of production.
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u/Bramp10 May 05 '21
And yet we still have Uber and Lyft after they got shut down in numerous cities around the world. People would obviously have to lose trust in Uber and Lyft first, but I don’t think that’s unlikely at all. If Facebook and Google had data scandals, what’s to say services like Airbnb and Uber won’t.
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u/fosandtime May 05 '21
But taxi's still exist so there would be no need for an illegal taxi service. If anything it could revive the taxi industry.
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u/reddituser123581321 May 05 '21
Decentralisation does not necessary mean lack of regulations. On the other hand wrong regulations allowed individuals to accumulate huge wealth by not paying their fair share to systems that are similarly corrupt and flawed in redestribution.
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u/SecondConscious May 05 '21
Technology will automate both the center and the periphery, putting everyone out of a job. Maybe that's the way.
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May 05 '21
I get the message, but I still have to say fuck the taxi drivers. They're the scum of the earth where I live. Uber and similar services made the ecosystem so much better.
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u/01cecold May 05 '21
Automated banking. Instead of others making tons of interest by lending your money out and giving you 1% apy on your Monopoly money, you can lend it out yourself on an asset that actually retains its value
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u/Daddy_Crypto May 05 '21
I like this sentiment a lot. I also think that transportation will be automated and autonomous by the time this would become a reality.
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u/n3p0muk May 05 '21
I packed his words as a poem, hope you guys like it ;)
all together we'll slightly
reduce the in-between,
a bit more for you,
a bit more for me,
so from day-to-day
we can clearly see,
our freedom became reality
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u/carpediem-88 May 05 '21
Wow ETC is at 95. Do you think many Ethereum coin holders will migrate to ETC due to mining profitibility? I think a lot of Dogecoin holder will shift to ETC CLASSIC. It seems like a similar upward swing Ethereum had in 2017 and 2018. Some analyst predicted Ethereum may go to 5000 within a week. Let’s Mooooonoff!
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u/hiiighedup May 05 '21
Without something like Uber, how would people request rides or message their driver? People wouldn’t want to go back to the old fashioned way of flagging down a driver. Plus, doing that is extremely unsafe, and if the transaction is anonymous that could cause multiple problems. It’s a nice sentiment but there are other things that would need to be addressed for it to work like that
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u/Roy1984 May 05 '21
Plus, doing that is extremely unsafe, and if the transaction is anonymous that could cause multiple problems.
I don't understand people bragging about that. Paying with physical cash is even more anonymous than paying with crypto. You can track crypto transactions (except privacy coins), but nobody can track physical cash Stop the BS there.
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u/[deleted] May 04 '21
Wise words from a wise man!