I guess that should not come as a surprise, I don't know that the biases exposed by this study are any worses than what happens in every other segment of society.

The fact that something that would be illegal to do for a conventional business is widespread in a "sharing economy" market seems to be a recurring theme. Uber wants to replace Taxis but without taking any of the obligation the taxis have. But some taxis have obligations to be accessible to disabled persons, and Uber would take none of this responsibility.

Being "disruptive" in start-up terms used to mean having a new business model, of way to do something that would make you come over the rest, but nowadays these companies business model seem to be finding a law or regulation that incurs cost to a sector and ignoring it. Using that model it's easy to undercut a whole industry, but chances are some of these laws where there for a reason. And laws that tend to limit the number of actors in a field also usually gives these actors obligations. These companies would do anything to operate in the markets they want to conquer, except taking the responsibilities the current actors actually took.


posted 3054 days ago