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How Uber Flooded the Global Economy with More Crappy Jobs
How one tech startup helped to restructure the global economy and usher in a new way of working
In 2008, Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick had just left a tech conference, located in Paris, unable to procure a taxi on a cold, winter night when an idea for the ridesharing app first arose. The next year, the two started Ubercab, which later became known as Uber, with a mission statement to: “Make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone.”
The company was pivotal in transforming the economy in ways that were unimaginable only a decade ago, so much so that the term “uberisation” has often been used to describe the commodification of existing assets via smart phones. For decades, vehicles have been depicted purely as depreciating assets, and tend to require many expenses, like insurance, checkups, and repairs. Since cars are left unused around 95 percent of the time, Uber allowed millions of people across the world to now use their personal mode of transportation to earn a primary or secondary stream of income.
When Uber was initially launched, there were no other ridesharing services like it. For that matter, there were few companies that provided software, which enabled people to share their possessions with complete strangers. Even more interesting, it markets itself as…
