Since 2006, I've been writing here about cities, the internet, and the ongoing collision between the two. Along the way, I've also loved using Tumblr to clip quotes off the web, building on the idea of "the slow hunch" (the title of this blog) and the "open commonplace book" as a tool for tracking the slow hunch over time. Today, I'm launching the next iteration of both: Internet Meets World. On IMW, I'll be tracking the big questions, like:
How can we leverage startup networks to improve civic outcomes?
How can we find opportunities to demonstrate innovation without having to change existing laws?
and more
I'll still continue to blog here, but will syndicate certain posts -- those specifically digging into the macro / legal / policy / societal issues created by the collision of the internet and the world, on IMW. In addition to collecting my own posts, I'll also be collecting other articles from across the web, and will move my quote clipping from tumblr into Medium. I'm also looking for one or more co-editors for IMW. If you're interested, shoot me an email at nick [at] usv [dot] com, including a handful of links / quotes that you think really capture the essence of this conflict / opportunity. Onward!
For some reason I have always liked talking to taxi drivers about their business. Maybe it’s because my dad was a NYC taxi driver back in the 70s, or maybe it’s because driving a taxi is such a classic immigrant path to building a life here. And it’s certainly because of the amount of tech and business model innovation in the transportation space.
Last night I took an Uber home from the airport, and was talking to the driver about his experience with it. He loves Uber — in the past 2 years, he switched from being a Boston city cab driver to being an Uber driver — and in the process traded $4000 / month in cab lease fees (what you pay a garage as a base rate to drive the cab — regardless of how much you earn) for a $700 / month car payment and $400 / month in insurance. And he gets to have a vastly improved quality of work (managing his own business & time, driving in a nicer car, etc).
Of course there are tradeoffs — if the Uber business slows down, he’s still on the hook for that car payment. And it’s possible that the number of Uber drivers will continue to increase (unconstrained by medallion restrictions, which in NYC cap taxis at 13,000), increasing competition and bringing down his margins.
But overall, he said that Uber changed his life (for the better). Not everyone feels this way, but it’s one story.
Anyway, the most interesting thing he said was not about the business, but the impact on neighborhoods. He said that Uber has radically increased the taxi / car service business in the city’s tough neighborhoods. This comes across as sounding counter-intuitive since most tech-driven transportation platforms (like Uber, Lyft and Sidecar — but especially Uber) are derided as “For Yuppies By Yuppies”. But the reason makes perfect sense: with Uber, you know your passenger.
So whereas a traditional taxi would hesitate to pick up fares in tough parts of town, because you never know who’s going to get in, Uber drivers can do this with much more confidence, since there is personal identity (and therefore accountability) built into the system.
This makes perfect sense in theory, and I’d be really interested to explore data that could test this out. Especially as NYC gears up to offer mobile payments in traditional taxis.
This is a perfect example of Regulation 2.0 — using real-time / mobile accessible data to build trust and safety into a networked system. And it points out the limitations of “1.0” regulation schemes (in this case taxi licensing), that don’t have access to such data and can hence only solve for part of the problem (in this case, protecting passengers from bad drivers). And it’s a really great example of some of the unexpected benefits of allowing new, networked models to emerge.
Last week I was playing ping pong with Zander and the topic of conversation (naturally) turned to canal skating in Ottawa. You see, in Ottawa during the wintertime, the city’s canals freeze over and they turn into temporary frozen streets. As you can see above, Ottawans turn to using them for their daily activities, like taking their kids to school. Imagine taking your kids to school on ice skates! I was saying that I thought this was so cool, and Zander accused me of “being a hipster who just likes things that are different”. While I do like things that are different and interesting, this is not an ironic interest in canadian urban ice skating. What I love so much about this is that it’s doing a fun activity in a totally natural and non-contrived context. For example:
Hockey in a skating rink: contrived. Hockey on a pond: awesome. Skating to work: unbelievable.
“Going for a bike ride”: lame. Riding your bike to run errands and get around town: awesome.
Taking a boat ride: ok. Riding a boat to get somewhere (like the Fire Island water taxi, or the “buses” in Venice): amazing. Driving your own boat to get to work: rockstar (and that doesn’t at all require a fancy boat).
I am sure there are lots of others that I’m not thinking of right now. If I were a gun owner, I’d probably feel the same way about shooting on a gun range vs. hunting in the wild (or packing heat).
There is something about doing an activity in the normal course of your day, and in its natural environment, that makes it so much better. And there is something about completely fabricated environments that can feel so lame or even sad (and also high pressure because of the dedicated focus). I suppose I can tie this back to my preference for mixed-use urban environments, vs. more separated, dedicated-use contrived ones. It’s possible to say that finding and doing such things has been a lifelong interest for me — though I’ve never really articulated it directly. Maybe it’s some kind of yearning for authenticity, maybe it’s about freedom vs. constraints & control. Anyway, I think I am onto something here and will be on the lookout for other examples. // photo from bugbog.com