Is there a way to set a maximum price or time you're willing to pay for each request? My biggest hesitation about using something like this would be that it would end up costing way more than I anticipated - something I expect to take 30 minutes could take 4 hours cost $400 instead of $50.
Adding to this, "the free market will decide" can sometimes be a cop-out, but in this case it applies perfectly.
There are reasonably low barriers to entry in this market, for the most part. If Uber treating its drivers as contractors rather than employees impacts Uber drivers in a negative enough way that they would prefer to work elsewhere, there is likely ample space for a competitor which offers a better deal for its drivers.
Drivers have little-to-no incentive to stay with Uber if they can get a better deal elsewhere (based on what I've seen, many already also work for Lyft), and users have little-to-no reason to stick with one on-demand ride app if there's another app that has more availability/drivers.
If cost-of-ride is the biggest competitive differentiator, the price of the ride will stay the same and drivers will be able to choose whether they want to work for a company which treats them as an employee but takes a bigger cut, or a company which takes a smaller cut but treats them as a contractor.
Compartmentalization, as runjake mentioned below, is key.
I worked at Microsoft during the development of Windows 8 (disclaimer: I no longer work there, and only speak for myself here). Certain "secret" features were not available in the "default" OS configuration until shortly before they were announced. Access was restricted only to those who needed it, and only then with manager (or, I believe at one point, director) approval. If you had access, you were under strict instructions to only enable the features when nobody else was around.
Artifacts from this process are probably what resulted in the "workaround" in the Developer Preview build [0] to revert back to the classic start menu.
Similarly, with the Surface, much of the company was in the dark until the official announcement. Some of the lengths they went to in order to keep it secret, included only a few executives knowing and trying to avoid ordering multiple parts from the same vendor [1]. The team worked in a vault-style building where one door had to close before the other would open [2].
There's also the giant "fear of being sued or prosecuted" thing. Big companies can afford good lawyers, your average employee probably cannot. Hell, Win8 was released over 3 years ago, I no longer work at Microsoft, yet I've still gone back and triple-checked this post to make sure I'm not disclosing anything about it that's not well-known to the public.
I've been hoping for a Junkyard Wars reboot starring a rotating cast of Mythbusters cast/alumnae (including the B Team members). I love the crazy builds and seeing their thought process in how/why they build what they do. A show like Junkyard Wars would be a perfect venue for this.
Kari from the build team said on Twitter that this was really close to happening but ultimately it didn't get picked up. Discovery is going to need to fill the hole in their lineup somehow, so maybe it'll come around again. I'd love to see that revived.
Spotify already tracks user listening history. I can see a "Recently Played Artists" section on my profile, and I assume they're using some of it to generate the user-specific "Discover Weekly" recommended music playlists.
I think there's a lot of interesting things that are going to be happening at the intersection of health and wearables in the next few years. $100k likely isn't enough to start a full-fledged company, but it's enough to create a good enough prototype to get some outside investment
Some ideas for said company that I'll probably never implement because I don't have said $100k:
- Running shoes that give feedback on your running form using pressure sensors and accelerometers. Depending on the type/placement of sensors, could also double as a weight tracking device that doesn't require you to weigh yourself
- Smartwatches aimed at diabetics, which can continuously monitor insulin/glucose levels, while also serving other smartwatch functions. Alerts for low/high levels.
- System that would let paramedics/doctors access recent pulse/skin temperature/etc data from a smartwatch and display it in a usable manner. Could help figure out what happened in the minutes leading up to an emergency call.
