ezra’s Comments

• Jun 30th, 2015 @ 12:24pm

  (untitled comment)

  on Techdirt Podcast Episode 30: Does Distance Matter In The Digital Age?
  Phones were supposed to kill cities 100 years ago, yet we are more urban now than ever. Arguably, the internet has allowed more niche groups of people to form online, who then want to fly around the world to ever more specialized conferences. If distance doesn't matter in an internet age, then why are all the most tech savvy people all dying to get visas and move across the world to be in Silicon Valley? The Internet of Smart Cities is the future, not everyone working on their laptops in the mountains.
• Jun 10th, 2015 @ 2:50pm

  (untitled comment)

  on Techdirt Podcast Episode 28: Is Car Ownership On The Way Out?
  See page 37 of this report http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf
  
  Vehicle ownership trends downward as population density trends upward. As more people live in denser environments, fewer people need to own cars. For existing solutions to work, we need high density. Automation may enable us to get to somewhat lower densities as well.
• Jun 10th, 2015 @ 2:25pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Is Car Ownership On The Way Out?

  on Techdirt Podcast Episode 28: Is Car Ownership On The Way Out?
  In the first sentence of the interview, I made the caveat that we are mainly focused on dense urban markets for the foreseeable future.
  
  The average vehicle occupancy is 1.67 per vehicle which has been trending downward aside from social/recreational trips, which tend to be 2.2. You are likely referring to work trips which are at 1.13. See p 33 of the 2009 NHTS: http://nhts.ornl.gov/2009/pub/stt.pdf
  
  As anyone in the tech industry knows, paradigm shifts do not happen overnight, en masse. They start in niche, beachhead markets that seem inconsequential before going viral. Significant shifts in niche markets are to be written off at one's peril. Change takes time and starts small, but impact will nevertheless be large over time.
• Jun 10th, 2015 @ 10:18am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I hope so

  on Techdirt Podcast Episode 28: Is Car Ownership On The Way Out?
  Your comments are well founded. As I made clear in the podcast, these solutions will start in the major cities like San Francisco, Chicago, NYC, etc. Uber is operating in San Antonio and Zipcar has a car at UT San Antonio. It is difficult to get demand in places where there is not higher density development and parking constraints, all of which I mentioned in the beginning of the talk. It is also true that many of these services are currently too expensive for people with low wage jobs and it is true that they spend a lot of their working hours paying off transportation (and housing) costs. Hopefully, with autonomous networks of shared vehicles, we can provide more affordable and more convenient point-to-point transportation solutions, even for McDonald's workers in San Antonio. It is going to take time to get there, but that is the long term aim.
• Jun 9th, 2015 @ 1:31pm

  Re: Cars mabey, I want my truck.

  on Techdirt Podcast Episode 28: Is Car Ownership On The Way Out?
  Agreed. It will be a long time before most of these solutions make sense outside of dense urban environments, so we must continue to innovate so more and more people can have access to new transportation options. Autonomous vehicles will make new mobility options viable in lower density areas as well.
• Jun 9th, 2015 @ 1:28pm

  Re: Hobbies

  on Techdirt Podcast Episode 28: Is Car Ownership On The Way Out?
  Totally agreed, that's why we are building Upshift to give you access to a car for a day at the push of a button when you need to carry things or go longer distances.