Those mid sized companies you refer to did fine for three reasons:
* If they were competing against venture backed companies, they were likely playing in big markets. My bet is they are still alive today.
* They got acquired by the bigger companies and ended up capturing even more short term economic value than they would have otherwise.
* These venture backed companies expanded the market, actually helping smaller players. I would bet money that VRBO's business increased as AirBnB got bigger.
I agree that there's something sleazy about injecting a ton of capital in a niche space; at the very least, it's distorts all the dynamics in it. But you can't deny that this short term chaos creates long term economic value for everyone else.
Uber demonstrated you could add a tech layer to the taxi business and make it more efficient for riders + introduce a whole new set of people to the driver business. Did this harm existing taxi drivers? Unquestionably.
I know it's hard to look at that business model as innovation but it is because now there's extreme price pressure on these companies (esp Lyft) to remove the costliest part of the equation - the driver. So as a result, you have a ton of very motivated energy towards solving that, via autonomous driving.
It took mediocre business innovation[0] (uber) to drive meaningful tech innovation (autonomous driving).
[0] - Purposely differentiating the tech innovation (which Uber deserves a lot of credit for) vs the biz innovation (which last I read is getting better, though still shaky).
Those mid sized companies you refer to did fine for three reasons:
* If they were competing against venture backed companies, they were likely playing in big markets. My bet is they are still alive today.
* They got acquired by the bigger companies and ended up capturing even more short term economic value than they would have otherwise.
* These venture backed companies expanded the market, actually helping smaller players. I would bet money that VRBO's business increased as AirBnB got bigger.
I agree that there's something sleazy about injecting a ton of capital in a niche space; at the very least, it's distorts all the dynamics in it. But you can't deny that this short term chaos creates long term economic value for everyone else.
Uber demonstrated you could add a tech layer to the taxi business and make it more efficient for riders + introduce a whole new set of people to the driver business. Did this harm existing taxi drivers? Unquestionably.
I know it's hard to look at that business model as innovation but it is because now there's extreme price pressure on these companies (esp Lyft) to remove the costliest part of the equation - the driver. So as a result, you have a ton of very motivated energy towards solving that, via autonomous driving.
It took mediocre business innovation[0] (uber) to drive meaningful tech innovation (autonomous driving).
[0] - Purposely differentiating the tech innovation (which Uber deserves a lot of credit for) vs the biz innovation (which last I read is getting better, though still shaky).