During the first quarter of 2018, local on-demand food delivery achieved mainstream status. In response to Amazon.com’s expansion of delivery on the back of its Whole Foods acquisition, WalMart announced that it would increase its delivery services to reach 40 percent of American homes in 2018. But it is Instacart, which today added 55 Fresh […]
Month: March 2018
The myth of perfect safety in a world transported by autonomous cars has endured until today. A pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, was killed by an Uber autonomous car with a driver at the wheel on Sunday night. The company suspended testing throughout the U.S. and Canada as a result. Perfect safety in complex systems is […]
Lyft is reportedly testing consumer subscriptions for rides in several price ranges designed to get people to skip using a personal car. Trips included in the subscription must be for distances that cost less than $15 for non-subscribers, according to Mashable. You can check how far you can get for $15 using the Lyft Fare […]
Where is your place in the on-demand economy? Many workers and small businesses, including retailers, see the encroachment of Amazon, WalMart, and myriad other services as destructive. Yet media-enabled global brands are consistently challenged when engaging home- and office-based customers. The future of your business, whether a physical location or as an independent contractor, depends […]
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research has released a paper that purportedly blows a hole in the ship of the gig economy. The findings are already much contested, and I’ll lay out in this posting where more research is needed, the flaws in the paper’s methodology, and the policy […]