Post by High Priestess on Nov 13, 2015 16:19:12 GMT
Article from Canadian Business:
www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/uber-airbnb-aereo-linesix-legal-grey-areas/
Excerpt:
"Years ago, I worked as a waitress at a popular independent brew pub with an origin story that was the stuff of local legend. The proprietor had bought a heritage building, outfitted it with expensive brewing equipment and hired a full-time brewmaster to develop premium ales and lagers. He had just one problem: It wasn’t yet legal for an establishment in Ontario to produce and sell its own beer on-site. He started the business anyway, shilling sandwiches and sodas until the law changed and allowed the pub to sell the suds that have made it a prosperous business for nearly 30 years.
It’s a heartwarming yarn, because it took a lot of guts and there was a happy ending. It’s a small-scale example of the kind of entrepreneurial derring-do that looks beyond the laws as they are and seeks out opportunity in the laws as they may be—a notion that has perhaps never been so celebrated as it is today.
Want proof? Look at the position of two of the most talked-about businesses of the past year: Uber and Airbnb. Uber has created real disruption in the staid taxi industry by providing a wildly popular app that, among other things, allows drivers to charge users for rides outside the taxi licensing system. Cab companies and governments the world over have cried foul, claiming the service violates the heavily regulated industry’s rules. Yet Uber seems undaunted. When hit with an indictment in South Korea at the end of December, CEO Travis Kalanick responded using the carefully calibrated language of a man who knows he’s exploiting a loophole: “We firmly believe that our service, which connects drivers and riders via an application, is not only legal in Korea, but that it is being welcomed and supported by consumers.” The numbers support him: Uber’s services are now available in more than 200 cities worldwide, and some analysts peg its value at US$40 billion.
Airbnb occupies a similar grey area. In connecting travellers with available houses and apartments, it’s created an affordable alternative to hotels that circumvents existing hospitality regulations. Again, the public at large isn’t bothered—more than 10 million people used Airbnb in 2014 alone, and the company now boasts more rooms than any hotel chain in the world.
Both companies have shown remarkable foresight in identifying excess capacity in the market and exploiting it in a way that really, really resonates with customers, regulations be damned. Such blue-sky thinking is enviable, even courageous. But before you start promoting whatever legally ambiguous pursuit you have in mind, you might want to remember that the success of Uber and Airbnb are the exception, not the rule. Just because each has achieved a critical mass of users does not mean that they can’t be wiped out of existence by one knock of a judge’s gavel. That kind of uncertainty can have nasty consequences."
www.canadianbusiness.com/blogs-and-comment/uber-airbnb-aereo-linesix-legal-grey-areas/
Excerpt:
"Years ago, I worked as a waitress at a popular independent brew pub with an origin story that was the stuff of local legend. The proprietor had bought a heritage building, outfitted it with expensive brewing equipment and hired a full-time brewmaster to develop premium ales and lagers. He had just one problem: It wasn’t yet legal for an establishment in Ontario to produce and sell its own beer on-site. He started the business anyway, shilling sandwiches and sodas until the law changed and allowed the pub to sell the suds that have made it a prosperous business for nearly 30 years.
It’s a heartwarming yarn, because it took a lot of guts and there was a happy ending. It’s a small-scale example of the kind of entrepreneurial derring-do that looks beyond the laws as they are and seeks out opportunity in the laws as they may be—a notion that has perhaps never been so celebrated as it is today.
Want proof? Look at the position of two of the most talked-about businesses of the past year: Uber and Airbnb. Uber has created real disruption in the staid taxi industry by providing a wildly popular app that, among other things, allows drivers to charge users for rides outside the taxi licensing system. Cab companies and governments the world over have cried foul, claiming the service violates the heavily regulated industry’s rules. Yet Uber seems undaunted. When hit with an indictment in South Korea at the end of December, CEO Travis Kalanick responded using the carefully calibrated language of a man who knows he’s exploiting a loophole: “We firmly believe that our service, which connects drivers and riders via an application, is not only legal in Korea, but that it is being welcomed and supported by consumers.” The numbers support him: Uber’s services are now available in more than 200 cities worldwide, and some analysts peg its value at US$40 billion.
Airbnb occupies a similar grey area. In connecting travellers with available houses and apartments, it’s created an affordable alternative to hotels that circumvents existing hospitality regulations. Again, the public at large isn’t bothered—more than 10 million people used Airbnb in 2014 alone, and the company now boasts more rooms than any hotel chain in the world.
Both companies have shown remarkable foresight in identifying excess capacity in the market and exploiting it in a way that really, really resonates with customers, regulations be damned. Such blue-sky thinking is enviable, even courageous. But before you start promoting whatever legally ambiguous pursuit you have in mind, you might want to remember that the success of Uber and Airbnb are the exception, not the rule. Just because each has achieved a critical mass of users does not mean that they can’t be wiped out of existence by one knock of a judge’s gavel. That kind of uncertainty can have nasty consequences."