With Uber Freight, it’s not just truck drivers whose jobs are at risk — from linkedin.com by John McDermott
The bane of taxi drivers everywhere is now taking on logistics
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
At the end of December Uber debuted Uber Freight, its foray into the un-sexy yet lucrative world of logistics. Many saw Uber’s entry into freight as a death knell for trucking companies, as Uber is looking to build a fleet of driverless trucks.
And while the threat to trucking is real, Uber Freight poses a more immediate risk to the thousands of mid-level, white-collar support staff jobs in the industry.
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Uber is uniquely positioned to streamline the industry, though. Much like the company’s ride-hailing app cuts out the taxi dispatcher and allows people to hail rides directly from drivers, Uber Freight can create a platform where shippers and truckers broker shipping orders directly with one another, effectively rendering obsolete thousands of 3PL (third party logistics) workers. It replaces people with software, and configures a labor-intensive industry into a SaaS business.
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Famed venture capitalist Marc Andreessen is fond of the phrase “software is eating the world,” meaning that it’s replacing many of the post-industrial, pre-internet jobs once thought to be essential. Problem is, one man’s efficiency is another’s unemployment.
Problem is, one man’s efficiency is another’s unemployment.