Lessons from Uber’s massive category disruption

Much has been written about the sharing economy and businesses such as Airbnb and Uber – which are among some of the fastest growing companies on earth.

While a lot of the debate has raged around the grey areas of tax avoidance, skirting government regulations and even breaking the law, the far more interesting thing to talk about (well, for me, anyway) are the bleedingly obvious reasons why millions of people around the world are embracing these alternatives.

I’ve just returned to Hong Kong from a trip back home to Australia where Uber is facing a similar experience to Hong Kong where the powerful taxi lobby seems hell-bent on stopping its rapid march forward.

So far it doesn’t seem to be working.

So awesomely simple is the Uber experience that even while travelling, my wife and I used it for pretty much all our public transport needs. It’s mobile, cashless, fast and it’s easy. There’s no waiting around on taxi ranks, or standing on the corner of a busy street flapping your arms around like a mad person.

Hong Kong’s relentless pursuit of Uber seems more akin to a legacy business unwilling to innovate and afraid of competition.

But it is also symbolic of the wider marketing industry where category disruption, even of the most simplest form, can radically change the face of an industry.

There’s many lessons to be learnt and much debate to be had, but for now it seems that consumers will vote with their mobiles and continue to fuel these challenger services despite the best efforts of slow-moving governments and lobbyists.