Decentralized Ridesharing - The Next Step

Founded in November 2014, Jugnoo is a technology driven on-demand auto rickshaw aggregator which connects riders with safe, reliable, convenient auto rickshaws just in few clicks across 40+ cities in India.

- Samar Singla

Many tech-driven ridesharing transport apps are facing criticism today because of the exploitation of people who are working on the platform. The biggest resentment seen is due to the centralization of resources and concentration of wealth, which is been accelerated by few giants in mobility and ride hailing space.

These companies seem to control the systems in future with no participation of people working on these platforms. It is believed that now is the time to change such business models, where societies are put at the forefront and businesses at second. There is a solution that we are working for when it comes to the problems of centralized markets in ridesharing industry.

Problem

The idea starts with the establishment of free markets where most of the biggest on-demand companies are working. It is assumed that these free markets are going to solve the problems by being efficient, where all players are rational with minimal regulations by the govt. But today, tech companies are unable to adapt to this ‘fair’ model, because competition doesn’t allow much space to play fair. Companies raise capital, build monopolies quickly by burning cash, spending quickly on driver & customer side and hence, exploit end users associated with the platform. And once the monopoly is created, customers and drivers are exploited with inflates fares/rates resulting in higher profit margins. It is believed that for capitalism to survive, competition is essential, but this is not happening right now further creating a problematic situation.

Solution

We propose a three-step solution, where marketplaces have to be tweaked looking at these important elements: