Yup yup, another musical reference convolved with a blog post. This time it’s Siouxsie and the Banshees. I have always felt this song to capture and express a subtle “I am better than you” attitude. The perfect accompaniment to John Naughton’s recent article in the guardian a few days back about guber… ooops I mean uber.

Don’t get me wrong, as a business entity, who can argue with what they have managed to do so far. Per the popular narrative that the app industry, the have of course  abided by nothing but the purist of free market paradigms.

For the record, here’s an excerpt from the Guardian article:

“The problem with this is that Uber is no more a tech company than is UPS or M&S. It’s a company that uses technology in order to intervene/operate in the offline world. It has, however, borrowed two ideas from the pure internet operators. First, it takes the standard tech business model of being a “platform” (translation: intermediary) – putting buyers in touch with sellers, taking a cut, harvesting the data and taking no responsibility for anything.”

Mr Naughton is onto something. Those of use who have had careers in tech (and even those who haven’t or won’t) need to step back, take a deep breath, and begin to recognize the difference between good businesses, and good technology businesses. Uber may be an example of the former,kudos to them.There is nothing all that wrong about the monetary success they have realized.However, like Mr Naughton, I see far fewer of the latter and I am not all that sure Uber qualifies either. But then what do I know ? Maybe I just don’t get it.