The article has two insights, which are kinda related in an surprising way.<p>One is tangentially mentioning that car poolers almost always know each other and will not go with random strangers; I thought to myself, yes, I am not young and I cannot remember ever hearing or seeing first hand a &quot;hitchhiker&quot; style car pool although coworkers helping each other out (critically, without a dedicated app&#x2F;service middleman) is almost normal.  The insightful part is the successful ride sharing services actual business model is psychologically tricking users into pretending to be taxi drivers and taxi customers rather than some random dude picking up anonymous hitchhikers which is what they really are.<p>The second semi-related insight is when the free market numbers won&#x27;t work, just demand the government socially engineer a private profit.  Specifically the part of the article where the government should artificially manipulate parking prices to make him the billionaire he is entitled to be because he is so much more deserving of a billion than everyone else.  As the article implies, the concept of suburban ride sharing IS mathematically impossible as defined and the only hope for that sector is winning some kind of &quot;dictator for a day&quot; lotto to basically oppress and dominate the inhuman locals.<p>What ties them together is the concept of LARPing, live action role play.  In the first insight from the article, you can successfully run a middleman transport business, basically an online semi-illegal unlicensed gypsy cab dispatcher service, by convincing both participants to LARP that they&#x27;re taxi drivers and passengers.  In the second insight from the article, aside from all this complicated mathy stuff which is none the less true, you can tell a business sector is dead when the only serious business plan first involves LARPing like becoming dictator for life or mass social engineering or whatever other wish fulfillment.<p>The esoteric message of the article, as opposed to the mathy exoteric message, is the sector is dead because the only participants are the business hustler equivalent of joining the SCA and mistakenly thinking that means you&#x27;re actually the municipal government, rather than the reality of getting drunk with friends in costume.  Which is fun, but don&#x27;t confuse it with actual political rule.