什么都不做就能挣钱：Uber和Airbnb的故事

    打车应用Uber最近吸引了很多媒体的关注，但引发关注的可不是什么好事。该公司一位高管近日威胁称，要对一位给Uber写负面新闻的记者进行调查。另外据称，一位用Uber打车的乘客被司机殴打。在旧金山，一位在Uber上提供服务的司机碾压了行人。而且，Uber的CEO因为据说培养了一种“兄弟会文化”而受人诟病。

    我无意淡化这些问题的严重性，不过我认为，Uber带来的这些基本性问题，与该公司一些具体的经营手法并没有多大关系，而主要是由于它采用了一种自身不承担责任的商业模式。除了Uber之外，其他很多做平台的公司——也就是通过扮演中介的角色赚钱，而不是自身提供某种产品或服务——也有同样的问题。我不知道人们是不是充分意识到了这种模式的许多内生性问题。

    今年夏天，我用租房应用Airbnb在加州克莱尔蒙特租了一套房子。预订费用是79美元——超过了租金的10%。我问房东，房子里有大床吗？她在电子邮件里回复说，等到我们入住的时候，她就会放一张大床进去。

    在入住日之前四个星期的时候，我试图再次联系房东，但是没有得到任何回复。Anrbnb只是提供了非常有限的帮助，从我联系他们到收到回复之间隔了很长时间。最后，那间房子里没有大床，我们只好住进了波莫纳的喜来登酒店（Sheraton in Pomona），因为克莱蒙特的旅店当时都已经订满了。经过一番催促，Airbnb的确返还了我们所有的预订费用，不过其实他们不必这样做。正如该公司的服务协议明示的那样，这只是一个在线平台，“Airbnb并不是房产的拥有者或运营者。”

    多好的一个业务模式啊！通过在一个具有高度可扩展性的IT平台上提供一种对接服务，Airbnb就能坐收大笔收入，它也无需承受与任何常规住宿服务相关的运营成本。Airbnb不用负责房子的维修和清洁工作（或者干净程度，这个原因让我在伯克利的一个同事不再使用Airbnb），其实它什么都不用做。

做一门不用承担责任的生意

    当然，Airbnb并不是唯一一家通过赚中介费挣钱的公司。Uber在其服务协议中也非常清楚地阐明，Uber既不是运输商，也不提供物流服务。所以无论是乘客也好，司机也好，甚至挡了车辆的行人也好，出了问题只能靠他们自己解决。

    与之类似，易趣(eBay)也不是一家零售商。就像它在用户协议中阐明的那样，易趣并不“保证所展示商品的存在、质量、安全性或合法性。”我敢说，那些因为销售含铅玩具而倒了霉的零售商，或是那些有大量存货卖不出去的零售商，肯定希望他们当初也能想到一个如此绝妙的生意。

    现如今，通过构建中介平台来赚钱的企业越来越多，因为这样能规避为产品和服务的质量甚至可用性承担风险，所以何乐而不为呢？如果你除了网站之外什么都不用做，利润当然是非常可观的。

    要说这些公司还是学到了不少经验的。不知大家是否还记得Webvan，这是一家前埃森哲公司（Accenture）高管创办的企业，这家公司砸了10亿美元重金，试图提供日常生活用品送货上门服务。Webvan雇了很多人驾驶该公司自己购买的货车，然后利用非常复杂的管理软件，让司机从该公司自己的配送中心提货。现在看来，这个商业计划还真是蠢到家。如今像Instacart等公司使用的都是承包商，而不是自家的员工，从现成的食杂店里购买产品，然后递送给消费者。这种运营模式的投资和风险都小得多。

    Uber is much in the news recently, for mostly the wrong reasons. One of its senior executives threatened to investigate journalists who wrote negative things about the taxi service platform. An Uber passenger was allegedly attacked by a driver. And an Uber-affiliated driver ran over a pedestrian in San Francisco. And the company’s CEO has been accused of fostering a frat boy culture.

    Without downplaying the seriousness of these events, I believe the fundamental issues posed by Uber have less to do with the company’s specifics and more to do with a business model that works by offloading responsibilities, something that many other platform companies—businesses that make money by making connections rather than providing a real product or service—do as well. I am not sure people fully appreciate the many problems inherent in this type of business.

    This summer, I used Airbnb to rent a house in Claremont, Calif. The booking fee was $79—more than 10% of the rental cost. Did the house have a king-sized bed, I inquired of the owner? She would put one in time for our rental, she assured me by e-mail.

    Four weeks before the reservation date, I tried to reach her. No response. Airbnb provided only modest help, with a long lag between e-mailing them and getting any reply. In the end, no king-sized bed, so we stayed at the Sheraton in Pomona as hotels in Claremont were fully booked by that time. Airbnb did, with some prodding, refund our entire booking fee, but they didn’t have to. As the company’s terms of service clearly state, this is an online platform and “Airbnb is not an owner or operator of properties.”

    What a great business model. Airbnb collects money for providing a matching service on a highly scalable IT platform but faces none of the normal operating costs entailed in providing accommodations. The company is not responsible for maintenance and repairs, cleaning (or cleanliness, an issue that has caused a colleague of mine in Berkeley to stop using them)—or anything, really.

Making a business out of not being responsible

    Of course, Airbnb is not alone in perfecting a business model in which companies take fees for doing nothing other than facilitating transactions. As it makes abundantly clear in its terms of service, Uber does not function as a transportation carrier nor does it provide logistics services. Passengers and drivers, and maybe even pedestrians in the way of Uber cars, are pretty much on their own.

    Similarly, eBay is not a retailer. As it explains in its user agreement, eBay does not “guarantee the existence, quality, safety, or legality of items advertised.” I bet the retailers who get stuck with toys with lead in them or with inventory they can’t sell wish they had thought of such a clever out.

    The list of companies that build platforms but eschew responsibility for the quality or even availability of goods or services grows daily, and why not? Margins can be enormous if you don’t have to deliver anything other than a website.

    Give these companies credit for learning from experience. Remember Webvan, the startup run by a former Accenture executive that ran through $1 billion in an effort to build a business delivering groceries to homes? Webvan hired employees to drive trucks that the company purchased to haul products from its own distribution centers operated by extraordinarily complex software. Dumb business plan. Today, companies such as Instacart use contractors, not employees, to buy products at existing grocery stores and deliver it to people. Much less investment and risk.