You have to crawl before you can walk

So I got to thinking the other day about how Uber and other businesses depend on manual labor to make them selves work...   At least in the initial stages.  So I present the original networked company - Bell Telephone.   Many moons ago Bell's model for switching was this lady --

Yes that's right.  She and an army of others just like her, (a bit less nosey though) made the connections that got your call through to Dr Welby. Sam the butcher, or Mr. Drucker...   I guess I'm showing my age here. 

So compare the role of the manual labor in the early stages of these startups.  Uber is leveraging the same model.  Manual labor drives the cars.  The business makes the application to accept the order I" need a ride from Point x to point y" and dispatch the car.  The manual labor fulfills it.   But understand how much manual labor is used in all kinds of industries. Face book is using it to support their new AI. http://www.wired.com/2015/08/how-facebook-m-works/.   You can even get manual labor as a service..  I give you Mechanical Turk. https://www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

So obviously the phone company has removed the manual component and automated their switching. Uber will have to automate their drivers at some point.  With the valuations they have they should be researching this right now.  Don't wait for a Google or and Apple car to replace your driver.   Google and Apple can build a order taking interface and have a fleet competition for Uber very quickly.  It does not work the same way for Uber.  Uber has done the easy task of writing and order taking and dispatch app.  What they do not have is the self driving car.  This is a hard problem for them.  Current Uber drivers beware! You will be replaced.