Case Study: Uber in Philadelphia
A real example of Permissionless Innovation - and how a welcoming stance let transformative technology run its course.
In 2016, Uber ran some of its earliest trials of self-driving taxis on the streets of Philadelphia. What made it possible was, by and large, two things: an absence of pre-existing regulatory restrictions that would have blocked it, and an open willingness by local authorities to keep it that way and let the trials proceed.
The policymakers reasoned that if they tried to block the trials, they would not block the inevitable march of the technology - the experiments would simply take place somewhere else. So they chose to be part of history in the making, allowing transformative innovation to run its natural course on their streets, with existing safety laws available if anything went seriously wrong.
Permissionless Innovation in action
This is a clean illustration of the principle. Nobody could have pre-proven the safety and value of autonomous taxis in the abstract - that knowledge only comes from real-world trials. By permitting experimentation rather than demanding permission, Philadelphia enabled learning and progress, while retaining existing laws to check any "ragged edges" - fraud, negligence, public-safety failures - if they arose.
Your Turn
Think it through, then reveal.
If a frontier technology wanted to run its first trials in your city or industry, would the environment welcome it or block it? What would a wise, Philadelphia-style stance look like for you?
Sources
- Thierer, A., Permissionless Innovation, Mercatus Center, 2016.
- Press coverage of Uber's autonomous-vehicle pilots, Pennsylvania, 2016.
- PermissionlessInnovation.org - reference resources.