One problem, that is alluded to but not really addressed in the article, is that so much is still offline--especially for those of us who don't live in the middle of major metros. I'm not even sure how much of this is really a technology problem.
I feel the general pain. There are a number of things I would be willing to write a check tomorrow to have handled at an even semi-reasonable price if I could just make a phone call and say "Make It So." Unfortunately my really good contractor retired and the last contractor I found (through Lowe's) did a generally good job in the end but was terribly uncommunicative and otherwise difficult to deal with.
I have various companies and individuals who do stuff for me but, in general, finding someone to do some semi-defined task for me is painful and I don't really expect that to change.
I actually don't mean to be facetious. I'm just not sure that finding a good general contractor is as amenable to a tech fix as getting a driver from point A to point B. Where the post lost me was implying that Uber for X was part of a logical progression and I'm not sure it is.
I'm not sure what's available today for things like local plumbers is any better than the Yellow Pages was 20 years ago. Especially once you get out of high density population centers.
Yes. And that's also the business challenge with these listing services. Once you find that A+ plumber you'll just work with them off-list. (For cookie cutter jobs, I've been happy enough just using the Yellow Pages but for something more complex and ill-defined I'd rather have someone I know and trust.)
That was my biggest annoyance about the contractor I had for my last big job. I would have loved to have a new contractor person in my Rolodex but nope. Just too hard to deal with.
I guess this is also telling me I should catch up to the times and stop finding contractors on Craigslist.