> Under the hood the apps are then hopefully so streamlined already that service-providers will compete to be the fulfilment entity for this task.
Probably going to be against the hivemind on this one, but I for one welcome this. Public transport, taxis, flights, hotels, to a degree even restaurants are fungible. I want to get from A to B, I want to have a bed for a few nights in some other city, I want to get some specific food.
That's what I need. What I do not want is to waste time to get what I need with bullshit.
That's why I love the "evil B" of hospitality - I see all available hotels for my travel, the associated price and pictures. I select an offer (usually the cheapest one that still has decent reviews), I click on "book", I confirm my data, that's it. I don't need to wade through dozens of websites, enter my data a dozen times, and then finally enter payment data on yet another shady website that's probably gonna get hacked sooner or later.
I don't want to waste my time researching the phone number of the local taxi company, so taxi.de it is, I only select where I need to go and a few minutes later a taxi shows up, no need to call someone, spell out the street name I live in to someone barely understanding me on the phone because Germany's phone service is dogshit.
I don't care about which specific Chinese restaurant I want, so I go on Lieferando, and half an hour later a nice load of fried rice with greens shows up at my door. And every time I have to go to a specific place (say for an anniversary) I know exactly why I despise the old way - everyone does seat reservations differently, no integration with anything.
What still irks me is flight booking, because while Google and a fair few other resellers/brokers do at least compare available options of different fulfilment providers, the actual booking I have to do is still on each airline's different web page. And rail travel is similarly annoying once you try to leave Germany.
This is very valid, I also don't like to install an app for every service. And I don't think there's a "hivemind" on this at all.
But it's reasonable that the merchants offering in the marketplace of that ecosystem start to observe how their opportunity to become the next "evil B of X" are increasingly diminished, in favor of being the fulfilment entity for the "benevolent A".
I neither need an "evil B" nor a "benevolent A", and substituting one for the other is not a solution either...
Probably going to be against the hivemind on this one, but I for one welcome this. Public transport, taxis, flights, hotels, to a degree even restaurants are fungible. I want to get from A to B, I want to have a bed for a few nights in some other city, I want to get some specific food.
That's what I need. What I do not want is to waste time to get what I need with bullshit.
That's why I love the "evil B" of hospitality - I see all available hotels for my travel, the associated price and pictures. I select an offer (usually the cheapest one that still has decent reviews), I click on "book", I confirm my data, that's it. I don't need to wade through dozens of websites, enter my data a dozen times, and then finally enter payment data on yet another shady website that's probably gonna get hacked sooner or later.
I don't want to waste my time researching the phone number of the local taxi company, so taxi.de it is, I only select where I need to go and a few minutes later a taxi shows up, no need to call someone, spell out the street name I live in to someone barely understanding me on the phone because Germany's phone service is dogshit.
I don't care about which specific Chinese restaurant I want, so I go on Lieferando, and half an hour later a nice load of fried rice with greens shows up at my door. And every time I have to go to a specific place (say for an anniversary) I know exactly why I despise the old way - everyone does seat reservations differently, no integration with anything.
What still irks me is flight booking, because while Google and a fair few other resellers/brokers do at least compare available options of different fulfilment providers, the actual booking I have to do is still on each airline's different web page. And rail travel is similarly annoying once you try to leave Germany.