Uber Lifts - Heard of them ?

Note: this article includes a potentially disruptive idea at the end, but you’ll need to read through completely in order to understand the beauty of the idea.

Before you get excited, this is not yet another feature by Uber, rather Lifts that have started behaving like #Uber. And I’m not talking about #Lyft, but rather about Lift, the elevator.

Ever wondered why many people get confused when they have to press the up or down button when they have to call a lift ? I have wondered often.

It is because of the way we construct the sentence: “Summon the Lift” or “Call the lift” or in regional languages, “Lift Bulao”

Literally nobody says “Tell the lift where you want to go”

And since nobody talks like that, nobody definitely thinks like that. But, today’s Uber Lifts, they expect you to tell it - they want to change that user behavior. It ain’t taking orders “on the go”. You have to request it, and it will think and decide whether you are worth giving a lift to !

Let me rephrase that again. So, traditionally we used to see where the lift was, say you are in X floor and the lift was in X-2 floor, you’d “call the lift” to your floor by pressing the “Up” button and the damn lift has to listen to you, no matter what. First come first serve !

But today’s lifts are different - they capture your “intent” - so you have to tell it where you intend to go ! - so if the lift is in X-2, and I intend to go down, now it expects to me to press “Down” button. Totally Opposite.

But, not everyone understands this well and that’s why the perennial confusion. As a result, they undergo the USB effect.

Lifts undergo the USB effect - the effect where you try one side, which doesn't seem to work, then you try the other one, which definitely doesn't work, so back to the first option, but with a little more force.

And so we've totally lost the plot by now. All buttons are pressed and re-pressed just to be sure.

Now, my office’s lift is several levels higher (pun intended).. I'm pretty sure the PM who designed that lift would have worked on Uber like platform earlier - Why do I say that ?

Because it not just captures up or down intent, but actual floor (just like destination). Then it allocates me a lift (like a cab) and when I get into the lift, there are no floor controls to make it stop wherever you want - only open or close the door (just like the cab).

Finally, every morning, it takes everyone 10 minutes just to get a lift allocated which is a ”Cherry on the cake” to the already amazing Bangalore traffic to reach office … and if too many people request for a lift, it blatantly gives up ???and says “All lifts are busy, please try later”. It just gives up.. ?? and I'm again reminded of the "rejection" model cabs are so famous for.

TLDR; The potentially disrupting startup idea.

This is when I stumbled upon the “disruptive startup idea” that the PM who has designed that lift deliberately left in there to encash it some day in the future - the idea of having a dedicated lift amongst all other lifts that you can pay for. Request it from the app, pay, and it comes to pick you up - of course it will not stop on any other floor on the way ??

I'm convinced this would be Lyft's backup idea to pivot into if the cabs didn't work out - at least the domain name checked out.

Before you get more excited, this idea is already in place, but in places like Dubai where there are so many skyscrapers that I sometimes wonder how many lifts are needed to serve 163 floors. A couple of these lifts are for non-resident guests to visit some of the higher floors - and of course they are paid services costing upwards of INR 4000 per head.

Thanks for reading, hope you've reached your floor !