>No, it can't. The hard part of Uber isn't the app and the architecture that gets cars to meet together, it's pulling all the shady under-belly moves to avoid taxi regulation or lobby it in your favor, all while being profitable.
This is where the blockchain shines. You're not going to be able to sue a Dapp, or order it to be taken down. The only enforcement mechanism becomes going after end-users, which is much more difficult than going after the trusted third party running the service.
I think increasing the cost of enforcing restrictions on trade is great from a societal perspective, given using the political system to restrict trade is highly profitable and thus overly done, but whether it's good or bad is beside the point that this is something that the blockchain architecture can do that the centralized server architecture can't.
> This is where the blockchain shines. You're not going to be able to sue a Dapp, or order it to be taken down
Why not? If someone makes an app, which has to happen for a service to get users, that’s an endpoint which can be sued. The point where actual money is converted is similarly exposed, and attempts at obfuscation run into existing money laundering laws. Finally, a blockchain protocol which cannot comply with legal requirements can be banned entirely — and since they require public access, non-trivial data volumes, and regular updates blockchains are less resistant to filtering attempts.
You're right that the city can sue the coder, though the odds of success are greatly reduced relative to suing a company that runs a ridesharing service on its own servers, given the coder is not running a server, but they can't sue to have the Dapp taken down. And if the municipalities get too aggressive, the coders can go anonymous.
>>The point where actual money is converted is similarly exposed, and attempts at obfuscation run into existing money laundering laws.
This is vastly more difficult than a court order to freeze a bank account. Maybe in the future it will get easier, but maybe not. As it is, a Dapp has far betters odds of both surviving censorship and profiting its maker in the face of municipal opposition than a centrally managed server.
>>Finally, a blockchain protocol which cannot comply with legal requirements can be banned entirely
Censoring a blockchain is much harder to do than sue a company in Silicon Valley to stop operating their service in a city.
It's something not even within the legal powers of municipalities, so right there the blockchain is far harder to stop than a traditional company.
I doubt the US wants to become a country that prosecutes people for running software, or imposes a national internet firewall. Countries will have to choose between having an open internet and having the power to restrict commerce. Hopefully most will choose the former.
>>since they require public access, non-trivial data volumes, and regular updates blockchains are less resistant to filtering attempts.
No, it requires much more than what you imply to ban a blockchain. Users can use lightweight verification, which needs very little data, and rely on full nodes outside of the country. A government would have to ban TOR and VPS, and really any encrypted communication into/out-of the country to have any hope of stopping the blockchain.
This is where the blockchain shines. You're not going to be able to sue a Dapp, or order it to be taken down. The only enforcement mechanism becomes going after end-users, which is much more difficult than going after the trusted third party running the service.
I think increasing the cost of enforcing restrictions on trade is great from a societal perspective, given using the political system to restrict trade is highly profitable and thus overly done, but whether it's good or bad is beside the point that this is something that the blockchain architecture can do that the centralized server architecture can't.