“There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem where you need to be sure the other part of the system will exist before you start producing your own side. But that seems solvable with sufficient clout.”
I don’t think clout is strictly needed (though it would definitely help)? You start with selling rich people 1 tug plus a bunch of different cabins for different purposes. Overnight trip? Mobile office? Date night? Pick up kids from school? Moderately well-off people follow suit but would like ownership to be less costly. Someone starts an uber-equivalent service. Some tug owners buy an extra and more generic cabin they don’t use and use that as a taxi. The system gets entrenched enough that people can have their own cabins and trust a tug-on-demand will be available.
“There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem where you need to be sure the other part of the system will exist before you start producing your own side. But that seems solvable with sufficient clout.”
I don’t think clout is strictly needed (though it would definitely help)? You start with selling rich people 1 tug plus a bunch of different cabins for different purposes. Overnight trip? Mobile office? Date night? Pick up kids from school? Moderately well-off people follow suit but would like ownership to be less costly. Someone starts an uber-equivalent service. Some tug owners buy an extra and more generic cabin they don’t use and use that as a taxi. The system gets entrenched enough that people can have their own cabins and trust a tug-on-demand will be available.