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Road management is a Government matter - specifically, managing congestion, where vehicles are allowed to stop and when, etc. Add on top of that the not-uncommo
by vertex-four 11y ago
Road management is a Government matter - specifically, managing congestion, where vehicles are allowed to stop and when, etc. Add on top of that the not-uncommon story in many countries of a taxi driver charging an extortionate fare without notice. Add on top of that ensuring that taxi drivers actually do their jobs and get people where they're going, rather than refusing to take people to locations within the city that are "too far away". Add on top of that regulating taxis so that people with disabilities can actually get out and about, seeing as public transport is dire in the US.
All of these things are things that people had huge problems with convincing taxi companies to actually solve - after all, it's more profitable not to - and eventually local Governments agreed that taxis are as important to a city's transport infrastructure as anything else and should be held to a certain standard. You can only realistically argue against that if you believe that everyone who was using taxis had an alternative, which isn't the case.
Uber solves many of these issues, I must admit - but what about five years down the line, once they have the near-monopoly they're seeking? Can we be absolutely certain it will continue to do what's best for the cities it services, even when it affects Uber's bottom line?
- amelius 11y ago> ... the near-monopoly they're seeking ... They will probably not get anywhere near a monopoly. Their businessmodel is flawed: anyone can start a similar service. In fact, many similar services already exist in Europe.
- vkou 11y agoAnecdotally, none of my co-workers use Lyft in Seattle because "There's always an Uber 2 minutes away." The network lock-in is quite real - if you can't get a critical mass of cars on the road, you can't get customers, and you can't get a critical mass of cars on the road without having customers paying fares. What can really hurt Uber is unionization of their drivers - since nothing stops them from collectively switching to a competing service.
- amelius 11y agoWell, here's a story of French drivers unionizing AND starting a competitor service: [1] [1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/3/9841562/french-uber-drivers-launch-app-vtc-cab http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/3/9841562/french-uber-driver...
- mahyarm 11y agoThe lock in can be countered by the price actually. In the east and south bay you get better availability of drivers in lyft because it's about .40-.30/mile more expensive than uber. Lyft also has lyft line in parts of the east bay, increasing some demand there.
- codeisawesome 11y agoOne could have said the same thing about Taxi Companies 10 years ago. They have all the drivers & yellow cars locked in! However Uber came in and disrupted. If things rot, disruption will follow. I hardly doubt we need to worry about Uber becoming an immovable monopoly.