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> Well yes, that's the whole point. Exclude the people who committed certain classes of crimes from being drivers. They can go get other jobs that don't have th

by darawk 10y ago

> Well yes, that's the whole point. Exclude the people who committed certain classes of crimes from being drivers. They can go get other jobs that don't have the same opportunistic crime risk. I'm not advocating for the idea that every single crime, no matter what, would exclude you, I'm just saying that certain classes of crimes, including violent crimes and sexual assault, definitely mean you shouldn't be an Uber driver. Excluding these people from jobs imposes an economic cost on society. One which, imo, outweighs the benefits of keeping them out of this position of power. > Statement not backed up by evidence. Ah, indeed it is not. But I am proposing that we do nothing, and that places the burden of proof squarely upon those who propose intervention. But either way, you do not dispute that any violence is self-limiting, and surely you do not dispute that if the market demands a 'safer' alternative, one will emerge. So i'm really not sure what the argument is for government stepping in. > Neither is this. Certainly, doing background checks is a cost that Uber would have to pay, but it's a far cry from saying that this cost is "huge" or implying it's a burden on everybody. No. That's not how economics works. Uber doesn't pay the cost, people that use Uber do. And regulation like this actually cements Uber's dominance in the market place, because it creates a barrier to new entrants. If you are a 60 billion dollar company, spending 10 million a year on compliance is no big deal. If you are a startup, it will kill you. That is the true cost of this sort of regulation. Take a look at the taxi industry. The taxi industry is terrible precisely because of this sort of regulation protecting incumbents by keeping out new entrants. Anyone looking to start a taxi business needs to buy medallions which cost approximately a million dollars each (before Uber showing up made them virtually worthless). > As for social cost, I don't even understand what you're claiming the social cost is. There's a huge social cost when people don't feel like it's safe for them to get into an Uber alone. There's very little social cost to saying that certain types of criminals cannot be Uber drivers. If that were indeed true that people didn't feel safe getting in an Uber, then they wouldn't want to ride in an Uber. Uber's ridership would drop and they would feel compelled to do something about it - all on their own.

eridius 10y ago
> and surely you do not dispute that if the market demands a 'safer' alternative, one will emerge I absolutely dispute that! There's a pretty large barrier to entry in the existing market already (network effect is pretty significant for this market), and a new entrant that's doing full background checks while nobody else is is not going to be able to compete with the already extremely aggressive pricing the existing players are using. > So i'm really not sure what the argument is for government stepping in. For the public good! You're being intentionally obtuse here. You're ignoring the arguments in favor, choosing to respond to a few specific sentences with claims of huge economic and social cost with no evidence, and then pretending that you've addressed the argument. You haven't. Also, if you think this is a case of the government stepping in where they haven't before, you're completely wrong. Licensed cab drivers already get background checks, generally including fingerprints[1]. As Uber and Lyft and others replace licensed taxis, we're losing regulation. If you're so dead set against background checks, why weren't you complaining about taxi companies before Uber came along? [1] I checked my local laws and they definitely do background checks, and this article says that taxi licensing commissions typically use a service called Live Scan that uses fingerprints: http://www.fastcompany.com/3050172/tech-forecast/the-truth-about-ubers-background-checks http://www.fastcompany.com/3050172/tech-forecast/the-truth-a... > Uber doesn't pay the cost, people that use Uber do. Not really. Uber and Lyft already drove prices extremely low, both in an attempt to undercut each other and to undercut taxis. If they raise prices they'll start to lose business back to the taxi companies and elsewhere. Uber at least would likely just absorb the cost for now while they continue to try and achieve market dominance. And if they ever do achieve market dominance, you know they're going to raise their prices regardless of whether or not they're doing background checks. > And regulation like this actually cements Uber's dominance in the market place, because it creates a barrier to new entrants. If you are a 60 billion dollar company, spending 10 million a year on compliance is no big deal. If you are a startup, it will kill you. That is the true cost of this sort of regulation. Bullshit. If you're a startup, you're not paying 10 million a year on compliance. The cost for background checks scales linearly with the number of people being checked, so a startup that has a small fleet is going to pay significantly less than Uber. Besides, any new entrant to the carpooling market is going to have to be backed by serious money already to even get a toehold, adding background checks isn't going to change that. > Take a look at the taxi industry. The taxi industry is terrible precisely because of this sort of regulation protecting incumbents by keeping out new entrants. Anyone looking to start a taxi business needs to buy medallions which cost approximately a million dollars each (before Uber showing up made them virtually worthless). The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks. That's a ridiculous claim. Equating doing background checks with the medallion system also makes no sense at all. You seem to be assuming that all forms of government regulation are identical and therefore any regulation that seems bad means all regulation is bad, and that's nonsense. > If that were indeed true that people didn't feel safe getting in an Uber, then they wouldn't want to ride in an Uber. Uber's ridership would drop and they would feel compelled to do something about it - all on their own. No they wouldn't, because there's no competitor that's any better. The taxi industry is not doing its job well, which is precisely why Uber and Lyft and others were able to work. And AFAIK none of the carpooling companies do fingerprint background checks. So what this means is that someone who doesn't feel safe getting into an Uber late at night also won't feel safe getting into a Lyft, or a car from any other company in this market that still exists.
- darawk 10y ago
  > I absolutely dispute that! There's a pretty large barrier to entry in the existing market already (network effect is pretty significant for this market), and a new entrant that's doing full background checks while nobody else is is not going to be able to compete with the already extremely aggressive pricing the existing players are using. That is my point. The plan will not work because it will cost too much and people won't opt into it. Do you know what that says? That they don't care, because the risk is negligible. Or they will care, and they will pay the premium. > Also, if you think this is a case of the government stepping in where they haven't before, you're completely wrong. Licensed cab drivers already get background checks, generally including fingerprints[1]. As Uber and Lyft and others replace licensed taxis, we're losing regulation. If you're so dead set against background checks, why weren't you complaining about taxi companies before Uber came along? Taxis are precisely my point. Regulation creates stagnation and favors incumbents. Taxis suck, regulation is a big reason why. > Not really. Uber and Lyft already drove prices extremely low, both in an attempt to undercut each other and to undercut taxis. If they raise prices they'll start to lose business back to the taxi companies and elsewhere. Uber at least would likely just absorb the cost for now while they continue to try and achieve market dominance. And if they ever do achieve market dominance, you know they're going to raise their prices regardless of whether or not they're doing background checks. That is a temporary measure. You can't spend at a deficit forever. Eventually the cost gets passed on to consumers or they go out of business. It is that simple. > Bullshit. If you're a startup, you're not paying 10 million a year on compliance. The cost for background checks scales linearly with the number of people being checked, so a startup that has a small fleet is going to pay significantly less than Uber. Besides, any new entrant to the carpooling market is going to have to be backed by serious money already to even get a toehold, adding background checks isn't going to change that. There are fixed costs to setting up procedures for doing background checks. The costs do scale linearly plus a constant factor. That constant factor is negligible for Uber but may not be for startups. > The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks. That's a ridiculous claim. Equating doing background checks with the medallion system also makes no sense at all. You seem to be assuming that all forms of government regulation are identical and therefore any regulation that seems bad means all regulation is bad, and that's nonsense. The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks alone. It is terrible because the government licenses taxi drivers and artificially limits their supply. >No they wouldn't, because there's no competitor that's any better. I posited the existence of a competitor that is 'better' along this axis. If people care, they'll switch and they'll do so at a premium that corresponds to the strength of that care.
eridius 10y ago
Oh also, since you keep claiming that regulation like this cements Uber's dominance in the market place, then please explain to me why Uber is lobbying against this kind of regulation? They obviously believe that this regulation would not be good for them (presumably because of the costs involved, including slowing down the onboarding process for new drivers). So why do you think you know better than Uber does about what is good for Uber?

by darawk 10y ago

eridius 10y ago

> and surely you do not dispute that if the market demands a 'safer' alternative, one will emerge I absolutely dispute that! There's a pretty large barrier to entry in the existing market already (network effect is pretty significant for this market), and a new entrant that's doing full background checks while nobody else is is not going to be able to compete with the already extremely aggressive pricing the existing players are using. > So i'm really not sure what the argument is for government stepping in. For the public good! You're being intentionally obtuse here. You're ignoring the arguments in favor, choosing to respond to a few specific sentences with claims of huge economic and social cost with no evidence, and then pretending that you've addressed the argument. You haven't. Also, if you think this is a case of the government stepping in where they haven't before, you're completely wrong. Licensed cab drivers already get background checks, generally including fingerprints[1]. As Uber and Lyft and others replace licensed taxis, we're losing regulation. If you're so dead set against background checks, why weren't you complaining about taxi companies before Uber came along? [1] I checked my local laws and they definitely do background checks, and this article says that taxi licensing commissions typically use a service called Live Scan that uses fingerprints: http://www.fastcompany.com/3050172/tech-forecast/the-truth-about-ubers-background-checks http://www.fastcompany.com/3050172/tech-forecast/the-truth-a... > Uber doesn't pay the cost, people that use Uber do. Not really. Uber and Lyft already drove prices extremely low, both in an attempt to undercut each other and to undercut taxis. If they raise prices they'll start to lose business back to the taxi companies and elsewhere. Uber at least would likely just absorb the cost for now while they continue to try and achieve market dominance. And if they ever do achieve market dominance, you know they're going to raise their prices regardless of whether or not they're doing background checks. > And regulation like this actually cements Uber's dominance in the market place, because it creates a barrier to new entrants. If you are a 60 billion dollar company, spending 10 million a year on compliance is no big deal. If you are a startup, it will kill you. That is the true cost of this sort of regulation. Bullshit. If you're a startup, you're not paying 10 million a year on compliance. The cost for background checks scales linearly with the number of people being checked, so a startup that has a small fleet is going to pay significantly less than Uber. Besides, any new entrant to the carpooling market is going to have to be backed by serious money already to even get a toehold, adding background checks isn't going to change that. > Take a look at the taxi industry. The taxi industry is terrible precisely because of this sort of regulation protecting incumbents by keeping out new entrants. Anyone looking to start a taxi business needs to buy medallions which cost approximately a million dollars each (before Uber showing up made them virtually worthless). The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks. That's a ridiculous claim. Equating doing background checks with the medallion system also makes no sense at all. You seem to be assuming that all forms of government regulation are identical and therefore any regulation that seems bad means all regulation is bad, and that's nonsense. > If that were indeed true that people didn't feel safe getting in an Uber, then they wouldn't want to ride in an Uber. Uber's ridership would drop and they would feel compelled to do something about it - all on their own. No they wouldn't, because there's no competitor that's any better. The taxi industry is not doing its job well, which is precisely why Uber and Lyft and others were able to work. And AFAIK none of the carpooling companies do fingerprint background checks. So what this means is that someone who doesn't feel safe getting into an Uber late at night also won't feel safe getting into a Lyft, or a car from any other company in this market that still exists.

darawk 10y ago
> I absolutely dispute that! There's a pretty large barrier to entry in the existing market already (network effect is pretty significant for this market), and a new entrant that's doing full background checks while nobody else is is not going to be able to compete with the already extremely aggressive pricing the existing players are using. That is my point. The plan will not work because it will cost too much and people won't opt into it. Do you know what that says? That they don't care, because the risk is negligible. Or they will care, and they will pay the premium. > Also, if you think this is a case of the government stepping in where they haven't before, you're completely wrong. Licensed cab drivers already get background checks, generally including fingerprints[1]. As Uber and Lyft and others replace licensed taxis, we're losing regulation. If you're so dead set against background checks, why weren't you complaining about taxi companies before Uber came along? Taxis are precisely my point. Regulation creates stagnation and favors incumbents. Taxis suck, regulation is a big reason why. > Not really. Uber and Lyft already drove prices extremely low, both in an attempt to undercut each other and to undercut taxis. If they raise prices they'll start to lose business back to the taxi companies and elsewhere. Uber at least would likely just absorb the cost for now while they continue to try and achieve market dominance. And if they ever do achieve market dominance, you know they're going to raise their prices regardless of whether or not they're doing background checks. That is a temporary measure. You can't spend at a deficit forever. Eventually the cost gets passed on to consumers or they go out of business. It is that simple. > Bullshit. If you're a startup, you're not paying 10 million a year on compliance. The cost for background checks scales linearly with the number of people being checked, so a startup that has a small fleet is going to pay significantly less than Uber. Besides, any new entrant to the carpooling market is going to have to be backed by serious money already to even get a toehold, adding background checks isn't going to change that. There are fixed costs to setting up procedures for doing background checks. The costs do scale linearly plus a constant factor. That constant factor is negligible for Uber but may not be for startups. > The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks. That's a ridiculous claim. Equating doing background checks with the medallion system also makes no sense at all. You seem to be assuming that all forms of government regulation are identical and therefore any regulation that seems bad means all regulation is bad, and that's nonsense. The taxi industry is not terrible because of background checks alone. It is terrible because the government licenses taxi drivers and artificially limits their supply. >No they wouldn't, because there's no competitor that's any better. I posited the existence of a competitor that is 'better' along this axis. If people care, they'll switch and they'll do so at a premium that corresponds to the strength of that care.

eridius 10y ago

Oh also, since you keep claiming that regulation like this cements Uber's dominance in the market place, then please explain to me why Uber is lobbying against this kind of regulation? They obviously believe that this regulation would not be good for them (presumably because of the costs involved, including slowing down the onboarding process for new drivers). So why do you think you know better than Uber does about what is good for Uber?