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You seem to be refuting your own argument with the Uber / Lyft example. Are these not tech tools that undermined the rent seeking of NYC taxi medallions?

• findjashua 10y ago
  The reason Uber/Lyft were able to disrupt medallions was primarily due to ending the artificial shortage. Technology was just a means to that end, not the primary factor.
  • danhak 10y ago
    Right, so if there is similarly an artificial shortage of housing as the comment I responded to suggests, what's the fundamental reason the problem couldn't be solved by technology (e.g AirBNB)
    • davidf18 10y ago
      Actually, it was solved 100 years ago or so with technology. For example, steel framed buildings and Otis elevators made tall buildings possible and a more economical use of land (eg, less expensive apartments and offices than before these technologies existed). If you lived in NYC, you wouldn't see Airbnb as a solution but rather a problem created. It allows transients into buildings and we don't want that. We value our safety and pay for it financially. The real solution is to undo the laws that create the artificial "economic rents" that benefit landlords at the expense of renters. See Economist Glaeser's column I cited above.
      • anchpop 10y ago
        Doesn't "transients" just mean homeless people? How many people are using AirBnB? Sorry if I'm misunderstanding
        • slededit 10y ago
          It means people with no ties to the property. Its a lot harder to get away with robbing a neighbor you see every day then it is to rob a stranger who won't be able to find you afterwards. Similarly someone who is tied to the property has a greater interest in ensuring its upkeep.
    • untog 10y ago
      For one, because AirBnB isn't creating new housing. It's a tech tool that allows users to skirt existing regulation and rent out their property, and is likely to make housing shortages worse rather than better. You can't really skirt regulation in the same way when it comes to building housing. People are going to notice when you try to erect a 50 floor skyscraper in a historical district.
    • findjashua 10y ago
      Airbnb isn't increasing the inventory, just enabling owners lease out existing inventory. Even there, it's focused on short-term rentals instead of long-term. If you want to increase the number of residences on a given piece of land, you have to replace single family homes with high-rises, no way around it.
• SilasX 10y ago
  Right, but they mainly did that by bringing lots of new supply on the market. It would have had a much smaller effect (though still noteworthy!) if they had simply balanced out mis-utilization[1]. The tech tools referred to in the story are only doing the latter; they aren't adding more rentable space and so are far more limited in what they can do about pricing or shortages. [1] e.g. redirected taxis from long lines at major pickup points to sporadic pickups at less common places
  • SilasX 10y ago
    Sorry, have to follow up -- I erred in that comment. If tech enabled taxis to get better utilization, that would have increased the steady expected revenue during each shift, and increased the medallion prices, not disrupted it. The only similarity with Uber is that it would have made it easier to get a ride, but the effect would still be opposite of Uber with respect to medallion prices.
• krschultz 10y ago
  No. Uber & Lyft are basically regulatory hacks. They showed up with enough money to just ignore the medallion rules since they were in a slight gray area. Their investment allowed them to get everyone onto their product faster than the changes that were demanded by taxi medallion owners demanded could get through state & city legislators. Public opinion swayed and it became impossible for the taxi medallion owners to lobby for changes that would ban Uber & Lyft. Tech is an enabler in that story, but I don't even think it's the most important part of the story.