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Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically im

Much of the resistance to Uber (such as laws that were broken, protests) were from entrenched interests. At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. It provided completion for the entrenched Yellow Cab monopoly with its very high rates. Sometimes Uber would have higher rates but then you could take a Yellow Cab instead. The Yellow Cab special interests paid off politicians so that there was a limit of 13,000 Yellow Cab medallions for 8.5 million people. The price of the taxi medallion was $1.2 million. While people in Manhattan could get a taxi, there were no taxis in Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, ... Because of the artificial limit on medallions which only benefited medallion owner but not New Yorkers, a driver leasing a cab for a 12 hour shift could pay $125 just to lease the car. When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates and save on greenhouse gas. Now taxi services have some availability outside of Manhattan. Now many Yellow Cabs are idle and the value of the medallions went for $1.2 million to about $700,000 or less. In NYC, the Yellow Cab medallion owners tried to get the mayor to put restrictions on the growth of Uber/Lyft, but New Yorkers protested. Uber/Lyft have increased customer value, lowered greenhouse gasses while not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles.

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discodave 9y ago
> When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates > not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles. Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers.
- davidf18 9y ago
  > Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers. The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions. Medallion owners would get mortgages (like houses) for the $1.2 million medallions and the high lease fee paid for the medallion mortgage. In fact the other special interests besides Yellow Cab medallion owners were credit unions who financed these mortgages. A $125 / 12 hour lease fee comes to over $90,000 per year. By not having to pay these excessive expensive leases, drivers could be paid less money and still make a profit. Drivers who leased the Yellow Cabs still have to pay for gas. Lower costs for taxi service means more time with customers in cabs. Everyone wins except medallion owners and credit unions with the mortgages and politicians bought off by these special interests.
  - bosie 9y ago
    i don't follow your math. can you expand on the increase. $125 / 12 hour means it is around 12 bucks an hour. if you have 3 rides an hour (don't know if doable), it would increase a single ride by 4 bucks. that doesn't seem the end of the world
    - kisil_reboot 9y ago
      At least in downtown San Francisco, many shared rides cost $4 total.
      - bosie 9y ago
        Not being from SF, how long is that ride and how many share the ride?
        fosk 9y ago
        ~10 minutes avg ride time in SF. You also need to take into account the extra 4-5 avg minutes it takes for a driver to pick up the person. So I would assume a driver in SF can make 4 rides an hour.
    - murbard2 9y ago
      I would estimate my typical cab fare in NYC to be around $17-$25. $4 for a single ride is 16% - 23%. That's a big difference.
  - BurningFrog 9y ago
    > A $125 / 12 hour lease fee comes to over $90,000 per year This comes out as 8640 hours per year, which is 360 days. So we're talking about the income a taxi owner can get from a medallion. What an individual taxi driver had to pay to work is a much lower number. Typically a full time job is around 2000h/year.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions. As explained elsewhere in the thread, Uber does not and has not ever competed with medallion taxis for their main product (Uber X/Uber Black) in New York City. Uber's direct counterpart would be the for-hire cabs which are also regulated by the TLC, and are not required to have medallions. Uber is already subject to the exact same requirements of the TLC that their predecessors were - Uber drivers in NYC have to have a valid TLC license. So there is literally no difference in supply-side regulatory cost there.
- stale2002 9y ago
  People keep saying that, and yet prices still haven't risen. I feel like a decade from now people are going to still be repeating this same old line. It also seems awesome. Why wouldn't I want VCs to give away a bunch of money to its customers? No, it is not going to run taxis permanently out of business. All you need is a car to do that. If this is really true, as soon as prices rise, another taxi company can start back up again and take market share.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    > People keep saying that, and yet prices still haven't risen. Uber is still losing money hand over fist. It has to come to an end at some point, either when they finally raise prices or they just go bankrupt. > It also seems awesome. Why wouldn't I want VCs to give away a bunch of money to its customers? A couple reasons: 1. VCs don't "give away money". They invest, with the expectation that their investment will be returned many times over. Given that it is explicitly Uber's goal to have a monopoly on transportation, you can extrapolate what that means for their intended pricing strategy if they ever manage to take over. 2. While taxis may or may not be an example of this, it's important to realize that VC-backed dumpi^H^H^H^H^Hpromotional pricing can destroy existing businesses even if those businesses were competitive and sustainable. For example: wash.io, which I commented about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608376#13608798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608376#13608798. They shuttered a whole bunch of laundromats in SF, which was all for nothing since they went out of business anyway. That's not a healthy dynamic.
    - davidf18 9y ago
      A lot of that money is going toward Uber/Lyft growing market share. But a lot of the overhead could disappear because so much of it is run by computers.
gregorymichael 9y ago
The previous market making mechanism for this industry was for a buyer to stand on a street corner, hold their hand up, and hope that a vendor who sold that service drove by. That's insane.
- snowwrestler 9y ago
  You could call for a cab, which worked fine. The app-based experience is undoubtedly better though.
  - Uehreka 9y ago
    I disagree. When I was in college (09-12 in Baltimore) it was impossible to get a cab unless it was a weekend night (in which case they’d all line up outside the dorms). I remember calling cab companies, being told “we put out a call on the radio, someone will probably be there in the next half hour.” And then nobody showing up. The ability to rate drivers and the ability of the system to punish drivers who won’t pick up mildly inconvenient fares has vastly improved this industry (at least from my POV).
  - pfarnsworth 9y ago
    You must not live in SF. In SF you would call a cab, and then hope that the cab would come. After 30 mins you would call again asking where the cab was, and they would send another cab. After another 30 mins you gave up and drove. Same goes for trying to hail a cab from the streets. Empty cabs would drive past you because they wanted to only drive passengers to the airport. I'm glad they are all going out of business.
  - criddell 9y ago
    In theory you could call for a cab. In practice, you couldn't.
- stephenr 9y ago
  Do taxi companies in the US really not have apps or, you know, phones?
stokedmartin 9y ago
> At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. There is a lot of potential for such reductions to happen in urban areas. Shameless plug - the potential for pooling using Uber data is shown in Figure 8 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.06635 https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.06635)
ajamesm 9y ago
yeah, real shame that the unmitigated sexual harassment got in the way of their complete avoidance of regulations
- davidf18 9y ago
  The regulations by and large were simply there to protect incumbents that wanted to keep out competition which offered higher customer value (by offering lower cost, more responsive, less greenhouse gas) service. Unlike AirBnB which does break NY City and NY State laws, Uber has been following regulations that are imposed by the NYC Taxi & Limousine commission (e.g., screening drivers, etc.).
  - neuromantik8086 9y ago
    I see this "incumbents" narrative touted a lot, but it just ain't so. Non-medallion livery companies (black cabs) have been in NYC for a looooong time.
    - davidf18 9y ago
      But because of stupid laws protecting Yellow Cab monopoly, it is against the law to street hail them, having to call instead. Also, not a reliable single brand, also they don't take credit cards, unlike Yellow Cabs.
      - neuromantik8086 9y ago
        And street-hailing is so important that you're willing to defend a service that doesn't use it?
        davidf18 9y ago
        iPhone hailing to me and many others at least, is effectively street hailing. Not certain what your beef is with Uber. Service and costs have dramatically improved since they and Uber/Via/Gett/Juno came, even in Manhattan.
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hyyypr 9y ago
Pretty much the same here in Paris, France.
theamk 9y ago
Absolutely true, but does this justify Uber's workspace culture, Waymo secrets, or sidestepping law enforcement (main reasons for Kalanick's resignation according to article)?
- davidf18 9y ago
  The law enforcement cited was mostly to keep Uber out of the market to protect incumbents from competition. Unlike AirBnB which breaks NY City and NY State regulations, Uber does follow NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission rules imposed on them and Lyft and other services. But in NYC, the Mayor's unsuccessful efforts withstanding, we aren't trying to restrict market entry and basically asking that Uber drivers undergo the same screening as Yellow Taxi drivers.
  - theamk 9y ago
    Did you read the linked article? The law enforcement thing (at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-inquiry-software-greyball.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-i... ) was started by Portland, Oregon. What does it have to do with NYC?
    - davidf18 9y ago
      It doesn't. That is the point. Uber follows the law. Read this part of the article: "Uber made a particular effort to deploy the tool in cities where it faced opposition from local regulators or rival taxi and transportation companies. One of those cities was Portland." NYC did not bow to pressure from rival taxi companies and they did follow the law cooperating with NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (again, unlike AirBnB which directly broke NY City and NY State laws and was sued by the NY State Attorney General). Uber was never in trouble with the law in NYC nor NYS and the only time it has trouble are with entities that try to block competition from the regulated monopoly.
danjoc 9y ago
>Uber/Lyft have lowered greenhouse gasses Citation required.
- danans 9y ago
  Citation doubly required because if the net miles driven actually increases due to increased use of cars over public transit (very likely), and increased availability of transportation services overall, the greenhouse gas emissions would go _up_ if anything. There are situations where ride services would encourage public transit utilization (last mile services), but I'd guess those are far from the dominant use case.
  - davidf18 9y ago
    Have you ever used Uber pool? Two different customers sharing the same vehicle, lowering greenhouse gas. There is absolutely no proof whatsoever, that people sharing a vehicle increases greenhouse gas. Citation is required that it would.
    - accountyaccount 9y ago
      This is too short-sighted. In my city a lot of people use Uber INSTEAD of readily available public transit (anecdotal observation). That's kind of a bad deal if it's a widespread truth. This would continue to hurt public transportation funding over time.
      - davidf18 9y ago
        Ummm...are you arguing against better customer value? Because taxi-like services are now more affordable for more people that is a bad thing?
        Sharlin 9y ago
        Uh. Please decide whether you're arguing for increased customer value or decreased emissions.
chris_7 9y ago
Uber might improve "customer value", but as someone that takes a cab once every three months or so, cars with TLC license plates constantly failing to yield to my attempts to use a crosswalk have not improved my experience. I've decided to solve this by 1-starring and no-tipping any driver that fails to yield to a pedestrian, drives in a bike lane, or exceeds the 25mph speed limit at any point in the ride (so, like, all of them), but of course, I take a cab once every three months, so that won't do much. If we really want to reduce greenhouse gases, a better approach might be: 1. Properly funding the MTA (congestion charging) 2. Widening sidewalks, especially in Midtown 3. Grade-separated and camera-enforced BRT lanes and/or surface rail with signal priority. 4. Proliferation of bike lanes. 5. Charging market rate for all street parking. Uber and Lyft have have increased car traffic in New York: http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-making-nyc-gridlock-worse/ http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-ma...
- gizmodo59 9y ago
  "driver that fails to yield to a pedestrian, drives in a bike lane" At least in Uber/Lyft you can rate a driver, there are many taxi drivers in NYC who drive rashly and don't do those things you listed and yet if you don't tip they will explicitly ask you to. To me, the following are the most important things to use a ridesharing app: Not paying any tip (In Yellow cab, many drivers demand for tip if you don't tip them) Rating the drivers (It's a positive thing depending on how you view it) Booking when you are drunk (While there are some apps that let you book yellow cabs we all know how bad those apps are) Uber as a company or Lyft as a company may be disliked for some of the things they do, but ride sharing is a positive outcome. If the above three points are there for yellow cab, I will happily use them anytime. The way a driver drives is not something specific to uber or lyft.
braveo 9y ago
don't really care, Uber's behavior as a company is such that I'd rather see lyft succeed. Those positives will be brought about regardless of who it is, so lets make sure it isn't a company who acts as egregiously bad as Uber.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Uber has better quality service from my experience. I still remember, Sat AM in NYC, and Lyft wanted to charge surge pricing when the city is far quieter than during a weekday. Uber did not charge surge pricing on a Saturday morning!
  - davidf18 9y ago
    Not certain why downvoted and no explanation provided for providing a fact. I think most would agree that Lyft charging surge pricing during a non-surge time is ridiculous. Uber to their credit did not try to rip me and other customers off.
    - braveo 9y ago
      because some things are more important than you a few bucks on a car ride.
soneca 9y ago
So why Lyft get none of the protests? I think you are mixing unrelated subjects. Uber final product is good for society. And other companies can provide the same product (in my city, São Paulo, there are other 3 good companies in the same space). Uber practices as a company are toxic for its employees and some of the toxicity leak to society. If such calculation was possible, I believe it would show a net positive impact in society. But a company with good practices and the same product would have an even larger net positive impact. As a society, I believe we should not settle for bad companies making good products, that's why I believe all the protests are legit.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Uber is the largest player by far, so they are an easy target for frustrations and for incumbents. "Uber" is almost a generic term for a iPhone hailable vehicle. Generally, there is market competition for drivers. For example, Lyft for those drivers who are unhappy with Uber. You have stated that in your city, São Paulo, there are 3 good companies. If one company mistreats drivers, they would go to a competing firm and the firm would lose revenue.
  - soneca 9y ago
    That's why I trust capitalism. Its dynamics allowed Uber to create a market, but also keep it in check for bad practices.
    - tanderson92 9y ago
      Do you think the same about telecom monopolies and the negative externalities of fossil fuel companies?
      - abfan1127 9y ago
        telecom monopolies are government enshrined, so not capitalism. Negative externalities of burning fossil fuels (plastics are a fossil fuel product) are allowed because government allows people to pollute "some"... not capitalism.
ksec 9y ago
Exactly the same scenario in Hong Kong. And Government still dont realize what is wrong with the current Taxi system. It is not fair to the consumers, because they are not getting any decent services out of it. It is not fair to the taxi drivers, because their earning only barely manage to lease the car. And it is only what called the Medallions owner that actually profits.
CPLX 9y ago
This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and still isn't a restriction on the number of TLC car service cars on the streets. This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. There weren't many yellow cabs before and there still aren't. There used to be thousands of TLC cars before and there still are. Except now people use an app instead of calling Arecibo or Carmel. Street hailing was and still is prohibited, both for Uber and for phone style car services. The massive innovation, of course, is the use of a smartphone app for hailing, which made it technically possible to create the market that we see today. Uber, Lyft, and the other companies that built internet enabled hailing solutions certainly do deserve credit for building out that innovation, but that change was just an obvious outgrowth of the technological change to everyone having a handheld always connected small computer. It was inevitable. The dynamic you're describing for NYC just doesn't really fit the facts. Nor does the idea that a lot more people taking a lot more rides in cars is reducing greenhouse emissions, but that's another matter.
- neuromantik8086 9y ago
  Dial 7 ftw.
- davidf18 9y ago
  > This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible. Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards. Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders taking separate cars. This is logical.
  - CPLX 9y ago
    > I actually live there and there are no Yellow Cabs in the outer boroughs. I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years. > Before Uber there was no hailable service. There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around. There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. This isn't complicated. You used to use a phone to get car services before and you still do now. The laws and the dynamics of that aspect really didn't change much. The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS so you press a button and use an app instead of talking into the thing to a dispatcher guy in an office. It's a technological change that happened. > I don't take these services much in the outer boroughs As mentioned, I live in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn specifically. You should come check it out sometime, there are about three million of us here. We got along pretty well before Uber, we just called Arecibo. They were fine, and still are, I use them to get to the airport now since the drivers are way better. Pricing is honestly pretty similar now to what it was five years ago, with very short trips being a little cheaper on Uber/Lyft than they were in the old system. Plus all the promos and so on. It's way better now to just press a button on the phone, and have your payment info stored, and all that. No question about that. But those are technical innovations. Your argument is that their innovation had to do with changing the dynamics of supply and demand in a restricted market. But that didn't really happen, and to the extent it did it was because smartphones made it possible. Steve Jobs probably has more to do with the declining price of medallions than Travis Kalanick. > Uber pool reduces greenhouse gases because multiple unrelated parties can ride in the same taxi instead of using two different vehicles. Elementary. Unless they were previously taking the subway, of course. The world isn't quite so facile.
nickthemagicman 9y ago
Don't imagine for one second that Uber wouldn't jack up prices in a heartbeat if they were the sole monopoly in NYC just like Yellow Cab was. Uber's great in that they give competition to an entrenched monopoly of Yellow Cab. But put Uber in a monopoly position anywhere and you'll see the rates skyrocket. There needs to be a number of forces in the ride sharing market to keep prices down.
- davidf18 9y ago
  I completely agree and as things are, Uber's prices are far higher in NYC than say, compared with Chicago because the Yellow Cabs here are so expensive compared with those from Chicago.
driverdan 9y ago
I downvoted you because this has nothing to do with the article. Whether or not Uber is a good thing is not relevant to Kalanick stepping down or the rotten culture he cultivated.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Uber under TK was criticized for breaking laws, but those laws were in place to protect incumbents from market entry. In NYC, were AirBnB does break NYC and NY State laws, Uber does not. It follows the rules of the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. Except for the Mayor that tried to restrict Uber/Lyft for political reasons to help the incumbents, we New Yorkers welcome Uber/Lyft.
  - drewrv 9y ago
    That was only one of the many things they were criticized for.
    - davidf18 9y ago
      They made a big deal about an illegal app that was only necessary because unlike NYC, the other city(s) were trying to restrict the market competition. Uber never used that app in NYC because we welcome technology and competition and the special interests did not dominate the politicians.
  - skewart 9y ago
    That's simply not true. Very few people have criticized Uber for breaking absurd incumbent-protecting laws. The vast majority of people have been criticizing Uber for breaking laws related to fraud, stalking and harassment, and a generally toxic workplace culture. The product that Uber offers is good (and no one other than taxi medallion owners is really arguing that). But they've gone about delivering it in an unnecessarily bad way.
jforman 9y ago
The quasi-firing of TK isn't an indictment of Uber as a product, or an overall social good (although both have been intensely debated). It is an indictment of Uber as a business. Even if we grant that Uber is a huge overall social good, it is clearly not sustainable at its current pace. Uber's burn rate is the highest in history, and the C-suite is barren. The board clearly felt that TK couldn't get Uber out of this mess. And the board, at the end of the day, only cares about long-term share price.
pdxgene 9y ago
Say what you want about Uber, but I've never had them refuse to take me to Brooklyn...
anigbrowl 9y ago
Everyone already knows what the upsides are, that's why people supported the growth of Uber in the first place when it was just a San Francisco startup. Nobody has ever argued in good faith that the firm wasn't solving a problem, of course they were. But focusing only on the benefits and avoiding discussion of the costs or new problems that something creates is sales talk; internalizing sales talk leads to cognitive bias.
icantdrive55 9y ago
I don't get the greenhouse gas savings. If anything, Uber is generating greenhouse gas. People who didn't have the convince of Uber; might have walked, took public transpiration, biked, or planned their errands/drinking better? And I have a weird feeling, even leasing a cab for $125/shift, is better than providing a late model, four door Uber approved vechicle on your dime. It's Uber's vechicle requirement that always rubbed me the wrong way. Those Uber drivers are not independant contractors.
s73ver 9y ago
Uber/Lyft have NOT reduced greenhouse gas. Not a bit. Those rides are still being taken, and inbetween rides, those cars are driving around. "while not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles." In the same way someone who owed money to the company store didn't have to start doing that, but due to predatory terms, once they did, things get pretty out of hand. And since Uber/Lyft are the ones who dictate those terms, they are to blame.
- phlakaton 9y ago
  I've taken several rides in Uber cars, and, as it happens, always as one of 2 or 3 passengers. Some of them have been Priuses. I wouldn't doubt that, for those specific rides, emissions have been less than other options I had. I'd be curious to see the actual data before jumping to conclusions one way or another.
adrianmonk 9y ago
And this actually gave Uber cover to do a lot of stupid stuff. For one thing, because cabs were so bad, Uber was able to do a lot of stupid and scummy things yet still be way better than cabs. Also, it had an interesting effect PR-wise. For a long time, whenever I heard something negative about Uber, I just assumed it was taxi industry shills making up ridiculous lies. Because there definitely were taxi industry shills going around (online, newspapers, etc.) and making up ridiculous lies about Uber. Later I understood that some of the negative stuff I was hearing about Uber was a huge lie and some of it was totally true.
hoorayimhelping 9y ago
I'm with you 100% on the point, but I'm pretty sure the outer borough green taxis started showing up before Uber did.
jordache 9y ago
> Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. Reducing greenhouse? Relative to what? This is all one needs to read http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-making-nyc-gridlock-worse/ http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-ma...
- davidf18 9y ago
  "Most of the upsurge is occurring outside the city’s Central Business District (Manhattan below 60th Street), Schaller reports." Also, the overall increase was 3 to 4% according to the report. In NYC we keep hearing how subway ridership has been increasing every year. At any rate, a decrease of 10 million trips per year out of 1.7 billion is hardly significant. Also, this simply states that perhaps we should be regulating private vehicular traffic in these areas, not restrict traffic that helps the public (and provides employment for low-skilled people).
  - jordache 9y ago
    why change the equation that drastically? self driving is right around the corner.. the drivers should find something else to do. The uber/lyft traffic increase issue is throughout the world.. not just in a specific part of NYC.
WalterBright 9y ago
I read that Uber/Lyft usage corresponds with lower drunk driving fatalities. This sounds like a more effective and humane method than the ever-more-draconian penalties imposed on drunk drivers.
devsquid 9y ago
Oh please you are going to tell me sexual abuse employees faced was "from entrenched interests". Get real...
nullnilvoid 9y ago
Uber provides certain value to customers. It would not exist in the first place if it does not. Riders get cheaper and faster rides than old taxi cabs. Drivers get jobs which would be harder otherwise. However, does that justify Uber's unethical behaviors? Does that justify sexually harassing female employees? Does that justify evading regulations with a Greyball tool? Does that justify stealing your competitor's technologies (think of Waymo here)?
grey-area 9y ago
Much of the restaistance is nothing to do with taxi medallions: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/business/media/uber-emil-michael-sarah-lacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/business/media/uber-emil-...
InclinedPlane 9y ago
So? They disrupted a bad system and drove some innovation into it, what does that justify? Let's look at the flip side here. They "disrupted" an industry by repeatedly violating the law and undercutting the competition by subsidizing nearly 2/3 of the cost of fares using investment funds. Is that innovative? I'd argue that nearly anyone could disrupt any industry with such a model, regardless of the actual merits of anything else they'd built. Add on to that their horrible corporate culture, their seeming support of industrial espionage, and the underhand tactics they use to take advantage of their drivers. It was smart of them to take on a corrupt, broken, and outdated system, because it allowed people, like you, to whitewash so many of their flaws and transgressions.
mathattack 9y ago
As deplorable as much of Uber's behavior was, the Yellow Cab drivers are much worse.
DanielLawhon 9y ago
I am opposed to the taxi industry collusion entirely, but Uber/Lyft are creating customer value by subsidizing their transportation costs via investor dollars. While I would love to see the taxi companies forced to reform, Uber will never make a penny.

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discodave 9y ago

> When Uber and Lyft came, the rates were lower, one could use Uber Pool to have even lower rates > not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles. Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers.

davidf18 9y ago
> Err, the cheaper rates were due to uber subsidising rides with VC money, which was unsustainable. Uber also did start a leasing program for drivers. The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions. Medallion owners would get mortgages (like houses) for the $1.2 million medallions and the high lease fee paid for the medallion mortgage. In fact the other special interests besides Yellow Cab medallion owners were credit unions who financed these mortgages. A $125 / 12 hour lease fee comes to over $90,000 per year. By not having to pay these excessive expensive leases, drivers could be paid less money and still make a profit. Drivers who leased the Yellow Cabs still have to pay for gas. Lower costs for taxi service means more time with customers in cabs. Everyone wins except medallion owners and credit unions with the mortgages and politicians bought off by these special interests.
- bosie 9y ago
  i don't follow your math. can you expand on the increase. $125 / 12 hour means it is around 12 bucks an hour. if you have 3 rides an hour (don't know if doable), it would increase a single ride by 4 bucks. that doesn't seem the end of the world
  - kisil_reboot 9y ago
    At least in downtown San Francisco, many shared rides cost $4 total.
    - bosie 9y ago
      Not being from SF, how long is that ride and how many share the ride?
      - fosk 9y ago
        ~10 minutes avg ride time in SF. You also need to take into account the extra 4-5 avg minutes it takes for a driver to pick up the person. So I would assume a driver in SF can make 4 rides an hour.
  - murbard2 9y ago
    I would estimate my typical cab fare in NYC to be around $17-$25. $4 for a single ride is 16% - 23%. That's a big difference.
- BurningFrog 9y ago
  > A $125 / 12 hour lease fee comes to over $90,000 per year This comes out as 8640 hours per year, which is 360 days. So we're talking about the income a taxi owner can get from a medallion. What an individual taxi driver had to pay to work is a much lower number. Typically a full time job is around 2000h/year.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > The cheaper rates in NYC which are extremely high compared with the rest of the USA were because there was no $125 / 12 hour lease fee because there were no medallions. As explained elsewhere in the thread, Uber does not and has not ever competed with medallion taxis for their main product (Uber X/Uber Black) in New York City. Uber's direct counterpart would be the for-hire cabs which are also regulated by the TLC, and are not required to have medallions. Uber is already subject to the exact same requirements of the TLC that their predecessors were - Uber drivers in NYC have to have a valid TLC license. So there is literally no difference in supply-side regulatory cost there.
stale2002 9y ago
People keep saying that, and yet prices still haven't risen. I feel like a decade from now people are going to still be repeating this same old line. It also seems awesome. Why wouldn't I want VCs to give away a bunch of money to its customers? No, it is not going to run taxis permanently out of business. All you need is a car to do that. If this is really true, as soon as prices rise, another taxi company can start back up again and take market share.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  > People keep saying that, and yet prices still haven't risen. Uber is still losing money hand over fist. It has to come to an end at some point, either when they finally raise prices or they just go bankrupt. > It also seems awesome. Why wouldn't I want VCs to give away a bunch of money to its customers? A couple reasons: 1. VCs don't "give away money". They invest, with the expectation that their investment will be returned many times over. Given that it is explicitly Uber's goal to have a monopoly on transportation, you can extrapolate what that means for their intended pricing strategy if they ever manage to take over. 2. While taxis may or may not be an example of this, it's important to realize that VC-backed dumpi^H^H^H^H^Hpromotional pricing can destroy existing businesses even if those businesses were competitive and sustainable. For example: wash.io, which I commented about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608376#13608798 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13608376#13608798. They shuttered a whole bunch of laundromats in SF, which was all for nothing since they went out of business anyway. That's not a healthy dynamic.
  - davidf18 9y ago
    A lot of that money is going toward Uber/Lyft growing market share. But a lot of the overhead could disappear because so much of it is run by computers.

gregorymichael 9y ago

The previous market making mechanism for this industry was for a buyer to stand on a street corner, hold their hand up, and hope that a vendor who sold that service drove by. That's insane.

snowwrestler 9y ago
You could call for a cab, which worked fine. The app-based experience is undoubtedly better though.
- Uehreka 9y ago
  I disagree. When I was in college (09-12 in Baltimore) it was impossible to get a cab unless it was a weekend night (in which case they’d all line up outside the dorms). I remember calling cab companies, being told “we put out a call on the radio, someone will probably be there in the next half hour.” And then nobody showing up. The ability to rate drivers and the ability of the system to punish drivers who won’t pick up mildly inconvenient fares has vastly improved this industry (at least from my POV).
- pfarnsworth 9y ago
  You must not live in SF. In SF you would call a cab, and then hope that the cab would come. After 30 mins you would call again asking where the cab was, and they would send another cab. After another 30 mins you gave up and drove. Same goes for trying to hail a cab from the streets. Empty cabs would drive past you because they wanted to only drive passengers to the airport. I'm glad they are all going out of business.
- criddell 9y ago
  In theory you could call for a cab. In practice, you couldn't.
stephenr 9y ago
Do taxi companies in the US really not have apps or, you know, phones?

stokedmartin 9y ago

> At least where I live in NYC, Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. There is a lot of potential for such reductions to happen in urban areas. Shameless plug - the potential for pooling using Uber data is shown in Figure 8 (https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.06635 https://arxiv.org/abs/1701.06635)

ajamesm 9y ago

yeah, real shame that the unmitigated sexual harassment got in the way of their complete avoidance of regulations

davidf18 9y ago
The regulations by and large were simply there to protect incumbents that wanted to keep out competition which offered higher customer value (by offering lower cost, more responsive, less greenhouse gas) service. Unlike AirBnB which does break NY City and NY State laws, Uber has been following regulations that are imposed by the NYC Taxi & Limousine commission (e.g., screening drivers, etc.).
- neuromantik8086 9y ago
  I see this "incumbents" narrative touted a lot, but it just ain't so. Non-medallion livery companies (black cabs) have been in NYC for a looooong time.
  - davidf18 9y ago
    But because of stupid laws protecting Yellow Cab monopoly, it is against the law to street hail them, having to call instead. Also, not a reliable single brand, also they don't take credit cards, unlike Yellow Cabs.
    - neuromantik8086 9y ago
      And street-hailing is so important that you're willing to defend a service that doesn't use it?
      - davidf18 9y ago
        iPhone hailing to me and many others at least, is effectively street hailing. Not certain what your beef is with Uber. Service and costs have dramatically improved since they and Uber/Via/Gett/Juno came, even in Manhattan.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

hyyypr 9y ago

Pretty much the same here in Paris, France.

theamk 9y ago

Absolutely true, but does this justify Uber's workspace culture, Waymo secrets, or sidestepping law enforcement (main reasons for Kalanick's resignation according to article)?

davidf18 9y ago
The law enforcement cited was mostly to keep Uber out of the market to protect incumbents from competition. Unlike AirBnB which breaks NY City and NY State regulations, Uber does follow NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission rules imposed on them and Lyft and other services. But in NYC, the Mayor's unsuccessful efforts withstanding, we aren't trying to restrict market entry and basically asking that Uber drivers undergo the same screening as Yellow Taxi drivers.
- theamk 9y ago
  Did you read the linked article? The law enforcement thing (at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-inquiry-software-greyball.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/04/technology/uber-federal-i... ) was started by Portland, Oregon. What does it have to do with NYC?
  - davidf18 9y ago
    It doesn't. That is the point. Uber follows the law. Read this part of the article: "Uber made a particular effort to deploy the tool in cities where it faced opposition from local regulators or rival taxi and transportation companies. One of those cities was Portland." NYC did not bow to pressure from rival taxi companies and they did follow the law cooperating with NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission (again, unlike AirBnB which directly broke NY City and NY State laws and was sued by the NY State Attorney General). Uber was never in trouble with the law in NYC nor NYS and the only time it has trouble are with entities that try to block competition from the regulated monopoly.

danjoc 9y ago

>Uber/Lyft have lowered greenhouse gasses Citation required.

danans 9y ago
Citation doubly required because if the net miles driven actually increases due to increased use of cars over public transit (very likely), and increased availability of transportation services overall, the greenhouse gas emissions would go _up_ if anything. There are situations where ride services would encourage public transit utilization (last mile services), but I'd guess those are far from the dominant use case.
- davidf18 9y ago
  Have you ever used Uber pool? Two different customers sharing the same vehicle, lowering greenhouse gas. There is absolutely no proof whatsoever, that people sharing a vehicle increases greenhouse gas. Citation is required that it would.
  - accountyaccount 9y ago
    This is too short-sighted. In my city a lot of people use Uber INSTEAD of readily available public transit (anecdotal observation). That's kind of a bad deal if it's a widespread truth. This would continue to hurt public transportation funding over time.
    - davidf18 9y ago
      Ummm...are you arguing against better customer value? Because taxi-like services are now more affordable for more people that is a bad thing?
      - Sharlin 9y ago
        Uh. Please decide whether you're arguing for increased customer value or decreased emissions.

chris_7 9y ago

Uber might improve "customer value", but as someone that takes a cab once every three months or so, cars with TLC license plates constantly failing to yield to my attempts to use a crosswalk have not improved my experience. I've decided to solve this by 1-starring and no-tipping any driver that fails to yield to a pedestrian, drives in a bike lane, or exceeds the 25mph speed limit at any point in the ride (so, like, all of them), but of course, I take a cab once every three months, so that won't do much. If we really want to reduce greenhouse gases, a better approach might be: 1. Properly funding the MTA (congestion charging) 2. Widening sidewalks, especially in Midtown 3. Grade-separated and camera-enforced BRT lanes and/or surface rail with signal priority. 4. Proliferation of bike lanes. 5. Charging market rate for all street parking. Uber and Lyft have have increased car traffic in New York: http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-making-nyc-gridlock-worse/ http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-ma...

gizmodo59 9y ago
"driver that fails to yield to a pedestrian, drives in a bike lane" At least in Uber/Lyft you can rate a driver, there are many taxi drivers in NYC who drive rashly and don't do those things you listed and yet if you don't tip they will explicitly ask you to. To me, the following are the most important things to use a ridesharing app: Not paying any tip (In Yellow cab, many drivers demand for tip if you don't tip them) Rating the drivers (It's a positive thing depending on how you view it) Booking when you are drunk (While there are some apps that let you book yellow cabs we all know how bad those apps are) Uber as a company or Lyft as a company may be disliked for some of the things they do, but ride sharing is a positive outcome. If the above three points are there for yellow cab, I will happily use them anytime. The way a driver drives is not something specific to uber or lyft.

braveo 9y ago

don't really care, Uber's behavior as a company is such that I'd rather see lyft succeed. Those positives will be brought about regardless of who it is, so lets make sure it isn't a company who acts as egregiously bad as Uber.

davidf18 9y ago
Uber has better quality service from my experience. I still remember, Sat AM in NYC, and Lyft wanted to charge surge pricing when the city is far quieter than during a weekday. Uber did not charge surge pricing on a Saturday morning!
- davidf18 9y ago
  Not certain why downvoted and no explanation provided for providing a fact. I think most would agree that Lyft charging surge pricing during a non-surge time is ridiculous. Uber to their credit did not try to rip me and other customers off.
  - braveo 9y ago
    because some things are more important than you a few bucks on a car ride.

soneca 9y ago

So why Lyft get none of the protests? I think you are mixing unrelated subjects. Uber final product is good for society. And other companies can provide the same product (in my city, São Paulo, there are other 3 good companies in the same space). Uber practices as a company are toxic for its employees and some of the toxicity leak to society. If such calculation was possible, I believe it would show a net positive impact in society. But a company with good practices and the same product would have an even larger net positive impact. As a society, I believe we should not settle for bad companies making good products, that's why I believe all the protests are legit.

davidf18 9y ago
Uber is the largest player by far, so they are an easy target for frustrations and for incumbents. "Uber" is almost a generic term for a iPhone hailable vehicle. Generally, there is market competition for drivers. For example, Lyft for those drivers who are unhappy with Uber. You have stated that in your city, São Paulo, there are 3 good companies. If one company mistreats drivers, they would go to a competing firm and the firm would lose revenue.
- soneca 9y ago
  That's why I trust capitalism. Its dynamics allowed Uber to create a market, but also keep it in check for bad practices.
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    Do you think the same about telecom monopolies and the negative externalities of fossil fuel companies?
    - abfan1127 9y ago
      telecom monopolies are government enshrined, so not capitalism. Negative externalities of burning fossil fuels (plastics are a fossil fuel product) are allowed because government allows people to pollute "some"... not capitalism.

ksec 9y ago

Exactly the same scenario in Hong Kong. And Government still dont realize what is wrong with the current Taxi system. It is not fair to the consumers, because they are not getting any decent services out of it. It is not fair to the taxi drivers, because their earning only barely manage to lease the car. And it is only what called the Medallions owner that actually profits.

CPLX 9y ago

This is factually incorrect. You're drawing a direct parallel between medallion taxis and Uber/Lyft rides, when they are not in fact the same at all. The outer boroughs, and every neighborhood in the city, has had car service options for decades, where you call a phone number (or often walk to a local storefront stand) to get a ride. This is the exact market segment that Uber has entered. Literally. There wasn't and still isn't a restriction on the number of TLC car service cars on the streets. This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. There weren't many yellow cabs before and there still aren't. There used to be thousands of TLC cars before and there still are. Except now people use an app instead of calling Arecibo or Carmel. Street hailing was and still is prohibited, both for Uber and for phone style car services. The massive innovation, of course, is the use of a smartphone app for hailing, which made it technically possible to create the market that we see today. Uber, Lyft, and the other companies that built internet enabled hailing solutions certainly do deserve credit for building out that innovation, but that change was just an obvious outgrowth of the technological change to everyone having a handheld always connected small computer. It was inevitable. The dynamic you're describing for NYC just doesn't really fit the facts. Nor does the idea that a lot more people taking a lot more rides in cars is reducing greenhouse emissions, but that's another matter.

neuromantik8086 9y ago
Dial 7 ftw.
davidf18 9y ago
> This idea that there "were no taxis" in the boroughs and now there are is ridiculous. The few times I tried to take those services the service was horrible, horrible. Now, thankfully, Uber is available and they have much better service and they have a single identifiable reliable brand and they take credit cards. Uber pool where unrelated riders ride in the same car are going to have less greenhouse gas than riders taking separate cars. This is logical.
- CPLX 9y ago
  > I actually live there and there are no Yellow Cabs in the outer boroughs. I am writing this from Brooklyn, where I have lived for about 20 years. > Before Uber there was no hailable service. There still isn't. Street hails are only from medallion cabs, plus the green outer borough cabs which came just a little bit before Uber showed up and are still around. There wasn't street hailing before and there isn't now. This isn't complicated. You used to use a phone to get car services before and you still do now. The laws and the dynamics of that aspect really didn't change much. The innovation is that now your phone has a computer in it and GPS so you press a button and use an app instead of talking into the thing to a dispatcher guy in an office. It's a technological change that happened. > I don't take these services much in the outer boroughs As mentioned, I live in the outer boroughs, Brooklyn specifically. You should come check it out sometime, there are about three million of us here. We got along pretty well before Uber, we just called Arecibo. They were fine, and still are, I use them to get to the airport now since the drivers are way better. Pricing is honestly pretty similar now to what it was five years ago, with very short trips being a little cheaper on Uber/Lyft than they were in the old system. Plus all the promos and so on. It's way better now to just press a button on the phone, and have your payment info stored, and all that. No question about that. But those are technical innovations. Your argument is that their innovation had to do with changing the dynamics of supply and demand in a restricted market. But that didn't really happen, and to the extent it did it was because smartphones made it possible. Steve Jobs probably has more to do with the declining price of medallions than Travis Kalanick. > Uber pool reduces greenhouse gases because multiple unrelated parties can ride in the same taxi instead of using two different vehicles. Elementary. Unless they were previously taking the subway, of course. The world isn't quite so facile.

nickthemagicman 9y ago

Don't imagine for one second that Uber wouldn't jack up prices in a heartbeat if they were the sole monopoly in NYC just like Yellow Cab was. Uber's great in that they give competition to an entrenched monopoly of Yellow Cab. But put Uber in a monopoly position anywhere and you'll see the rates skyrocket. There needs to be a number of forces in the ride sharing market to keep prices down.

davidf18 9y ago
I completely agree and as things are, Uber's prices are far higher in NYC than say, compared with Chicago because the Yellow Cabs here are so expensive compared with those from Chicago.

driverdan 9y ago

I downvoted you because this has nothing to do with the article. Whether or not Uber is a good thing is not relevant to Kalanick stepping down or the rotten culture he cultivated.

davidf18 9y ago
Uber under TK was criticized for breaking laws, but those laws were in place to protect incumbents from market entry. In NYC, were AirBnB does break NYC and NY State laws, Uber does not. It follows the rules of the NYC Taxi & Limousine Commission. Except for the Mayor that tried to restrict Uber/Lyft for political reasons to help the incumbents, we New Yorkers welcome Uber/Lyft.
- drewrv 9y ago
  That was only one of the many things they were criticized for.
  - davidf18 9y ago
    They made a big deal about an illegal app that was only necessary because unlike NYC, the other city(s) were trying to restrict the market competition. Uber never used that app in NYC because we welcome technology and competition and the special interests did not dominate the politicians.
- skewart 9y ago
  That's simply not true. Very few people have criticized Uber for breaking absurd incumbent-protecting laws. The vast majority of people have been criticizing Uber for breaking laws related to fraud, stalking and harassment, and a generally toxic workplace culture. The product that Uber offers is good (and no one other than taxi medallion owners is really arguing that). But they've gone about delivering it in an unnecessarily bad way.

jforman 9y ago

The quasi-firing of TK isn't an indictment of Uber as a product, or an overall social good (although both have been intensely debated). It is an indictment of Uber as a business. Even if we grant that Uber is a huge overall social good, it is clearly not sustainable at its current pace. Uber's burn rate is the highest in history, and the C-suite is barren. The board clearly felt that TK couldn't get Uber out of this mess. And the board, at the end of the day, only cares about long-term share price.

pdxgene 9y ago

Say what you want about Uber, but I've never had them refuse to take me to Brooklyn...

anigbrowl 9y ago

Everyone already knows what the upsides are, that's why people supported the growth of Uber in the first place when it was just a San Francisco startup. Nobody has ever argued in good faith that the firm wasn't solving a problem, of course they were. But focusing only on the benefits and avoiding discussion of the costs or new problems that something creates is sales talk; internalizing sales talk leads to cognitive bias.

icantdrive55 9y ago

I don't get the greenhouse gas savings. If anything, Uber is generating greenhouse gas. People who didn't have the convince of Uber; might have walked, took public transpiration, biked, or planned their errands/drinking better? And I have a weird feeling, even leasing a cab for $125/shift, is better than providing a late model, four door Uber approved vechicle on your dime. It's Uber's vechicle requirement that always rubbed me the wrong way. Those Uber drivers are not independant contractors.

s73ver 9y ago

Uber/Lyft have NOT reduced greenhouse gas. Not a bit. Those rides are still being taken, and inbetween rides, those cars are driving around. "while not forcing drivers to pay excessing leasing fees for vehicles." In the same way someone who owed money to the company store didn't have to start doing that, but due to predatory terms, once they did, things get pretty out of hand. And since Uber/Lyft are the ones who dictate those terms, they are to blame.

phlakaton 9y ago
I've taken several rides in Uber cars, and, as it happens, always as one of 2 or 3 passengers. Some of them have been Priuses. I wouldn't doubt that, for those specific rides, emissions have been less than other options I had. I'd be curious to see the actual data before jumping to conclusions one way or another.

adrianmonk 9y ago

And this actually gave Uber cover to do a lot of stupid stuff. For one thing, because cabs were so bad, Uber was able to do a lot of stupid and scummy things yet still be way better than cabs. Also, it had an interesting effect PR-wise. For a long time, whenever I heard something negative about Uber, I just assumed it was taxi industry shills making up ridiculous lies. Because there definitely were taxi industry shills going around (online, newspapers, etc.) and making up ridiculous lies about Uber. Later I understood that some of the negative stuff I was hearing about Uber was a huge lie and some of it was totally true.

hoorayimhelping 9y ago

I'm with you 100% on the point, but I'm pretty sure the outer borough green taxis started showing up before Uber did.

jordache 9y ago

> Uber was dramatically improving customer value while providing innovations that reduced greenhouse gas. Reducing greenhouse? Relative to what? This is all one needs to read http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-making-nyc-gridlock-worse/ http://nyc.streetsblog.org/2017/02/27/its-settled-uber-is-ma...

davidf18 9y ago
"Most of the upsurge is occurring outside the city’s Central Business District (Manhattan below 60th Street), Schaller reports." Also, the overall increase was 3 to 4% according to the report. In NYC we keep hearing how subway ridership has been increasing every year. At any rate, a decrease of 10 million trips per year out of 1.7 billion is hardly significant. Also, this simply states that perhaps we should be regulating private vehicular traffic in these areas, not restrict traffic that helps the public (and provides employment for low-skilled people).
- jordache 9y ago
  why change the equation that drastically? self driving is right around the corner.. the drivers should find something else to do. The uber/lyft traffic increase issue is throughout the world.. not just in a specific part of NYC.

WalterBright 9y ago

I read that Uber/Lyft usage corresponds with lower drunk driving fatalities. This sounds like a more effective and humane method than the ever-more-draconian penalties imposed on drunk drivers.

devsquid 9y ago

Oh please you are going to tell me sexual abuse employees faced was "from entrenched interests". Get real...

nullnilvoid 9y ago

Uber provides certain value to customers. It would not exist in the first place if it does not. Riders get cheaper and faster rides than old taxi cabs. Drivers get jobs which would be harder otherwise. However, does that justify Uber's unethical behaviors? Does that justify sexually harassing female employees? Does that justify evading regulations with a Greyball tool? Does that justify stealing your competitor's technologies (think of Waymo here)?

grey-area 9y ago

Much of the restaistance is nothing to do with taxi medallions: https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-one-very-strange-year-at-uber https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/business/media/uber-emil-michael-sarah-lacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/20/business/media/uber-emil-...

InclinedPlane 9y ago

So? They disrupted a bad system and drove some innovation into it, what does that justify? Let's look at the flip side here. They "disrupted" an industry by repeatedly violating the law and undercutting the competition by subsidizing nearly 2/3 of the cost of fares using investment funds. Is that innovative? I'd argue that nearly anyone could disrupt any industry with such a model, regardless of the actual merits of anything else they'd built. Add on to that their horrible corporate culture, their seeming support of industrial espionage, and the underhand tactics they use to take advantage of their drivers. It was smart of them to take on a corrupt, broken, and outdated system, because it allowed people, like you, to whitewash so many of their flaws and transgressions.

mathattack 9y ago

As deplorable as much of Uber's behavior was, the Yellow Cab drivers are much worse.

DanielLawhon 9y ago

I am opposed to the taxi industry collusion entirely, but Uber/Lyft are creating customer value by subsidizing their transportation costs via investor dollars. While I would love to see the taxi companies forced to reform, Uber will never make a penny.