7 ms·

Taxi Medallions, Once a Safe Investment, Now Drag Owners into Debt

troydavis 9y ago
> Sohan Gill once saw his medallion as such a good investment — ”better than a house” If something looks like it's an impossibly good investment, it may actually be. It's a shame that US city governments let this happen by retaining the medallion monopoly system. If cities let the taxi supply adjust to demand, a taxi license would have been worth the same as any other business license.
- api 9y ago
  They do the same thing with housing. If supply adjusted to demand a starter house would not be 500k to 1m. Nothing about it costs that much.
  - djrogers 9y ago
    Nothing except the land it sits on...
    - api 9y ago
      Build vertical. I'm not saying there are no limits but land shortage is only an issue in city cores.
  - imcrs 9y ago
    If you thought eliminating interference in the taxicab market was difficult...
- ProblemFactory 9y ago
  Even if cities decided that it is in their best interest to limit the number of taxi drivers, there is no good reason why the license should be transferable property that can be bought, sold and rented. If a taxi driver quits, the city, and not the previous driver should choose who is the best candidate to replace them.
  - brandur 9y ago
    Likewise, we should have seen the rise of middlemen who put up the capital to buy medallions, rehire drivers at suppressed wages, and proceed to collect rent forever, as bad. This is essentially the same problem that we see reoccurring everywhere in modern society. We put in a system that seemed like a good idea, but after some time being exercised in reality, turns out to have some serious flaws. Fixing those flaws is so time consuming and expensive that it becomes a bureaucratic impossibility. The result is that the profits pass onto the few, and everyone else suffers for it. (e.g. politician buying in Washington, software patents, prop 13 in California, etc.)
- delazeur 9y ago
  > If something looks like it's an impossibly good investment, it may actually be. Probably not a fair criticism of the investor in this case. 20 years ago, it would have been a totally accurate assessment.
  - troydavis 9y ago
    The risk/outcome - that the taxi supply becomes responsive to taxi demand and licenses/medallions become worthless - has existed as long as medallions have. While the risk is hard to forecast and thus price, it's not new. Investors succeed by pricing risk and investors who bought in 2013 significantly mis-priced this risk, so criticism seems reasonable.
- tim333 9y ago
  Trouble is if you don't regulate taxi numbers under the old system you end up with 30 taxis hanging out in the same prime location fighting over customers and causing congestion. Hailing apps solve that problem.
kstrauser 9y ago
I feel very badly for the people in the article who lost their life savings on a failed investment. I also feel very badly for people who went broke on Beanie Babies and tulip bulbs, for almost precisely the same reasons. Edit: I'm serious. Medallion prices peaked in 2014, well after the start of Uber and Lyft's explosion onto the spotlight. It seems like a bad idea for someone in 2006 to have invested a life's fortune in an arbitrarily limited commodity, but fiscal insanity to do the same in 2014. Those things were only ever valuable because the government issued so few of them, not because of inherent worth. When the demand for them fell below even their meager supply, they became (relatively) worthless - as predictable. I wish the people in the article had sold their medallions to corporations in 2014 when they were still worth a mint. Failing to do so was a tragic miscalculation.
- erikb 9y ago
  I think this comment is bringing it to the point. Investment wise it was a bad idea to begin with, and when competitors start to hit and easily conquer the same market, then of course it becomes really stupid to invest in that market. In that regard my pity is also limited. Yes I feel their pain with them. But we also have a responsibility to investigate before making such a huge bet. And sadly if you discuss with people who lost their life savings like that, many actually think they are not responsible BECAUSE they didn't think about. The "logic" being, if you don't think about it, you can't be responsible for the result.
- skookumchuck 9y ago
  It's always very risky to bet everything you have on one investment. Investments are never sure things.
  - jimmaswell 9y ago
    Could it be comparable to going to college for a major in one field that was projected to stay lucrative but went downhill right before you were going to graduate?
    - 9y ago
sschueller 9y ago
Funny how Uber didn't fix that but instead put new drivers in another Debt., Uber sub prime car loans.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  "Disruption" doesn't eliminate rent seeking; it only creates a new class of rent seekers.
  - eicossa 9y ago
    Don't know why you're being downvoted. Seems like a nice point to debate about.
    - Analemma_ 9y ago
      Because Silicon Valley, of which Hacker News and its commentariat are a subset, really tries to avoid thinking about the fact that “disruption” usually just means “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. Posts which bring this to the surface cause cognitive dissonance and so have to be greyed so they can be ignored.
      - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
        but at least the new boss (tens of thousands of $ for a new car loan) is better than the old boss (hundreds of thousands of $ for a medallion).
        QAPereo 9y ago
        Give the new boss a few more years...
  - adrianratnapala 9y ago
    Let me put my chairman Mao hat on, and say this is why the needs to be perpetual disruption. More seriously: the world is changing all the time businesses and business models face challenges all the time. This produces churn where the current crop of winners have little political clout, but start to gain it as they settle in. Of course if they succeed in gaining political clout, they might be able to dig in and prevent change for a long time until something big and rare comes along and undermines the whole system.
bww 9y ago
The medallion system pretends to regulate the taxi industry, but in actuality it’s a scheme that allowed people to buy into a monopoly. This unusual arrangement has insulated the taxi industry from normal market forces at the expense of pretty much everyone living in or traveling to New York. Riding in a New York taxi is unpleasant and expensive, but since it was a monopoly it had no incentive to do better and there were never any real consequences for failing to provide decent service – even as it became increasingly aggressive in soliciting outrageous tips and jamming advertising down its customers throats. But it’s not a monopoly anymore and that’s a good thing for New York. I won’t shed a tear for the taxi industry.
- djchung23 9y ago
  Totally agree with you wrt to the taxi industry, but it's the individual stories that are heartbreaking :( "While the auction has drawn attention to the precipitous fall of the once-mighty taxi industry, it does not reflect the hardship — and heartbreak — of individual owners like Mr. Isac. It is their stories that often get lost in the larger debate over new technology and commutes, and tell of the human cost of the city’s rapidly evolving transportation landscape."
  - chii 9y ago
    > it does not reflect the hardship ...of individual owners they bought into a system that really shouldn't have existed. Investments that fail are tragic, but losses of this nature can't really be protected from those who make it (otherwise, there'd be moral hazzard).
    - SonicSoul 9y ago
      it's pretty amazing how ignorant people are, and all in the name of intellectual superiority. you probably have a good job due to all kinds of luck (though im sure you don't think there was any luck) and then quickly judge these people for making a stupid decision. Meanwhile these people have very limited options and buying a medallion was the closest thing they could do as an investment into their future. is it a racket? maybe, but so is the stock market and corporate jobs. just because they are still working out, does not mean they will forever. Much like medallions it's all a myth that will work as long as it's not disrupted by something else. So these people put so much money on the line to buy into this system and work 2-3 shifts/day driving your drunk ass from club to club and all you can do is look back and call them stupid for buying into something that was impossible to predict that would be disrupted so quickly. it's so easy to turn around after a disruption and call anyone in the disrupted industry a fool for buying into "a system that shouldn't have existed" /end rant.
molteanu 9y ago
I'm reminded of the 2005' Man Push Cart movie about a Pakistani immigrant that sells coffee from a rented push cart in New York. His only dream is to save enough to buy his own cart one day.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pseingatl 9y ago
I can't feel too sympathetic for the owners--they've been riding high on the back of their drivers for years. The drivers, who in fact are their employees, get no benefits of any kind due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. If the drivers--who are actually operating the taxis--want to take calls from the street, from dispatch, from Uber, from Lyft, it should be up to them. After all, if a driver wants to simply park his leased taxi and not drive, he's free to do so--he's an independent contractor. The medallion owners got themselves into this mess by becoming vehicle lessors, not taxi operators. Once upon a time driving a cab was a good job with good benefits. Now it's not a job at all, which is why immigrants rush to drive.
- taxicabjesus 9y ago
  > due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. The taxi industry pioneered the independent contractor model. They provide the car, I lease it and do whatever I want with it for the duration of my lease. The company has very little control over what their drivers do - they would offer bonuses on certain fares to try to get drivers to go get their contracted fares in outlying areas... Renting a car is much cheaper than leasing a taxi, so the only reasonable use for my leased taxi was to try to make some money with it. I met a few other taxi drivers who thought that ppl like me, who drove for the biggest taxi company in Phoenix, were getting screwed by Big Taxi. One of these drivers was a solo owner-operator. He did everything himself: regulatory compliance (meter certification and whatever else the department of weights and measures cares about), advertising, etc. The other guys drove for smaller companies because they didn't like Big Taxi's corporate culture. I thought the arrangement with Big Taxi was acceptable. The series of events which forced my retirement from taxi driving were about 2 years ago, and I haven't kept up with the industry news... One of the guys I used to drive with gave it up when the owner-operator he leased from three in the towel. He did two or three trips for 'duper, rapidly realized that was a waste of his friend's new Prius, and got a 7-day-a-week job at a golf course. Another guy just went back to taxi driving after a year and a half "working his ass off" for a funeral home that didn't actually appreciate his efforts. This one said the call volume is significantly down, but call quality is way up. He recently got to take a fellow from Phoenix to Tucson - the guy had to be in federal court by 9am... It was a good fare.
chx 9y ago
This only happened because Uber broke the law, actually undermined the rule of law and they got away with it. Think of what would happen if every corporation could pick at will which legislation they ignore.
- firefoxd 9y ago
  Think about this, a business is disrupted to the point where they can't make any money at all. Yet, no customer is hurt in the process. In fact the customer is happier because now at least, he has a choice. I would break a monopolist law for that.
  - chx 9y ago
    Of course a lot of customers are hurt in the process, actually the entire society is: by weakening the rule of law and by rolling back most advances organized labor made in the last 100+ years. You have been bamboozled by calling this the "sharing economy". All you see is a cheap ride -- sponsored by VC money and you gladly take it. Edit: thanks for the downvotes. Care to educate me where I am wrong?
    - geon 9y ago
      Progress is made by breaking laws. The founders of your country committed treason against England. Strikes used to be illegal. Fredom of assembly, speech, religion and press used to be severely restricted.
      - chx 9y ago
        Those were organized moves by various people not by a company for profit. They have proven to be advantageous to society. I utterly fail to see what advantages are made here.
        johnvonneumann 9y ago
        A company making a profit is an "organised move by various people". Advantageous to society, as you put it, is subjective, we all have different beliefs of what this entails. I am an ex-smoker, many believe banning smoking to be "advantageous to society", many believe it to be a stamp on their right to choose. Your lack of understanding/ability to see what the advantages are, is a null argument. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity
jpatokal 9y ago
Good riddance. I was in New York recently, and hailed a taxi for the ride to EWR instead of Uber/Lyft because my phone's battery was flat. The same ride that cost me <$50 on the way in on Uber was over $100 the way back, including effectively mandatory 20% tip -- and this was the lowest of the "suggested" options of 20%, 25% or 30%! And yellow cabs are a lot less comfortable as well, you're separated from the driver by a Plexiglass cage with a TV screen bolted on, attempting to blare ads into your face. I sympathize with cabbies who spent a lot of money on buying a medallion of their own in the early 2000s and drove their own cab. I have less sympathy for the guy who invested $2.6 million in 2013.
- yodsanklai 9y ago
  > including effectively mandatory 20% tip -- and this was the lowest of the "suggested" options of 20%, 25% or 30% I moved to NYC just before you could pay by card in the cab. At the time, my friends told me to give $1 if the ride was less than $10, and $2 if it was less then $20 and so on. Most of the time, I think I effectively tipped between 10% and 20%. I kept with that habit after they introduced card payement with these insane suggested tips. How is it now? are you really expected to tip that much?
  - epc 9y ago
    The default tip on most machines is $0.00, but there's usually three buttons for 20%, 25% and 30% (or 20, 25 and custom). I personally tip 20% most of the time, 25% rarely. If I'm paying cash then typically $1-2.
    - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
      I feel their use of not providing options between 0% and 20% is deliberate to guilt you into selecting 20% because they know you want to tip something.
      - epc 9y ago
        I have absolutely nothing to back me on this other than gut instinct that the 20% is the base because that's what the IRS assumes for NYC metro area tippable wages. In reality the TLC probably organized a committee of accountants and medallion holders and spent a year discussing what the three options would be.
kamaal 9y ago
People are missing the point. Unless companies like Uber and Lyft can continue to raise billions of VC money almost forever, they eventually have to turn themselves into a medallion system eventually. This or, expect drivers to get paid way below minimum wage to sustain their current pricing model. Which won't happen. So medallions are here to stay. Uber and Lyft never had a revenue model apart from subsidize-until-competition-dies. The best case scenario is Uber will be the new medallion system, the worst case will be older system will be back. The transportation and logistics industry is one of the worst industry to be in. Its a capital intensive market with very low profit margins. Minus VC money Uber and Lyft won't go too far.

> Sohan Gill once saw his medallion as such a good investment — ”better than a house” If something looks like it's an impossibly good investment, it may actually be. It's a shame that US city governments let this happen by retaining the medallion monopoly system. If cities let the taxi supply adjust to demand, a taxi license would have been worth the same as any other business license.

api 9y ago
They do the same thing with housing. If supply adjusted to demand a starter house would not be 500k to 1m. Nothing about it costs that much.
- djrogers 9y ago
  Nothing except the land it sits on...
  - api 9y ago
    Build vertical. I'm not saying there are no limits but land shortage is only an issue in city cores.
- imcrs 9y ago
  If you thought eliminating interference in the taxicab market was difficult...
ProblemFactory 9y ago
Even if cities decided that it is in their best interest to limit the number of taxi drivers, there is no good reason why the license should be transferable property that can be bought, sold and rented. If a taxi driver quits, the city, and not the previous driver should choose who is the best candidate to replace them.
- brandur 9y ago
  Likewise, we should have seen the rise of middlemen who put up the capital to buy medallions, rehire drivers at suppressed wages, and proceed to collect rent forever, as bad. This is essentially the same problem that we see reoccurring everywhere in modern society. We put in a system that seemed like a good idea, but after some time being exercised in reality, turns out to have some serious flaws. Fixing those flaws is so time consuming and expensive that it becomes a bureaucratic impossibility. The result is that the profits pass onto the few, and everyone else suffers for it. (e.g. politician buying in Washington, software patents, prop 13 in California, etc.)
delazeur 9y ago
> If something looks like it's an impossibly good investment, it may actually be. Probably not a fair criticism of the investor in this case. 20 years ago, it would have been a totally accurate assessment.
- troydavis 9y ago
  The risk/outcome - that the taxi supply becomes responsive to taxi demand and licenses/medallions become worthless - has existed as long as medallions have. While the risk is hard to forecast and thus price, it's not new. Investors succeed by pricing risk and investors who bought in 2013 significantly mis-priced this risk, so criticism seems reasonable.
tim333 9y ago
Trouble is if you don't regulate taxi numbers under the old system you end up with 30 taxis hanging out in the same prime location fighting over customers and causing congestion. Hailing apps solve that problem.

kstrauser 9y ago

I feel very badly for the people in the article who lost their life savings on a failed investment. I also feel very badly for people who went broke on Beanie Babies and tulip bulbs, for almost precisely the same reasons. Edit: I'm serious. Medallion prices peaked in 2014, well after the start of Uber and Lyft's explosion onto the spotlight. It seems like a bad idea for someone in 2006 to have invested a life's fortune in an arbitrarily limited commodity, but fiscal insanity to do the same in 2014. Those things were only ever valuable because the government issued so few of them, not because of inherent worth. When the demand for them fell below even their meager supply, they became (relatively) worthless - as predictable. I wish the people in the article had sold their medallions to corporations in 2014 when they were still worth a mint. Failing to do so was a tragic miscalculation.

erikb 9y ago
I think this comment is bringing it to the point. Investment wise it was a bad idea to begin with, and when competitors start to hit and easily conquer the same market, then of course it becomes really stupid to invest in that market. In that regard my pity is also limited. Yes I feel their pain with them. But we also have a responsibility to investigate before making such a huge bet. And sadly if you discuss with people who lost their life savings like that, many actually think they are not responsible BECAUSE they didn't think about. The "logic" being, if you don't think about it, you can't be responsible for the result.
skookumchuck 9y ago
It's always very risky to bet everything you have on one investment. Investments are never sure things.
- jimmaswell 9y ago
  Could it be comparable to going to college for a major in one field that was projected to stay lucrative but went downhill right before you were going to graduate?
  - 9y ago

sschueller 9y ago

Funny how Uber didn't fix that but instead put new drivers in another Debt., Uber sub prime car loans.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
"Disruption" doesn't eliminate rent seeking; it only creates a new class of rent seekers.
- eicossa 9y ago
  Don't know why you're being downvoted. Seems like a nice point to debate about.
  - Analemma_ 9y ago
    Because Silicon Valley, of which Hacker News and its commentariat are a subset, really tries to avoid thinking about the fact that “disruption” usually just means “meet the new boss, same as the old boss”. Posts which bring this to the surface cause cognitive dissonance and so have to be greyed so they can be ignored.
    - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
      but at least the new boss (tens of thousands of $ for a new car loan) is better than the old boss (hundreds of thousands of $ for a medallion).
      - QAPereo 9y ago
        Give the new boss a few more years...
- adrianratnapala 9y ago
  Let me put my chairman Mao hat on, and say this is why the needs to be perpetual disruption. More seriously: the world is changing all the time businesses and business models face challenges all the time. This produces churn where the current crop of winners have little political clout, but start to gain it as they settle in. Of course if they succeed in gaining political clout, they might be able to dig in and prevent change for a long time until something big and rare comes along and undermines the whole system.

bww 9y ago

The medallion system pretends to regulate the taxi industry, but in actuality it’s a scheme that allowed people to buy into a monopoly. This unusual arrangement has insulated the taxi industry from normal market forces at the expense of pretty much everyone living in or traveling to New York. Riding in a New York taxi is unpleasant and expensive, but since it was a monopoly it had no incentive to do better and there were never any real consequences for failing to provide decent service – even as it became increasingly aggressive in soliciting outrageous tips and jamming advertising down its customers throats. But it’s not a monopoly anymore and that’s a good thing for New York. I won’t shed a tear for the taxi industry.

djchung23 9y ago
Totally agree with you wrt to the taxi industry, but it's the individual stories that are heartbreaking :( "While the auction has drawn attention to the precipitous fall of the once-mighty taxi industry, it does not reflect the hardship — and heartbreak — of individual owners like Mr. Isac. It is their stories that often get lost in the larger debate over new technology and commutes, and tell of the human cost of the city’s rapidly evolving transportation landscape."
- chii 9y ago
  > it does not reflect the hardship ...of individual owners they bought into a system that really shouldn't have existed. Investments that fail are tragic, but losses of this nature can't really be protected from those who make it (otherwise, there'd be moral hazzard).
  - SonicSoul 9y ago
    it's pretty amazing how ignorant people are, and all in the name of intellectual superiority. you probably have a good job due to all kinds of luck (though im sure you don't think there was any luck) and then quickly judge these people for making a stupid decision. Meanwhile these people have very limited options and buying a medallion was the closest thing they could do as an investment into their future. is it a racket? maybe, but so is the stock market and corporate jobs. just because they are still working out, does not mean they will forever. Much like medallions it's all a myth that will work as long as it's not disrupted by something else. So these people put so much money on the line to buy into this system and work 2-3 shifts/day driving your drunk ass from club to club and all you can do is look back and call them stupid for buying into something that was impossible to predict that would be disrupted so quickly. it's so easy to turn around after a disruption and call anyone in the disrupted industry a fool for buying into "a system that shouldn't have existed" /end rant.

molteanu 9y ago

I'm reminded of the 2005' Man Push Cart movie about a Pakistani immigrant that sells coffee from a rented push cart in New York. His only dream is to save enough to buy his own cart one day.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pseingatl 9y ago

I can't feel too sympathetic for the owners--they've been riding high on the back of their drivers for years. The drivers, who in fact are their employees, get no benefits of any kind due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. If the drivers--who are actually operating the taxis--want to take calls from the street, from dispatch, from Uber, from Lyft, it should be up to them. After all, if a driver wants to simply park his leased taxi and not drive, he's free to do so--he's an independent contractor. The medallion owners got themselves into this mess by becoming vehicle lessors, not taxi operators. Once upon a time driving a cab was a good job with good benefits. Now it's not a job at all, which is why immigrants rush to drive.

taxicabjesus 9y ago
> due to a legal fiction that classifies them as independent contractors. The taxi industry pioneered the independent contractor model. They provide the car, I lease it and do whatever I want with it for the duration of my lease. The company has very little control over what their drivers do - they would offer bonuses on certain fares to try to get drivers to go get their contracted fares in outlying areas... Renting a car is much cheaper than leasing a taxi, so the only reasonable use for my leased taxi was to try to make some money with it. I met a few other taxi drivers who thought that ppl like me, who drove for the biggest taxi company in Phoenix, were getting screwed by Big Taxi. One of these drivers was a solo owner-operator. He did everything himself: regulatory compliance (meter certification and whatever else the department of weights and measures cares about), advertising, etc. The other guys drove for smaller companies because they didn't like Big Taxi's corporate culture. I thought the arrangement with Big Taxi was acceptable. The series of events which forced my retirement from taxi driving were about 2 years ago, and I haven't kept up with the industry news... One of the guys I used to drive with gave it up when the owner-operator he leased from three in the towel. He did two or three trips for 'duper, rapidly realized that was a waste of his friend's new Prius, and got a 7-day-a-week job at a golf course. Another guy just went back to taxi driving after a year and a half "working his ass off" for a funeral home that didn't actually appreciate his efforts. This one said the call volume is significantly down, but call quality is way up. He recently got to take a fellow from Phoenix to Tucson - the guy had to be in federal court by 9am... It was a good fare.

chx 9y ago

This only happened because Uber broke the law, actually undermined the rule of law and they got away with it. Think of what would happen if every corporation could pick at will which legislation they ignore.

firefoxd 9y ago
Think about this, a business is disrupted to the point where they can't make any money at all. Yet, no customer is hurt in the process. In fact the customer is happier because now at least, he has a choice. I would break a monopolist law for that.
- chx 9y ago
  Of course a lot of customers are hurt in the process, actually the entire society is: by weakening the rule of law and by rolling back most advances organized labor made in the last 100+ years. You have been bamboozled by calling this the "sharing economy". All you see is a cheap ride -- sponsored by VC money and you gladly take it. Edit: thanks for the downvotes. Care to educate me where I am wrong?
  - geon 9y ago
    Progress is made by breaking laws. The founders of your country committed treason against England. Strikes used to be illegal. Fredom of assembly, speech, religion and press used to be severely restricted.
    - chx 9y ago
      Those were organized moves by various people not by a company for profit. They have proven to be advantageous to society. I utterly fail to see what advantages are made here.
      - johnvonneumann 9y ago
        A company making a profit is an "organised move by various people". Advantageous to society, as you put it, is subjective, we all have different beliefs of what this entails. I am an ex-smoker, many believe banning smoking to be "advantageous to society", many believe it to be a stamp on their right to choose. Your lack of understanding/ability to see what the advantages are, is a null argument. https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/personal-incredulity

jpatokal 9y ago

Good riddance. I was in New York recently, and hailed a taxi for the ride to EWR instead of Uber/Lyft because my phone's battery was flat. The same ride that cost me <$50 on the way in on Uber was over $100 the way back, including effectively mandatory 20% tip -- and this was the lowest of the "suggested" options of 20%, 25% or 30%! And yellow cabs are a lot less comfortable as well, you're separated from the driver by a Plexiglass cage with a TV screen bolted on, attempting to blare ads into your face. I sympathize with cabbies who spent a lot of money on buying a medallion of their own in the early 2000s and drove their own cab. I have less sympathy for the guy who invested $2.6 million in 2013.

yodsanklai 9y ago
> including effectively mandatory 20% tip -- and this was the lowest of the "suggested" options of 20%, 25% or 30% I moved to NYC just before you could pay by card in the cab. At the time, my friends told me to give $1 if the ride was less than $10, and $2 if it was less then $20 and so on. Most of the time, I think I effectively tipped between 10% and 20%. I kept with that habit after they introduced card payement with these insane suggested tips. How is it now? are you really expected to tip that much?
- epc 9y ago
  The default tip on most machines is $0.00, but there's usually three buttons for 20%, 25% and 30% (or 20, 25 and custom). I personally tip 20% most of the time, 25% rarely. If I'm paying cash then typically $1-2.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    I feel their use of not providing options between 0% and 20% is deliberate to guilt you into selecting 20% because they know you want to tip something.
    - epc 9y ago
      I have absolutely nothing to back me on this other than gut instinct that the 20% is the base because that's what the IRS assumes for NYC metro area tippable wages. In reality the TLC probably organized a committee of accountants and medallion holders and spent a year discussing what the three options would be.

kamaal 9y ago

People are missing the point. Unless companies like Uber and Lyft can continue to raise billions of VC money almost forever, they eventually have to turn themselves into a medallion system eventually. This or, expect drivers to get paid way below minimum wage to sustain their current pricing model. Which won't happen. So medallions are here to stay. Uber and Lyft never had a revenue model apart from subsidize-until-competition-dies. The best case scenario is Uber will be the new medallion system, the worst case will be older system will be back. The transportation and logistics industry is one of the worst industry to be in. Its a capital intensive market with very low profit margins. Minus VC money Uber and Lyft won't go too far.