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> It'll be interesting to see how these prices change when they are no longer subsidized by venture capitalists, contractor drivers, and society at large. You
by fiatjaf 9y ago
> It'll be interesting to see how these prices change when they are no longer subsidized by venture capitalists, contractor drivers, and society at large.
You say that without realizing that public transport has been subsidized by the State and "society at large" for a hundred years.
- wpietri 9y agoOr I could realize it. But also think there's a big difference between subsidizing something available to all citizens and subsidizing a private business.
- fiatjaf 9y agoI disagree with your reasoning, and it depends on a lot of factors, but it is still irrelevant for the prices.
- wpietri 9y agoUber and Lyft prices are artificially low. Assorted hidden, accidental public subsidies are part of that. That is not irrelevant if the various governments paying those subsidies decide that they'd rather subsidize something else. If they do, prices will go up.
- matchbok 9y agoThe public benefits to a working transit system are nearly innumerable. The benefits to VC money funding Uber benefits the owners of Uber and exactly nobody else, while we all see more traffic, congestion, pollution, waste, and more.
- fiatjaf 9y agoYou do you take that for granted? Anyway, it's irrelevant.
- beefield 9y agoMy wild guess without any sources whatsoever is that if you properly calculate all the subsidies and externalities for cars (urban land use, pollution, congestion, fossil fuel industry subsidies possibly including wars in middle east etc), it is quite fair to say that compared to that, public transport is practically unsubsidized.
- fiatjaf 9y agoWell, if you're adding these biased unprovable speculative distance consequences to the account, maybe we can also add the entire corruption of the State transport-related agencies, costs related to second, third and forth-level bureaucracy, the corruption of the vote system, election costs, loss of freedom in all the domains of life, brainwashed minds of citizens, wars.
- beefield 9y agowhat makes you think that there is more corruption in public transport related agencies than car traffic related agencies? Why would vote system and election costs be allocated more to public transport than car drivers? (In economics parlance, externalities are quite well defined concept. Practical applications of course are always a bit more muddy)