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Most of the comments in here are along the lines of "are we expected to protect the outdated taxi driver? Let them drive for Uber or get a new job!" In a vacu
by habosa 9y ago
Most of the comments in here are along the lines of "are we expected to protect the outdated taxi driver? Let them drive for Uber or get a new job!"
In a vacuum, that logic holds. But remember that the government has made taxi driving very regulated for a long time. To become a driver you had to buy their medallion and follow all of their regulations. These regulations imposed a high fixed cost and many recurring costs on taxi drivers. Yes of course these regulations were also beneficial to taxi drivers by restricting their competition, but the point is that this deal was struck between the industry and the government and a lot of individuals staked their livelihood on the details here.
Now the same city governments are basically saying "thanks for all that investment, we are deleting it" when they let Uber and Lyft come in. The city officials also did this with an uncharacteristic speed, basically capitulating immediately in a world where it takes years and years to get anything done. Taxi drivers were rightly surprised and individually harmed, they played by the rules as they were written and were told to fuck off by a bunch of VC-funded engineers with big lawyers and bigger budgets.
This is not a good precedent.
- peacetreefrog 9y agoThe taxi union teamed up with city governments to restrict competition at the expense of consumers. It's not the rules as they were written so much as the rules they wrote. Getting rid of them is great precedent. What's unfortunate is that it'll be much harder to get rid of rules like this in other, not as consumer facing industries. Also, re: the "speed" at which this happened. Seems like driving for Uber or Lyft (less money but on your own time) would in theory be a great way for drivers to transition to something else.
- joeblau 9y ago> This is not a good precedent. If you're only analyzing this from the side of the drivers, I would agree. As someone who has used public transpiration my whole life, the service that taxis provide has been average to blatantly discriminatory. I have stories from Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago, and L.A. where I've not been able to get a ride because of how I look. In some cases I've been denied rides at cab stands and been forced to walk to a friends house (over a mile). I've had to ask caucasian women to hail a cab and then do a quick swap to get a ride. I've been asked "where I'm going" and then been told "no sorry I'm not going there." I've been given a joy ride around a city, using my iPhone to realize that the driver is doing loops and taking me out of the way to run up the fare. Not all taxi drivers were like this, but I have real experiences that make it difficult for me to empathize with a community that really didn't care about my dollar in the first place. I can't speak for riders that never had problems getting a cab, but the traditional U.S. taxi market was barely accessible to me; Uber and Lyft were never like that.
- thebigspacefuck 9y agoWhat about you caused them to do that? Just skin color? Sorry if it's rude to ask, I'm white and definitely sheltered so I'm just curious.
- joeblau 9y agoHonestly, I don't know — but I'm sure there is some history or context to their actions. I'm actually mixed — Dad is caucasian/Austrian and mom is African/Sierra Leonian. I grew up in a mixed race household and lived in 5 countries on 4 continents before I was 16. I don't really try to guess people's motivation for their actions, I would rather someone be overt and tell me what's going on. What I can say is that the taxi industry did absolutely nothing to attempt to improve its product for customers like myself. I'll also say that I work at Uber now. Part of my motivation for working here is motivated by my personal experiences and a desire to improve transportation for everyone.