2 ms·
Because this is literally exactly why Uber came to be. It wasn't because people didn't like the color of the medallion taxis. It was because the death by a th
by rconti 8y ago
Because this is literally exactly why Uber came to be.
It wasn't because people didn't like the color of the medallion taxis.
It was because the death by a thousand cuts of incremental regulation left such a gaping hole between the crappy service being provided and the end users' needs that people were open to the idea of using a completely unregulated, clearly illegal service instead.
- CPLX 8y agoNot really. This isn't San Francisco or Miami. We don't have unregulated cars here and Uber hasn't changed that at all. We've had TLC cars for decades, aka black cars, car service cars, livery cars, etc. Taxis were never the only game in town, livery cars have been an integral part of the city's transportation network for a lot longer than Uber. I have pretty clear memories of the line outside Northside in Williamsburg every weekend night 15 years ago when I lived there. What happened was we all got little GPS enabled devices in our pocket so instead of having to call or wait at a storefront car service spot we could arrange it all in seconds. Way better, to be sure. But in NYC Uber hasn't really changed the legal framework like it's tried to do elsewhere, it's mostly just a better way to hail and track them. And the pool thing changes the dynamics somewhat as well. Which is great and all. But we don't have an unregulated illegal car service thing here, or to the extent we do it's unrelated to Uber. New York's TLC has regulated for-hire cars for a long long time and still do.