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The fact that you're being downvoted shows how much of a socialist hell-hole HN has become. No one is forcing people to drive for uber and no one is forcing th

The fact that you're being downvoted shows how much of a socialist hell-hole HN has become. No one is forcing people to drive for uber and no one is forcing the rider to use uber. In my city, Accra, Taxis were so expensive until uber came to the market and forced down the price. The only system that puts the consumer (read: common man) first is the free market (if and only if politicians would allow it to work).

lidHanteyk 7y ago
Let's see how much of a capitalist you are. Why do you believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis? What evidence do you have in its favor? I humbly suggest to you that, if P!=NP, then the Efficient Market Hypothesis (any flavor!) cannot be true, as otherwise we could program markets to solve NP-complete problems in P time. Edit: Remember, downvote means "you are right and I must hide your argument lest it show others my folly". That's how the free marketplace of comments works.
- yaa_minu 7y ago
  No, let's look at it from a more philosophically objective point of view. Why do you think that the millions of Londoners who voluntarily chose Uber over traditional taxi services should be denied the freedom to choose what taxi services to use?
  - Jommi 7y ago
    If tfl sees Uber not operating by the same standards as others do, then of course they should be punished. Londoners are ofcourse free to use any other other app based ridehailing companies that so comply with tfls regulations.
  - lidHanteyk 7y ago
    For the same reason that they should be denied e.g. the freedom to choose to take loads of cheap antibiotics. Sometimes there are bigger network effects that, despite appearing good for every individual, actually turn out to be a collective bad. Why do you think that "socialist hell-hole" is an appropriate description of HN? Because you don't get to spout your capitalist talking points unchallenged?
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
MrAlex94 7y ago
I disagree. The UK could be viewed as more "socialist" than Ghana, but it is consistently ranked as more economically free: https://www.heritage.org/index/visualize?cnts=unitedkingdom|ghana&src=ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/visualize?cnts=unitedkingdom|... Also, with the tactics Uber has historically used - in a "proper" free market, would they not become a monopoly? And then they could charge what they please, ending up in the same position that previous taxi companies have been in.
- yaa_minu 7y ago
  > I disagree. The UK could be viewed as more "socialist" than Ghana... Yes, Ghana has been through a lot of dictatorship rule until recently when we saw the light of reducing government involvement in people's lives. But why does that matter here? >Also, with the tactics Uber has historically used - in a "proper" free market, would they not become a monopoly? How so? it's very easy to start a ride-hailing service. In fact, I've lost count of how many of them we have here in Accra. Uber itself has been forced to reduce its charges by other competitors like Yango[1], Bolt(Taxify) and even ironically the traditional taxi providers. These days, I don't even bother to order uber or Yango or Taxify because the taxis are responding to the competition. [1] https://yango.yandex.com/en_gh/ https://yango.yandex.com/en_gh/

lidHanteyk 7y ago

Let's see how much of a capitalist you are. Why do you believe in the Efficient Market Hypothesis? What evidence do you have in its favor? I humbly suggest to you that, if P!=NP, then the Efficient Market Hypothesis (any flavor!) cannot be true, as otherwise we could program markets to solve NP-complete problems in P time. Edit: Remember, downvote means "you are right and I must hide your argument lest it show others my folly". That's how the free marketplace of comments works.

yaa_minu 7y ago
No, let's look at it from a more philosophically objective point of view. Why do you think that the millions of Londoners who voluntarily chose Uber over traditional taxi services should be denied the freedom to choose what taxi services to use?
- Jommi 7y ago
  If tfl sees Uber not operating by the same standards as others do, then of course they should be punished. Londoners are ofcourse free to use any other other app based ridehailing companies that so comply with tfls regulations.
- lidHanteyk 7y ago
  For the same reason that they should be denied e.g. the freedom to choose to take loads of cheap antibiotics. Sometimes there are bigger network effects that, despite appearing good for every individual, actually turn out to be a collective bad. Why do you think that "socialist hell-hole" is an appropriate description of HN? Because you don't get to spout your capitalist talking points unchallenged?
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into ideological battle. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

MrAlex94 7y ago

I disagree. The UK could be viewed as more "socialist" than Ghana, but it is consistently ranked as more economically free: https://www.heritage.org/index/visualize?cnts=unitedkingdom|ghana&src=ranking https://www.heritage.org/index/visualize?cnts=unitedkingdom|... Also, with the tactics Uber has historically used - in a "proper" free market, would they not become a monopoly? And then they could charge what they please, ending up in the same position that previous taxi companies have been in.

yaa_minu 7y ago
> I disagree. The UK could be viewed as more "socialist" than Ghana... Yes, Ghana has been through a lot of dictatorship rule until recently when we saw the light of reducing government involvement in people's lives. But why does that matter here? >Also, with the tactics Uber has historically used - in a "proper" free market, would they not become a monopoly? How so? it's very easy to start a ride-hailing service. In fact, I've lost count of how many of them we have here in Accra. Uber itself has been forced to reduce its charges by other competitors like Yango[1], Bolt(Taxify) and even ironically the traditional taxi providers. These days, I don't even bother to order uber or Yango or Taxify because the taxis are responding to the competition. [1] https://yango.yandex.com/en_gh/ https://yango.yandex.com/en_gh/