4 ms·

There are meaningful alternatives for your examples. If you didn't want to work at Applebees, you could work at Chilis. Right now, I would be willing to bet th

There are meaningful alternatives for your examples. If you didn't want to work at Applebees, you could work at Chilis. Right now, I would be willing to bet that a large majority of Lyft drivers also drive for Uber. Uber is so much larger that there is no real alternative. If the law makes it so that drivers can choose only one rideshare app, they will all choose Uber because its bigger.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
This is an extraordinary claim, this has never been a problem in a major city in recorded history. The idea that Uber would pay drivers so much to have extra drivers just sitting around doing nothing is absurd. The idea that there would be no suitable drivers left to other firms to hire is absurd. If any of this claim made sence, then this would have happened 50 years ago, we've had drivers around for a while. Yet it does not happen in haulage where drivers are actual professionals, it does not happen for solicitors where labour supply is way more constrained. What do you have to backup your claim?
- dahfizz 5y ago
  > this has never been a problem in a major city in recorded history. This _has_ been the case in major cities around the world before Uber took over. NYC has the yellow cab monopoly. London had the black cab monopoly. These companies grew large enough to buy up all available labor (this was made easier by the medallion system). Uber is no different. It _already_ has a dominant market position. Other rideshare companies _already_ share their drivers. The amount of drivers who drive for Lyft only is vanishingly small. If you force all those drivers to choose, they will choose Uber and Lyft will die.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "YC has the yellow cab monopoly. London had the black cab monopoly." Exactly, legislative monopoly - they didn't run out of people with cars willing to drive. You are talking about labour shortage, that's a completely different argument
  - vidarh 5y ago
    There is no "black cab monopoly". Black cabs are not operated by a single company. It's a number of companies, and a huge number of individual operators, competing with dozens of private hire companies.
    - randomswede 5y ago
      And there is not (unlike the medallion system, as I understand it) any specific limit on how many can pass The Knowledge (the test you have to do to become a black cab driver; before that, you can get a taxi license and work for a minicab firm). The reason it's not instant is that it is one of those "requires a substantial investment of time" scenarios. So I don't think painting "London's black cabs" as a monopoly holds water.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

This is an extraordinary claim, this has never been a problem in a major city in recorded history. The idea that Uber would pay drivers so much to have extra drivers just sitting around doing nothing is absurd. The idea that there would be no suitable drivers left to other firms to hire is absurd. If any of this claim made sence, then this would have happened 50 years ago, we've had drivers around for a while. Yet it does not happen in haulage where drivers are actual professionals, it does not happen for solicitors where labour supply is way more constrained. What do you have to backup your claim?

dahfizz 5y ago
> this has never been a problem in a major city in recorded history. This _has_ been the case in major cities around the world before Uber took over. NYC has the yellow cab monopoly. London had the black cab monopoly. These companies grew large enough to buy up all available labor (this was made easier by the medallion system). Uber is no different. It _already_ has a dominant market position. Other rideshare companies _already_ share their drivers. The amount of drivers who drive for Lyft only is vanishingly small. If you force all those drivers to choose, they will choose Uber and Lyft will die.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "YC has the yellow cab monopoly. London had the black cab monopoly." Exactly, legislative monopoly - they didn't run out of people with cars willing to drive. You are talking about labour shortage, that's a completely different argument
- vidarh 5y ago
  There is no "black cab monopoly". Black cabs are not operated by a single company. It's a number of companies, and a huge number of individual operators, competing with dozens of private hire companies.
  - randomswede 5y ago
    And there is not (unlike the medallion system, as I understand it) any specific limit on how many can pass The Knowledge (the test you have to do to become a black cab driver; before that, you can get a taxi license and work for a minicab firm). The reason it's not instant is that it is one of those "requires a substantial investment of time" scenarios. So I don't think painting "London's black cabs" as a monopoly holds water.