6 ms·

That may be the case. But my country doesn't have a medallion system or (effective) taxi lobbyists. It does have a licence system where a taxi company that cove

That may be the case. But my country doesn't have a medallion system or (effective) taxi lobbyists. It does have a licence system where a taxi company that covers an area needs to supply coverage 24/7 so people can get home when they are drunk, or otherwise unsafe, at 3 am on a Tuesday. Uber ignored all that and just took the profitable peek times. Plus they ignored employment law and paid drivers less than minimum wage. They "disrupted" our taxi industry by illegally taking the easy profit and ignoring the costs of being a business. I hate that it seems like every government in the world treats companies that blatantly break the law with kid gloves instead of coming down on them like a ton of bricks.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
The government likes giving people benefits via mandates for businesses in order to obfuscate costs. Transparent and accurate pricing for a driver at 2AM results in a better allocation of resources. If the government wants to give people access to drivers at 2AM, then the government should either give people enough cash to pay the price of a driver willing to be available at 2AM, or run the service themselves.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  These things have all kinds of social implications. In the capital of Turkey, Ankara, the islamist mayor cut all the public transport after 00:00, making late evening events(concerts or simply socializing in bars and clubs) inaccessible to younger people from poorer backgrounds because the taxis were expensive and abusive(the taxi lobby was protected by the same government). This caused divides between the youth and hindered the arts and entertainment scene for many many years. Some stuff is essential services. Like the airlines, they must be available and accessible even when it’s not profitable. It often needs to be subsidized, the subsidy can come from the central government or the users of the service can share the cost of the unprofitable operations. When you fail in that, the whole society and economy crumbles.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    And those services (societal infrastructure) should be operated (or paid for) by the government.
    - kube-system 5y ago
      To what degree to you believe that should be the case? There are multiple political interpretations of that sentiment throughout history with widely varying implementations and downstream consequences. Is it just public transportation? Are airlines and trains public transportation? Is it other critical infrastructure? Utilities? Energy? Healthcare? Communication? Other societal necessities like food/housing/shelter?
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        Whatever the population feels like should not be subject to market pricing. Also, whatever is prohibitively expensive to duplicate, such as water/sewage/gas pipes, electrical/fiber wires, etc. Or public transport like underground train systems.
        kube-system 5y ago
        "not subject to market pricing" is quite a spectrum of practices, and depending on how you define it, it could be almost nothing, or almost everything in the US. Taxes, tariffs, subsidies, affect market pricing quite a bit and are extremely common. Some consumer protection laws place very loose pricing rules on businesses that are literally price controls, but in practice allow pricing to fluctuate with market rates. Some other industries have segments which are price controlled, and other segments that are not, i.e. healthcare, insurance.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I mean that the market price should not be obfuscated. I have no qualms about society choosing to subsidize certain things, but the costs should be explicitly recognized. For example, give people access to higher education. Okay, have the government operate the higher education institutions. Or give the students cash to pay for the higher education institutions. But do not obfuscate costs by guaranteeing all student loans with zero underwriting. (The more politically popular method since it keeps taxes low now and lets politicians say they helped people). Of course, this price obfuscation rears its ugly head in 20 to 30 years once tuition is now $50k+ per year.
- uncomputation 5y ago
  Another way to think about it is the taxi companies enjoy slightly/moderately less profits than they could maximally get in exchange for a safer and better society (eg 24/7 taxi coverage). The same can be said for drivers licenses, car insurance, employee benefits, etc. Instead of the government acting as either entirely public or entirely private, why shouldn’t it act instead as a mediator between the public and the private? This seems to be the most logical decision for me compared to either full socialism or full libertarianism.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    > enjoy slightly/moderately less profits than they could maximally get in exchange for a safer and better society This is an enormous assumption (frequently wrong), and precisely why the costs of a government mandate should not be implicitly laid on a select population. It actually results in attempts to cheat and incentivize corruption. For example, NYC had or has a problem with cabs not taking people to poorer neighborhoods. The government can mandate it all day long, but they did not stop cab drivers from discriminating. The correct solution in this case, would be to pay the cab drivers the market price for going to the poorer neighborhoods. The payment obviously would have to come from the government, either given directly to the poorer person or can be given directly to the cab driver. But either way the incentivizes would be properly aligned, increasing supply of cab drivers willing to drive to the poorer neighborhoods. Where this falls apart is that it requires increase in government spending, meaning increase in taxes for rich people. And obviously, they are going to oppose this wealth transfer. It is much easier and cheaper to simply require cab drivers to go to poorer neighborhoods under threat of fines or whatnot, and sit back and let the status quo continue.
    - uncomputation 5y ago
      Interesting. I suppose if the mandates cannot or will not be enforced then it presents a problem, although I don’t know how well the incentive system works with say, clean air/water acts, which seem to be both mandated and incentivized.
      - 5y ago
bennysomething 5y ago
But why should any company be forced to provide services to drunk people? The government intervention here is the unfair bit.
- BlueDingo 5y ago
  Why should they have any licensing at all? Is that unfair too? My guess is that governments have interest in making sure services are safe and reliable. Hence licenses. And rules for those licenses.
  - FDSGSG 5y ago
    Why should their licensing be different than for pilots? With a private pilots license you can't fly for money, but you can take your friends and family with you. With a commercial pilots license you can fly for money. Neither of these are capped, a commercial pilots license just requires slightly more education and experience. Why should licensing for taxis be any different?
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      Flying isn't capped, but airport runway slots certainly are. As I see it, taxis are not different in this case.
      - FDSGSG 5y ago
        For commercial airliners carrying hundreds of passengers, yeah. For small private planes? Slots are hardly ever the limiting factor. Taxis are more like private jets than Airbuses carrying hundreds of pax. While taxis aren't as good for society as buses, they still reduce the total amount of car infrastructure required. The slot comparison doesn't seem apt.
        lmm 5y ago
        > While taxis aren't as good for society as buses, they still reduce the total amount of car infrastructure required. No they don't. They choke up the most costly piece of car infrastructure - road space in the very centre of cities.
RichEO 5y ago
Would you mind sharing which country you’re in? I’m doing some academic work on Uber’s effect on existing laws, and your example would be very helpful.
- verve_rat 5y ago
  New Zealand.
Siira 5y ago
So Uber unbundled expensive edge cases from typical usage. Seems like a win for most people. They can always pay the real price in those edge cases, not socializing it on everyone else. Not to mention that the smartphone online model plus flexible work is inherently more efficient.

lotsofpulp 5y ago

The government likes giving people benefits via mandates for businesses in order to obfuscate costs. Transparent and accurate pricing for a driver at 2AM results in a better allocation of resources. If the government wants to give people access to drivers at 2AM, then the government should either give people enough cash to pay the price of a driver willing to be available at 2AM, or run the service themselves.

mrtksn 5y ago
These things have all kinds of social implications. In the capital of Turkey, Ankara, the islamist mayor cut all the public transport after 00:00, making late evening events(concerts or simply socializing in bars and clubs) inaccessible to younger people from poorer backgrounds because the taxis were expensive and abusive(the taxi lobby was protected by the same government). This caused divides between the youth and hindered the arts and entertainment scene for many many years. Some stuff is essential services. Like the airlines, they must be available and accessible even when it’s not profitable. It often needs to be subsidized, the subsidy can come from the central government or the users of the service can share the cost of the unprofitable operations. When you fail in that, the whole society and economy crumbles.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  And those services (societal infrastructure) should be operated (or paid for) by the government.
  - kube-system 5y ago
    To what degree to you believe that should be the case? There are multiple political interpretations of that sentiment throughout history with widely varying implementations and downstream consequences. Is it just public transportation? Are airlines and trains public transportation? Is it other critical infrastructure? Utilities? Energy? Healthcare? Communication? Other societal necessities like food/housing/shelter?
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Whatever the population feels like should not be subject to market pricing. Also, whatever is prohibitively expensive to duplicate, such as water/sewage/gas pipes, electrical/fiber wires, etc. Or public transport like underground train systems.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        "not subject to market pricing" is quite a spectrum of practices, and depending on how you define it, it could be almost nothing, or almost everything in the US. Taxes, tariffs, subsidies, affect market pricing quite a bit and are extremely common. Some consumer protection laws place very loose pricing rules on businesses that are literally price controls, but in practice allow pricing to fluctuate with market rates. Some other industries have segments which are price controlled, and other segments that are not, i.e. healthcare, insurance.
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        I mean that the market price should not be obfuscated. I have no qualms about society choosing to subsidize certain things, but the costs should be explicitly recognized. For example, give people access to higher education. Okay, have the government operate the higher education institutions. Or give the students cash to pay for the higher education institutions. But do not obfuscate costs by guaranteeing all student loans with zero underwriting. (The more politically popular method since it keeps taxes low now and lets politicians say they helped people). Of course, this price obfuscation rears its ugly head in 20 to 30 years once tuition is now $50k+ per year.
uncomputation 5y ago
Another way to think about it is the taxi companies enjoy slightly/moderately less profits than they could maximally get in exchange for a safer and better society (eg 24/7 taxi coverage). The same can be said for drivers licenses, car insurance, employee benefits, etc. Instead of the government acting as either entirely public or entirely private, why shouldn’t it act instead as a mediator between the public and the private? This seems to be the most logical decision for me compared to either full socialism or full libertarianism.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > enjoy slightly/moderately less profits than they could maximally get in exchange for a safer and better society This is an enormous assumption (frequently wrong), and precisely why the costs of a government mandate should not be implicitly laid on a select population. It actually results in attempts to cheat and incentivize corruption. For example, NYC had or has a problem with cabs not taking people to poorer neighborhoods. The government can mandate it all day long, but they did not stop cab drivers from discriminating. The correct solution in this case, would be to pay the cab drivers the market price for going to the poorer neighborhoods. The payment obviously would have to come from the government, either given directly to the poorer person or can be given directly to the cab driver. But either way the incentivizes would be properly aligned, increasing supply of cab drivers willing to drive to the poorer neighborhoods. Where this falls apart is that it requires increase in government spending, meaning increase in taxes for rich people. And obviously, they are going to oppose this wealth transfer. It is much easier and cheaper to simply require cab drivers to go to poorer neighborhoods under threat of fines or whatnot, and sit back and let the status quo continue.
  - uncomputation 5y ago
    Interesting. I suppose if the mandates cannot or will not be enforced then it presents a problem, although I don’t know how well the incentive system works with say, clean air/water acts, which seem to be both mandated and incentivized.
    - 5y ago

bennysomething 5y ago

But why should any company be forced to provide services to drunk people? The government intervention here is the unfair bit.

BlueDingo 5y ago
Why should they have any licensing at all? Is that unfair too? My guess is that governments have interest in making sure services are safe and reliable. Hence licenses. And rules for those licenses.
- FDSGSG 5y ago
  Why should their licensing be different than for pilots? With a private pilots license you can't fly for money, but you can take your friends and family with you. With a commercial pilots license you can fly for money. Neither of these are capped, a commercial pilots license just requires slightly more education and experience. Why should licensing for taxis be any different?
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    Flying isn't capped, but airport runway slots certainly are. As I see it, taxis are not different in this case.
    - FDSGSG 5y ago
      For commercial airliners carrying hundreds of passengers, yeah. For small private planes? Slots are hardly ever the limiting factor. Taxis are more like private jets than Airbuses carrying hundreds of pax. While taxis aren't as good for society as buses, they still reduce the total amount of car infrastructure required. The slot comparison doesn't seem apt.
      - lmm 5y ago
        > While taxis aren't as good for society as buses, they still reduce the total amount of car infrastructure required. No they don't. They choke up the most costly piece of car infrastructure - road space in the very centre of cities.

RichEO 5y ago

Would you mind sharing which country you’re in? I’m doing some academic work on Uber’s effect on existing laws, and your example would be very helpful.

verve_rat 5y ago
New Zealand.

Siira 5y ago

So Uber unbundled expensive edge cases from typical usage. Seems like a win for most people. They can always pay the real price in those edge cases, not socializing it on everyone else. Not to mention that the smartphone online model plus flexible work is inherently more efficient.