11 ms·

I personally think the Seattle uberlyft rules are stupid, but it's worth remembering something that gets lost in the noise of "futurism" that clonks around the

by timr 13y ago

I personally think the Seattle uberlyft rules are stupid, but it's worth remembering something that gets lost in the noise of "futurism" that clonks around the silicon valley echo chamber: it's not inherently wrong to have laws that protect established businesses. I don't like cab companies, but I do want to know that my hired driver is insured. I'm indifferent to hotels, but I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment. I don't enjoy high medical bills, but I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs. And so on. To the extent that stability of certain kinds of businesses is essential to the stability of our society, it's actually a very good thing that governments are somewhat conservative about protecting the establishment. Moreover, there's no law of the universe that says that "disruption" is a good thing, and there certainly isn't any clean way to weigh the interests of one big established industry with those of a large, successful, wealthy competitor industry. Anyway, I have a hard time getting worked up over the regulatory disputes of corporations -- we have bigger problems, not the least of which is the question of why those big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws in the first place.

baddox 13y ago
> it's not inherently wrong to have laws that protect established businesses. I don't like cab companies, but I do want to know that my hired driver is insured. I'm indifferent to hotels, but I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment. I don't enjoy high medical bills, but I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs. And so on. For each of those arguments to work, you would need to demonstrate that laws protecting established businesses are necessary for each result.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- stdbrouw 13y ago
  Nope. You would just need to show that they're an effective and convenient means of avoiding certain consumer- and citizen-unfriendly situations, and that the benefit outweighs any negative side effects. Whether or not there are theoretically better methods to protect consumers is irrelevant unless they're practicable.
  - baddox 13y ago
    > and that the benefit outweighs any negative side effects. Exactly. That's what I meant.
    - res0nat0r 13y ago
      So current taxi and hotel regulations have more negative side effects than benefits as they currently stand?
      - baddox 13y ago
        I don't know. I would like to see evidence either way.
      - viscanti 13y ago
        Have you ridden in a taxi recently? Are you at all familiar with the taxi medallion racket (and why millionaire medallion owners are the only ones who benefit from this)? Have you ever tried to get a taxi to pick you up during rush hour or outside of a taxi hot spot?
        rayiner 13y ago
        I rode cabs all the time in Chicago and New York. Fast and cheap. I don't see the big deal about paying twice as much for a service like Uber. Also, are there no millionaires at Uber?
        aestra 13y ago
        >Are you at all familiar with the taxi medallion racket Yes, I am, at least in NYC. They are there to provide some consumer protection. I will be speaking of New York. First of all, a medallion isn't strictly required to operate a taxi-like car (for hire vehicles). It only affords them the permission to pick up passengers who flag a cab off the street. You are allowed to operate what is called a "car services" or "livery cab" too, they are allowed to only pick up and service people who call ahead to arrange the ride. Since the summer of 2012 livery cabs may pick up people who hail a cab outside the borough of Manhattan to serve undeserved populations (excluding the airports). Having a medallion means you are required to pick up any passenger who hails a cab, the first one you see, no matter if they are drunk, homeless, disabled, black, going to an undesired destination or otherwise "undesirable" passengers. Having a medallion also strictly regulates fares no matter what kind of car your medallion taxi is, including flat fees to get to the major airports. Taxis are regulated to look a certain way so you know you're getting into a licensed taxi and not a serial killer van. There are also very regular inspections of the vehicle to make sure it is up to safety standards. The authorities conduct undercover operations that ensure taxis are following the rules. The license plates bear a variation of the medallion number so that police can easily identify violators. It can be said or argued the limits of number of medallions is because there is limited space on the streets and you might not want them to be mostly taxis at the expense of other vehicles, before the medallion system there were at one time more taxis than taxi passengers. You also don't desire taxi drivers working very long hours to make a profit with excessive competition, because they might become fatigued and fall asleep at the wheel. Also the cost can facilitate the funding to enforce the regulations. Is this the best system? I don't know, but it is there for a reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
Jemaclus 13y ago
You realize he was being satirical, right? He's not actually advocating those rules.
wpietri 13y ago
I'd qualify what you say just a bit more: I think it's not wrong to have laws that happen to protect incumbent businesses as long as there's some other purpose to them. I'd add that since government is the mess-cleaner-upper of last resort, it's reasonable for them to limit the velocity of change. If Uber, etc, are really the future, then phasing in gradually larger quotas isn't going to stop the future from coming. But if instead there are unintended consequences, gradual introduction will let us find and fix those problems when they're small. As an entrepreneur, that's great by me. If society gets burned on a big scale by some experiment, it may taint attitudes for years or decades. For example, the crash of 2008 has to made a lot of people extremely skeptical about financial innovation. In contrast, look at the very gradual expansion of drug liberalization in the US: people are slowing getting used to the idea that when people can buy weed in stores, nothing particularly bad happens.
ahallock 13y ago
How can you justify all the State evils happening with, well, my neighbor can't run an SRO out of his apartment. You didn't mention your other neighbor who was a casualty of the drug war. The same people bringing you these supposed protections are also hurting quite a few other innocent people, but I guess that's OK as long as you feel safe. > we have bigger problems, not the least of which is the question of why those big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws in the first place. If those big, successful companies can have so much influence, how exactly are you safe? This doesn't exactly support the gist of your first paragraph.
kstenerud 13y ago
"I do want to know that my hired driver is insured." So enact laws that force drivers who offer rides professionally to have insurance. "I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment" Why not? The noise? We have existing nuisance laws for that. "I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs." We have consumer protection laws for that.
- wankerrific 13y ago
  Isn't that what these pesky "regulations" are? You know - "laws".
  - PeterisP 13y ago
    That's the whole point - the problem is not with regulations or laws as such, but with harmful regulations or laws. Protecting consumers from fraud is a good thing, as it promotes good service and (indirectly through increased trust) grows the economy, and makes people/customers/voters happier. Protecting companies from their competitors is a bad thing, as it promotes bad service from being outcompeted, and (by allowing inefficiencies to stay unchecked) hampers economic growth, and prevents people/customers/voters from choosing what they want.
- misuba 13y ago
  We have blanket regulations, in addition to laws such as these, because when you're sick from those radium elixirs, you don't want to have to be spending time and money suing your pharmacist on top of it. (Or searching for a class action, for that matter.) We also have them because there's a point past which enforcing individual violations is much too inefficient.
- saraid216 13y ago
  I think you're missing the nuance of what timr is saying. He's not saying that the regulations that the Seattle City Council chose to impose were the right ones to impose. He's saying that the inverse argument--that there should not be any regulations at all--isn't correct either.
- 13y ago
michaelkeenan 13y ago
> there's no law of the universe that says that "disruption" is a good thing, and there certainly isn't any clean way to weigh the interests of one big established industry with those of a large, successful, wealthy competitor industry. There's something fairly close to a law which says that disruption is a good thing. Industries can only be disrupted by entrants that provide products that consumers prefer, so we have almost-a-law: disruption is a preferable-to-consumers thing. There a few cases where that's not socially desirable (I suppose crack replacing cocaine would be an example) but those are exceptional enough that I think we ought to regard disruption as presumed good unless shown otherwise. Similarly, a decent heuristic for choosing whose interests to consider out of an established industry and a competitor is to let consumers choose which one is better. Of course this can be difficult for those in the established industry, but we're in a society-wide Prisoner's Dilemma over this, and a useful function of government would be making sure we all cooperate. Letting consumers choose the best companies is cooperation; protecting your own industry is defection. I'd be better off if my job and income were guaranteed, but I'd be worse off if everyone else got the same deal.
- api 13y ago
  I think the real underlying problem is the jobs situation. I don't think this would be so much of an issue if jobs weren't so much of an issue. The concern that many people have is that technological disruption is replacing old industries that employed more people with new industries that -- while preferable to the consumer -- employ less... and that those jobs will not be replaced since the same thing is happening all across the economy. Who then will be the consumer to whom these new industries are preferable?
  - icambron 13y ago
    It's important to remember that people said the same thing when machines started becoming part of assembly lines in the 20th century. The key insight was that while there was lots of very real short term employment pain, society's increased productivity allowed it to make more goods and services and thus employ more people than it did before. You're assuming demand is constant and different forms of productivity are simply competing with each other to fulfill it most efficiently. But that isn't true! As society becomes more productive, more stuff gets made, and more money gets created to buy it with, and everyone is richer. Now maybe you think this time it's different, either because people won't be able to move up the "ladder" (like our grandparents learned to operate those machines) or that society won't be able to generate enough demand (which seems crazy to me, but okay). You could make that argument, but you aren't. Just pointing at innovations as job killers is like pointing at the sail and complaining about all the oarsmen who will be laid off. Another lens to look at all of this through is the Star Trek future. In, like, three hundred years, what do you want society to look like? Like it does now, where people toil away at current productivity levels, or is everyone is vastly richer? Assuming you want that future to be awesome, how do you draw a line from here to there? Because the "we can't have technological disruption" attitude just can't really be on that line, right?
kyllo 13y ago
To the extent that stability of certain kinds of businesses is essential to the stability of our society, it's actually a very good thing that governments are somewhat conservative about protecting the establishment. If a certain kind of business is essential to the stability of our society then it should not be a business, it should be part of the government. "Essential" is a pretty strong word. A business should never be too big to fail. Free market competition should ensure that existing businesses will be quickly replaced by competitors if there is sufficient demand for their product or service. we have bigger problems, not the least of which is the question of why those big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws in the first place These are not even different problems, they are one and the same. The big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws because their friends in government shield them from competition, allowing them to grow into monopolies that are wealthy and powerful enough to exert influence over the laws. This is done through industry regulations passed under the pretense of protecting consumers from the dangers of untrusted companies offering products of unknown quality, a concern that you expressed above. But when you look at who is actually lobbying for the tighter regulations and licensing requirements, it's always the established businesses looking to raise the barrier to new market entrants. That's their ulterior motive.
- judk 13y ago
  Food is essential to survival, but we don't rely on the government to provide it.
  - loup-vaillant 13y ago
    Whatever is essential needs to be reliable. Granted, there are several ways to do it, of which state monopoly is only one, and I reckon, often not the best: centrally planned economy works rather poorly, as demonstrated by the Soviet Union. But you do need to ensure the reliability of your chosen mechanism. You can't just unleash the market on it, and hope for a good result. Unconstrained capitalism doesn't last, as demonstrated by its numerous crises, most notably in 1929. Most of the time, the government will just heavily manipulate the market into doing what it wants to do. American farms are heavily subsided, for instance. Doesn't work too poorly, and lasts quite long. Even if you strongly believe in free market and cut-throat competition, you need to ensure the market stays free somehow. You don't want any challenger to actually win.
Houshalter 13y ago
>I don't like cab companies, but I do want to know that my hired driver is insured. I'm indifferent to hotels, but I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment. I don't enjoy high medical bills, but I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs. And so on. That's not protecting established businesses. All those laws are arguably meant to protect consumers. I can't see any justification for "caps". This is just the needless contrarianism that appears in the top comment of every HN post. This is undefendable though. The problem of industries resisting change through the legal system is far worse than whatever small problems might be caused by disruption. In general humans are heavily biased against change. We need less resistance to change, not more.
- saraid216 13y ago
  timr isn't arguing in favor of caps.
vixen99 13y ago
Not inherently wrong? Laws are there to protect established businesses? I thought they were there to protect consumers and indirectly, of course they protect properly run businesses. What's 'established' got to do with it?

by timr 13y ago

baddox 13y ago

> it's not inherently wrong to have laws that protect established businesses. I don't like cab companies, but I do want to know that my hired driver is insured. I'm indifferent to hotels, but I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment. I don't enjoy high medical bills, but I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs. And so on. For each of those arguments to work, you would need to demonstrate that laws protecting established businesses are necessary for each result.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
stdbrouw 13y ago
Nope. You would just need to show that they're an effective and convenient means of avoiding certain consumer- and citizen-unfriendly situations, and that the benefit outweighs any negative side effects. Whether or not there are theoretically better methods to protect consumers is irrelevant unless they're practicable.
- baddox 13y ago
  > and that the benefit outweighs any negative side effects. Exactly. That's what I meant.
  - res0nat0r 13y ago
    So current taxi and hotel regulations have more negative side effects than benefits as they currently stand?
    - baddox 13y ago
      I don't know. I would like to see evidence either way.
    - viscanti 13y ago
      Have you ridden in a taxi recently? Are you at all familiar with the taxi medallion racket (and why millionaire medallion owners are the only ones who benefit from this)? Have you ever tried to get a taxi to pick you up during rush hour or outside of a taxi hot spot?
      - rayiner 13y ago
        I rode cabs all the time in Chicago and New York. Fast and cheap. I don't see the big deal about paying twice as much for a service like Uber. Also, are there no millionaires at Uber?
      - aestra 13y ago
        >Are you at all familiar with the taxi medallion racket Yes, I am, at least in NYC. They are there to provide some consumer protection. I will be speaking of New York. First of all, a medallion isn't strictly required to operate a taxi-like car (for hire vehicles). It only affords them the permission to pick up passengers who flag a cab off the street. You are allowed to operate what is called a "car services" or "livery cab" too, they are allowed to only pick up and service people who call ahead to arrange the ride. Since the summer of 2012 livery cabs may pick up people who hail a cab outside the borough of Manhattan to serve undeserved populations (excluding the airports). Having a medallion means you are required to pick up any passenger who hails a cab, the first one you see, no matter if they are drunk, homeless, disabled, black, going to an undesired destination or otherwise "undesirable" passengers. Having a medallion also strictly regulates fares no matter what kind of car your medallion taxi is, including flat fees to get to the major airports. Taxis are regulated to look a certain way so you know you're getting into a licensed taxi and not a serial killer van. There are also very regular inspections of the vehicle to make sure it is up to safety standards. The authorities conduct undercover operations that ensure taxis are following the rules. The license plates bear a variation of the medallion number so that police can easily identify violators. It can be said or argued the limits of number of medallions is because there is limited space on the streets and you might not want them to be mostly taxis at the expense of other vehicles, before the medallion system there were at one time more taxis than taxi passengers. You also don't desire taxi drivers working very long hours to make a profit with excessive competition, because they might become fatigued and fall asleep at the wheel. Also the cost can facilitate the funding to enforce the regulations. Is this the best system? I don't know, but it is there for a reason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

Jemaclus 13y ago

You realize he was being satirical, right? He's not actually advocating those rules.

wpietri 13y ago

I'd qualify what you say just a bit more: I think it's not wrong to have laws that happen to protect incumbent businesses as long as there's some other purpose to them. I'd add that since government is the mess-cleaner-upper of last resort, it's reasonable for them to limit the velocity of change. If Uber, etc, are really the future, then phasing in gradually larger quotas isn't going to stop the future from coming. But if instead there are unintended consequences, gradual introduction will let us find and fix those problems when they're small. As an entrepreneur, that's great by me. If society gets burned on a big scale by some experiment, it may taint attitudes for years or decades. For example, the crash of 2008 has to made a lot of people extremely skeptical about financial innovation. In contrast, look at the very gradual expansion of drug liberalization in the US: people are slowing getting used to the idea that when people can buy weed in stores, nothing particularly bad happens.

ahallock 13y ago

How can you justify all the State evils happening with, well, my neighbor can't run an SRO out of his apartment. You didn't mention your other neighbor who was a casualty of the drug war. The same people bringing you these supposed protections are also hurting quite a few other innocent people, but I guess that's OK as long as you feel safe. > we have bigger problems, not the least of which is the question of why those big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws in the first place. If those big, successful companies can have so much influence, how exactly are you safe? This doesn't exactly support the gist of your first paragraph.

kstenerud 13y ago

"I do want to know that my hired driver is insured." So enact laws that force drivers who offer rides professionally to have insurance. "I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment" Why not? The noise? We have existing nuisance laws for that. "I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs." We have consumer protection laws for that.

wankerrific 13y ago
Isn't that what these pesky "regulations" are? You know - "laws".
- PeterisP 13y ago
  That's the whole point - the problem is not with regulations or laws as such, but with harmful regulations or laws. Protecting consumers from fraud is a good thing, as it promotes good service and (indirectly through increased trust) grows the economy, and makes people/customers/voters happier. Protecting companies from their competitors is a bad thing, as it promotes bad service from being outcompeted, and (by allowing inefficiencies to stay unchecked) hampers economic growth, and prevents people/customers/voters from choosing what they want.
misuba 13y ago
We have blanket regulations, in addition to laws such as these, because when you're sick from those radium elixirs, you don't want to have to be spending time and money suing your pharmacist on top of it. (Or searching for a class action, for that matter.) We also have them because there's a point past which enforcing individual violations is much too inefficient.
saraid216 13y ago
I think you're missing the nuance of what timr is saying. He's not saying that the regulations that the Seattle City Council chose to impose were the right ones to impose. He's saying that the inverse argument--that there should not be any regulations at all--isn't correct either.
13y ago

michaelkeenan 13y ago

> there's no law of the universe that says that "disruption" is a good thing, and there certainly isn't any clean way to weigh the interests of one big established industry with those of a large, successful, wealthy competitor industry. There's something fairly close to a law which says that disruption is a good thing. Industries can only be disrupted by entrants that provide products that consumers prefer, so we have almost-a-law: disruption is a preferable-to-consumers thing. There a few cases where that's not socially desirable (I suppose crack replacing cocaine would be an example) but those are exceptional enough that I think we ought to regard disruption as presumed good unless shown otherwise. Similarly, a decent heuristic for choosing whose interests to consider out of an established industry and a competitor is to let consumers choose which one is better. Of course this can be difficult for those in the established industry, but we're in a society-wide Prisoner's Dilemma over this, and a useful function of government would be making sure we all cooperate. Letting consumers choose the best companies is cooperation; protecting your own industry is defection. I'd be better off if my job and income were guaranteed, but I'd be worse off if everyone else got the same deal.

api 13y ago
I think the real underlying problem is the jobs situation. I don't think this would be so much of an issue if jobs weren't so much of an issue. The concern that many people have is that technological disruption is replacing old industries that employed more people with new industries that -- while preferable to the consumer -- employ less... and that those jobs will not be replaced since the same thing is happening all across the economy. Who then will be the consumer to whom these new industries are preferable?
- icambron 13y ago
  It's important to remember that people said the same thing when machines started becoming part of assembly lines in the 20th century. The key insight was that while there was lots of very real short term employment pain, society's increased productivity allowed it to make more goods and services and thus employ more people than it did before. You're assuming demand is constant and different forms of productivity are simply competing with each other to fulfill it most efficiently. But that isn't true! As society becomes more productive, more stuff gets made, and more money gets created to buy it with, and everyone is richer. Now maybe you think this time it's different, either because people won't be able to move up the "ladder" (like our grandparents learned to operate those machines) or that society won't be able to generate enough demand (which seems crazy to me, but okay). You could make that argument, but you aren't. Just pointing at innovations as job killers is like pointing at the sail and complaining about all the oarsmen who will be laid off. Another lens to look at all of this through is the Star Trek future. In, like, three hundred years, what do you want society to look like? Like it does now, where people toil away at current productivity levels, or is everyone is vastly richer? Assuming you want that future to be awesome, how do you draw a line from here to there? Because the "we can't have technological disruption" attitude just can't really be on that line, right?

kyllo 13y ago

To the extent that stability of certain kinds of businesses is essential to the stability of our society, it's actually a very good thing that governments are somewhat conservative about protecting the establishment. If a certain kind of business is essential to the stability of our society then it should not be a business, it should be part of the government. "Essential" is a pretty strong word. A business should never be too big to fail. Free market competition should ensure that existing businesses will be quickly replaced by competitors if there is sufficient demand for their product or service. we have bigger problems, not the least of which is the question of why those big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws in the first place These are not even different problems, they are one and the same. The big, successful companies get so much influence over the laws because their friends in government shield them from competition, allowing them to grow into monopolies that are wealthy and powerful enough to exert influence over the laws. This is done through industry regulations passed under the pretense of protecting consumers from the dangers of untrusted companies offering products of unknown quality, a concern that you expressed above. But when you look at who is actually lobbying for the tighter regulations and licensing requirements, it's always the established businesses looking to raise the barrier to new market entrants. That's their ulterior motive.

judk 13y ago
Food is essential to survival, but we don't rely on the government to provide it.
- loup-vaillant 13y ago
  Whatever is essential needs to be reliable. Granted, there are several ways to do it, of which state monopoly is only one, and I reckon, often not the best: centrally planned economy works rather poorly, as demonstrated by the Soviet Union. But you do need to ensure the reliability of your chosen mechanism. You can't just unleash the market on it, and hope for a good result. Unconstrained capitalism doesn't last, as demonstrated by its numerous crises, most notably in 1929. Most of the time, the government will just heavily manipulate the market into doing what it wants to do. American farms are heavily subsided, for instance. Doesn't work too poorly, and lasts quite long. Even if you strongly believe in free market and cut-throat competition, you need to ensure the market stays free somehow. You don't want any challenger to actually win.

Houshalter 13y ago

>I don't like cab companies, but I do want to know that my hired driver is insured. I'm indifferent to hotels, but I don't want my neighbor running an SRO out of his apartment. I don't enjoy high medical bills, but I like the ability to know that my prescription medications aren't radium-based elixirs. And so on. That's not protecting established businesses. All those laws are arguably meant to protect consumers. I can't see any justification for "caps". This is just the needless contrarianism that appears in the top comment of every HN post. This is undefendable though. The problem of industries resisting change through the legal system is far worse than whatever small problems might be caused by disruption. In general humans are heavily biased against change. We need less resistance to change, not more.

saraid216 13y ago
timr isn't arguing in favor of caps.

vixen99 13y ago

Not inherently wrong? Laws are there to protect established businesses? I thought they were there to protect consumers and indirectly, of course they protect properly run businesses. What's 'established' got to do with it?