4 ms·

Why do Seattle's residents need the playing field levelled in the direction of services that they wouldn't choose in the absence of legislation?

trhway 13y ago
>services that they wouldn't choose in the absence of legislation 1.are you saying that taxicabs can be abolished as nobody would use them? 2. any business activity (ie. activity generating revenue stream) would rely on some government services, like, for example, road maintenance in this case. You drive more and thus cause more wear and tear on the roads, and this increase in your driving brings you additional revenue - seems to fair to tax such a revenue. Driving more you increase congestion which government [suppose to] spend money to solve. Being involved in frequent business transactions you'd probably have higher probability for the need for other government services - police, courts.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  1. No, I'm not claiming no one would use taxicabs or would ever choose taxicabs over Uber; I refer to a series of hypothetical transactions in which an individual would choose Uber over taxicabs in the absence of the government pressuring the system one way or another. 2. The business activity's externalities (e.g. contributing to congestion) could hypothetically be involved in an answer to my question!! While rhetorical, the question does have good answers from time to time. However, in this case, I don't believe the proposed cap is going to be very effective at mitigating those externalities, and the general concept of a "level playing field" is orthogonal to externality mitigation.
  - trhway 13y ago
    >the general concept of a "level playing field" is orthogonal to externality mitigation. no. If one operator is paying for externality mitigation, it is only natural to level playing field by making other operators in the same business space to pay for the same externality mitigation.

trhway 13y ago

>services that they wouldn't choose in the absence of legislation 1.are you saying that taxicabs can be abolished as nobody would use them? 2. any business activity (ie. activity generating revenue stream) would rely on some government services, like, for example, road maintenance in this case. You drive more and thus cause more wear and tear on the roads, and this increase in your driving brings you additional revenue - seems to fair to tax such a revenue. Driving more you increase congestion which government [suppose to] spend money to solve. Being involved in frequent business transactions you'd probably have higher probability for the need for other government services - police, courts.

fennecfoxen 13y ago
1. No, I'm not claiming no one would use taxicabs or would ever choose taxicabs over Uber; I refer to a series of hypothetical transactions in which an individual would choose Uber over taxicabs in the absence of the government pressuring the system one way or another. 2. The business activity's externalities (e.g. contributing to congestion) could hypothetically be involved in an answer to my question!! While rhetorical, the question does have good answers from time to time. However, in this case, I don't believe the proposed cap is going to be very effective at mitigating those externalities, and the general concept of a "level playing field" is orthogonal to externality mitigation.
- trhway 13y ago
  >the general concept of a "level playing field" is orthogonal to externality mitigation. no. If one operator is paying for externality mitigation, it is only natural to level playing field by making other operators in the same business space to pay for the same externality mitigation.