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Against my better judgement I'm going to attempt to contribute to this thread. There are good arguments on both sides but most people are talking past one anoth

Against my better judgement I'm going to attempt to contribute to this thread. There are good arguments on both sides but most people are talking past one another. As I see it, it comes down to this: Uber says there is a surplus, people driving cars with empty seats, and they attempt to capture that surplus. From an economic point-of-view that is a good argument. The surplus undeniably exists, and it would be beneficial to reduce it. The argument on the other side is that this is an issue of public policy. Various countries have decided it is beneficial to legislate people driving strangers in exchange for money. The general arguments are ones of safety, but quality of service also comes into it. Again this is a reasonable argument. There is an information asymmetry when hiring a taxi (I don't know what kind of driver I'm going to get) so legislation reduces that. The main point seems to be who gets to decide public policy? Uber and "Silicon Valley" types believe that private individuals and companies should be allowed to set public policy. Most others reject this. The next argument is whether current legislation is appropriate and whether Uber has sufficient features to make existing legislation unnecessary. E.g. are ratings and ubiquitous GPS sufficient to reduce information asymmetry. If Uber wants to engage in this argument it should use the usual methods of setting public policy. I don't know if Uber has started any court cases but I expect they will be involved in some soon if not already, and this is one way to effect public policy.

Xylakant 12y ago
> Uber says there is a surplus, people driving cars with empty seats, and they attempt to capture that surplus. From an economic point-of-view that is a good argument. The surplus undeniably exists, and it would be beneficial to reduce it. This is actually not what Uber says. Ride-Sharing would be fully valid as long as the fee paid is lower than the cost for the car owner. It's specifically exempt from the law. However, the fee that Uber proposes is far above the accepted costs per kilometer (it's roughly 1 EUR, while the accepted costs are roughly 30cent), so they don't qualify. There's a german startup (Wundercar) that tries to capture specifically that market and they just reduced their prices in response to a similar injunction.
- noelwelsh 12y ago
  I didn't know Germany had laws about this case. I meant in the general sense that their business model is based on exploiting this surplus. It is their value proposition, if you like.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    > I didn't know Germany had laws about this case. We have laws for everything.
    - Padding 12y ago
      Indeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindfleischetikettierungs%C3%BCberwachungsaufgaben%C3%BCbertragungsgesetz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindf...
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        The wp page says it got repealed.
        Xylakant 12y ago
        It was replaced, can't let a good law go to waste [1]. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with it's highest mountain of 179 m above sea level (49m above the surrounding area) even has a law about cable cars, though that's a EU thing. We're really well equipped with laws. [1] though not by a law, but some administrative process
  - Vik1ng 12y ago
    This Act shall not be subject to... 1. Passenger cars when they are free of charge or the total price does not exceed the operating cost of the trip https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gesetze-im-internet.de%2Fbundesrecht%2Fpbefg%2Fgesamt.pdf&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pre...
PinguTS 12y ago
Theoretically, your are right. But there is no surplus in UberBlack, UberPop, UberX. The surplus, ride sharing, exists only in UberPool. Why? Because the surplus, as you argue, is: there is a driver who wants to go from A to B. I need a trip from C to D and it happens, that C and D is along the ride of A to B, or even match with A and B. That is called ride sharing. That is nothing new. This kind of business exists in Germany for years. There are also nice Apps that integrate with your navigations system, like http://flinc.org http://flinc.org But what Uber offers with Uber{Black|Pop|X} is not a ride sharing. I still want to go from C to D. But there is no driver who wants to go from A to B. There is only a driver who wants to make some money. So the driver may come from A to pick me up at C. But after D, the driver is either going back to A or will pick up another client. This no ride sharing. Without me as the client, the drive would not have taken place in the first place. So there is no surplus. That is the distinguishing element between business and ride sharing.
- clarkm 12y ago
  > But there is no surplus in UberBlack, UberPop, UberX. Not true. A lot of UberX drivers use cars that would otherwise be sitting in a garage. It may not be ride sharing, but it's still a type of car sharing.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    That surplus was not intended to address the surplus of cars in general. By your argument any parking lot is a surplus that could be used for transportation. Such surpluses are typically addressed in other ways (greenwheels for instance).
- schrodinger 12y ago
  What about the taxi driver driving around with an empty car looking for passengers? Couldn't that count as a surplus?
pgeorgi 12y ago
In that case they should claim that UberPool is not a taxi business, since they don't intend to do it full-time (requirement as of PBefG §13(5)1), and as such they want a temporary license (up to 4 years) as per PBefG §2(7) for this new mode of transportation. (IANAL, no legal advice, yada yada) What doesn't work is to pretend that laws don't exist, and pissing off regulators. That will also make hacks like the above much less likely to work for Uber because that requires some minimum amount of goodwill (given that it is a hack)... We have laws for everything (as Xylakant succintly stated), but they usually also come with way to thread in new ideas. However, screaming "DISRUPTION!!!1" all the time just isn't good enough here.
- tim333 12y ago
  >What doesn't work is to pretend that laws don't exist, and pissing off regulators That actually seems to have worked OK to a large extent for the likes of Uber and Airbnb. If they had complied with every existing regulation out there they never would have got off the ground. Whereas going ahead and just launching it is hard for regulators to stop the whole thing if it has wide spread adoption and is popular.
  - DasIch 12y ago
    Both Uber and Airbnb are currently in the process of being killed of in Germany. If they started here, they definitely wouldn't have gotten of the ground.
    - tim333 12y ago
      Yeah, Germany may be a bit unusual in terms of sticking to their regulations.
      - junto 12y ago
        As a foreigner living here in Germany, I have been continually surprised by the level of regulation that is in place here. I am often doubly surprised when I realise that nearly every single piece of legislation I've come across actually seems to make sense, when someone takes the time to explain it to me. I personally think that the regulation of public transport is a good thing. The fact that people are insured when they transport me around in a 1 tonne potential deathtrap is a good thing. The last thing I want to hear when I wake up in hospital gravely injured is "sorry sir, you'll have to sign here to accept liability because the driver of your unlicensed taxi wasn't insured to transport paying passengers".
mseebach 12y ago
> the usual methods of setting public policy But what are the usual methods of setting public policy? It's only very rarely running for political office and making carefully thought out arguments and finally winning a vote. Civil disobedience and activism have a long and proud tradition of pushing the rules, bending them and sometimes breaking them. Famously, Rosa Parks was a private individual who sought to be allowed to set public policy, rather away from the "the usual methods". Obviously, Uber isn't even in the same league as the civil rights battle, but your expectations of what the "usual methods" are is wrong. Also, on the other hand, taxis are already conveniences for the relatively well off and trying to tie in the regulations of the taxi industry with high-brow "public policy" like clean air policies or even "regular" public transport etc. is equally not in the same league.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "Civil disobedience and activism have a long and proud tradition of pushing the rules, bending them and sometimes breaking them. Famously, Rosa Parks was a private individual who sought to be allowed to set public policy, rather away from the "the usual methods". Obviously, Uber isn't even in the same league as the civil rights battle, but your expectations of what the "usual methods" are is wrong." Come on. Even with your line attempting to clarify your first statement it's one of the most idiotic things I've seen today. Uber is a private company. They aren't activists. They aren't citizens of the country trying to get a fair shake. And they certainly aren't anything like Rosa Parks. They don't like the rules that are in place. The people of Germany should be the ones that get to decide whether or not the rules should be changed, not Uber.
  - mseebach 12y ago
    Well, I'm glad I could help you vent some righteous indignation by holding me responsible for an interpretation of a statement that I explicitly explained wasn't what I was trying to say. You don't get to decide who are activists based on whether you agree with them. Activism literally just means "doing something". And the drivers and passengers that use Uber/want to use Uber are very much citizens trying to get a fair shake. The people of Germany will be the one deciding, but - and here comes the actual point: such decisions are never made in a vacuum. Rules and regulations are made in response to circumstances in the real world changing, not the other way around. The emergence of Uber (and Lyft and plenty more) is the real world changing.
tomp 12y ago
> Uber says there is a surplus, people driving cars with empty seats, and they attempt to capture that surplus. That's not what got Uber in trouble. Ride-sharing is extremely well-developed in Germany (it's called mitfahrgelegenheit, extremely popular, mostly for longer trips between cities), and it's probably not illegal. Uber, however, was/is operating a taxi company (admittedly, ride-sharing is much less useful within cities, because there is a much lower chance of someone going exactly where you need to go, exactly when you want to go).
- Xylakant 12y ago
  Ride sharing is specifically exempt from the regulations as long as the total fare is below the actual costs for the trip (fuel, tire wear, etc.). So yes, it's legal.
  - tomp 12y ago
    Makes sense, because the idea of ride-sharing is that you're making the trip anyways, and you're just lowering the actual and ecological/wear-and-tear/wasted time costs if you're taking other people with you. Uber is very obviously not doing that.
    - _up 12y ago
      I heard from another German startup that drives for tips. The idea is the App suggests a "fair" tip amount. And you probably wont be getting a taxi in the future, if you pay less. I am sceptical that this will fly with regulators, but who knows.
      - Xylakant 12y ago
        You're talking about Wundercar. The had a run-in with the regulators but adapted their business model accordingly, so at the moment, they're in the green. If the whole business model flies, that's a different question though.
teekert 12y ago
Here in the Netherlands, your second argument is invalid. Taxi drivers are often a-holes. In Utrecht it happens often that try to fool you and give back too little money (same trick you see in very poor countries where they count the money for you). Or they simply refuse to give you change and become mad when you don't leave the taxi. We really need competition for the regular taxi system. I for one avoid taxis here.
fthssht 12y ago
I think it's a tad misleading to suggest user or silicon valley are setting policy. When the government "sets policy" that's really just making things illegal. Silicon valley can offer a service and the government can decide it's so bad that it's worth spending tax dollars to prevent it as a crime or they can not. People are so quick to defend the status quo. Right now consensual sex is unregulated if no money changes hands. We could require std inspection and maternity insurance for accidental pregnancy. Sounds ridiculous but if it existed already people would defend it just because it sounds like a reasonable reason. If people saw policy as what it is in criminalization they might trad more lightly but uber isn't setting policy because they can't.
- wavefunction 12y ago
  The thing is in a democracy that respects the rule of law, if you don't like an existing law, then you work to change it, which has never been Uber's strategy. Instead they just put out PR releases about how they're going to ignore some local law or regulation _again._
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    Civil disobedience is an avenue for changing laws. You may no like it, many people prefer the institutional ways for changing laws, but the fact that it is a valid tool is undeniable. I'm not vouching for Uber's strategy. Just pointing out that their strategy is not insane, not idiotic and is perfectly valid. Personally, I place civil disobedience as a last resort method. The most prominent recent case of civil disobedience is, of course, Snowden. He did something illegal in the hope of changing the current legal status quo.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      Although in general I agree with you about civil disobedience, I don't think Ubers strategy qualifies. Civil disobedience is usually for something that is perceived as a greater good at the expense of ones personal costs, often freedom. Snowden personally did not win anything at all. Ubers disobedience is mostly aimed at increasing their operating profits: They could comply fairly easily, but they choose not to because of the costs. That's like calling bank robbery "civil disobedience against property laws".
netcan 12y ago
I think it's possible to look at this without getting dragged into the puritan free market vs regulation paradigm. I think that regulation of taxi & public transport and/or the survival of these regulations post 1980s is a product of problems in that industry. The Taxi market often develops pathologies. Safety issues. Ripoffs (specially tourists). Congestion. etc. Those problems are real. But… Uber solves or can love many of those problem just as well as regulation. Safety is improved because there is a record of everything. The ripoff/bad service caused by lack of repeat business is mitigated by the reputation system. They specialize in solving congestion problems with their supply-demand stuff. The regulations just aren't needed to regulate what is sometimes called 'black cabs.' The fact that they compete with flag down taxis is irrelevant. These problems are not acute for this kind of service and forcing Uber to comply is not helpful. Insurance, licensing, permuting & such are unsolved problems. Uber might be able to work out the insurance at some point. But.. these are more artificial problems, artifacts of the regulation as much as they are regulations there to solve a problem. Regulatory authorities should work to fix these themselves, to enable new kinds of services. Uber puts more power into the hands of consumers. If this removes some of the need for industry regulation, industry regulation needs to adapt.
ma2rten 12y ago
> There is an information asymmetry when hiring a taxi (I don't know what kind of driver I'm going to get) so legislation reduces that. Why is this about information asymmetry? The driver also doesn't know what kind of passenger they get.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  Taxis qualify as public utility in germany, free to use just like a bus, train, whether you're an asshole or not. The cab drivers duty is to deliver me safely at a regulated price, if he does that, his job has been fulfilled. If he has an entertaining story to tell, all the better, but seriously, I don't really need that.
robomartin 12y ago
How about the concept of freedom? Am I, as a human being on this planet free? In that context, shouldn't I be able to exercise my option to make choices such as whether I want to use a government-sanctioned transportation service or pay an equally free individual for transportation services. Both kinds of services get to make me an offer and I chose, not government, I. If the government-sanctioned service is so good surely I will chose that service over anything else that might be offered. I am sick and tired of government restricting my options because they think they know what is good for me. More often than not government has the opposite effect, on that can be highly destructive over the long term and one filled with individuals making decisions out of utter ignorance and a need to control, not serve. Freedom.
- wooter 12y ago
  Oh if only this sentiment would grow in popularity... As a fellow freedom-lover and capable critical thinker, this thread left me in disgust =( The sad thing is that the obsession with control has real, measurable, and detrimental results. Uber lowers the DUI rates in every city its been introduced? but it doesn't have licenses that are limited by the state, ban them!
  - jacalata 12y ago
    every city? I haven't seen this claimed before, only for about four US cities.

Xylakant 12y ago

> Uber says there is a surplus, people driving cars with empty seats, and they attempt to capture that surplus. From an economic point-of-view that is a good argument. The surplus undeniably exists, and it would be beneficial to reduce it. This is actually not what Uber says. Ride-Sharing would be fully valid as long as the fee paid is lower than the cost for the car owner. It's specifically exempt from the law. However, the fee that Uber proposes is far above the accepted costs per kilometer (it's roughly 1 EUR, while the accepted costs are roughly 30cent), so they don't qualify. There's a german startup (Wundercar) that tries to capture specifically that market and they just reduced their prices in response to a similar injunction.

noelwelsh 12y ago
I didn't know Germany had laws about this case. I meant in the general sense that their business model is based on exploiting this surplus. It is their value proposition, if you like.
- Xylakant 12y ago
  > I didn't know Germany had laws about this case. We have laws for everything.
  - Padding 12y ago
    Indeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindfleischetikettierungs%C3%BCberwachungsaufgaben%C3%BCbertragungsgesetz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rinderkennzeichnungs-_und_Rindf...
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      The wp page says it got repealed.
      - Xylakant 12y ago
        It was replaced, can't let a good law go to waste [1]. Mecklenburg-Vorpommern with it's highest mountain of 179 m above sea level (49m above the surrounding area) even has a law about cable cars, though that's a EU thing. We're really well equipped with laws. [1] though not by a law, but some administrative process
- Vik1ng 12y ago
  This Act shall not be subject to... 1. Passenger cars when they are free of charge or the total price does not exceed the operating cost of the trip https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gesetze-im-internet.de%2Fbundesrecht%2Fpbefg%2Fgesamt.pdf&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.de/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pre...

PinguTS 12y ago

Theoretically, your are right. But there is no surplus in UberBlack, UberPop, UberX. The surplus, ride sharing, exists only in UberPool. Why? Because the surplus, as you argue, is: there is a driver who wants to go from A to B. I need a trip from C to D and it happens, that C and D is along the ride of A to B, or even match with A and B. That is called ride sharing. That is nothing new. This kind of business exists in Germany for years. There are also nice Apps that integrate with your navigations system, like http://flinc.org http://flinc.org But what Uber offers with Uber{Black|Pop|X} is not a ride sharing. I still want to go from C to D. But there is no driver who wants to go from A to B. There is only a driver who wants to make some money. So the driver may come from A to pick me up at C. But after D, the driver is either going back to A or will pick up another client. This no ride sharing. Without me as the client, the drive would not have taken place in the first place. So there is no surplus. That is the distinguishing element between business and ride sharing.

clarkm 12y ago
> But there is no surplus in UberBlack, UberPop, UberX. Not true. A lot of UberX drivers use cars that would otherwise be sitting in a garage. It may not be ride sharing, but it's still a type of car sharing.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That surplus was not intended to address the surplus of cars in general. By your argument any parking lot is a surplus that could be used for transportation. Such surpluses are typically addressed in other ways (greenwheels for instance).
schrodinger 12y ago
What about the taxi driver driving around with an empty car looking for passengers? Couldn't that count as a surplus?

pgeorgi 12y ago

In that case they should claim that UberPool is not a taxi business, since they don't intend to do it full-time (requirement as of PBefG §13(5)1), and as such they want a temporary license (up to 4 years) as per PBefG §2(7) for this new mode of transportation. (IANAL, no legal advice, yada yada) What doesn't work is to pretend that laws don't exist, and pissing off regulators. That will also make hacks like the above much less likely to work for Uber because that requires some minimum amount of goodwill (given that it is a hack)... We have laws for everything (as Xylakant succintly stated), but they usually also come with way to thread in new ideas. However, screaming "DISRUPTION!!!1" all the time just isn't good enough here.

tim333 12y ago
>What doesn't work is to pretend that laws don't exist, and pissing off regulators That actually seems to have worked OK to a large extent for the likes of Uber and Airbnb. If they had complied with every existing regulation out there they never would have got off the ground. Whereas going ahead and just launching it is hard for regulators to stop the whole thing if it has wide spread adoption and is popular.
- DasIch 12y ago
  Both Uber and Airbnb are currently in the process of being killed of in Germany. If they started here, they definitely wouldn't have gotten of the ground.
  - tim333 12y ago
    Yeah, Germany may be a bit unusual in terms of sticking to their regulations.
    - junto 12y ago
      As a foreigner living here in Germany, I have been continually surprised by the level of regulation that is in place here. I am often doubly surprised when I realise that nearly every single piece of legislation I've come across actually seems to make sense, when someone takes the time to explain it to me. I personally think that the regulation of public transport is a good thing. The fact that people are insured when they transport me around in a 1 tonne potential deathtrap is a good thing. The last thing I want to hear when I wake up in hospital gravely injured is "sorry sir, you'll have to sign here to accept liability because the driver of your unlicensed taxi wasn't insured to transport paying passengers".

mseebach 12y ago

> the usual methods of setting public policy But what are the usual methods of setting public policy? It's only very rarely running for political office and making carefully thought out arguments and finally winning a vote. Civil disobedience and activism have a long and proud tradition of pushing the rules, bending them and sometimes breaking them. Famously, Rosa Parks was a private individual who sought to be allowed to set public policy, rather away from the "the usual methods". Obviously, Uber isn't even in the same league as the civil rights battle, but your expectations of what the "usual methods" are is wrong. Also, on the other hand, taxis are already conveniences for the relatively well off and trying to tie in the regulations of the taxi industry with high-brow "public policy" like clean air policies or even "regular" public transport etc. is equally not in the same league.

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "Civil disobedience and activism have a long and proud tradition of pushing the rules, bending them and sometimes breaking them. Famously, Rosa Parks was a private individual who sought to be allowed to set public policy, rather away from the "the usual methods". Obviously, Uber isn't even in the same league as the civil rights battle, but your expectations of what the "usual methods" are is wrong." Come on. Even with your line attempting to clarify your first statement it's one of the most idiotic things I've seen today. Uber is a private company. They aren't activists. They aren't citizens of the country trying to get a fair shake. And they certainly aren't anything like Rosa Parks. They don't like the rules that are in place. The people of Germany should be the ones that get to decide whether or not the rules should be changed, not Uber.
- mseebach 12y ago
  Well, I'm glad I could help you vent some righteous indignation by holding me responsible for an interpretation of a statement that I explicitly explained wasn't what I was trying to say. You don't get to decide who are activists based on whether you agree with them. Activism literally just means "doing something". And the drivers and passengers that use Uber/want to use Uber are very much citizens trying to get a fair shake. The people of Germany will be the one deciding, but - and here comes the actual point: such decisions are never made in a vacuum. Rules and regulations are made in response to circumstances in the real world changing, not the other way around. The emergence of Uber (and Lyft and plenty more) is the real world changing.

tomp 12y ago

> Uber says there is a surplus, people driving cars with empty seats, and they attempt to capture that surplus. That's not what got Uber in trouble. Ride-sharing is extremely well-developed in Germany (it's called mitfahrgelegenheit, extremely popular, mostly for longer trips between cities), and it's probably not illegal. Uber, however, was/is operating a taxi company (admittedly, ride-sharing is much less useful within cities, because there is a much lower chance of someone going exactly where you need to go, exactly when you want to go).

Xylakant 12y ago
Ride sharing is specifically exempt from the regulations as long as the total fare is below the actual costs for the trip (fuel, tire wear, etc.). So yes, it's legal.
- tomp 12y ago
  Makes sense, because the idea of ride-sharing is that you're making the trip anyways, and you're just lowering the actual and ecological/wear-and-tear/wasted time costs if you're taking other people with you. Uber is very obviously not doing that.
  - _up 12y ago
    I heard from another German startup that drives for tips. The idea is the App suggests a "fair" tip amount. And you probably wont be getting a taxi in the future, if you pay less. I am sceptical that this will fly with regulators, but who knows.
    - Xylakant 12y ago
      You're talking about Wundercar. The had a run-in with the regulators but adapted their business model accordingly, so at the moment, they're in the green. If the whole business model flies, that's a different question though.

teekert 12y ago

Here in the Netherlands, your second argument is invalid. Taxi drivers are often a-holes. In Utrecht it happens often that try to fool you and give back too little money (same trick you see in very poor countries where they count the money for you). Or they simply refuse to give you change and become mad when you don't leave the taxi. We really need competition for the regular taxi system. I for one avoid taxis here.

fthssht 12y ago

I think it's a tad misleading to suggest user or silicon valley are setting policy. When the government "sets policy" that's really just making things illegal. Silicon valley can offer a service and the government can decide it's so bad that it's worth spending tax dollars to prevent it as a crime or they can not. People are so quick to defend the status quo. Right now consensual sex is unregulated if no money changes hands. We could require std inspection and maternity insurance for accidental pregnancy. Sounds ridiculous but if it existed already people would defend it just because it sounds like a reasonable reason. If people saw policy as what it is in criminalization they might trad more lightly but uber isn't setting policy because they can't.

wavefunction 12y ago
The thing is in a democracy that respects the rule of law, if you don't like an existing law, then you work to change it, which has never been Uber's strategy. Instead they just put out PR releases about how they're going to ignore some local law or regulation _again._
- sergiosgc 12y ago
  Civil disobedience is an avenue for changing laws. You may no like it, many people prefer the institutional ways for changing laws, but the fact that it is a valid tool is undeniable. I'm not vouching for Uber's strategy. Just pointing out that their strategy is not insane, not idiotic and is perfectly valid. Personally, I place civil disobedience as a last resort method. The most prominent recent case of civil disobedience is, of course, Snowden. He did something illegal in the hope of changing the current legal status quo.
  - Xylakant 12y ago
    Although in general I agree with you about civil disobedience, I don't think Ubers strategy qualifies. Civil disobedience is usually for something that is perceived as a greater good at the expense of ones personal costs, often freedom. Snowden personally did not win anything at all. Ubers disobedience is mostly aimed at increasing their operating profits: They could comply fairly easily, but they choose not to because of the costs. That's like calling bank robbery "civil disobedience against property laws".

netcan 12y ago

I think it's possible to look at this without getting dragged into the puritan free market vs regulation paradigm. I think that regulation of taxi & public transport and/or the survival of these regulations post 1980s is a product of problems in that industry. The Taxi market often develops pathologies. Safety issues. Ripoffs (specially tourists). Congestion. etc. Those problems are real. But… Uber solves or can love many of those problem just as well as regulation. Safety is improved because there is a record of everything. The ripoff/bad service caused by lack of repeat business is mitigated by the reputation system. They specialize in solving congestion problems with their supply-demand stuff. The regulations just aren't needed to regulate what is sometimes called 'black cabs.' The fact that they compete with flag down taxis is irrelevant. These problems are not acute for this kind of service and forcing Uber to comply is not helpful. Insurance, licensing, permuting & such are unsolved problems. Uber might be able to work out the insurance at some point. But.. these are more artificial problems, artifacts of the regulation as much as they are regulations there to solve a problem. Regulatory authorities should work to fix these themselves, to enable new kinds of services. Uber puts more power into the hands of consumers. If this removes some of the need for industry regulation, industry regulation needs to adapt.

ma2rten 12y ago

> There is an information asymmetry when hiring a taxi (I don't know what kind of driver I'm going to get) so legislation reduces that. Why is this about information asymmetry? The driver also doesn't know what kind of passenger they get.

Xylakant 12y ago
Taxis qualify as public utility in germany, free to use just like a bus, train, whether you're an asshole or not. The cab drivers duty is to deliver me safely at a regulated price, if he does that, his job has been fulfilled. If he has an entertaining story to tell, all the better, but seriously, I don't really need that.

robomartin 12y ago

How about the concept of freedom? Am I, as a human being on this planet free? In that context, shouldn't I be able to exercise my option to make choices such as whether I want to use a government-sanctioned transportation service or pay an equally free individual for transportation services. Both kinds of services get to make me an offer and I chose, not government, I. If the government-sanctioned service is so good surely I will chose that service over anything else that might be offered. I am sick and tired of government restricting my options because they think they know what is good for me. More often than not government has the opposite effect, on that can be highly destructive over the long term and one filled with individuals making decisions out of utter ignorance and a need to control, not serve. Freedom.

wooter 12y ago
Oh if only this sentiment would grow in popularity... As a fellow freedom-lover and capable critical thinker, this thread left me in disgust =( The sad thing is that the obsession with control has real, measurable, and detrimental results. Uber lowers the DUI rates in every city its been introduced? but it doesn't have licenses that are limited by the state, ban them!
- jacalata 12y ago
  every city? I haven't seen this claimed before, only for about four US cities.