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Just so I'm clear is the current narrative that Uber, a multi-billion dollar private enterprise seeking to maximize its returns to a handful of shareholders, is

Just so I'm clear is the current narrative that Uber, a multi-billion dollar private enterprise seeking to maximize its returns to a handful of shareholders, is single-handedly battling on our behalf against every democratically elected local authority, all of whom (despite regulating taxis through the advent of the engine, the radio, the telephone, the mobile phone and the internet) are running a corrupt, outdated licensing regime at the behest of the taxi industry and/or to preserve their own jobs. Is that the story here? Or is the story that Uber wants to lock up the taxi market and build a two tier business: 0.1% of their operation earning multi-million dollar payouts, and the remaining 99.9% earning $COMMODITIZED_RATE [0] per hour driving passengers around with zero opportunity to manage drivers, open their own taxi firm, or form a collective. The honest truth is I don't actually know. The times I've used Uber I've loved it, but I'm not sure, overall, how I feel about well-funded startups using VC money to basically buy their way around local regulation. [0] We're seeing artificially low fares and high wages at the moment in this landgrab. Just look at eBay with fees that come to a good 10% of sales prices to see what a few more rounds of investment and a flotation will do.

forrestthewoods 12y ago
I can safely say that the situation is complicated enough that neither you described is true. Taxi regulation is corrupt and broken. I can't find a link but Seattle basically hasn't issued any new taxi medallions in 20 years. Suffice to say the area has grown significantly in that time. Uber's business strategy is also derived from those medallions. I think they could offer a better service that is more efficient and higher margins if the drivers were Uber employees. Right now each drivers needs to be profitable by themselves. There's no room for loss leaders or any other kind of driver distribution strategy. That's just two points. There are dozens more that could be made I'm sure.
- AlexMuir 12y ago
  I agree absolutely. I've no experience of medallion systems but they seem clearly ridiculous. I do see the argument for quota systems that enable limit licence numbers to keep wages at a level where drivers are incentivised to maintain their cars and work a 40-hour week. I suppose my complaint is that every dispute seems to be unquestioningly painted as Good (Uber) vs Evil (Council, State, Government, Police).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - smsm42 12y ago
    If side X tries to bring new service wildly popular with customers, universally voluntarily chosen by providers, providing better prices and better service, and side Y tries to prevent them from doing this citing arbitrary laws and interests of entrenched lobbying rent-seekers, having nothing to do with actual service-providers and mostly relying on FUD and denying choice to the customers - is that big of a stretch to paint side X as "good" and side Y as "evil"? If somebody tells me "you can not buy service from X because I compete with X and I want to charge you more while providing crappy service and I know you won't ever choose me voluntarily, so I'll buy a politician and make him take your choice away" - why would not I tell such a person "you are evil, go away!"?
- chimeracoder 12y ago
  > I can't find a link but Seattle basically hasn't issued any new taxi medallions in 20 years. Suffice to say the area has grown significantly in that time. Medallions are largely a red herring. Municipalities vary, and I can't speak to Seattle, but for example, New York also is in a similar situation (the number of medallions has not increased commensurately with the increase in population since 1970). However, you do not need to own a medallion in order to drive a car, just as you do not need to own storefront real estate in order to operate a retail business. You can rent medallions, and many (most?) drivers do this[1]. In addition, you don't need to either rent or own a medallion in order to drive a cab - you just can't take street hails. (These cabs are regulated as well, but differently from yellow[0] medallion cabs) The medallions are a very common talking point, and it always irritates me because it's such a misleading statement. Medallions are not the barrier to entry for individuals who want to start driving professionally. [0] Or green medallion cabs, which were introduced last year. [1] They also often aren't driving their own cars, which is something that Uber/Lyft/etc. ignore - if you don't already have a car to drive (or in Uber's case, the right kind of car), you're out of luck.
  - aaronbrethorst 12y ago
    Medallions are largely a red herring. Agreed. Here in Seattle, the biggest issues have been: 1. It's almost impossible to find a taxi outside of a couple specific areas of town (downtown, and the commercial cores of Capitol Hill and Fremont on weekend nights), which means you're going to have to call a dispatcher. 2. The unbelievable ineptitude and rudeness of the Yellow Cab dispatchers in Seattle. 3. The historical unwillingness of Seattle taxi drivers to accept credit cards, which bears some additional unpacking. Seattle is a very credit card-friendly city. I can go weeks without visiting an ATM and not change a thing about my daily routine. However, taxi drivers used to be very hostile to accepting credit cards. I've had a couple who refused to take plastic, and actually drove me to an ATM (on my dime) to make me get cash to pay them. To their credit, on the few occasions I've had to use a taxi since UberX launched, I've found them more than happy to accept credit cards through Square. My use of Uber is almost entirely driven by my loathing for Seattle's Yellow Cab.
    - 12y ago
- rayiner 12y ago
  > Taxi regulation is corrupt and broken. Maybe, but I think taxi regulation is harder than it seems at first blush. My experience with Uber, in D.C., has been abysmal. The drivers just don't know what they're doing or where they're going. I'll punch in my location, the app will tell me a driver will pick me up in 4 minutes, and 15 minutes later after circling the block, I might be on my way. Yeah yeah, reputation economy or whatever, but it doesn't actually work. The Uber driver I get is whichever one accepts my hail. When the ETA immediately jumps 5 minutes longer after my hail is accepted, from what the app estimated, what am I supposed to do, cancel and find a better one and waste more time? After all, if I weren't in a hurry, I wouldn't be calling a cab! The existing regulatory infrastructure isn't perfect, but I'm very skeptical of the ability of technology to ensure quality and safety in the taxi industry. The technology doesn't offer a good replacement for an old fashioned line of sight hail, and those drivers although rude at least know where the hell they're going.
  - brk 12y ago
    The unpredictability of driver arrival time is starting to turn me off as well. I'm finding it highly inconsistent, in multiple countries. The common driver also seems rather clueless lately. It used to be that you were getting guys who had a day job as a limo driver and they did Uber to make some extra cash. So, they basically knew their way around and how to handle things. Recently I get more drivers that are nice/helpful, but ultimately clueless about how to navigate the area they drive in effectively.
  - kelnos 12y ago
    I wonder if DC is just "special" somehow. In SF, driver arrival time is very predictable, and it's rarely more than 2-3 minutes longer than the original estimate. My only gripe is the slew of drivers who don't know their way around the city and end up taking sub-optimal routes (because they e.g. don't know where heavy traffic tends to congregate, and they're using a dumb GPS rather than something like Waze). It's also a little annoying to get in the car and wait a minute or two while they fiddle with their GPS. The recent feature that lets you enter your destination in pre-pickup has made this a little better, but not perfect. The technology doesn't offer a good replacement for an old fashioned line of sight hail For SF, it's completely the opposite. Trying to hail a cab, even in a heavily-trafficked area, is abysmally painful.
smokeyj 12y ago
> Is that the story here? As opposed to your mental narrative where the taxi industry represents democracy. Because the public collectively decided they can't handle the freedom of choosing their transportation. Why thank you wise regulators, for my brain is too little to understand the dangers of choice.
- forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
  >As opposed to your mental narrative where the taxi industry represents democracy. That's not what he said.

forrestthewoods 12y ago

I can safely say that the situation is complicated enough that neither you described is true. Taxi regulation is corrupt and broken. I can't find a link but Seattle basically hasn't issued any new taxi medallions in 20 years. Suffice to say the area has grown significantly in that time. Uber's business strategy is also derived from those medallions. I think they could offer a better service that is more efficient and higher margins if the drivers were Uber employees. Right now each drivers needs to be profitable by themselves. There's no room for loss leaders or any other kind of driver distribution strategy. That's just two points. There are dozens more that could be made I'm sure.

AlexMuir 12y ago
I agree absolutely. I've no experience of medallion systems but they seem clearly ridiculous. I do see the argument for quota systems that enable limit licence numbers to keep wages at a level where drivers are incentivised to maintain their cars and work a 40-hour week. I suppose my complaint is that every dispute seems to be unquestioningly painted as Good (Uber) vs Evil (Council, State, Government, Police).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- smsm42 12y ago
  If side X tries to bring new service wildly popular with customers, universally voluntarily chosen by providers, providing better prices and better service, and side Y tries to prevent them from doing this citing arbitrary laws and interests of entrenched lobbying rent-seekers, having nothing to do with actual service-providers and mostly relying on FUD and denying choice to the customers - is that big of a stretch to paint side X as "good" and side Y as "evil"? If somebody tells me "you can not buy service from X because I compete with X and I want to charge you more while providing crappy service and I know you won't ever choose me voluntarily, so I'll buy a politician and make him take your choice away" - why would not I tell such a person "you are evil, go away!"?
chimeracoder 12y ago
> I can't find a link but Seattle basically hasn't issued any new taxi medallions in 20 years. Suffice to say the area has grown significantly in that time. Medallions are largely a red herring. Municipalities vary, and I can't speak to Seattle, but for example, New York also is in a similar situation (the number of medallions has not increased commensurately with the increase in population since 1970). However, you do not need to own a medallion in order to drive a car, just as you do not need to own storefront real estate in order to operate a retail business. You can rent medallions, and many (most?) drivers do this[1]. In addition, you don't need to either rent or own a medallion in order to drive a cab - you just can't take street hails. (These cabs are regulated as well, but differently from yellow[0] medallion cabs) The medallions are a very common talking point, and it always irritates me because it's such a misleading statement. Medallions are not the barrier to entry for individuals who want to start driving professionally. [0] Or green medallion cabs, which were introduced last year. [1] They also often aren't driving their own cars, which is something that Uber/Lyft/etc. ignore - if you don't already have a car to drive (or in Uber's case, the right kind of car), you're out of luck.
- aaronbrethorst 12y ago
  Medallions are largely a red herring. Agreed. Here in Seattle, the biggest issues have been: 1. It's almost impossible to find a taxi outside of a couple specific areas of town (downtown, and the commercial cores of Capitol Hill and Fremont on weekend nights), which means you're going to have to call a dispatcher. 2. The unbelievable ineptitude and rudeness of the Yellow Cab dispatchers in Seattle. 3. The historical unwillingness of Seattle taxi drivers to accept credit cards, which bears some additional unpacking. Seattle is a very credit card-friendly city. I can go weeks without visiting an ATM and not change a thing about my daily routine. However, taxi drivers used to be very hostile to accepting credit cards. I've had a couple who refused to take plastic, and actually drove me to an ATM (on my dime) to make me get cash to pay them. To their credit, on the few occasions I've had to use a taxi since UberX launched, I've found them more than happy to accept credit cards through Square. My use of Uber is almost entirely driven by my loathing for Seattle's Yellow Cab.
  - 12y ago
rayiner 12y ago
> Taxi regulation is corrupt and broken. Maybe, but I think taxi regulation is harder than it seems at first blush. My experience with Uber, in D.C., has been abysmal. The drivers just don't know what they're doing or where they're going. I'll punch in my location, the app will tell me a driver will pick me up in 4 minutes, and 15 minutes later after circling the block, I might be on my way. Yeah yeah, reputation economy or whatever, but it doesn't actually work. The Uber driver I get is whichever one accepts my hail. When the ETA immediately jumps 5 minutes longer after my hail is accepted, from what the app estimated, what am I supposed to do, cancel and find a better one and waste more time? After all, if I weren't in a hurry, I wouldn't be calling a cab! The existing regulatory infrastructure isn't perfect, but I'm very skeptical of the ability of technology to ensure quality and safety in the taxi industry. The technology doesn't offer a good replacement for an old fashioned line of sight hail, and those drivers although rude at least know where the hell they're going.
- brk 12y ago
  The unpredictability of driver arrival time is starting to turn me off as well. I'm finding it highly inconsistent, in multiple countries. The common driver also seems rather clueless lately. It used to be that you were getting guys who had a day job as a limo driver and they did Uber to make some extra cash. So, they basically knew their way around and how to handle things. Recently I get more drivers that are nice/helpful, but ultimately clueless about how to navigate the area they drive in effectively.
- kelnos 12y ago
  I wonder if DC is just "special" somehow. In SF, driver arrival time is very predictable, and it's rarely more than 2-3 minutes longer than the original estimate. My only gripe is the slew of drivers who don't know their way around the city and end up taking sub-optimal routes (because they e.g. don't know where heavy traffic tends to congregate, and they're using a dumb GPS rather than something like Waze). It's also a little annoying to get in the car and wait a minute or two while they fiddle with their GPS. The recent feature that lets you enter your destination in pre-pickup has made this a little better, but not perfect. The technology doesn't offer a good replacement for an old fashioned line of sight hail For SF, it's completely the opposite. Trying to hail a cab, even in a heavily-trafficked area, is abysmally painful.

smokeyj 12y ago

> Is that the story here? As opposed to your mental narrative where the taxi industry represents democracy. Because the public collectively decided they can't handle the freedom of choosing their transportation. Why thank you wise regulators, for my brain is too little to understand the dangers of choice.

forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
>As opposed to your mental narrative where the taxi industry represents democracy. That's not what he said.