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Uber.gov – It’s Time to Let the Government Drive

224 points by primigenus 12y ago

Fede_V 12y ago
Leaving aside the pro-Uber aspect of the piece, the criticism of the existing solutions was spot on. If you add a huge amount of friction before you can offer feedback, the only people to do will either be normal people who had truly horrific experiences, or incredibly entitled and annoying assholes who complain about everything. In practice, it's really difficult for the government to be as nimble as a private company, but even people who support strong government regulation (like me!) have absolutely no ground to stand on when defending that particular status quo.
eo3x0 12y ago
I'll naively give the government the benefit of the doubt and assume there are good arguments for being anti-Uber/Lyft. What are they? I'm curious to know if there are valid reasons besides dollars being shuffled into the right pockets. I'll assume preventing disruption is not a valid argument.
- zhoujianfu 12y ago
  I believe their main argument (probably encouraged by the taxi industry) is that it's not safe to have unlicensed taxi drivers. But by that argument wikipedia should be the world's biggest encyclopedia of racist porn.
  - serge2k 12y ago
    It's not a bad argument in some ways, you should be required to have proper insurance to operate as an Uber driver.
    - viscanti 12y ago
      There's a difference between "licensed" (where the government only licenses a certain group to create a government granted monopoly) and "insured".
      - cauterized 12y ago
        Licensing can also be used to ensure competence and familiarity with safety regulations (there's a reason why we require people to be licensed to operate a vehicle in general and a reason why even in the age of GPS, London cabbies are required to pass a test of their knowledge of the city's streets.)
- blazespin 12y ago
  Uber and friends need to pay a tax which pays back (at least in part) all those who've invested in the current infrastructure based on assurances from Government. I'm not saying they have to get paid back for anything they have done that is speculative, but they need to get paid back something. Is it really that huge a tax to pay? I'm sure they could pay it back over 20 years or something and the government can write bonds against it to pay back taxi drivers immediately.
  - cheald 12y ago
    Just so we're clear, you're saying that a monopoly should be granted tax revenues to cover the loss of revenue incurred by a viable competitor emerging in the market, because they didn't anticipate that competitor emerging?
    - learc83 12y ago
      I think the OP is saying that they need to be paid back because they made a purchase based on the government's promise to enforce a monopoly. If I paid a million bucks for a taxi medallion, and then 6 months later medallions aren't necessary--either because the government changes the law or because the government fails to enforce the law--I'm going to want a refund.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
      - yzzxy 12y ago
        I just realized taxi medallions could be an good preview of what cap-and-trade will look like.
      - icebraining 12y ago
        Whether they should be refunded is a valid question. But why should Uber pay for it? They weren't involved in that contract.
      - cheald 12y ago
- johnloeber 12y ago
  There are a couple of arguments to prevent discrimination against riders. The current regulation of Taxis and Public Transit are such that disabled persons and wheelchair-riders can get rides about as easily as able-bodied people. Uber and Lyft have no such provisions. On the flip-side, Uber seems to be reducing racial discrimination against potential riders, as per this piece: https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db.
- ryanhuff 12y ago
  My own concerns about Uber/Lyft have to do with properly following regulation that are legitimately in the public interest. From what I understand, in additional to the 800 lb gorilla (medallion licensing), there are other areas where Uber and Lyft skirt regulation. For example, I have read Uber argue that they are insured, but is it to the same level that taxi company drivers are required to be? How about other licensing? If we believe that the taxi regulations are unnecessarily burdensome, then lets redraw the rules for all parties. We need a common set of rules that everybody follows. Only then can we have proper competition among Uber, Lyft, Yellow Cab, etc.
  - jasonisalive 12y ago
    Here's an outlandish idea: let people choose whether to take rides from insured drivers or not. Hell, why not let drivers openly advertise their insurance levels to attract customers! Letting people choose their risk level for themselves - it's so crazy it might just work.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      We know that people are hopeless at assessing risk. And an un-insured driver and their passenger are not taking risks for only themselves -- other people using the roads need coverage. If you cause an accident their insurance company will come after you. A seemingly minor injury - sprained wrist with bruised fingers - becomes overwhelmingly expensive if it's an eye-surgeon who is injured and who is suing for loss of earnings for two weeks. Why should that person lose money because you chose to go uninsured?
      - jasonisalive 12y ago
        1) As a customer, I don't care at all what insurance my driver has to protect him or herself in the event they cause an accident. Should I? 2) The requirement that road users have insurance is in my opinion completely separate to what those road-users do with their vehicles. Shouldn't it be? 3) People are not "hopeless at assessing risk." That's a ludicrous assertion. Everytime anybody buys anything, goes anywhere, or does anything, they are assessing risk. Buying goods off Ebay = assessing risks. Eating at a restaurant = assessing risks. Walking down the street = assessing risks.
- chx 12y ago
  I would suspect that driving a taxi in most places reuqires some sort of driver exam. (Even if not everywhere is London with "the Knowledge") Anyone can start driving Uber/Lyft. Also, Uber is pushing subprime loans on its drivers and withholds their income against it essentially creating indentured servitude. All in all, taxicabs suck but Uber should burn in hell.
  - viscanti 12y ago
    Uber allows people with poor credit scores to purchase a vehicle so they can make a living? That seems fundamentally different than the "subprime crisis" involving mortgages. Are you alleging that all lending to people with poor credit scores is wrong, even in the cases where doing so might be the only way to give that person a job and help them improve their life? The point about indentured servitude seems like hyperbole. Certainly the drivers can decide to just stop driving for Uber (they can't withhold income that doesn't ever come through) and/or allow the car to be repossessed if they really can't afford it. It also looks like Uber is helping buyers get manufacturer discounts (http://uberwest.weebly.com/la-vehicle-financing.html http://uberwest.weebly.com/la-vehicle-financing.html). Maybe I'm missing something here, but it looks like a good program for a number of people who can't afford to buy a car but want to become a driver.
    - ryanhuff 12y ago
      I don't think the parent said it was creating a "subprime crisis". I believe his point was that people with poor credit are buying a vehicle under "sub-prime" terms, meaning high interest rates and other onerous terms, that somehow binds the driver to Uber. That's a pretty shady tactic if true. Can somebody validate this claim?
- henrikschroder 12y ago
  The best reason I can think of is labour protection for the drivers. Even though the US is pretty laissez faire when it comes to employee protections, Uber and similar completely strip all rights from drivers. The almighty Rating determines who gets fired, with zero transparency and zero second chances. Imagine working as a waiter, but if your tip percentage drops below a certain threshold, you're fired and banned from the restaurant business forever, even though you might just have gotten a bunch of asshole customers in a row. Also, if the bar to entry into the profession is simply to have a car and a smartphone, it will quickly become a race to the bottom in terms of wages. All of this is good for the consumers, they get a lot of power over the drivers, they can threaten to give them a bad rating and so on, but there should probably be a balance. Then again, it's not like the existing taxi cab unions and medallion systems and regulations are a guarantee of a good environment. And on the third side, this profession is going to be eradicated by self-driving cars within fifteen years, so who cares?
  - hueving 12y ago
    >Also, if the bar to entry into the profession is simply to have a car and a smartphone, it will quickly become a race to the bottom in terms of wages. If that's all that is required to be an effective driver, why should cab drivers be overpaid?
    - henrikschroder 12y ago
      As a software engineer working in California, I (and many others here) enjoy the labour protection of non-competes being unenforceable here. That drives up the cost of hiring software engineers, i.e. we are being overpaid. This is why we have labour laws, to shift the balance, to make work suck a little bit less for everyone. (In principle. In practice in the taxi-cab case, I can't say that the various regulations and systems improve things for anyone, it's mostly captured by the rent-seekers anyway, so everyone gets screwed)
  - jasonisalive 12y ago
    Everything you have said is completely invalidated by the simple fact that nobody is forced to be a Uber driver.
- mseebach 12y ago
  There's a false dichotomy in considering Uber/Lyft and Government as singular units. One aspect of the government side is securing that drivers and cars are safe and properly insured and making sure that the handicapped and minorities aren't discriminated against. But it's also, in many cities, running a rigidly planned economy, ostensibly for the benefit of drivers, but in reality often more so for medallion holders and unions, and having allow those vested interests to capture the system - and surely against the benefit of consumers. On the other hand, Uber clearly brings huge benefits to the consumer: better cars that actually show up, politer drivers, better price/choice, easy grievance process etc. But there's also ambiguity about how they threat their drivers, whether insurance is always completely correct (especially in UberPOP) etc. Then of course, there's some questionable ethical dealings. I'm a big fan of Uber, so obviously biased, but the idea is that benefits and drawbacks exist on a spectrum, and there's no reason we couldn't get the best of both worlds: properly regulated and insured cars, without the planned economy of medallions, and decent labour-protection of drivers without completely screwing over consumers. In London, Ubers are fully regulated under the "Private Hire" scheme which is unlimited in the number of licenses provided, but require commercial insurance and a background check of drivers and I think this strikes the balance very well.
tomario 12y ago
Living in Amsterdam makes me wonder... only $10 extra? Seems like a fair deal. On average it's more than 30 euro extra over here. To be fair: we have signs displaying cost & travel time for bus, car, taxi and train. Train (for once) is the clear winner by being cheapest & fastest.
- cheald 12y ago
  The issue isn't taxi vs other modes of transit, it's that taxis take intentionally longer routes to squeeze higher fares out of tourists.
  - dubcanada 12y ago
    Is that really the taxi's "fault" though? I mean it is in everyones best interest to get paid the most. And in the end you arrived at your destination. Sure you don't want to pay more. But I don't know if it should be illegal... I mean there are tons of companies/people who "do stuff" to make more money from you...
    - tolmasky 12y ago
      That's kind of the point right: with Uber, there was a solution that didn't involve making anything illegal. Customers were allowed to easily express unhappiness with their ride, and Uber is able to provide customers better service. Seems like an ideal solution that, as you put it, simply balances everyone's best interests. Uber is making the decision to get rid of drivers that take advantage of their customers, not the government forcing anyone to abide by some law. Its the same as how a restaurant can take action against a waitress if they provide bad service. Personally I think that system is way better than trying to create a series of laws that make it illegal to be a bad waiter.
      - joezydeco 12y ago
        But I don't quite see the solution to the problem here. The Vegas scam is that they are taking tourists with no idea of the traffic layout on a longer trip than an experienced driver would take. If an Uber driver takes this longer route, the passengers still don't know that this happened. They got to their hotel in one piece and everyone is happy. The only levelling factor is that the Uber ride is a fixed price, so it's in the driver's best interest to take the shortest route. If the Vegas cab authority mandated fixed prices for the rides, this would all go away on their end as well.
jbigelow76 12y ago
Up until the last few months when Uber came in and put the heat on the local Dallas (TX) taxi market, government was driving at the behest of the largest taxi company via local council and board members pushing ordinances[1] that squeezed smaller cab companies. What a shit show that's been... http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/judge-dfw-airport-board-was-within-its-right-to-put-natural-gas-powered-cabs-at-the-front-of-line.html/ http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/judge-dfw-airport...
cbsmith 12y ago
Wait. Uber does more than just use the star ratings. They actually look at the route the driver took and compare it to the GPS recommended route...
- KaoruAoiShiho 12y ago
  You missed the sarcasm.
  - cbsmith 12y ago
    Whoosh! Yup, I thought that part was serious.
- qq66 12y ago
  I hope I'm not getting Uber drivers in trouble by asking them to take longer routes (that are quicker because I know the traffic near my office better than the route planner does).
  - blueskin_ 12y ago
    If it takes less time, you aren't. Even if it's longer than it "should" be and they get rated highly, it shouldn't matter (roadworks, traffic, etc.).
blazespin 12y ago
You know, I really wouldn't put it past Uber to game HackerNews. If they're willing to dig up dirt on journalists, can you imagine that they'd have a problem with 'employee advocacy' on HN?
- SwellJoe 12y ago
  Is Blake Ross an employee of Uber? Even if so, I have my doubts he would trade his integrity for any company...
  - blakeross 12y ago
    Not an Uber employee, not an Uber investor. Just had a terrible cab experience in Vegas last month and it finally spilled out on a plane ride yesterday.
    - onion2k 12y ago
      Really? If that's the case then presumably you didn't take the photos in your article, so you should be attributing them to their owners. If you did take the photos then either you're doing more than just recounting a bad experience, or you take the weirdest holiday snaps ever.
    - j_lev 12y ago
      Blake that was one of the funniest articles I have read in a long time. The content wasn't particularly interesting to me but coffee blew out of my nose at "Bankery Robberson" and I had to read to the end. Your high school English teacher would be proud.
    - mherdeg 12y ago
      Surely Uber is not the right solution here. Just extend the monorail out to the airport. How long could that possibly take?
      - kefka 12y ago
        At gov't speed, 12 years/mile.
dkbrk 12y ago
It's amusing to point out the failures of government bureaucracy, and while it's admirable that they're trying, I think we can all agree that the people responsible for these measures aren't exactly blessed with an overabundance of competence. That said, this article completely ignored the very significant failures in Uber's rating system: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-are-we-actually-rating-when-we-rate-other-people/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-ar... Fundamentally, a five-star rating is far too simple. In my opinion, an example of this done well is Ebay's reputation system.
- sneak 12y ago
  It seems to be working sufficiently for Uber and their happy customers. Uber is a premium service. Drivers should be fired if they don't know their way around, have a dirty or smelly car, or otherwise request things of me as a customer beyond my destination address. I routinely give out two and three star ratings, knowing it could well get people fired. 5 stars is for a perfect trip that could not be improved.
  - debaserab2 12y ago
    How do I rate an uber drive? Say I pick up an uber, and everything goes exactly as planned. No weird side streets, no funky smell in the car, and an amicable driver. Not the best uber experience - I've had uber drivers free water bottles and nightlife recommendations at the ready in the past - but we got exactly where we wanted to go. The service was satisfactory, but not above average. What do I rate this driver? The answer to this question varies depending on who you are. The problem is that there is no standard for riders to objectively rate uber drivers. It's the equivalent of the easy-A teacher in high school versus the strict grading-on-a-curve teacher. People have their own biases and experiences that affect the scale they rate on. The differences in my own personal grading syllabus versus another persons can get people on uber fired for the exact same ride experience.
    - yummyfajitas 12y ago
      If Uber has anyone statistically competent on staff, they'll normalize your scores and compute an individualized scale for you. I.e., let i = individual rider, j = individual driver. Then they'll use a model like: score[i,j] = a[i]z[j]+b[i] + noise Then they store the z[j] for each driver. So if I consistently rate drivers between 2 and 4, while you consistently rate drivers between 4 and 5, then a[me] = 3, b[me] = 2 while for you a[you]=4 and b[you]=5. If you rate a driver as 4 (i.e. z[j] = 0), then Uber will tell me the driver is rated a[me]0 + b[me] = 2. Uber can then rate their drivers internally based on z[driver], not the individual ratings. It is of course possible that Uber is completely statistically incompetent, but I doubt that.
butwhy 12y ago
Something I recently learned in Vegas; if a taxi driver picks you up from a casino on the strip and offers to take you (or does it anyway) the "quicker way" to your destination [also on the strip] via taking some off-strip highway, reject him. A bit of traffic on the strip is nothing compared to how fast the meter flies upwards when a taxi is speeding along a highway via a long detour and it's going to result in you paying a lot more for the journey.
- Nursie 12y ago
  Surely the decision at that point comes down to time vs money?
devindotcom 12y ago
As long as the laws prohibit Uber from operating, why is it strange that the government would take steps to ensure that? Perhaps the laws should change - certainly Uber wants them to. But flouting the law isn't often the best way to make that happen. They're not protesting injustice, they're jamming a foot in the door of a multi-billion dollar industry with technology that is still very new to regulators. The "we're just an app that connects people who want a ride with willing drivers" dodge is disingenuous, and the alternation between wounded and scoffing attitudes is grating. I don't like Uber as a company, and personally I hope it fails and the next guy picks up the torch and does these things with a bit of tact. Neither driver nor user will care.
- smsm42 12y ago
  There are lots of outdated laws, and executives work around them all the time. In fact, the chief executive of the US just recently did exactly that, and not for the first time. So proclaiming "oh, it's the law, there's nothing to be done" is ignoring the reality at best. At worst, it's a trick since the people who talk about "nothing to be done" are exactly the same ones who ensure the law stays in place as is. >>> technology that is still very new to regulators. So the natural reaction of course to ban it. Just in case. >>> I don't like Uber as a company You understand you liking or not liking them has nothing to do with their rights to do business, moreover - their rights should not depend on them being likable in any state that wants to call itself the state governed by laws and not by whims?
- icebraining 12y ago
  I don't like Uber itself either. But what if flouting the law - and getting customers on your side after experience your product - the only way to make it happen? That doesn't mean the law shouldn't be upheld, and they fined if necessary. But that's the government's job, not Uber's.
- pgeorgi 12y ago
  The thing I find grating is that Uber takes everything they perceive to be broken in some local US taxi market (bay area?) and project it onto the world. Even though taxis seem to be regulated pretty much everywhere, the reason for regulation, the way things are done, and its effects can vary a lot. Doesn't matter, Uber still feels the need (at least according to their PR) to crush the evil taxi monopoly in Germany. Even though there is no monopolist. If anything, Uber is the best match for that (international company with deep pockets vs local companies with typically 5 cars or less)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sah88 12y ago
I'm surprised one of the smaller ride share companies hasn't pivoted into licensing/partnering with municipal governments. Share revenue and let them control the processes for accepting drivers and regulating them. Tada you're partnered with a entity that can legislate your competition out of business.
- briandear 12y ago
  Companies already do that; they're called "Taxi Companies."
- hamrickdavid 12y ago
  I think this is what Curb (formerly Taxi Magic) (http://gocurb.com/ http://gocurb.com/) is doing.
yonran 12y ago
Company-owned marketplaces are wonderful for the 95% of people who never run into problems, and some people such as Blake Ross may wonder why we don’t just retire the publicly regulated markets. What he is missing is that there is no due process on company marketplaces. If you happen to have a streak of bad luck, or you are targeted or discriminated against and you get too many bad ratings, you are kicked off with no appeal process. Uber does not care whether the complaints are legitimate. Similar problems happen to a small fraction of users on Google Adwords, eBay, and other company-owned marketplaces who ultimately care about their own profit instead of justice. As public markets are replaced with private marketplaces, I think the loss of due process is not something that we should give up without some forethought.
- yummyfajitas 12y ago
  It also happens in highly regulated markets. For example, due primarily to my outward appearance (I'm not a member of the majority race), I'm often asked for 2x the normal fare in auto rickshaws. If my girlfriend (a different non-majority race than me) is with me, 3-4x [1]. I'm mostly denied access to banking (except for some legacy accounts) due explicitly to regulation. This also happens in private markets without a company marketplace. For example: http://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/moral-panics-and-the-death-of-fun/ http://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/moral-panics-an... [1] She's normally asked for 2x if I'm not around. If I'm with a woman of the same race as me, the price goes back to 2x.
  - lmm 12y ago
    > It also happens in highly regulated markets. For example, due primarily to my outward appearance (I'm not a member of the majority race), I'm often asked for 2x the normal fare in auto rickshaws. If my girlfriend (a different non-majority race than me) is with me, 3-4x [1]. Uh, that sounds like it's due to nonregulation. In my city that simply couldn't happen - licensed taxis all have to use the same meters (and display their license number prominently, making it easy to report one that's violating the rules).
    - 12y ago
learc83 12y ago
Why should Uber get to flaunt the law just because they're big enough to get away with it? What about the little guy who can't afford the fines he'll have to pay if he operates a cab without a license? Sure a lot of the regulation is overburdensome, but the solution is to change the law, not encourage companies to break it.
- hueving 12y ago
  This isn't an article promoting Uber to flaunt the law. The article is pointing out that the nevada government is completely incompetent and Uber being legalized would be much better for everyone except for the cab drivers that rip people off.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  You may be familiar with a thing called: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience. It's a crazy theory that, if you are intelligent and believe that laws and civil arrangements in your society are against logic and moral reason, the best way to change them is to break them, to help raise awareness so that more people realise their perversity. It helped end British control of India and racial segregation in America. Cool huh?
  - learc83 12y ago
    We're talking about a large company making a profit, not a lunch-counter protest. Uber isn't doing this because of some deeply held belief, they're doing it to make a profit. I don't want corporations breaking regulations they don't agree with and claiming it's "civil disobedience".
Tarang 12y ago
I wonder if the next step in the evolution of public transport is something akin to Uber. It may be more entropic come the day self driving cars come along. Given that each car heads to its destination without a transit route where passengers are buffered would be good. Additionally, since the road is shared unlike the subway, it may be more efficient on resources. Perhaps when the option becomes available, the government of some affording country may be able to pilot such a thing.
- jarek 12y ago
  The big problem is scale. You can replicate the capacity of a smaller bus route with efficient self-driving cars, but bigger routes and higher-capacity transit move tens and hundreds of thousands of people per day to a destination, and loading/unloading capacity near those destinations is just not going to fit. Demand is already centralized both geographically and time-wise, with business districts, downtowns, rush/peak hour. Self-driving cars might replace feeder networks but they'll only strengthen the case for high-capacity trunk transit.
  - jarek 12y ago
    Some numbers for context because I was thinking about it. Let's say it takes a person five seconds to get in a robocar at an organized terminal area (car pulls up with door already open, people are lined up - getting in on the street in front of a building would be slower). Let's say you can weave five terminal lanes into one traffic lane, so cars can leave the terminal at about 1 car per second per lane. In five minutes you can ship out about 300 people per lane. In those same five minutes, a Calgary C-Train would have pulled in, loaded, and departed with capacity of about 700 people. Or three Skytrain trains, each with capacity of about 500 people. Or two Victoria Line trains, each with capacity of about 1000 people (non-crush load). Or two double-decker RER trains, capacity over 2000 people each. You'd need a lot of robocar terminals...
DigitalSea 12y ago
I just had my first Las Vegas cab experience, it was at 11:30pm. The taxi driver picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel 30 minutes away. He was pretty helpful and seemed to know the area quite well. Then we got to our destination and he demanded that I pay cash, even though the taxi had a touchscreen terminal behind the front passenger seat for paying with card. He said that he needed the $55 fare in cash because he needs to take some money home and it is midnight. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable, he was apologetic, explained he needed the money and so, to save trouble, I went into the hotel and got out the cash for him because I just got off a few hours plane ride, I didn't want to deal with this nonsense at this time of night. I told the man behind the desk at the hotel and he explained that it happens all of the time. He said a lot of the drivers pocket the cash for themselves which is why they demand cash. He then advised us not to hire taxis and to use a hotel recommended private driver service that is the same cost (no doubt a nice referral fee for them). An ulterior motive there, but I don't doubt that this happens all of the time. This experience, other experiences from colleagues and friends as well as online paints a picture of a pretty broken and corrupt taxi system in Los Angeles especially. While I am not a big fan of Uber (ethically) I do like the idea of ridesharing and the rating system. If Lyft, Uber and other companies were operating here, perhaps things would be different.
- achille2 12y ago
  "He said a lot of the drivers pocket the cash for themselves which is why they demand cash." Uh. No. Where else would the money go? Cabbies pay everything upfront. They keep all earnings. The problem here is that both cabbies and customers are in a bad deal. The bulk of the profits go to taxi medallion holders which are typically investors.
  - cheald 12y ago
    It's much easier to not pay taxes on cash income than on credit card income. Also, cabbies don't pocket the income, the medallion owner pockets the income. If that happens to be the cabbie, great, but frequently, cabbies simply lease the medallion from an investment company. If you're a non-medallion-owning driver, you can increase your hourly rate by requesting and not-reporting cash transactions.
BorisMelnik 12y ago
I always wonder about micro-long-hauling anytime I go to new areas of Brooklyn or visit new cities. I pretty much know where I am, but if they went a little out of the way I would not notice. If you drive a cab for 40 years, do 25 fares a day and "reroute" 4-8 extra blocks (~=$1.25) you'll see an extra ~$30/day or even if he/she does every other fair $15/day.
- cauterized 12y ago
  Depends. The starting fare means that if you have a decent chance of getting another hail (which is the case in many parts of NY at most times of day) it's actually more profitable to get to your destination as efficiently as possible and be able to pick up another fare than to draw out the one you have. There's a reason cabbies hate sitting in traffic even though the meter is running.
djur 12y ago
> The signs are done now, and I doubt they’ll ever need to be updated: Vegas is a sleepy town, and the dollar is a stable currency This is a sarcastic remark, but: the US dollar is, in fact, a stable currency, and inflation is currently very low. Cab fares are regulated. If getting from point A to point B takes $20 in 2014, it will not be difficult to determine how much the fare should be in 2020, and to send some people around with new signs or price stickers. I'm surprised at how many of these points seem to treat the low-tech methods used by the Nevada state government as patently absurd. I guess it comes from a mindset that technology is the obvious solution to society's problems, which is something I do not find to be obvious. It took me a while to catch on to the sarcasm as a result of that mismatch.
- TheDong 12y ago
  I can agree that the Gov's solutions are not absurd - at least not half as absurd as this post makes them out to be - but the overall point that the Uber rating system is superior to advisory signs stands strong. I found the sarcastic writing style a pleasure; it was enjoyable humorous and obvious in intent to me.
  - djur 12y ago
    Uber has the benefit of employing the drivers, handling transactions, and controlling pricing. This allows them to refund unfair fares and to punish drivers for poor ratings. The technology is secondary. As is so often the case, much of the expense and inefficiency of the government regulatory apparatus here stems from an aversion to intervene directly in markets.
- cheald 12y ago
  I think the article is less poking fun at the non-technological nature of the government solutions, but at their ineffectiveness, when a proven solution with widely deployed infrastructure to support it already exists in the marketplace. If Nevada could put a magic rock for $0.03/unit in cabs that made cabbies stop longhauling, with no extra technology in play, nobody would complain that it wasn't technological enough.
usaar333 12y ago
From my experience, long-hauling complaints are handled quite effectively. You just go here: http://taxi.nv.gov/Complaints/Complaints/ http://taxi.nv.gov/Complaints/Complaints/ and spend ~5 minutes copying info that is present on your receipt. Did this three years back. Within days, the offending cab company called me and issued me a complete refund.
- madeofpalk 12y ago
  From my experience, long-hauling complaints are handled quite effectively. You just spend ~2 minutes filling out the text box Uber asks you when completing a ride. Did this three days back. Within hours, Uber emailed me and issued me a complete refund.
- prostoalex 12y ago
  "Receipt" is frequently a fill-it-yourself business card from the service.
whiddershins 12y ago
It's funny, but people think there is something inherently inefficient about government, but inefficiency and unresponsiveness are usually more a function of incentives, as well as obvious stuff like organization size and structure. Medicare is on average more efficient than private health care, for example. Health care might be a situation where profit incentives don't create the best outcome. In the case of the Nevada officials, there is no incentive whatsoever to actually fix the problem.
- briandear 12y ago
  Medicare is NOT more efficient that private health care. Ask any doctor.
  - cozzyd 12y ago
    I think parent meant efficiency in terms of health care provided / $, not efficiency in terms of paying doctors quickly...
RyanMcGreal 12y ago
Sounds like Las Vegas could use decent train service running between the airport and the city.
- gregpilling 12y ago
  When they built the Monorail, that was the idea. Taxi companies put a stop to it. The Monorail could still be extended from the south end to the airport.
imgabe 12y ago
The advantage of a cab over Uber is that you don't pay until the end of the trip. If you know you've been ripped off, get out of the cab and walk away without paying. Tell them to call the cops and explain why you aren't paying. What are they going to do? Of course, this requires that you know you're getting ripped off.
- avz 12y ago
  There is plenty of circumstances where people are not willing to fight for $10. * You may be on holidays and may want to avoid arguments with strangers. * You may be after a long flight, jetlagged and/or simply too tired. * You may be running late for a plane or train and have no time to wait for the cops. * You may not speak the local language. On the other hand, leaving a rating or review is a lot simpler and more commensurate with $10.
  - imgabe 12y ago
    I don't think you need to actually fight, just walk away. I'm thinking specifically of Las Vegas, and you've taken the cab from the airport to your hotel. Is the cab driver going to run through the lobby of the Bellagio and tackle you? No. Who is the hotel staff going to side with, their customer or a cab driver where they know cab drivers routinely rip off their customers? The cab driver is exploiting your reluctance to make a fuss to get a small amount of extra money. You can turn right around and exploit the fact that by breaking the law they've removed any recourse they have for getting you to pay. If enough people did it, eventually the scam would not be worth trying anymore.
- fwn 12y ago
  There are certain countries you shouldn't do that for plain security reasons.
lucianomt 12y ago
Let me rewrite the first paragraph: "Flying to Vegas? Look to your left. Now look to your right. Statistically speaking, everyone of you is about to get ripped off."
- joezydeco 12y ago
  Lots of us fly there on business (usually conventions) and spend very little time in the casinos. But yeah, the restaurants can be a ripoff if you eat on-strip.
brownbat 12y ago
I think even Uber's star system pales in comparison to a better solution: calculate fares in advance (maybe based purely on distance and average travel time). We have GPS, we can estimate costs before the trip. If we do so, the only incentive for the cabbie is to get your service completed as efficiently as possible. And it's weird that it's one of the only services where we can estimate the cost in advance fairly accurately in 99% of cases, but there's no price transparency. Cabs and medical services, maybe. There's no reason cab drivers should need a "billable hours" system of payment (at least not since gps mapping technology was invented). I'd settle for that much. But my more controversial rider is that costs shouldn't vary by the time of the trip. The risk of traffic flows should be borne by the party that will experience all the variations enough to be able to average it out. In consumer goods, if you buy a the one out of ten thousand products that are broken off the shelf, (or explodes in your hand), the merchants accept the loss, because they can even out this loss across all of their sales. In cabs, if there's suddenly an accident a mile ahead of you, and you're just stopped in a parking lot doubling your cost, that's your fault. On an individual level, maybe just underpay if you've been jerked around. If the cabbie complains, tell them to bring the cops so you can both talk about the route and they can decide what's fair. If that behavior became widespread, taxis would lose the incentive to cheat in this way. (Though you'd probably get a few people shot in the street. I strongly prefer the "pre-calculated fares.")
- mlrtime 12y ago
  I get your traffic jam problem, but in big cities its more complicated than that. There are supply demand imbalances and a traveling salesman type problem. Technology could solve some of these issues but I don't see it happening in the near future.
  - brownbat 12y ago
    Oh, sure, on supply demand imbalances, I'd be ok with surge pricing if that's what you mean. I don't need prices to be constant for days, I'd just like them to be fixed at the moment both sides agree to the transaction. It seems like that should be doable with current tech, without even affecting the price of many transactions (except the ones where drivers are going intentionally slowly). The inputs for Uber's pricing are time, distance, and the demand multiplier. Google maps does a pretty good job at giving an expected time and distance for a driver taking the ideal route. The driver / Uber can toss in a demand multiplier. If we agree that the Google Maps (or some other mapping service) time estimate is "close enough," then we should be able to calculate the fee before I sit down. The driver can then feel free to take a scenic route, but it comes out of their pocket, not mine, so they probably won't. Or we can do nothing. I'm just really tired of cabs missing my exit "accidentally." Three of the last four times I came back from the airport. The last trip I directed every lane change from the backseat. I feel like I shouldn't have to do that.
d23 12y ago
> Flying to Vegas? Look to your left. Now look to your right. Statistically speaking, one of you is about to get ripped off by a cabbie. And it’ll probably be you, the imbecile who chose the middle seat and paid $15 for plane wifi. Just a side-note: I wouldn't open an article with brazenly insulting the reader.
- moonka 12y ago
  I think it's just a fair warning as to the tone of the rest of the article.

224 points by primigenus 12y ago

Leaving aside the pro-Uber aspect of the piece, the criticism of the existing solutions was spot on. If you add a huge amount of friction before you can offer feedback, the only people to do will either be normal people who had truly horrific experiences, or incredibly entitled and annoying assholes who complain about everything. In practice, it's really difficult for the government to be as nimble as a private company, but even people who support strong government regulation (like me!) have absolutely no ground to stand on when defending that particular status quo.

eo3x0 12y ago

I'll naively give the government the benefit of the doubt and assume there are good arguments for being anti-Uber/Lyft. What are they? I'm curious to know if there are valid reasons besides dollars being shuffled into the right pockets. I'll assume preventing disruption is not a valid argument.

zhoujianfu 12y ago
I believe their main argument (probably encouraged by the taxi industry) is that it's not safe to have unlicensed taxi drivers. But by that argument wikipedia should be the world's biggest encyclopedia of racist porn.
- serge2k 12y ago
  It's not a bad argument in some ways, you should be required to have proper insurance to operate as an Uber driver.
  - viscanti 12y ago
    There's a difference between "licensed" (where the government only licenses a certain group to create a government granted monopoly) and "insured".
    - cauterized 12y ago
      Licensing can also be used to ensure competence and familiarity with safety regulations (there's a reason why we require people to be licensed to operate a vehicle in general and a reason why even in the age of GPS, London cabbies are required to pass a test of their knowledge of the city's streets.)
blazespin 12y ago
Uber and friends need to pay a tax which pays back (at least in part) all those who've invested in the current infrastructure based on assurances from Government. I'm not saying they have to get paid back for anything they have done that is speculative, but they need to get paid back something. Is it really that huge a tax to pay? I'm sure they could pay it back over 20 years or something and the government can write bonds against it to pay back taxi drivers immediately.
- cheald 12y ago
  Just so we're clear, you're saying that a monopoly should be granted tax revenues to cover the loss of revenue incurred by a viable competitor emerging in the market, because they didn't anticipate that competitor emerging?
  - learc83 12y ago
    I think the OP is saying that they need to be paid back because they made a purchase based on the government's promise to enforce a monopoly. If I paid a million bucks for a taxi medallion, and then 6 months later medallions aren't necessary--either because the government changes the law or because the government fails to enforce the law--I'm going to want a refund.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
    - yzzxy 12y ago
      I just realized taxi medallions could be an good preview of what cap-and-trade will look like.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      Whether they should be refunded is a valid question. But why should Uber pay for it? They weren't involved in that contract.
    - cheald 12y ago
johnloeber 12y ago
There are a couple of arguments to prevent discrimination against riders. The current regulation of Taxis and Public Transit are such that disabled persons and wheelchair-riders can get rides about as easily as able-bodied people. Uber and Lyft have no such provisions. On the flip-side, Uber seems to be reducing racial discrimination against potential riders, as per this piece: https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db https://medium.com/matter/ubering-while-black-146db581b9db.
ryanhuff 12y ago
My own concerns about Uber/Lyft have to do with properly following regulation that are legitimately in the public interest. From what I understand, in additional to the 800 lb gorilla (medallion licensing), there are other areas where Uber and Lyft skirt regulation. For example, I have read Uber argue that they are insured, but is it to the same level that taxi company drivers are required to be? How about other licensing? If we believe that the taxi regulations are unnecessarily burdensome, then lets redraw the rules for all parties. We need a common set of rules that everybody follows. Only then can we have proper competition among Uber, Lyft, Yellow Cab, etc.
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  Here's an outlandish idea: let people choose whether to take rides from insured drivers or not. Hell, why not let drivers openly advertise their insurance levels to attract customers! Letting people choose their risk level for themselves - it's so crazy it might just work.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    We know that people are hopeless at assessing risk. And an un-insured driver and their passenger are not taking risks for only themselves -- other people using the roads need coverage. If you cause an accident their insurance company will come after you. A seemingly minor injury - sprained wrist with bruised fingers - becomes overwhelmingly expensive if it's an eye-surgeon who is injured and who is suing for loss of earnings for two weeks. Why should that person lose money because you chose to go uninsured?
    - jasonisalive 12y ago
      1) As a customer, I don't care at all what insurance my driver has to protect him or herself in the event they cause an accident. Should I? 2) The requirement that road users have insurance is in my opinion completely separate to what those road-users do with their vehicles. Shouldn't it be? 3) People are not "hopeless at assessing risk." That's a ludicrous assertion. Everytime anybody buys anything, goes anywhere, or does anything, they are assessing risk. Buying goods off Ebay = assessing risks. Eating at a restaurant = assessing risks. Walking down the street = assessing risks.
chx 12y ago
I would suspect that driving a taxi in most places reuqires some sort of driver exam. (Even if not everywhere is London with "the Knowledge") Anyone can start driving Uber/Lyft. Also, Uber is pushing subprime loans on its drivers and withholds their income against it essentially creating indentured servitude. All in all, taxicabs suck but Uber should burn in hell.
- viscanti 12y ago
  Uber allows people with poor credit scores to purchase a vehicle so they can make a living? That seems fundamentally different than the "subprime crisis" involving mortgages. Are you alleging that all lending to people with poor credit scores is wrong, even in the cases where doing so might be the only way to give that person a job and help them improve their life? The point about indentured servitude seems like hyperbole. Certainly the drivers can decide to just stop driving for Uber (they can't withhold income that doesn't ever come through) and/or allow the car to be repossessed if they really can't afford it. It also looks like Uber is helping buyers get manufacturer discounts (http://uberwest.weebly.com/la-vehicle-financing.html http://uberwest.weebly.com/la-vehicle-financing.html). Maybe I'm missing something here, but it looks like a good program for a number of people who can't afford to buy a car but want to become a driver.
  - ryanhuff 12y ago
    I don't think the parent said it was creating a "subprime crisis". I believe his point was that people with poor credit are buying a vehicle under "sub-prime" terms, meaning high interest rates and other onerous terms, that somehow binds the driver to Uber. That's a pretty shady tactic if true. Can somebody validate this claim?
henrikschroder 12y ago
The best reason I can think of is labour protection for the drivers. Even though the US is pretty laissez faire when it comes to employee protections, Uber and similar completely strip all rights from drivers. The almighty Rating determines who gets fired, with zero transparency and zero second chances. Imagine working as a waiter, but if your tip percentage drops below a certain threshold, you're fired and banned from the restaurant business forever, even though you might just have gotten a bunch of asshole customers in a row. Also, if the bar to entry into the profession is simply to have a car and a smartphone, it will quickly become a race to the bottom in terms of wages. All of this is good for the consumers, they get a lot of power over the drivers, they can threaten to give them a bad rating and so on, but there should probably be a balance. Then again, it's not like the existing taxi cab unions and medallion systems and regulations are a guarantee of a good environment. And on the third side, this profession is going to be eradicated by self-driving cars within fifteen years, so who cares?
- hueving 12y ago
  >Also, if the bar to entry into the profession is simply to have a car and a smartphone, it will quickly become a race to the bottom in terms of wages. If that's all that is required to be an effective driver, why should cab drivers be overpaid?
  - henrikschroder 12y ago
    As a software engineer working in California, I (and many others here) enjoy the labour protection of non-competes being unenforceable here. That drives up the cost of hiring software engineers, i.e. we are being overpaid. This is why we have labour laws, to shift the balance, to make work suck a little bit less for everyone. (In principle. In practice in the taxi-cab case, I can't say that the various regulations and systems improve things for anyone, it's mostly captured by the rent-seekers anyway, so everyone gets screwed)
- jasonisalive 12y ago
  Everything you have said is completely invalidated by the simple fact that nobody is forced to be a Uber driver.
mseebach 12y ago
There's a false dichotomy in considering Uber/Lyft and Government as singular units. One aspect of the government side is securing that drivers and cars are safe and properly insured and making sure that the handicapped and minorities aren't discriminated against. But it's also, in many cities, running a rigidly planned economy, ostensibly for the benefit of drivers, but in reality often more so for medallion holders and unions, and having allow those vested interests to capture the system - and surely against the benefit of consumers. On the other hand, Uber clearly brings huge benefits to the consumer: better cars that actually show up, politer drivers, better price/choice, easy grievance process etc. But there's also ambiguity about how they threat their drivers, whether insurance is always completely correct (especially in UberPOP) etc. Then of course, there's some questionable ethical dealings. I'm a big fan of Uber, so obviously biased, but the idea is that benefits and drawbacks exist on a spectrum, and there's no reason we couldn't get the best of both worlds: properly regulated and insured cars, without the planned economy of medallions, and decent labour-protection of drivers without completely screwing over consumers. In London, Ubers are fully regulated under the "Private Hire" scheme which is unlimited in the number of licenses provided, but require commercial insurance and a background check of drivers and I think this strikes the balance very well.

tomario 12y ago

Living in Amsterdam makes me wonder... only $10 extra? Seems like a fair deal. On average it's more than 30 euro extra over here. To be fair: we have signs displaying cost & travel time for bus, car, taxi and train. Train (for once) is the clear winner by being cheapest & fastest.

cheald 12y ago
The issue isn't taxi vs other modes of transit, it's that taxis take intentionally longer routes to squeeze higher fares out of tourists.
- dubcanada 12y ago
  Is that really the taxi's "fault" though? I mean it is in everyones best interest to get paid the most. And in the end you arrived at your destination. Sure you don't want to pay more. But I don't know if it should be illegal... I mean there are tons of companies/people who "do stuff" to make more money from you...
  - tolmasky 12y ago
    That's kind of the point right: with Uber, there was a solution that didn't involve making anything illegal. Customers were allowed to easily express unhappiness with their ride, and Uber is able to provide customers better service. Seems like an ideal solution that, as you put it, simply balances everyone's best interests. Uber is making the decision to get rid of drivers that take advantage of their customers, not the government forcing anyone to abide by some law. Its the same as how a restaurant can take action against a waitress if they provide bad service. Personally I think that system is way better than trying to create a series of laws that make it illegal to be a bad waiter.
    - joezydeco 12y ago
      But I don't quite see the solution to the problem here. The Vegas scam is that they are taking tourists with no idea of the traffic layout on a longer trip than an experienced driver would take. If an Uber driver takes this longer route, the passengers still don't know that this happened. They got to their hotel in one piece and everyone is happy. The only levelling factor is that the Uber ride is a fixed price, so it's in the driver's best interest to take the shortest route. If the Vegas cab authority mandated fixed prices for the rides, this would all go away on their end as well.

jbigelow76 12y ago

Up until the last few months when Uber came in and put the heat on the local Dallas (TX) taxi market, government was driving at the behest of the largest taxi company via local council and board members pushing ordinances[1] that squeezed smaller cab companies. What a shit show that's been... http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/judge-dfw-airport-board-was-within-its-right-to-put-natural-gas-powered-cabs-at-the-front-of-line.html/ http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2014/04/judge-dfw-airport...

cbsmith 12y ago

Wait. Uber does more than just use the star ratings. They actually look at the route the driver took and compare it to the GPS recommended route...

KaoruAoiShiho 12y ago
You missed the sarcasm.
- cbsmith 12y ago
  Whoosh! Yup, I thought that part was serious.
qq66 12y ago
I hope I'm not getting Uber drivers in trouble by asking them to take longer routes (that are quicker because I know the traffic near my office better than the route planner does).
- blueskin_ 12y ago
  If it takes less time, you aren't. Even if it's longer than it "should" be and they get rated highly, it shouldn't matter (roadworks, traffic, etc.).

blazespin 12y ago

You know, I really wouldn't put it past Uber to game HackerNews. If they're willing to dig up dirt on journalists, can you imagine that they'd have a problem with 'employee advocacy' on HN?

SwellJoe 12y ago
Is Blake Ross an employee of Uber? Even if so, I have my doubts he would trade his integrity for any company...
- blakeross 12y ago
  Not an Uber employee, not an Uber investor. Just had a terrible cab experience in Vegas last month and it finally spilled out on a plane ride yesterday.
  - onion2k 12y ago
    Really? If that's the case then presumably you didn't take the photos in your article, so you should be attributing them to their owners. If you did take the photos then either you're doing more than just recounting a bad experience, or you take the weirdest holiday snaps ever.
  - j_lev 12y ago
    Blake that was one of the funniest articles I have read in a long time. The content wasn't particularly interesting to me but coffee blew out of my nose at "Bankery Robberson" and I had to read to the end. Your high school English teacher would be proud.
  - mherdeg 12y ago
    Surely Uber is not the right solution here. Just extend the monorail out to the airport. How long could that possibly take?
    - kefka 12y ago
      At gov't speed, 12 years/mile.

dkbrk 12y ago

It's amusing to point out the failures of government bureaucracy, and while it's admirable that they're trying, I think we can all agree that the people responsible for these measures aren't exactly blessed with an overabundance of competence. That said, this article completely ignored the very significant failures in Uber's rating system: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-are-we-actually-rating-when-we-rate-other-people/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2014/08/14/what-ar... Fundamentally, a five-star rating is far too simple. In my opinion, an example of this done well is Ebay's reputation system.

sneak 12y ago
It seems to be working sufficiently for Uber and their happy customers. Uber is a premium service. Drivers should be fired if they don't know their way around, have a dirty or smelly car, or otherwise request things of me as a customer beyond my destination address. I routinely give out two and three star ratings, knowing it could well get people fired. 5 stars is for a perfect trip that could not be improved.
- debaserab2 12y ago
  How do I rate an uber drive? Say I pick up an uber, and everything goes exactly as planned. No weird side streets, no funky smell in the car, and an amicable driver. Not the best uber experience - I've had uber drivers free water bottles and nightlife recommendations at the ready in the past - but we got exactly where we wanted to go. The service was satisfactory, but not above average. What do I rate this driver? The answer to this question varies depending on who you are. The problem is that there is no standard for riders to objectively rate uber drivers. It's the equivalent of the easy-A teacher in high school versus the strict grading-on-a-curve teacher. People have their own biases and experiences that affect the scale they rate on. The differences in my own personal grading syllabus versus another persons can get people on uber fired for the exact same ride experience.
  - yummyfajitas 12y ago
    If Uber has anyone statistically competent on staff, they'll normalize your scores and compute an individualized scale for you. I.e., let i = individual rider, j = individual driver. Then they'll use a model like: score[i,j] = a[i]z[j]+b[i] + noise Then they store the z[j] for each driver. So if I consistently rate drivers between 2 and 4, while you consistently rate drivers between 4 and 5, then a[me] = 3, b[me] = 2 while for you a[you]=4 and b[you]=5. If you rate a driver as 4 (i.e. z[j] = 0), then Uber will tell me the driver is rated a[me]0 + b[me] = 2. Uber can then rate their drivers internally based on z[driver], not the individual ratings. It is of course possible that Uber is completely statistically incompetent, but I doubt that.

butwhy 12y ago

Something I recently learned in Vegas; if a taxi driver picks you up from a casino on the strip and offers to take you (or does it anyway) the "quicker way" to your destination [also on the strip] via taking some off-strip highway, reject him. A bit of traffic on the strip is nothing compared to how fast the meter flies upwards when a taxi is speeding along a highway via a long detour and it's going to result in you paying a lot more for the journey.

Nursie 12y ago
Surely the decision at that point comes down to time vs money?

devindotcom 12y ago

As long as the laws prohibit Uber from operating, why is it strange that the government would take steps to ensure that? Perhaps the laws should change - certainly Uber wants them to. But flouting the law isn't often the best way to make that happen. They're not protesting injustice, they're jamming a foot in the door of a multi-billion dollar industry with technology that is still very new to regulators. The "we're just an app that connects people who want a ride with willing drivers" dodge is disingenuous, and the alternation between wounded and scoffing attitudes is grating. I don't like Uber as a company, and personally I hope it fails and the next guy picks up the torch and does these things with a bit of tact. Neither driver nor user will care.

smsm42 12y ago
There are lots of outdated laws, and executives work around them all the time. In fact, the chief executive of the US just recently did exactly that, and not for the first time. So proclaiming "oh, it's the law, there's nothing to be done" is ignoring the reality at best. At worst, it's a trick since the people who talk about "nothing to be done" are exactly the same ones who ensure the law stays in place as is. >>> technology that is still very new to regulators. So the natural reaction of course to ban it. Just in case. >>> I don't like Uber as a company You understand you liking or not liking them has nothing to do with their rights to do business, moreover - their rights should not depend on them being likable in any state that wants to call itself the state governed by laws and not by whims?
icebraining 12y ago
I don't like Uber itself either. But what if flouting the law - and getting customers on your side after experience your product - the only way to make it happen? That doesn't mean the law shouldn't be upheld, and they fined if necessary. But that's the government's job, not Uber's.
pgeorgi 12y ago
The thing I find grating is that Uber takes everything they perceive to be broken in some local US taxi market (bay area?) and project it onto the world. Even though taxis seem to be regulated pretty much everywhere, the reason for regulation, the way things are done, and its effects can vary a lot. Doesn't matter, Uber still feels the need (at least according to their PR) to crush the evil taxi monopoly in Germany. Even though there is no monopolist. If anything, Uber is the best match for that (international company with deep pockets vs local companies with typically 5 cars or less)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sah88 12y ago

I'm surprised one of the smaller ride share companies hasn't pivoted into licensing/partnering with municipal governments. Share revenue and let them control the processes for accepting drivers and regulating them. Tada you're partnered with a entity that can legislate your competition out of business.

briandear 12y ago
Companies already do that; they're called "Taxi Companies."
hamrickdavid 12y ago
I think this is what Curb (formerly Taxi Magic) (http://gocurb.com/ http://gocurb.com/) is doing.

yonran 12y ago

Company-owned marketplaces are wonderful for the 95% of people who never run into problems, and some people such as Blake Ross may wonder why we don’t just retire the publicly regulated markets. What he is missing is that there is no due process on company marketplaces. If you happen to have a streak of bad luck, or you are targeted or discriminated against and you get too many bad ratings, you are kicked off with no appeal process. Uber does not care whether the complaints are legitimate. Similar problems happen to a small fraction of users on Google Adwords, eBay, and other company-owned marketplaces who ultimately care about their own profit instead of justice. As public markets are replaced with private marketplaces, I think the loss of due process is not something that we should give up without some forethought.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
It also happens in highly regulated markets. For example, due primarily to my outward appearance (I'm not a member of the majority race), I'm often asked for 2x the normal fare in auto rickshaws. If my girlfriend (a different non-majority race than me) is with me, 3-4x [1]. I'm mostly denied access to banking (except for some legacy accounts) due explicitly to regulation. This also happens in private markets without a company marketplace. For example: http://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/moral-panics-and-the-death-of-fun/ http://paxdickinson.wordpress.com/2014/10/22/moral-panics-an... [1] She's normally asked for 2x if I'm not around. If I'm with a woman of the same race as me, the price goes back to 2x.
- lmm 12y ago
  > It also happens in highly regulated markets. For example, due primarily to my outward appearance (I'm not a member of the majority race), I'm often asked for 2x the normal fare in auto rickshaws. If my girlfriend (a different non-majority race than me) is with me, 3-4x [1]. Uh, that sounds like it's due to nonregulation. In my city that simply couldn't happen - licensed taxis all have to use the same meters (and display their license number prominently, making it easy to report one that's violating the rules).
  - 12y ago

learc83 12y ago

Why should Uber get to flaunt the law just because they're big enough to get away with it? What about the little guy who can't afford the fines he'll have to pay if he operates a cab without a license? Sure a lot of the regulation is overburdensome, but the solution is to change the law, not encourage companies to break it.

hueving 12y ago
This isn't an article promoting Uber to flaunt the law. The article is pointing out that the nevada government is completely incompetent and Uber being legalized would be much better for everyone except for the cab drivers that rip people off.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jasonisalive 12y ago
You may be familiar with a thing called: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience. It's a crazy theory that, if you are intelligent and believe that laws and civil arrangements in your society are against logic and moral reason, the best way to change them is to break them, to help raise awareness so that more people realise their perversity. It helped end British control of India and racial segregation in America. Cool huh?
- learc83 12y ago
  We're talking about a large company making a profit, not a lunch-counter protest. Uber isn't doing this because of some deeply held belief, they're doing it to make a profit. I don't want corporations breaking regulations they don't agree with and claiming it's "civil disobedience".

Tarang 12y ago

I wonder if the next step in the evolution of public transport is something akin to Uber. It may be more entropic come the day self driving cars come along. Given that each car heads to its destination without a transit route where passengers are buffered would be good. Additionally, since the road is shared unlike the subway, it may be more efficient on resources. Perhaps when the option becomes available, the government of some affording country may be able to pilot such a thing.

jarek 12y ago
The big problem is scale. You can replicate the capacity of a smaller bus route with efficient self-driving cars, but bigger routes and higher-capacity transit move tens and hundreds of thousands of people per day to a destination, and loading/unloading capacity near those destinations is just not going to fit. Demand is already centralized both geographically and time-wise, with business districts, downtowns, rush/peak hour. Self-driving cars might replace feeder networks but they'll only strengthen the case for high-capacity trunk transit.
- jarek 12y ago
  Some numbers for context because I was thinking about it. Let's say it takes a person five seconds to get in a robocar at an organized terminal area (car pulls up with door already open, people are lined up - getting in on the street in front of a building would be slower). Let's say you can weave five terminal lanes into one traffic lane, so cars can leave the terminal at about 1 car per second per lane. In five minutes you can ship out about 300 people per lane. In those same five minutes, a Calgary C-Train would have pulled in, loaded, and departed with capacity of about 700 people. Or three Skytrain trains, each with capacity of about 500 people. Or two Victoria Line trains, each with capacity of about 1000 people (non-crush load). Or two double-decker RER trains, capacity over 2000 people each. You'd need a lot of robocar terminals...

DigitalSea 12y ago

I just had my first Las Vegas cab experience, it was at 11:30pm. The taxi driver picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel 30 minutes away. He was pretty helpful and seemed to know the area quite well. Then we got to our destination and he demanded that I pay cash, even though the taxi had a touchscreen terminal behind the front passenger seat for paying with card. He said that he needed the $55 fare in cash because he needs to take some money home and it is midnight. I told him that I didn't feel comfortable, he was apologetic, explained he needed the money and so, to save trouble, I went into the hotel and got out the cash for him because I just got off a few hours plane ride, I didn't want to deal with this nonsense at this time of night. I told the man behind the desk at the hotel and he explained that it happens all of the time. He said a lot of the drivers pocket the cash for themselves which is why they demand cash. He then advised us not to hire taxis and to use a hotel recommended private driver service that is the same cost (no doubt a nice referral fee for them). An ulterior motive there, but I don't doubt that this happens all of the time. This experience, other experiences from colleagues and friends as well as online paints a picture of a pretty broken and corrupt taxi system in Los Angeles especially. While I am not a big fan of Uber (ethically) I do like the idea of ridesharing and the rating system. If Lyft, Uber and other companies were operating here, perhaps things would be different.

achille2 12y ago
"He said a lot of the drivers pocket the cash for themselves which is why they demand cash." Uh. No. Where else would the money go? Cabbies pay everything upfront. They keep all earnings. The problem here is that both cabbies and customers are in a bad deal. The bulk of the profits go to taxi medallion holders which are typically investors.
- cheald 12y ago
  It's much easier to not pay taxes on cash income than on credit card income. Also, cabbies don't pocket the income, the medallion owner pockets the income. If that happens to be the cabbie, great, but frequently, cabbies simply lease the medallion from an investment company. If you're a non-medallion-owning driver, you can increase your hourly rate by requesting and not-reporting cash transactions.

BorisMelnik 12y ago

I always wonder about micro-long-hauling anytime I go to new areas of Brooklyn or visit new cities. I pretty much know where I am, but if they went a little out of the way I would not notice. If you drive a cab for 40 years, do 25 fares a day and "reroute" 4-8 extra blocks (~=$1.25) you'll see an extra ~$30/day or even if he/she does every other fair $15/day.

cauterized 12y ago
Depends. The starting fare means that if you have a decent chance of getting another hail (which is the case in many parts of NY at most times of day) it's actually more profitable to get to your destination as efficiently as possible and be able to pick up another fare than to draw out the one you have. There's a reason cabbies hate sitting in traffic even though the meter is running.

djur 12y ago

> The signs are done now, and I doubt they’ll ever need to be updated: Vegas is a sleepy town, and the dollar is a stable currency This is a sarcastic remark, but: the US dollar is, in fact, a stable currency, and inflation is currently very low. Cab fares are regulated. If getting from point A to point B takes $20 in 2014, it will not be difficult to determine how much the fare should be in 2020, and to send some people around with new signs or price stickers. I'm surprised at how many of these points seem to treat the low-tech methods used by the Nevada state government as patently absurd. I guess it comes from a mindset that technology is the obvious solution to society's problems, which is something I do not find to be obvious. It took me a while to catch on to the sarcasm as a result of that mismatch.

TheDong 12y ago
I can agree that the Gov's solutions are not absurd - at least not half as absurd as this post makes them out to be - but the overall point that the Uber rating system is superior to advisory signs stands strong. I found the sarcastic writing style a pleasure; it was enjoyable humorous and obvious in intent to me.
- djur 12y ago
  Uber has the benefit of employing the drivers, handling transactions, and controlling pricing. This allows them to refund unfair fares and to punish drivers for poor ratings. The technology is secondary. As is so often the case, much of the expense and inefficiency of the government regulatory apparatus here stems from an aversion to intervene directly in markets.
cheald 12y ago
I think the article is less poking fun at the non-technological nature of the government solutions, but at their ineffectiveness, when a proven solution with widely deployed infrastructure to support it already exists in the marketplace. If Nevada could put a magic rock for $0.03/unit in cabs that made cabbies stop longhauling, with no extra technology in play, nobody would complain that it wasn't technological enough.

usaar333 12y ago

From my experience, long-hauling complaints are handled quite effectively. You just go here: http://taxi.nv.gov/Complaints/Complaints/ http://taxi.nv.gov/Complaints/Complaints/ and spend ~5 minutes copying info that is present on your receipt. Did this three years back. Within days, the offending cab company called me and issued me a complete refund.

madeofpalk 12y ago
From my experience, long-hauling complaints are handled quite effectively. You just spend ~2 minutes filling out the text box Uber asks you when completing a ride. Did this three days back. Within hours, Uber emailed me and issued me a complete refund.
prostoalex 12y ago
"Receipt" is frequently a fill-it-yourself business card from the service.

whiddershins 12y ago

It's funny, but people think there is something inherently inefficient about government, but inefficiency and unresponsiveness are usually more a function of incentives, as well as obvious stuff like organization size and structure. Medicare is on average more efficient than private health care, for example. Health care might be a situation where profit incentives don't create the best outcome. In the case of the Nevada officials, there is no incentive whatsoever to actually fix the problem.

briandear 12y ago
Medicare is NOT more efficient that private health care. Ask any doctor.
- cozzyd 12y ago
  I think parent meant efficiency in terms of health care provided / $, not efficiency in terms of paying doctors quickly...

RyanMcGreal 12y ago

Sounds like Las Vegas could use decent train service running between the airport and the city.

gregpilling 12y ago
When they built the Monorail, that was the idea. Taxi companies put a stop to it. The Monorail could still be extended from the south end to the airport.

imgabe 12y ago

The advantage of a cab over Uber is that you don't pay until the end of the trip. If you know you've been ripped off, get out of the cab and walk away without paying. Tell them to call the cops and explain why you aren't paying. What are they going to do? Of course, this requires that you know you're getting ripped off.

avz 12y ago
There is plenty of circumstances where people are not willing to fight for $10. * You may be on holidays and may want to avoid arguments with strangers. * You may be after a long flight, jetlagged and/or simply too tired. * You may be running late for a plane or train and have no time to wait for the cops. * You may not speak the local language. On the other hand, leaving a rating or review is a lot simpler and more commensurate with $10.
- imgabe 12y ago
  I don't think you need to actually fight, just walk away. I'm thinking specifically of Las Vegas, and you've taken the cab from the airport to your hotel. Is the cab driver going to run through the lobby of the Bellagio and tackle you? No. Who is the hotel staff going to side with, their customer or a cab driver where they know cab drivers routinely rip off their customers? The cab driver is exploiting your reluctance to make a fuss to get a small amount of extra money. You can turn right around and exploit the fact that by breaking the law they've removed any recourse they have for getting you to pay. If enough people did it, eventually the scam would not be worth trying anymore.
fwn 12y ago
There are certain countries you shouldn't do that for plain security reasons.

lucianomt 12y ago

Let me rewrite the first paragraph: "Flying to Vegas? Look to your left. Now look to your right. Statistically speaking, everyone of you is about to get ripped off."

joezydeco 12y ago
Lots of us fly there on business (usually conventions) and spend very little time in the casinos. But yeah, the restaurants can be a ripoff if you eat on-strip.

brownbat 12y ago

I think even Uber's star system pales in comparison to a better solution: calculate fares in advance (maybe based purely on distance and average travel time). We have GPS, we can estimate costs before the trip. If we do so, the only incentive for the cabbie is to get your service completed as efficiently as possible. And it's weird that it's one of the only services where we can estimate the cost in advance fairly accurately in 99% of cases, but there's no price transparency. Cabs and medical services, maybe. There's no reason cab drivers should need a "billable hours" system of payment (at least not since gps mapping technology was invented). I'd settle for that much. But my more controversial rider is that costs shouldn't vary by the time of the trip. The risk of traffic flows should be borne by the party that will experience all the variations enough to be able to average it out. In consumer goods, if you buy a the one out of ten thousand products that are broken off the shelf, (or explodes in your hand), the merchants accept the loss, because they can even out this loss across all of their sales. In cabs, if there's suddenly an accident a mile ahead of you, and you're just stopped in a parking lot doubling your cost, that's your fault. On an individual level, maybe just underpay if you've been jerked around. If the cabbie complains, tell them to bring the cops so you can both talk about the route and they can decide what's fair. If that behavior became widespread, taxis would lose the incentive to cheat in this way. (Though you'd probably get a few people shot in the street. I strongly prefer the "pre-calculated fares.")

mlrtime 12y ago
I get your traffic jam problem, but in big cities its more complicated than that. There are supply demand imbalances and a traveling salesman type problem. Technology could solve some of these issues but I don't see it happening in the near future.
- brownbat 12y ago
  Oh, sure, on supply demand imbalances, I'd be ok with surge pricing if that's what you mean. I don't need prices to be constant for days, I'd just like them to be fixed at the moment both sides agree to the transaction. It seems like that should be doable with current tech, without even affecting the price of many transactions (except the ones where drivers are going intentionally slowly). The inputs for Uber's pricing are time, distance, and the demand multiplier. Google maps does a pretty good job at giving an expected time and distance for a driver taking the ideal route. The driver / Uber can toss in a demand multiplier. If we agree that the Google Maps (or some other mapping service) time estimate is "close enough," then we should be able to calculate the fee before I sit down. The driver can then feel free to take a scenic route, but it comes out of their pocket, not mine, so they probably won't. Or we can do nothing. I'm just really tired of cabs missing my exit "accidentally." Three of the last four times I came back from the airport. The last trip I directed every lane change from the backseat. I feel like I shouldn't have to do that.

d23 12y ago

> Flying to Vegas? Look to your left. Now look to your right. Statistically speaking, one of you is about to get ripped off by a cabbie. And it’ll probably be you, the imbecile who chose the middle seat and paid $15 for plane wifi. Just a side-note: I wouldn't open an article with brazenly insulting the reader.

moonka 12y ago
I think it's just a fair warning as to the tone of the rest of the article.