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Their 'investment' in political influence is amazing: It has 250 lobbyists and 29 lobbying firms registered in capitols around the nation, at least a third mor
by hackuser 11y ago
Their 'investment' in political influence is amazing:
It has 250 lobbyists and 29 lobbying firms registered in capitols around the nation, at least a third more than Wal-Mart Stores. That doesn’t count municipal lobbyists. In Portland, the 28th-largest city in the U.S., 10 people would ultimately register to lobby on Uber’s behalf. They’d become a constant force in City Hall. City officials say they’d never seen anything on this scale.
I suspected politicians were responding to something besides the appeal of easy-to-get rides. What I've seen from local politicians was hard to explain otherwise.
- onewaystreet 11y agoUber has been treated roughly by local politicians pretty much everywhere in the world it has set up. It's only by fighting the taxi lobbies with fire that they have been able to make any inroads at all.
- hoopd 11y agoUber accounts for nearly half of the entire U.S. market of low-cost personal rides. They are not the little guy fighting the power, they are the power.
- dajohnson89 11y agoAnd their success is, by and large, a testament to how poorly the previous power (the taxi guilds) served the people.
- emodendroket 11y agoIt's easy to cut prices if you just exempt yourself from the labor laws everyone else has to follow.
- fwn 11y agoNot only themselves but drivers and customers too. Uber, their drivers and their customers benefit from not being covered by those labor laws you're talking about. It's bad for politics and the traditional taxi industry because they get less from the cake.
- icebraining 11y agoTaxi drivers were already exempt from most of those labour laws - they were already considered contractors and didn't have overtime nor benefits.
- hoopd 11y agoBut they were actually contractors.
- onewaystreet 11y agoThat didn't just happen overnight. Do a google search for "uber banned". They fought for it and still are.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoThey weren't always a $50bn company. They got a cease and desist from SF in 2010. When it was just a black car service.
- emodendroket 11y agoIt's also amazing how many (presumably unpaid) cheerleaders they have to flood the comments of every discussion about them.
- sremani 11y agoIt is easy to cheer for Uber because they are not running over puppies or snow bunnies, they are dismantling the medallion mafia, unworthy of legal protections. So Yes, I cheer for Uber and its Ayn Randian CEO.
- JonnieCache 11y ago>dismantling the medallion mafia Is that really a thing outside of NYC? Pretty sure it isn't.
- dylanjermiah 11y agoIt was a thing in almost every developed city around the world.
- rconti 11y agoLiterally medallions and literally the mafia? Not as far as I know. But most cities restrict supply of taxis to keep prices high and fix prices as the behest of the taxi industry -- in addition to all of the other fun things the taxi lobby does. When Seattle built the Link light rail system, it stopped 1 mile shy of the airport because the taxi drivers didn't want the competition. Fortunately public outcry shut that down, but it's pretty rare that the general public gets upset enough about an issue to overcome the power of a specific interest group (yes, this includes Uber as well!) There's plenty of literature to explain why price fixing and limiting supply/licensure is bad. There's no competition, no incentive to improve or provide a premium service. There's no reason to provide service in far-out areas where it might be hard to find a return fare. There's no reason to provide service in less "desirable" (read: minority) areas. Of course, there are problems with the Uber model, too: Surge pricing being one of them. Some people think it's gouging, some think it's the right solution to provide supply for excess demand.
- fwn 11y agoI seriously don't know: Is that somewhat out of proportion? I could imagine the aggregated Taxi lobby being represented somewhere close to that. It's after all a highly regulated market.
- onewaystreet 11y agoUber built this large lobbying effort because they were getting killed by the taxi lobbies: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/31/the-taxi-industry-is-crushing-uber-and-lyft-on-the-lobbying-front-3500-to-1/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/07/31/t...
- hackuser 11y agoI can't imagine the taxi lobby has $40 billion and former White House advisors. The article says that Portland city hall was blown away by scale of Uber's response.
- jmngomes 11y agoCorrect. This also goes for everyone asking "Why does AirBNB require such a large investment at this point?!" on a recent post...
- smackfu 11y agoOTOH, here in Connecticut they didn't have a lobbyist firm, and they almost got banned in the state (after already running for a few months), because the taxi companies were lobbying the politicians. So they hired a lobbyist, and got actual hearings on the subject. Which seems a bit more fair.