8 ms·

Every time this topic comes up, the discussion always revolves around whether or not Uber is properly licensed, or if it's fair for them to operate. What's ofte

by jkoudys 11y ago

Every time this topic comes up, the discussion always revolves around whether or not Uber is properly licensed, or if it's fair for them to operate. What's often overlooked is the very reason so many of these licenses became as valuable as they did in the first place, and like so many economic issues it boils down to one thing: trust. For example, anyone who's seen more of NYC than just JFK airport and Times Square knows that that city has plenty of unlicensed rides available. This was true long before uber: white cars whose driver will only say "do you need a taxi?", and dollar-vans are everywhere. Yet, even though they offer an identical service to a licensed cab, people value them far less and fares are often 1/4 what's paid for a yellow taxi. When it's an officially licensed taxi, you trust that their fares are regulated, your driver isn't a violent criminal, and that their vehicle's in safe working order. This is the real value uber brings: geolocation and well-designed apps are nice frills, but ultimately people are deciding more and more that they trust a business with a rating system for drivers + passengers, upfront rates (even if they vary), and GPS so in the unlikely event you are detained, you can be found. Seriously, unless you're a lawyer, I have no idea why you'd go around debating what's legal or illegal. Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests.

Shivetya 11y ago
When government conspires with business to create a shortage it needs to be shaken up. The cost to entry for taxi services should not be the absurd numbers quoted in many cities, a number which only exists to benefit the existing companies and the politicians they support. What likely annoys these people the most is that their little game is being called out. Regulation has its place, that is not stifling competition and restricting people from having jobs
- mcuk2k 11y ago
  The good thing about governments conspiring to create a shortage is that taxi drivers make a reasonable income. This is an aspect that Silcon-Valley-style technology platforms have no apparent interest in supporting. For example, as time progresses Adsense might sign up more and more publisher capacity, yet that pushes down the income and discourages respectable publishers from using the service. You go from a fairly well respected public service, to something that's got a nice brand and run by virtual slaves.
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    A large majority of Uber drivers are former taxi drivers, you don't have to lease a vehicle for 45k per year, choose hours of work, and you have more control over passengers bad behaviour (two way rating system).
    - mcuk2k 11y ago
      That's the way these things work though. Start-up moves in, offers good rates because they have the VC money to burn. The early adopters do well (like drilling for oil), then after several years reality sets in. The legacy employer no longer exists, in fact, there are no competitors except one or two global technology companies. Finally, cars drive themselves.
    - mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
      And what happens when Uber continues to lower the rates Uber drivers earn at? Eventually taxis will look like a better job again.
      - dylanjermiah 11y ago
        That's a meaningless hypothetical. Why would Uber do that? They have every incentive to make sure that drivers are getting paid as much as possible and that riders have the cheapest prices possible, they literally have hundreds of people working on finding the equilibrium.
        mcuk2k 11y ago
        Once you become the de facto platform and you move from a start-up to a multinational public company, there's no longer a need to look after the contractors. There's added pressure to milk those contractors for all they've got. The contractors are easily replaceable and will live under constant threat of upcoming automation.
        dylanjermiah 11y ago
- jkoudys 11y ago
  There are good arguments in favour of restricted supply, mainly because the roads themselves are publicly owned, and the public pays the cost of every extra vehicle on them. What's especially problematic about the way regulations are used now, is they're forcing the exact opposite outcome: uber (and others) are much better at efficiently routing cars to passengers. Taxis driving in loops around the city, waiting for someone to hail them, places far more of a strain on traffic than an uber driver.
  - rorykoehler 11y ago
    I'm not sure about the routing efficiency assertion. Sure a few years ago that would have been true but most taxis are/can be hailed by app at this stage.
agumonkey 11y ago
Isn't this the lesson about the `disruption` trend we've seen in the previous years. Everybody comes with a cheaper idea, that is actually just doing less while we forgot how much was done in what we thought was too high priced. Saying that after reviewing all that major Airplanes (vs RyanAir) gave you in a flight, food, blankets, gifts, music with weirdly shaped earphones, special magazines... of course we don't use it all the time, but the fact that it is ensured is what makes the cost. It's not as sensitive as riding in a stranger car with no information about him whatsoever. But the basic idea is the same: we have to be honest and take in account the whole system when comparing.
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  "No information about him whatsoever" Please use factual information if you're going to converse. You have more information on an Uber driver than a taxi driver. Picture, licence number, accessible GPS location and drivers rating.
  - agumonkey 11y ago
    I spoke too fast, but this is not field information. How much pressure and constraints does he have to be a Uber driver beside the ratings ? It's not his main job, can't he quit any time he wants? how much hours does he have ? When a company hire someone they're at risk, it's a natural force to ensure both of them are able to service a client.
    - dylanjermiah 11y ago
      I'm unsure what point you're trying to make, would you mind expanding?
      - agumonkey 11y ago
        I distrust the underlying forces structuring light new businesses like Uber. When the entry cost is too low, people have no reason to put real effort. On the other side of the spectrum, Parisian cabs suffer from too high entry cost, AFAIU they have to work "hard" for a long time before they can reimburse the licence. And that contrast is what's causing the violence.
viola11 11y ago
"Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests." Those are grand words for defending a taxi company that uses an app with driver + passenger ratings as basis for arguing that it is not a taxi company and that it shouldn't need to employ actual drivers. Are you sure you didn't think about copyright law or investor state settlements laws when you wrote your comment?
- jkoudys 11y ago
  My comment was specifically a criticism of people making legal arguments in these forums. I'm not going to go ahead without a law degree, knowledge of Parisian taxi law, and the few snippets of legal arguments I read in articles, and start debating its legal standing and whether or not it's technically a "taxi" company.
forrestthewoods 11y ago
"Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests" Answer: No. Not at all. Now what? Vote everybody out because they didn't let Uber/Lyft into my city? Cool. Then what? Shall every 4 years I vote everyone out of office to solve my one or two top issues? Great. I can now change things I don't like at a rate of less than one thing per year. Maybe a full issue per year if I'm super lucky.
- jkoudys 11y ago
  If your only political involvement is to vote, then no I don't think you're going to have much success in influencing policy. There's a whole lot more you can do: attend council meetings, participate in the q&a at debates, work within a party (where applicable) to support candidates and issues you believe in, write well-researched articles intended for an audience that doesn't already agree with you, or even run for a position in government yourself.
golergka 11y ago
And that's exactly why I like Get Taxi and Uber: they are most trustworthy. In a usual system, taxi parks have too little power and influence, each of them individually, to make these guarantees, and government has the power, but doesn't really have an incentive to do a really good job. Uber/Lyft/Gett, on the other hand, are big enough to have the power of control, but at the same time they still have competition which creates a motive to implement these guarantees.
- golergka 11y ago
  I think that this comment lacked arguments, so I decided to provide an example of my logic. Let's imagine that there's a bad driver — nothing horrible enough to be newsworthy, but just bad manners, bad routes, stuff like that. Let's imagine that he operated at an individual taxi park. This means that to provide a feedback to authority, the user would have to spend his time to call the company, to "snitch" about the driver. Would someone do it just to say that "the driver wasn't especially bad, but I would prefer better in the future"? Actually, I think yes, they would, but the probability of this is much slower than a user casually clicking 3 stars icon after the ride. And when you have less data points (customer support calls vs star rating actions), your information is worse has more noise in it. So, your decision making about hiring/firing drivers is worse. This is an argument about size. And the argument about motivation — I think it's more or less obvious. Let's say your taxi driver has a city-issued beautiful plate in his cab. Do you even know who to call after he loads you off at a wrong street? Do you think they will be working at 11pm on Friday? Do you think they will be responsive and appreciative of the situation? Well, I assume that you interacted with bureaucrats at least once in your life, so the questions are really rhetorical. These are examples about only one component of the trust issue, customer support and detection of bad performers, but mechanisms like this would work in other situations too.
  - Retric 11y ago
    Tips are the standard solution for this. Drivers end up making less when there rude. PS: My response to rating systems is to generally give everyone 1 or 2 stars. Otherwise you end up with https://xkcd.com/1098/ https://xkcd.com/1098/ making the whole thing pointless.
dsp1234 11y ago
fares are often 1/4 what's paid for a yellow taxi. Maybe this is the actual market rate for the service being provided, and not that people value it less.
- jkoudys 11y ago
  It's definitely become a combination of the two. Originally the licensing did provide value to the consumer, because it meant a trusted authority was regulating things -- something people would value quite a bit, when you have to trust the driver not to deliberately harm or extort you. Depending on your region, it's more and more about artificially restricting the supply, so the market rate's probably much lower. I think dollar vans still charge much less than the market rate for a trustworthy taxi. I'd consider a trustworthy cab and a dollar van to be two separate offerings.

by jkoudys 11y ago

Shivetya 11y ago

When government conspires with business to create a shortage it needs to be shaken up. The cost to entry for taxi services should not be the absurd numbers quoted in many cities, a number which only exists to benefit the existing companies and the politicians they support. What likely annoys these people the most is that their little game is being called out. Regulation has its place, that is not stifling competition and restricting people from having jobs

mcuk2k 11y ago
The good thing about governments conspiring to create a shortage is that taxi drivers make a reasonable income. This is an aspect that Silcon-Valley-style technology platforms have no apparent interest in supporting. For example, as time progresses Adsense might sign up more and more publisher capacity, yet that pushes down the income and discourages respectable publishers from using the service. You go from a fairly well respected public service, to something that's got a nice brand and run by virtual slaves.
- dylanjermiah 11y ago
  A large majority of Uber drivers are former taxi drivers, you don't have to lease a vehicle for 45k per year, choose hours of work, and you have more control over passengers bad behaviour (two way rating system).
  - mcuk2k 11y ago
    That's the way these things work though. Start-up moves in, offers good rates because they have the VC money to burn. The early adopters do well (like drilling for oil), then after several years reality sets in. The legacy employer no longer exists, in fact, there are no competitors except one or two global technology companies. Finally, cars drive themselves.
  - mrgoldenbrown 11y ago
    And what happens when Uber continues to lower the rates Uber drivers earn at? Eventually taxis will look like a better job again.
    - dylanjermiah 11y ago
      That's a meaningless hypothetical. Why would Uber do that? They have every incentive to make sure that drivers are getting paid as much as possible and that riders have the cheapest prices possible, they literally have hundreds of people working on finding the equilibrium.
      - mcuk2k 11y ago
        Once you become the de facto platform and you move from a start-up to a multinational public company, there's no longer a need to look after the contractors. There's added pressure to milk those contractors for all they've got. The contractors are easily replaceable and will live under constant threat of upcoming automation.
        dylanjermiah 11y ago
jkoudys 11y ago
There are good arguments in favour of restricted supply, mainly because the roads themselves are publicly owned, and the public pays the cost of every extra vehicle on them. What's especially problematic about the way regulations are used now, is they're forcing the exact opposite outcome: uber (and others) are much better at efficiently routing cars to passengers. Taxis driving in loops around the city, waiting for someone to hail them, places far more of a strain on traffic than an uber driver.
- rorykoehler 11y ago
  I'm not sure about the routing efficiency assertion. Sure a few years ago that would have been true but most taxis are/can be hailed by app at this stage.

agumonkey 11y ago

Isn't this the lesson about the `disruption` trend we've seen in the previous years. Everybody comes with a cheaper idea, that is actually just doing less while we forgot how much was done in what we thought was too high priced. Saying that after reviewing all that major Airplanes (vs RyanAir) gave you in a flight, food, blankets, gifts, music with weirdly shaped earphones, special magazines... of course we don't use it all the time, but the fact that it is ensured is what makes the cost. It's not as sensitive as riding in a stranger car with no information about him whatsoever. But the basic idea is the same: we have to be honest and take in account the whole system when comparing.

dylanjermiah 11y ago
"No information about him whatsoever" Please use factual information if you're going to converse. You have more information on an Uber driver than a taxi driver. Picture, licence number, accessible GPS location and drivers rating.
- agumonkey 11y ago
  I spoke too fast, but this is not field information. How much pressure and constraints does he have to be a Uber driver beside the ratings ? It's not his main job, can't he quit any time he wants? how much hours does he have ? When a company hire someone they're at risk, it's a natural force to ensure both of them are able to service a client.
  - dylanjermiah 11y ago
    I'm unsure what point you're trying to make, would you mind expanding?
    - agumonkey 11y ago
      I distrust the underlying forces structuring light new businesses like Uber. When the entry cost is too low, people have no reason to put real effort. On the other side of the spectrum, Parisian cabs suffer from too high entry cost, AFAIU they have to work "hard" for a long time before they can reimburse the licence. And that contrast is what's causing the violence.

viola11 11y ago

"Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests." Those are grand words for defending a taxi company that uses an app with driver + passenger ratings as basis for arguing that it is not a taxi company and that it shouldn't need to employ actual drivers. Are you sure you didn't think about copyright law or investor state settlements laws when you wrote your comment?

jkoudys 11y ago
My comment was specifically a criticism of people making legal arguments in these forums. I'm not going to go ahead without a law degree, knowledge of Parisian taxi law, and the few snippets of legal arguments I read in articles, and start debating its legal standing and whether or not it's technically a "taxi" company.

forrestthewoods 11y ago

"Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests" Answer: No. Not at all. Now what? Vote everybody out because they didn't let Uber/Lyft into my city? Cool. Then what? Shall every 4 years I vote everyone out of office to solve my one or two top issues? Great. I can now change things I don't like at a rate of less than one thing per year. Maybe a full issue per year if I'm super lucky.

jkoudys 11y ago
If your only political involvement is to vote, then no I don't think you're going to have much success in influencing policy. There's a whole lot more you can do: attend council meetings, participate in the q&a at debates, work within a party (where applicable) to support candidates and issues you believe in, write well-researched articles intended for an audience that doesn't already agree with you, or even run for a position in government yourself.

golergka 11y ago

And that's exactly why I like Get Taxi and Uber: they are most trustworthy. In a usual system, taxi parks have too little power and influence, each of them individually, to make these guarantees, and government has the power, but doesn't really have an incentive to do a really good job. Uber/Lyft/Gett, on the other hand, are big enough to have the power of control, but at the same time they still have competition which creates a motive to implement these guarantees.

golergka 11y ago
I think that this comment lacked arguments, so I decided to provide an example of my logic. Let's imagine that there's a bad driver — nothing horrible enough to be newsworthy, but just bad manners, bad routes, stuff like that. Let's imagine that he operated at an individual taxi park. This means that to provide a feedback to authority, the user would have to spend his time to call the company, to "snitch" about the driver. Would someone do it just to say that "the driver wasn't especially bad, but I would prefer better in the future"? Actually, I think yes, they would, but the probability of this is much slower than a user casually clicking 3 stars icon after the ride. And when you have less data points (customer support calls vs star rating actions), your information is worse has more noise in it. So, your decision making about hiring/firing drivers is worse. This is an argument about size. And the argument about motivation — I think it's more or less obvious. Let's say your taxi driver has a city-issued beautiful plate in his cab. Do you even know who to call after he loads you off at a wrong street? Do you think they will be working at 11pm on Friday? Do you think they will be responsive and appreciative of the situation? Well, I assume that you interacted with bureaucrats at least once in your life, so the questions are really rhetorical. These are examples about only one component of the trust issue, customer support and detection of bad performers, but mechanisms like this would work in other situations too.
- Retric 11y ago
  Tips are the standard solution for this. Drivers end up making less when there rude. PS: My response to rating systems is to generally give everyone 1 or 2 stars. Otherwise you end up with https://xkcd.com/1098/ https://xkcd.com/1098/ making the whole thing pointless.

dsp1234 11y ago

fares are often 1/4 what's paid for a yellow taxi. Maybe this is the actual market rate for the service being provided, and not that people value it less.

jkoudys 11y ago
It's definitely become a combination of the two. Originally the licensing did provide value to the consumer, because it meant a trusted authority was regulating things -- something people would value quite a bit, when you have to trust the driver not to deliberately harm or extort you. Depending on your region, it's more and more about artificially restricting the supply, so the market rate's probably much lower. I think dollar vans still charge much less than the market rate for a trustworthy taxi. I'd consider a trustworthy cab and a dollar van to be two separate offerings.