What happened to Austin, Texas when Uber and Lyft left town
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Wow, so all these people on Facebook are giving the fingerprints and background checks that Austin now legally requires of all community sourced taxi services?
Or ... are they not doing that, and also not paying taxes or subject to any regulation at all, unlike Uber and Lyft?
Austin's goal in the law was to put controls and regulation on this industry. The result is trumpeted by this article as a success for that intent. However, it seems that what has actually been created due to the city's creating a void in needed services is a totally underground black market system with no accountability whatsoever. Reasonable observers might note this to be a step away from regulation and control.
I'm pretty sure Austin's goal was to protect the taxi magnates by putting their competition out of business.
> However, it seems that what has actually been created due to the city's creating a void in needed services is a totally underground black market system with no accountability whatsoever.
That's not actually bad when one considers the real purpose of the law: the taxi magnates get to keep their price floor, and they get to watch the police power of the State exercised against their underground competitors.
Uber/Lyft is who wanted special treatment; not the other way around. Every company/individual that sells rides in Austin follows roughly the same rules (with some tweaks to suit the mode of transit): cabs, electric cabs, pedicabs, etc. They all do the same background check and fingerprinting process.
Uber/Lyft wanted to do their own thing. The city said, no, you're going to have to do it the same way all of your competitors do it. Uber/Lyft spent nearly $10 million dollars (enough to pay for hundreds of thousands of fingerprint background checks, probably a decade worth of drivers) to do an end run around city council with a ballot proposition to not be subject to the same rules as their competitors. That proposition failed; badly.
Uber/Lyft left in a huff because they would not receive special treatment.
It is a remarkable act of rewriting history to claim that Uber/Lyft are being stifled by cab companies when they're only being asked to do what even the bicycle pedicab drivers do.
If they wanted a level playing field without those requirements (i.e. cabs, e-cabs, and pedicabs, would have also been exempt from that process and instead could use a private background check instead of the city process), I might have been on their side...and, so would the pedicabbers, e-cabbers, and probably the rest of Austin. What I saw was some spoiled brats at the helm of billion dollar valuation companies trying to get special treatment and throwing a tantrum when they didn't get it.
Also: The background check that Uber/Lyft claims prevents them from being able to operate at all in Austin costs about $40. And, both companies operate in other places that require similar processes (and every other company that provides rides in Austin does the same).
They're acting like entitled spoiled brats.
Their whole business model relies on minimum government regulation, so fingerprinting to them is the first steps towards the end of their business model. It's an existential threat to them, I don't blame them for trying to nip this at the bud.
This isn't new either. A month ago HN was generally supporting Apple's fight against the FBI. Apple recently spent a bunch of money fighting a seemingly uninteresting case of an old iOS version belonging to a known mass murderer: to prevent the "slippery slope" of the FBI using this tactic in more places.
It wasn't certain that the FBI would do this, but there was plenty of evidence that the FBI would have liked to, given the opportunity.
And, if we really were calling slippery slope a valid argument, rather than the fallacy that it so often is: Austin's legal requirements for providing rides have been decreasing over the past decade, both in complexity and in cost of compliance. It's just not very slopey or slippery, as it has been trending in the opposite direction of what your slippery slope argument suggests would happen. I'm sure there's still room for improvement and simplification, but if the stoners I know who pedicab can figure it out, I'm confident the bright young lads who run Uber and Lyft can, too.
I hope there's a fallacy for superficially pointing out fallacies without actually examining the argument.
I brought up an example of a case which could have been argued away with the slippery slope fallacy, where many believed that Apple did the right thing (maybe even yourself), so it's plausible that Uber might too.
I could have drawn other slippery slope examples too. Like:
Just because I smoke doesn't mean I will get lung cancer. But if I don't want lung cancer, I shouldn't start smoking.
Boom: big slippery slope fallacy, and I might even get lung cancer without smoking. But reality is statistical, and not smoking is a smart cancer reduction strategy.
Back to Uber: Their concern is probably not that Austin will start cracking down further, but that other cities will as well. Uber doesn't give a shit about Austin. They have a billion dollar transportation market to go after, and if that means cutting off Austin (population 900k) to save the rest of it, it would be a wise choice.
> if the stoners I know who pedicab can figure it out, I'm confident the bright young lads who run Uber and Lyft can, too.
Uber is playing for the world, not Austin Texas. You may think that Uber is being entitled by asking for special treatment, but in Uber's mind, they probably see Austin as being entitled for enforcing these laws while other cities don't.
Only time will tell if they win and Austin capitulates due to public outcry or if Austin does well without ridesharing and the legislation crackdown happens elsewhere as cities learn they don't have to fear the backlash.
This is pure nonsense. The fingerprint requirements are nothing new. Taxi companies have been following them for years. Uber and Lyft simply did not think they should be treated as taxi services, and threw a hissy fit when the City of Austin decided otherwise.
Furthermore, Uber and Lyft were not "put out of business." In fact, they continued to operate in Austin for two years after the law was passed. They left only when they failed to repeal the law. Also keep in mind they spent over $8 million on the public relations and lobbying campaign to get the law repealed. So yeah, make no mistake: they have plenty of money, and the only reason they left was as a way of saying "fuck you" to Austin.
Before rules were formalized for pedicabs and for electric cabs (which happened at different points in Austin history), the drivers worked for "donations" to avoid some of the legal trouble of selling rides without being licensed to do so. So, it's likely that the "donation-based" rides are skirting the law (though riding pretty close to the edge of it, and the e-cab company had a variety of run-ins with the city over that while they were sorting out the legality of the thing). The ones with a set price probably aren't legal, at all.
I know the fellow who owns the electric cab company in Austin, and I know a lot of pedicabbers. Those folks pushed the barriers to entry way down over the years, to the benefit of everybody wanting to offer ride services in Austin. The process is so much less onerous now than it was a decade ago, and, most importantly, it almost entirely stopped favoring traditional cabs a couple years ago. Everyone has cooked up a silly conspiracy theory where the taxi companies wield tremendous influence over city council; with the new 10-1 city council that's an absurd suggestion (Austin effectively ousted its entire city council and started over from scratch a couple years ago, with district-based council membership...it'd be pretty difficult to buy the current city council). I don't even believe it was a valid criticism of the old city council (I had many nasty things to say about the old city council, but being corrupt generally wasn't one of them).
The TNC debate has pushed the barrier to entry down a little further, and that's a good thing in a city with very poor mass transit. But, and this is a big but: We really need to acknowledge that Uber/Lyft were not asking for equal treatment to cabs; they wanted special treatment that would make it harder for cabs, pedicabs, and e-cabs, to compete with them (because they would all be subject to the old rules, and only TNCs would be exempt).
My bet is in a year, if uber/lyft stay out of Austin, there will be a local replacement that obeys the laws that Austin decided on.
Reporter based in an area with great transportation choices (NYC) says, "Austin w/o Uber and Lyft ain't so bad. There are new alternatives."
[1] http://kxan.com/2016/05/23/non-profit-ride-hailing-app-ridea... [2] https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-prop-1/
Take a yellow cab from the airport, Walk, get a ride from my AirBNB host, hail a taxi, borrow a bike, get a ride from other friends, hang out on Rainey Street with whatever friends are around and use the Getme app it get to the airport.
Lack of Uber did not affect my visit at all. If anything walking around more enhanced my experience. What a great city.
I've personally never been to Austin, but I doubt the city is going to suffer any major decline in business because Uber and Lyft have left town.
There are hundreds of cab, electric cab, and pedicab, drivers who all follow the rules. The rules may not be perfect, but they aren't particularly onerous, either. It's about $40 to get your fingerprint background check done. The rules have been in place for years for those other kinds of drivers. Uber/Lyft wanted special treatment...they wanted their competitors to keep playing by those rules, while they continued to be exempt from them.
The process they were fighting to avoid is a fingerprint and background check that costs about $40 per driver. Their millions could have paid for a couple hundred thousand drivers to get checked.
While I'm grateful for the new ride sharing companies, I wish Uber was back. There are a lot of tiny details that Uber nailed that without, my day-to-day life requires quite a bit more mental overhead.
For example, I cannot have multiple cards on file, so I often have to remember to swap out the card before I can call a ride based on whether it's a business meeting. Uber would almost always pick me up within 3 or 5 minutes; even when the new apps show drivers right around the corner, I usually get matched with someone 15 minutes away—and the ETA is always way off. This makes scheduling things more difficult. They're quite a bit more expensive.
None of those things are deal-breakers, of course. But it's kinda like having an iPhone and then going back to a flip-phone. It still works, you're glad you can still call people, but a lot of the magic is gone. And while I know all of the companies are working hard to catch up, the edge cases are numerous enough that I don't think it's realistic for them to deliver a magical experience anytime soon.
Yeah, I can see that. If it were as easy as I initially thought it would be, then the taxi companies would have apps as good as Uber's. It's hard for me to understand why the existing taxi companies are so slow to adopt the best parts of Uber's business.
I've used Uber quite a bit and even if it were the same price or slightly more expensive than a regular cab, I would still use it because (so far) my Uber experiences have been much better than any taxi experience. I just wish Uber would either pay the drivers more or let me tip through the app.
You can leave it at that. Tipping is an odious practice that needs to go away. Actually, I would like to extend that wish to all the employees of the service industry if it means getting rid of tipping and yes, I would gladly accept the resulting higher prices, we are all (inefficiently) paying the supposed difference anyways.
edit: I use the time to clear out email, so it has a not-insignificant time benefit as well, but it's still a win on the raw numbers.
It's hard to imagine that you never leave the house except for work.
When we go out in the evenings, I usually order a beer or a cocktail with dinner, so I'd rather not drive; and parking in Austin during the weekend hours can easily be more expensive than the Uber rides. We categorize that under our Entertainment budget because we'd still take Uber for nights out even if we owned a car, but even if I recategorized it as transportation it wouldn't affect the results of the equation.
A large part of my lifestyle is subsidized by investors trying to capture a global market (Uber, Instacart, to some extent Amazon), and I recognize that this may not last forever, but I'm happy to game the system while I can.
- Grocery (once a week, group buying). We initially walked the 20 minutes (exercise?) but was $5 lyft / uber away.
- Gym, Beach, Marina, often independent, used Uber Pools, occassionally ran the distance.
- Office, we'd carpool and was about $10/day in commuting cost.
- Getting to specific game day bars, beaches was probably the most expensive (and most traffic) that we encountered, typically $10-$30 each way.
- Getting downtown or to Sunset was $10/way one night thanks to Lyft. Pools / Lines were often cheap like this.
Lyft weekday promotions helped a bunch. I was very surprised at the end of the program when I realized that other than the commutes to work (otherwise expensed), my regular trips to the beach, downtown la, and Sunset, I spent < $200 on all trips.
* Used a Zipcar one day to go to Ronald Reagan Museum * Rented a car one weekend to go rock climbing.
Proof of negation of the TP using counterexample:
1. Monthly insurance cost for own vehicle = a few hundred dollars = $k. Monthly insurance cost for Uber = $0.
2. Assume an extreme case where you don't travel at all in the entire month. Total cost of transportation for owning a car = $k. Total cost of transportation for Uber-ing everywhere = $0.
3. Assuming that the costs are proportional to the kms you have traveled you get this: http://imgur.com/A61dXx9
The inflection point where Uber is no longer cheaper than driving is (k / (mu - mc)), where mu and mc are the slopes for the lines for Uber and own car, and "k" is the insurance intercept.
They're not more expensive than possessing a car and keeping it available for your use. That generally includes capital or leasing costs, maintenance, insurance, licensing/registration, storage/parking, etc.
Edit: Expanding on this from a real keyboard, costs include:
* Capital or leasing on the vehicle itself (generally at least $200/month for several years even for cheap new vehicles, possibly lower for used)
* Maintenance for the vehicle - low for new ones, higher for older/used ones
* Insurance - again higher for new ones and lower for older ones,
* Licensing/registration. A drivers license is a wash (you'd probably have a comparably-priced state ID) but at least in Illinois registration is > $100/year, varying some by vehicle.
* Storage & parking. This includes any use of paid parking lots (not uncommon in cities), but may also include the cost of your garage, or the time cost of finding and using street parking.
Uber and Lyft are dominant basically because they buy the market by offering drivers (and to a lesser extent passengers) financial incentives.
Source: worked at Flywheel for a couple of years, built said software as part of a small team.
It isn't the first 80%. It's the last 20%.
I have a car, but there are many in Austin (students in particular) who relied on uber/lyft to get around. Nothing available today can offer the same speed and reliability of service.
I'm surprised that it would cause much problem for students, for a couple of reasons.
1. Uber/Lyft are expensive for a typical student budget. I'd expect students to rely much more on buses (especially since buses are free [1] for UT students) and only rarely resort to Uber/Lyft (or regular taxis).
2. At most major universities I've seen almost everything a student would need in the way of food, supplies, and recreation is available fairly near campus, usually within reasonable walking distance. The neighborhoods around universities evolve to meet the needs of students. Does it not work this way in Austin?
No they aren't. I used them constantly when I lived on campus. Most of my fares were around $5-6.
It's cheaper than a bus if you place a non-negligible value on your time.
The Austin bus system kind of sucks outside of a few routes. I took the 100 to the airport a few times and it was brutal. Lyft is $20-30 and super fast and convenient.
You can survive by sticking within a 5-block radius of campus, but good luck if you have hobbies, interests, or a job.
And taxis suck.
Taxis don't have to suck (they don't in my home city). So this should be a wake-up call to Austin's city government to look into why their voters are dissatisfied with the taxi firms, and consider what action they can take -- as regulators -- to fix the problems.
But the fact remains that they do suck, at least it most US cities. Uber, Lyft, etc. exist mainly because city governments and regulators have been happy with the status quo and don't want to make taxi service better.
They're controlled by the Taxi industry, as predicted by Regulatory Capture theory.
Cause that approach always works so well...
My tap water tastes great.
Uber and Lyft aren't that special. Their technology is commodity, and they know it. Ride sharing should be operated like Craigslist, not a ploy to make a bunch of fatcat VCs and Travis a bunch of money.
The new services might be rocky at first, but competition in the marketplace should rapidly evolve them towards something better.
It's my understanding that a law was passed by legislators and then a vote was made to repeal or keep the law. The public voted in favor of keeping it.