London's Uber Ban Is a Big Brexit Mistake | Hacker News Reader

London's Uber Ban Is a Big Brexit Mistake

bloomberg.com

45 pointsflying_whale66 comments

This same argument was made when Austin required fingerprinting for drivers and Uber and Lyft left.

What happened? Their was a flourishing of new ride share companies, including a local nonprofit, RideAustin. Yes, at first, these apps were nowhere near the level of Uber/Lyft, but they quickly improved, especially RideAustin. The prices were slightly higher, but it seemed those prices reflected the actual cost of the service without the VC subsidy.

I dread taking a taxi and I'm no friend of the formerly entrenched taxi companies, but this idea that making some sensible regulations that these multibillion dollar VC-subsidized tech companies need to follow is "anti-innovation" is BS.

This isn't sensible regulation. This is an outright ban, which is a whole different ball of wax.

Is an outright ban "anti-innovation"? You can't do sensible regulation once you've banned entrants in favour of the taxis.

It's not a ban on ride-sharing. It's a ban on a single specific company: Uber. And the ban is because Uber was routinely violating sensible regulations.

What other ride-sharing company operates in London? Addison lee, kabbee and the multiple private cab companies can't offer the same service as uber when you need a ride on the moment. They are fine when you can book in advance, otherwise be prepared to wait half an hour or more.

The fact that there is only one barber, butcher, or baker (or candlestick maker... whatever) in town should not dissuade us from putting them out of business if they don't pay attention to safety regulations...

Then if safety is really the concern why taxis and cabs can operate given that they are way less safe than uber? I would rather use the safer option, but instead I'm forced to use the less safe options.

Are you saying Uber is the safer option? Did you miss the part where they are violating the safety regulations, and where cab companies are not?

In the other thread were posted the offences done by taxi drivers and were far more than the ones committed by uber drivers. Considering that you can easily report the behaviour of a Uber driver I can believe it.

Do you have any data to back that up? If it's so easy to report Uber drivers, where's Uber's statement showing the data it has collected regarding its supposed lower offense rates? Why hasn't the London government taken into account this data? Or is the best evidence available random anecdotes?

> Considering that you can easily report the behaviour of a Uber driver I can believe it.

Reporting an Uber driver doesn't necessarily mean any action is taken.

https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/understanding-uber-... has a story about a driver committing a sexual assault, being reported to Uber who didn't report it to the police -or- fire him, and he went on to commit another which Uber -also- didn't report to the police.

> In total, Uber had failed to report six sexual assaults, two public order offences and one assault to the police. This had lead to delays of up to 7 months before they were investigated.

This is why MetPol are arguing strongly against licensing Uber.

No. It's presented as an outright ban, but that doesn't mean what you think it means.

Uber is able to continue business while it appeals. As long as the appeal process is continuing (and it may well continue for years to the High Court) Uber can continue business as usual.

Uber can change its processes during the course of the appeal, and if they match what is required, the ban will fail.

This is a high-visibility, high-impact method of regulation that Uber can't ignore. Given Uber's habit of ignoring regulations it doesn't like, it seems entirely appropriate.

One of the largest problems that the UK has had with the EU is that EU-mandated regulations are not implemented by some EU member countries. This is against all the rules of the EU, but there's no enforcement.

In the UK, regulations are implemented and enforced. This is that enforcement in practice. One of the reasons London has flourished as a financial centre is because the regulatory agency doesn't mess around and does its job properly. This gives certainty, stability, and engenders trust in trading partners.

The article is entirely wrong, completely misunderstands what's happening here, and why.

You forgot the end of that story. They let Uber and Lyft back in[1] and the apps that had sprouted up instantly got crushed[2].

[1] https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/14/15803138/austin-uber-lyft-t...

[2] https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2017/06/06/uber-lyft...

Yeah, Uber and Lyft spent VC money to lobby the state government to override what the Austin voters decided.

So much for the will of the consumer, eh?

But, hey, that's what "DISRUPTION!" looks like nowadays, right?

Who's being forced to use uber/lyft? Ironic that you believe state intervention into markets as being the "will of the consumer".

The Austin fingerprint law was a voter initiative passed by Austin citizens. The state of Texas overturned it by vote of elected representatives from across the state. I think the latter is much more a "state intervention".

It's interesting to precisely consider what "a voter initiative passed by Austin citizens" translates to. And to clarify the fingerprint law was not what was actually passed. That law was passed unilaterally by the city council --- whom a cynic might suggest was driven by what we'll call "lobbying", rather than necessity. The vote was a result of ride sharing services collecting the necessary tens of thousands of signatures that required the City Council to either soften the rules or bring the matter to public vote. The council chose to spend the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars necessary to keep the ordinance intact and hold an impromptu election.

These [1] are the results of that election. Austin has a population of 950,000 residents with a voting age population of about 741,000 [2]. In total about 5% of the resident population voted to maintain the fingerprinting law and 4% to soften it. A 1% margin on a voter turnout of less than 12%.

I fully appreciate that that is a 'democratic republic in action.' I'm certain you can understand one might find it distasteful, just as one can easily understand your distaste for state level 'democratic republic in action.' I'm certain our systems made all the sense in the world hundreds of years ago. But these sort of things do not feel right today when we live in a country with counties that now have greater population than the entire country did when these laws and systems were developed.

[1] - http://traviselectionresults.com/enr/contest/display.do?crit...

[2] - https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/austincitytexas...

> So much for the will of the consumer, eh?

I think demand is a better proxy for the will of consumers than any law or legislation. If the citizens of Austin refuse to use Uber or Lyft they will disappear without any legislation.

The tourists have more sway as consumers than the citizens do. There's more of them, they're more likely to use a ride-sharing service, and they're more likely to choose Uber of Lyft over a local brand just from the name recognition.

I just read those two articles (from June) and don't get the idea that either was crushed. The drivers just saw the number of rides and disperse to more services, and the $350 promotions etc. RideAustin still seems to have almost 50% of the business, with Fasten, Uber, and Lyft splitting the rest?

This (crappy Buzzfeed) article from July seems confirms what locals say... they're all still there: https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/uber-lyft-austin-t...?

Yep, this happened, but still doesn't change my point that these huge, extremely well VC-funded firms are not so much the giant drivers of innovation the article makes them out to be.

If anything (as mentioned in another HN article I saw today about the slowdown in new business formation), these huge, "winner-take-all" tech companies may be a net negative for innovation in the long run.

VC-subsidized

Private companies don't subsidize. Private companies invest.

This article is stupid, Uber was not caught unawares and has been in repeated violation of several requirements for operating in London.

This isn't the end of some libertarian utopian dream of innovation, but rather uber's continued blatant disregard of local laws.

It's not really stupid if you realize it's very likely an Uber PR piece masquerading as an article :). In that sense, it makes quite a bit of sense!

It is written by a good well known exonomist, so i doubt it inthis case

Exonomists can be purchased.

so can you therefor your opinion is invalid... Examine what is said on its own merit not according to who said it or why.

Wait, I thought exonomist was a typo. Does it mean anything different than economist?

Yes .. this piece of article does not resound with my biases and beliefs . So the author must be paid shill. /s

So bending over backwards and making companies not follow the law is "stifling technology companies". As others have pointed out Uber could play by the rules if they wanted to.

Could they? Isn’t their whole business model using VC money to create predatory pricing and dominate everything? I think Uber is rotten as a premise, and when you take the bad behavior out, barring a sudden and miraculous breakthrough in automated automobiles, they’re not viable.

Yep, I have no idea how they have any customers with all the bad press they get.

The goal is to kill the competition and treat their drivers and customers like crap in doing so.

They treat their customers very well, that's why they've been so successful.

Oh really? I gave up using Uber when I watched a ride go from $9 to $22, then back down to $12 after I killed the app and reopened it. Lyft pulls much the same shit, but killing and reopening will get me within a few cents of that initial $9 price.

Ultimately, it just means I set my life up such that neither Uber or Lyft can hold me hostage with insane spikes in pricing. Thus I bike and drive more than I'd like.

You obviously didn't see how they reacted to that poor woman in India.

Can they thought ? The whole gig economy model depends on not treating service providers as employees. The reason for ban does not specifically say what regulations were not followed. It mentions uber did not report crimes . Well I don't get that argument as the victim reports the crime to police and not to uber. Secondly , there is no proof or suspicion of greyball ever Been used in London. It was like they just put that in there to make Uber look bad instead of giving actual reason to ban it . All the uber drivers in London are certified private hire drivers so I don't see exactly what regulations they are talking about . Maybe they want more background checks in that case uber should obey those requests.

I find it interesting that the article fails to mention the reason behind the bans. Perhaps they expect us to already know that it's due to problems with driver background checks. (correct me if I'm wrong)

Then again, if the argument is that in a pure libertarian system consumers would drive out bad actors like this, I'm not sure that this line of thinking would hold. The convenience of a cheap ride would seem to be worth the cost of the seemingly small chance that a user might be assaulted if the world worked this way.

Due to driver checks and also having software which actively tried to hide Ubers activities from regulators.

There is no proof of that being used in London. Also all the drivers in London are certified drivers.

It was given as a reason in the press release so there is obviously suspicion of it at least.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

If so then they should mentioned incidences which lead to this suspicion. Both mayor and uber has failed to make it clear what the reason of contention is between them. The rules which uber is not following should have been listed instead of arbitrary statements like Uber failed to report crimes by their drivers . This can happen only if victim decides to report to uber instead of police which sounds very unlikely scenario to me.

That's nonsense. If you have a dispute between you and a company, everyone will expect you to talk to the company first. If it turns out that your dispute relates to breach of the law (for instance, improper racial discrimination of clients), you might not necessarily realise you have the ability to report it to the police. To say it sounds like a very unlikely scenario to you makes it sound like you're trying to find reasons to defend Uber, not trying to interpret the scene fairly.

No, it's not.

If you have suffered something that you think is a crime, call the cops (in the UK they are pretty okay for these things).

If you had a very bad experience, but maybe not a full blown crime, you might decide to make a 1.0 star rating and complain to the company.

There could be systemic problems (racial discrimination), but even in those cases, there are concrete victims, that can report it to authorities (to the TfL for example).

A fun game to play with any Tyler Cowen article is to ask, "How is he playing dumb this time?" You'll always win.

This is some economist from George Mason University who claims markets are the answer to everything.[1] There's a whole bunch of those guys at George Mason, available to write advertorials on demand.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen

Totally click bait article.

Snip: Transportation authority didn't ban because of job security or localization. It didn't renew Uber license because Uber is not following local authority guidelines.

100 quid heathrow to the City vs 30 uber. Good or bad, time to pay triple again.

Well, thirty from notting hill to heathrow by mini cab for me. If you mean the actual city that would maybe 55. Not sure if you mean the city, say Liverpool Street, or west end something. In any case that extra cash went straight to the driver I'd guess. Black cabs cost more, but for completeness, I'm guessing you didn't need to pay that much.

TfL and the Greater London Authority being controlled by notable Brexiteers like Sadiq Khan, of course...

Sadiq Khan a notable brexiteer?

I'm calling you a liar!

Two options: You provide reputable sources to back this assertion of yours. In which case I will profusely, unconditionally and publicly apologize.

Otherwise my assertion that you're a liar stands.

Note that no English tabloid product, nor anything Breitbart counts as a reputable source in this context.

parent post sounds like sarcasm to me.

If so, my bad that I didn't get it.

In any case it was not very sarcastically phrased. And given the bullshit people believe nowadays such things really need to be called out.

My apologies, I'm an Australian, and anything that an Australian says should be assumed to be sarcastic until proven otherwise.

In that case: Please accept my apologies.

I really took your comment at face value. It's just that the current trend of Obama being a muslim terrorist sympathizer, Hillary Clinton running a child porn ring out of a pizza parlor and other such utter shit (and a significant amount of people actually believing that) makes me want gnaw off the wall paper.

Mea culpa!

I have to agree that the sarcasm was really hard to figure out in this one. I didn't see it either.

In any case, next time this happens, I recommend that you just respond with the classic, "[citation needed]".

Sadiq was one the more public anti-Brexit campaigners, and was one of the anti-Brexit debaters in the main televised debates.

Translation: if you were from Blighty, you'd know that the previous poster was being sarcastic.

Set Uber aside for the bigger picture:

Brexit is UK's "Donald Trump": a manifestation of projected socioeconomic angst in a self-defeating manner that doesn't address inequality at the policy level. It's like suggesting California secede: good luck with trade policies, printing a currency, forming a military and so on. It's civilizational "reorg" churn that accomplishes nothing, eg, mob nonsense. If people collectively possessed integrity and moral courage, they would directly call out what they felt was inequity instead of scapegoating this group, that trade arrangement or a startup.

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