Honest question: what are the equivalent numbers for Uber's side of the battle? Looking at one side of the question without the other doesn't allow a balanced assessment of the situation.
The bulk of Uber's ~$2 million/year of political spending in New York goes towards ad campaigns [1]. The taxi lobby bought the mayor and City Council; Uber created a grassroots backlash. This was the balance. Then Uber burned off its teflon coating.
Since Lyft never bothered with politics and Juno/Gett is so young, the balance broke and we got this mess.
[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/uber-spent-1-2m-lob...
I think we come away with quite different reactions to the same facts: I view it as telling that Uber spent roughly four times what the taxi lobby spent, but most of the conversational focus regarding spending targets the taxi lobby - one of many widespread biases in which some bits of the for-hire transportation debate get more frequently talked about and others usually overlooked.
The (legitimately real) rank and file support and skewed discussion focus which Uber's ad/lobbying money has bought them isn't my idea of grassroots backlash, even if it unwittingly enlists the grassroots in their PR campaign.
No doubt the taxi lobby is pushing their interests just like Uber pushes theirs. Neither set of industry lobbyists is truly looking out for the citizens.
But when the conversation they've shaped pairs "bought the mayor and City Council" for the less-spending party with "created a grassroots backlash" for the more-spending party, I can only marvel impressed and saddened at Uber PR's effectiveness.
In most cities, the local taxi lobby plus the citizens who oppose Uber/Lyft/Juno/Gett for normal public policy reasons are even more outclassed against a major VC-funded global would-be monopolist like Uber than NYC managed. I'm impressed at de Blasio and City Council for holding firm.
(As you can tell, I'm no fan of these companies for several reasons, but explaining those reasons substantively would be a huge tangent.)
But if public opinion is mobilized as a weapon through very selective presentation of the issues in ads, in a disproportionate way that leaves the public with a skewed picture of the pros and cons, it has the same indirect effect of pressuring the politicians to act in the company's interests. The public can't react in their own interests if they don't have the right facts, so then polls will legitimately show what the company wants, by and large.
Roughly the same problem arises if they fund a heavy "lobby your elected officials" campaign, targeted only at their supporters, with no equivalent resources mobilizing those who disagree - and indeed they did this.
Then the other side has to also fund public campaigns, instead of just lining the politician's pockets.
> it has the same indirect effect of pressuring the politicians to act in the company's interests.
Yeah but one thing is lobbying and a very different one is "I fund your campaign if you benefit me economically". That's a soft version of bribery. Can't put it in the same level as propaganda ads that change public opinion on a topic.
Not sure where bribery entered the conversation. The person I was replying to said that Uber spent $2 million / year on legal expenditures to affect the debate in NY, mostly through advertising.
I have no reason to assume that this was any more bribery than PR campaigns and lobbying generally are, and indeed I presume it didn't go beyond that.
The mention of the taxi lobby having "bought" de Blasio and the City Council was from the comment I was replying to, which I quoted to marvel at the tone of the conversation which Uber has managed to shape so favorably.
And the public support which I said Uber has "bought" is, as I noted, "legitimately real" - they just fed skewed information to the public, which is not a bribe.
(They do give lots of loss-leader promotional incentives to make people use and like their service, but we usually categorize that as marketing and not bribery without elements that are absent here.)
For example, I see HSBC's ads incessantly at airports about how they value customer service, but 5+ personal interactions with the bank proved otherwise and no amount of ad spending can get me to suddenly get on message boards and support HSBC. They could spend 10x for all I care and I still wouldnt use their bank...and certainly would never get on message boards to support their product.
What ride hailing apps did is make rides available to a giant sector of the population who didn't previously have any reasonable alternative. That makes me (both through my experience, and that of my mother) spend my valuable time on message boards arguing in favor of ride hailing apps.
A one line summary of my mom's very limited anecdote: for a frail elderly POC frequenting hospital trips in Manhattan and traveling back to Brooklyn -- there was life before Uber and life after Uber. For excited consumers, it has to do with the product, not ads.
NYC has traditionally used that for the same purpose as Uber, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are underserved areas or racial discrimination by the dispatchers.
The biggest example of skewed information in PR (whether ads or official statements) is when they promote how much cheaper they are than the traditional alternatives. While it's often completely true, that's only the case because of their huge VC-funded warchest.
This is a major omission from many people's public policy opinion-forming: They're subsidizing rides and losing money in a way that local customer-funded competitors can't match, moving market share toward either a monopoly (as they'd prefer) or an oligopoly (including Lyft etc). Previously NYC taxi and car service companies were diverse small competitors.
Once they get enough of a collective stranglehold, or once VC funding gets sick of them waiting for self-driving cars to greatly reduce their cost of goods sold (drivers aren't cheap) in the rough and tumble real world, they'll raise prices and there will be either a captive audience or another rough societal readjustment period.
People might still think the speculative future pain is worth the tradeoff, but "cheaper" is a skewers truth without the context. The context lets them consider the full picture when forming their opinion.
But yeah, a frail elderly POC woman who needs a better way to go to the hospital has very different priorities than anyone thinking about long term economic and urban planning impacts, and I completely see why it's good for her. :) Glad her needs are better met now than they once were, even if through Uber.
I should note that most of my drivers for Uber/Lyft were not cost-driven but feature-driven. Cost is a factor, of course, and note that my mom almost always uses the pool option to save money -- something Yellow cabs dont/cannot offer.
Drivers:
- Dispatch services work going from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but not the other way. You'd have to know the local dispatch service, they would need to know your mobile phone number (they usually dont ask) to coordinate with you, etc. The only dispatch services that seem to work well in Manhattan are black car services, which is way out of the conversation here -- she needs a ride home, not a Lincoln Towncar :-)
- Dispatch services DO work going from Brooklyn to Manhattan give you a blanket "be ready in 5min" regardless of demand and you end up waiting and waiting -- sometimes at the worst times. I've known people to call 2 or 3 dispatch services, take the first car, and leave the other drivers hanging (unethical...but it happens.)
- Dispatch services are hard to get ahold of when you really need them, often in bad weather etc.
- Dispatch services do price in the dead-head ride back, so there is a legitimate cost issue there on both supply and demand side. Uber/Lyft mostly solve the dead-head ride back issue, so legitimately lower cost by better utilization.
A personal issue when i travel for business:
- Dispatch services mysteriously dont keep receipts or have broken credit card machines (not sure why? to hid tax revenue?) -- so I am left with a ride for work (e.g., to airport) with no receipt and thus i have to pay work expenses out of pocket and they wont be reimbursed without a receipt.
- Dispath services mysteriously "dont have change" so you're paying $80 for a $62 ride
- I'm arriving at Delta Terminal late night in LGA and all the yellow cabs are at the other terminals. You wait and wait. There isnt a good way to "hail" them. I understand the Arro app tries to solve this, but that came years too late.
Public versus private view, public versus private benefit. Ads put me--the voter--in the equation. A campaign donation removes me from it.
Uber spent four times as the taxi lobby spent on a single politician. I don't know what the taxi industry's total is. Given they shower tens of thousands of dollars on even state senators [1], I'd wager it's comparable to Uber's.
[1] https://nypost.com/2018/01/27/taxi-committee-head-got-thousa...
(Big apples to big apples, maybe, given the city in question?)
I can no longer edit my grandparent comment to account for your correction, so this will have to do.