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Comment by Applejinx | Hacker News Reader

Yes, because it's an explicit effort to remove market choices from the people forcing them to use the product on a monopoly basis: otherwise the behavior wouldn't be happening, and it's such a valuable outcome that it's worth billions.

The fact that it's failing doesn't change that purpose.

Is a mousetrap's business the giving of cheese?

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What choice did Uber remove from the market when they started?

What choice has Uber removed from the market so far?

What choice do you expect Uber to remove from the market even if they are maximally successful in their overall plan?

Supershuttle which offered shared vanpool rides to and from airports all across the US was shuttered partly because of competitions from Uber [1]. I personally find it a useful service given you can schedule it for early morning flights (6AM or earlier) without worrying about availability of drivers.

1. https://www.latimes.com/travel/story/2019-12-12/supershuttle...

While they may not have removed it entirely, they've severely damaged the existing taxi industry, which was slow to change and had tons of issues itself (like selling medallions that let you be a driver for hundreds of thousands of dollars and drivers no longer making enough to pay that back now that Uber is in town).

According to the article below, in 2013 a medallion in NYC reached a cost of $1.3 million, but has crashed as low as $240k since Uber and Lyft started operating. The drivers that bought it when they were expensive are probably really struggling right now.

Uber and Lyft have since made it clear that the medallion is an unnecessary expense, so in a way it's a good thing, but meanwhile the drivers that bought into it are screwed.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-much-is-a-nyc-taxi-medallio...

First two questions: so far, they haven't removed anything that anyone would feel sorry for. That is not relevant to the point: even Standard Oil or Bell were ordinary, non-predatory businesses for some time.

Last question is more relevant: there are vague suspicions of them planning to monopolize the market, but the bigger question is: whoever gave them $25 billion to piss away is expecting some solid returns on that investment, so they will need to find a way to extract that much, and more, from their users (on top of their current revenue stream). The concern is that it's hard to imagine a positive scenario of extracting that much money from a market that is getting pretty well established by now.

> What choice did Uber remove from the market when they started?

> What choice has Uber removed from the market so far?

> What choice do you expect Uber to remove from the market even if they are maximally successful in their overall plan?

I'm thinking of Meditations on Moloch from SSC (0). What Uber removed was 2 fold.

First, was that a gig worker could no longer be legal or not culpable (civil) regarding driving without appropriate licensure or insurance. The rates paid do not allow for the costs of a chauffers license, nor do they cover commercial insurance rates.

Secondly, Uber removed protections on riders with the first point, and by using the carrot of "we're cheaper than taxis". We saw this play out before, when there were no licenses for taxis. A whole lot of bad things happened, and the public demanded the licenses and checks to be instituted. Some places went way overboard ($1m medallions in NYC).

Uber and others are all the same - they wish to remove the checks and balances, cut a meager amount off the bill to customers, and extract money by running around the law until they can either change it or get shut down.

(0) https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

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