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Comment by maxsilver | Hacker News Reader

> Because we live in the dumbest timeline, because they claim to be a tech company and not a timeshare company, this means they are now worth a billion dollars.

Well, we let the taxi service pretend to be not-a-taxi, and get away with it. We let the hotel service pretend to be not-a-hotel, and get away with it.

Since no one is enforcing any reasonable rule of law, it's only a matter of time until 100% of all businesses follow suit. "We're not a hospital, we're a healthcare sharing service". "We're not a restaurant, we're a meal sharing experience". etc.

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Healthcare sharing is a real thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_sharing_ministry

Which have more exclusions than a Republican health insurance program.

And John Oliver went as far as doing an entire piece on how ridiculous they are, which kind of proves GP's point.

John Oliver is a good comedian, but I don't value his political opinions above those of a Kardashian.

I don't value his political opinions above those of a political scientist, a historian (if they're good btw), but his opinions on politics aren't in the same level as that of a Kardashian, c'mon. You may not agree with him or watch him, but you know it's not the same level.

His fact checking team is rock solid. Not sure I see a lot of political opinion on the show - unless exposing ideology and broken systems through facts and silly references counts.

John Oliver is a popularizer, explaining tough stuff to laypersons. There's a whole team of writers, researchers, fact checkers, lawyers, producers behind him.

If a team like that is wrong about something, it's not for lack of trying to be right.

I've never cared for the format. Just gimme the bullet points, save the snark.

But I've also understood that I'm not the audience. Leaning into civics and current events is a lot of work. And people are busy.

John Oliver, Michael Moore, John Steward, many others, are quite a bit more accessible for a wider audience. So they are a vital part of our public square.

TLDR: John Oliver is awesome.

Does Uber pretend to be not a taxi? At least in the UK, they are just a private taxi company with an app instead of a phone number, and their drivers are licensed taxi drivers.

Yeah, for years and years they were operating in regulated markets where they didn't have any medallions and didn't follow rules and regulations set out on taxis.

Yeah because in many "regulated" markets the market was fixed so that taxis can have limited supply and hence insane prices. In Croatia they changed the law after Uber came to deregulate taxis and it's way better now than it was before while other countries protected the insane taxi mafias

That the laws/regulations were (effectively? intentionally?) rigged to ensure high prices, doesn't at all invalidate the claim that Uber ignored laws/regulations. They are also accused of ignoring more general laws/regulations around worker pay/benefits/health that are not related to regulations specific to taxi services.

The laws were intentionally created to restrict supply of services. Restricted supply = higher prices.

Uber should not have been buying cars for their drivers... but if Uber is to be forced to have employee/employer relationships - then Uber's value of freedom to choose working hours goes out the window, as they now can mandate working hours... and surge capacity is literally annihilated.

But that also does not invalidate the claim that Uber ignored laws/regulations, which is what was questioned earlier in the thread.

I'm not (in these posts, I may elsewhere) passing judgement on why they did it and if it were right, only stating that it is what they did.

The same is mostly true in the US.

The US taxi system in most cities was an abusive cartel holding on to a market solely through a government protection racket, and that's the nice description of it. Uber and Lyft destroyed the cartels, delivering a far superior service.

This narrative is funny for a couple of reasons. The first being that Taxi companies were never super-profitable nor, generally, did they span multiple metropolitan centres. Uber/Lyft radically centralized Taxi service replacing a supposed "cartel" with a much better capitalized and politically powerful duopoly.

As for the superior service, I'm not sure that will last once the VC funding runs out and these companies have to actually turn a profit. Uber/Lyft is MoviePass writ large.

Taxis and food delivery are rather low margin businesses. I really wonder how much profit they can reasonably extract even if the markets are big.

Are we forgetting that taxis often refused to serve minorities and minority neighborhoods?

Yeah, that worked out great. The Taxis are all out of business and Uber’s magical robot taxis didn’t appear.

So now I pay 3x more to have an experience often shittier than cabs.

Well in Croatia the taxis aren't out of business. They just lowered prices, introduced an app for requesting rides and introduced rating of employees. They also service smaller cities where the volume is too low for Uber to operate so they can keep the higher prices due to low volume.

Uber is never shittier than a cab.

My Uber ride in the cigarette-stained car driven by a woman watching Netflix begs to disagree.

Got out after 2 blocks (a few seconds after she hit “unpause”)

Depends on the city. I still hold high regard for London's cabbies, NY's ones not so much.

"The law was bad, so we did crimes until they changed it."

What is civil disobedience.

When you phrase it like that, it actually sounds like a noble protest. Perhaps a tad generous for Uber.

> ... didn't follow rules and regulations set out on taxis.

And were hailed as "disruptors."

Because they are...

Have you ever had to haggle about the cost of your trip with a taxi driver?

Have you ever ordered a taxi and one never showed up?

Have you ever missed your flight, because a taxi - that was scheduled to pick you up at 5AM just didn't arrive?

I used to do consulting work all over Europe and literally spent 5 years of my life flying every single week. Pre-Uber taxis were horrible! In fact, they still are!

Also having the taxi driver intentionally taking indirect routes to run up the meter. Crazy how much better rideshares serve there customers just by setting the rate before you get in the car

Not to mention taxis refusing to serve minority neighborhoods. If you're actively preventing a significant proportion of your potential customers from using your service, you shouldn't be surprised if a competitor is able to swoop in and "disrupt" your business. (that's not to say Uber doesn't have their own problems with rideshare redlining, but they're certainly better than traditional taxi companies)

I got on a taxi at a taxi stop (in my country there are designated spots where only the registered cabs for each specific spot can park) and the driver was speeding, hitting all the bumps on the road, zig-zagging, etc. My wife and our baby was in the car with me. I complained, didn't work, then I went back to the stop a couple of days later and complained to the other drivers of said spot. They all said they constantly received complaints for that guy, but since he was "one of the oldest drivers here, can't do nothing about it".

These stories is literally the reason why I will fight for Uber/Lyft at this time.

In many countries the market is regulated, but the regulations are pretty slim (requiring commercial insurance and the driver to be completely sober).

Yes, in many (most?) cities in the US, you need a special license to spontaneously pick up passengers (e.g. when you wave a taxi over to come pick you up). However, town-car services, where you pre-arrange to be taken somewhere ahead of time operate under looser rules. Uber's loophole was making an app so you technically prearranged to be picked up a few minutes before you were picked up.

Can't speak for the US, but in a UK city it wasn't exactly difficult to get the equivalent by ringing up at short notice (or indeed get one straight away by turning up at their city centre office, or spotting one illegally touting for business on the streets at pub closing time). Often they were cheap too. Even a phoneline which became an app attempting to aggregate the firms existed (I knew the guy who ran it... which is probably why I knew it existed!). All Uber brought to the party was VC money, the social expectation to award every driver 5 out of 5 and more aggressive surge pricing

Continue the erosion of laws and regulations in the name of tech. I wonder what the world will look like in twenty years.

It exists, it's called Zoomcare

Uber provides a different service than a taxi.

Airbnb provides a different service than a hotel.

Both of these narrowly scoped, heavily regulated antiquated services were failing to meet the needs of most, and the world is better that there are additional options.

Taxis and hotels are still there and still sucking, if you prefer those.

What is wrong with hotels (and B&Bs, etc.)? I stayed in them maybe 100 nights per year pre-pandemic and they're mostly fine.

There was a time when airbnb was mostly unique, quirky, and in places like NYC, vastly below market rate. Now, the only benefit that I see is the "rental cottage" style for vacations where you're willing to pay a premium for staying in a detached home with a reasonably equipped kitchen.

I never pulled the trigger but last fall I was thinking of going up to New Hampshire for a week but was only going to do so if I could avoid dealing with restaurants so I looked at AirBnBs.

It's not that I always stay in a chain hotel either. Outside of metros, I'll definitely give B&Bs and Inns a look.

I've always found them great for weddings/reunions with groups of 4-6 renting a small house, which usually ends up being much better value for the price than hotel rooms and suites, and much more convenient than traditional house rentals.

They are very lucrative, so landlords take apartments off the market to turn them into AirBnBs. This raises rent prices in touristic areas.

Beyond that, it means you might have loud neighbours you can't control or a constant traffic of visitors in your building. They are not regulated like hotels, nor taxed like them.

Hotels are commercial property, in commercial districts.

Staying in residential property, in residential districts is way preferable to me for my style of travel (3-6 weeks in a city at a time).

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