Uber has defeated Bill de Blasio’s plan to rein them in
vox.com
vox.com
Kindly control yourselves, whatever your views. This is a place for thoughtful discussion, not venting.
A couple years ago, the city allowed independent car services to paint their cars green and take street hails. They previously did this, of course, but it wasn't legal. And of course, not every "black car" became a green cab, so this still happens. It's the standard way to get around the outer boroughs of New York.
I watched a very common event unfold the other day in Brooklyn Heights. A woman hailed a green cab. It pulled over and the driver opened the window, asking "where to?" The woman mentioned an address in Manhattan. The driver said, "sorry, green cabs can't go to Manhattan" and drove away.
That is 100% false. Like yellow cabs, green cabs have to take you anywhere in the five boros, but they're reluctant to take you to Manhattan because they aren't allowed to pick up fares there. They have to drive back to Brooklyn empty and not make any money, so they lie to customers to avoid that. The end result is that you still can't get a taxi in most of New York City, at least one that will pick you up near where you live and take you exactly where you want to go.
The "ridesharing services" rectify this problem; I've never had an Uber driver refuse to take me anywhere. If the licensed taxis want to be free from competition, they need to follow their own rules.
Anyway, this Forbes article about green cabs tells the exact same story: http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngiuffo/2013/09/30/nycs-new-g...
/just moved to NYC
This is the only way you can get to the airport during the "shift change" that's right around PM rush hour. Nobody will take you there if you tell them you want to go there.
That said the new Q70 bus from Jackson Heights (7/E/F/M/R) is quite efficient, and I don't bother with cabs anymore. Not worth paying someone $40 to bitch and moan about going to the airport when the MTA can get you there, from Brooklyn, in less than an hour for $2.50.
Also ten minutes from Penn Station on the LIRR, whose Woodside station is next to the subway station (a bit more expensive than the subway, though).
I personally always take the LIRR to Jamaica when going to JFK. It's a bit nicer than taking the E (from Manhattan), and a bit faster than taking the A (from Brooklyn, get the LIRR at Atlantic Terminal) because the Jamaica AirTrain seems to run more frequently than the Howard Beach AirTrain. The LIRR also runs on an actual schedule, so you will end up at the airport when you expect, which always makes things less stressful.
If, and the happens a lot late at night, the cab does not have the on duty light on you can negotiate.
I've gotten steep discounts or even free rides for agreeing to do stuff like pick up the drivers wife off the clock on the way home.
Like everything in New York, everything is negotiable.
Point is, cabs are completely shady, and nearly all have horrible service.
Since I've been here in NY, I've been using Uber regularly and every single experience has been nothing short of great. 99% have been spotless vehicles that smell good, with A/C in summer, and drivers with an awesome attitude. I've had a few rides where the driver took a non-optimal route and Uber refunded credits each time.
It's unbelievable to me that people dislike Uber and think they're just some "scam" backed by venture capital.
Having a single state-sanctioned business (and therefore backed by the threat of violence) is somehow less monopolistic than having a free market where the best service provider is rewarded by becoming the most popular and profitable one?
There's one Uber and maybe Lyft if you're lucky. In the grey-area taxi market, they might fit the definition of a monopoly. I wouldn't argue that though because I know nothing about that market and reading that sentence back makes me laugh.
Microsoft operated in a relatively free market and was the arguably the best software provider as they were the most popular and profitable one for quite some time. They were also deemed a monopoly.
On the other hand, sometimes I've been pleasantly surprised at how knowledgeable some cabbies are. I've gotten in a cab at LGA, told them my home address in Brooklyn, and they went there with no directions. I never tip less than 20%, but this efficiency earns a much larger than usual tip.
There is a flip side to that, as well. Uber has engaged in questionable tactics, and their drivers are from the same pool as Taxi drivers.
I've had uber drivers accept the fare, then immediately cancel when they figured surge pricing will kick in. I've also had drivers not pick me up from my location, one who would not turn down their christian music when asked 3x.
Uber's support staff is good, and any hint of poor performance results in a 1-star review.
When I first used Uber, the drivers were great. Now with more uber drivers on the road, there is more variance in the service you get.
This is roughly how the market "responded" (0) to Uber in Moscow - Yandex ("Russian Google") rolled out its Yandex Taxi service/app which provided Uber-like experience to user and integrated with taxi companies at the backend. Same experience same driver ratings etc - but on a legal platform. The prices are compatible with Uber too.
(0) I put "responded" in quotes here because Uber launched in Moscow a few years after Yandex Taxi.
In Harlem, where I live, cabs will actively honk for any potential fare, especially to the airport. You'll have multiple cabs trying to get you if you have a suitcase. From my conversations with drivers, they prefer airport fares.
This doesn't happen with Uber's model.
Also, I'm paying for a ride somewhere. The top priority for me is not sitting in hot, smelly, filth. I'll stick with Uber.
2. Today Uber has clean, nice smelling cars because it is new. Let's talk after Uber matures a bit like the cabs. We'll be back to where we started, only under the influence of an international monopoly. That does not bode well for the consumer.
3. Uber cannot really solve the imbalance of demand between Manhattan and the peripheries. Uber forces drivers to have a certain acceptance rate threshold. NYC forces drivers not do discriminate based on destination. In either case, drivers will try to game the system to avoid the less profitable journeys.
4. Look to places like Russia and India for the future of Uber. Drivers have 4+ cell phones, subscribing to different services in parallel with holding a cab license.
One more thing, if you pick up a yellow cab, or a "car service", when they are off the clock, you don't have to tip.
The more savvy you have to be to avoid getting scammed, the more corrupt the system is.
That's pretty much what corruption is.
Would you say the same of third world traffic enforcement because the system is trying to stop the practice of shaking down motorists?
Write down their licence plate if this ever happens and report. Otherwise, as has been said: get in first then address always.
The person making the complaint is required to show up for a hearing, in person, at a date and time determined by the TLC, to present her complaint to a panel of "judges." The driver is also required to show up and to present their side of the story. My understanding is that they almost always find in favor of the complainee, even when there's no evidence and it's the driver's word vs. the complainee's. After the third judgment the driver loses their license.
So on one hand making a complaint is far more difficult than poorly rating a driver on a phone, a process that takes almost no effort. But on the flip side the complaints that were processed were taken very seriously and had very real repercussions.
Does anyone else see the absurdity in that? Compare to: "In 2014, the city allowed people to wear green socks"
If you want to transport people for a fee, what rational, moral justification is there for anyone to intervene in that? -To decide what colour your car should be, or where you can pick up customers?
So I'm not sure what you think is currently handled well.
(Mileage to be measured at vehicle inspection time and incorporated in registration fees.)
It just would require a heavy political and bureaucratic lift.
Cabbies themselves have been the biggest reason for all the regulation from the city. Picking up tourists and aimlessly driving around for half an hour to run up the meter, refusing to take people where they want to go and not picking up black people are just some of the shenanigans they pull on a regular basis.
Well, if you need a X-hundred-thousand-dollar taxi "medallion" to be allowed to transport people for a fee, that cuts down on your competition quite nicely, and then you're not really motivated to provide a good service.
Uber has shown that there are plenty of people who wouldn't mind transporting people for a fee, but they haven't been able (or motivated to) get permission to do so, which means the licensing system has been highly effective in keeping competition low and prices high, just the way the state-maintained monopoly/cartel wants it.
Can an Uber driver pull nasty shit on people and keep getting gigs? No, but taxi drivers can, and there's a reason for that. Well there you go.
When it is communal land, communal rules are made (sadly they far too often benefit a well connected minority, but the concept itself isn't bad).
Imagine you could only wear blue socks on land you own, but anywhere else you'd need to pay $250k for permission to wear them. Would that be alright?
> When it is communal land, communal rules are made (sadly they far too often benefit a well connected minority, but the concept itself isn't bad).
You're kind of seeing a problem, but not really wanting to.
But for starters, the word "communal" doesn't work when you have a small group of "community leaders" imposing their will on ~330 million "community members" they've never met.
The city now also promotes its own hailing app called Way2Ride, which has Uber-like features (pay by mobile and request hail to location). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.verifone.w...
This sort of arbitrary anti-competitiveness is exactly why Uber has a niche to fill in the first place.
Isn't that for the market to decide? :)
This is because all hails on Uber are tracked, and enough refusals would be noticed, and the driver would be fired.
It's shitty that green (or yellow) cabs do this; there should be a way to hold them accountable, but for now there is a stop-gap solution: lie.
Get in before telling them your destination. If they don't let you, lie and say you're going to somewhere in Brooklyn, then change your mind. As soon as you hear them begin to complain, snap a photo of their cab number, and start dialing 311.
Let's not forget his original plan to have the city pre-approve upgrades to ride-hailing apps:
> The mayor’s plan to require Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc. and other ride-hailing services to get city approval for upgrades to the user interface on smartphone apps -- and to pony up $1,000 each time they do -- has rankled a broad swath of companies, with 27 signing a letter protesting his plan.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-28/tech-c...
Taxi services have practically begged for Uber etc to destroy them.
Are taxis in Paris not supposed to be able to accept credit cards?
In New York, if a cab's card reader is broken (hey, it happens) they're supposed to inform you of this before beginning the ride. If they don't, you get a free ride.
New Yorkers have shit to do and places to go. I'm fine with paying for a congestion charge. But it needs to be fairly applied across traffic. Engaging regulators and - in a balanced and sensible way - poking them in their flabby spots, when warranted, is a well-tread feature of democracy. If you care about something, reach out to your local representatives.
Disclaimer: I don't work, nor ever have worked, for Uber. Neither do I hold a position in their stock, et cetera. I am a frequent rider. I've had many severely upsetting experiences with yellow cabs.
Each transport market is effectively isolated (you don’t hail a driver from SF to get around NYC). This means any new entrant can achieve critical mass in a market at a relatively low cost (especially if they start with small towns/cities). If Uber do manage to get to the point where they can start extracting monopoly profits they have no means of defending these markets other than competing on unit price. Consumers are going to win big time out of Uber, but I can’t see how their investors will (at least their long term investors). Someone far smarter than me must have answered this?
That's very unlikely to happen and I don't think anyone here at Uber sees the world as a zero-sum game as you portray it. Even in SF, the most mature Uber market, there are still plenty of cabs operating. Cabs offer a different service (street hails, fixed pricing etc) - which is why you can even hail a cab from the Uber app if you want.
Differentiation is key, and that's how Uber does and will compete with both taxis and direct TNC competitors.
Edit. Thanks for the updates to your post Ben. Given Uber’s cost of capital and current valuation how do you see Uber earning enough of a return with a differentiation business model? Or is the current business model irrelevant to Uber’s future and you foresee a massive pivot?
An alternative hypothesis might be that nobody can think of a way to make money by investing in such a market and so they don’t.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
I was referring to a business model where Uber cut prices in a small market when a new competitor enters to kill them before they can get going. This model works really well once you are an established business (the Standard Oil model) hence why it is illegal.
Each market isn't isolated.
I think the core difference of our perspectives is that I don't think we have a commoditized business, which you clearly think we do.
I don’t think Uber is in a commodity market right now (there is far too much innovation going on), I just don’t know how you prevent it becoming one in the future. Your current valuation suggests that a lot of smart money disagrees with me :)
Would we?
I wonder if any business has ever used this model successfully before?
Of course, there's a difference between continual legal battles and just needing a lawyer.
How? Is this specific to SF? I've been there a couple times and never saw this option.
Uber will be interesting since the initial capital costs aren't that high (compared to a multibillion dollar fab plant or hundreds of 40,000sqft shops) so it could be a blood bath, alternatively one way of differentiating is on brand and Uber has (despite some negative press) got brand recognition.
There maybe a first mover advantage in play here as well, lots of sites clone successful sites (for example) but rarely make a tiny fraction of what the original one did.
Something else occurs, Uber took a lot of VC funding, new players entering the market who didn't do that could offer a better deal on both sides of the market and not have the millstone around their necks either, it would be amusing if a smaller nimbler non-VC company ate their lunch.
Any competitor with lower costs - say a business that used only one fuel-efficient car type that offered lower unit costs should be able to outcompete Uber. The contractor model where each contractor purchases and services the needed physical equipment (i.e. cars) is far from the most efficient way to run a capital intensive business.
A complete sidebar discussion, but although there are many, many laptop manufacturers, one company is estimated to make only 10% of the revenues but more than 35% of the profits, leaving the manufacturers of the other 90% of the laptops to divide 65% of the profits.
So... It is possible that in some markets, a company can drive operational efficiencies to be grossly profitable even if it ends up with a minority market share.
They use their revenues and funding to subsidize lower prices in key cities than their competition can afford. They already do this in a few cities.
Most long running monopolies in free(-ish) markets seem to be related to owning (the right kind of) land.
So by my rough estimations they're making $300-$500m in yearly profit (hardly loss-leadership), and they still haven't driven Lyft or conventional cabs out of service. This is also without taking geographical expansion into consideration. Uber is sitting on a goldmine of a market that it has barely begun to tap.
So what if Uber does manage to establish itself as a monopoly? Then we look to the price elasticity of demand for Uber's service, which measures change in demand over change in price, aka how bad people actually need the service. Cabs are essential to a large group of people (businessmen, tourists, blind, etc.) and in high demand for almost anyone else that lives in a large city such as NY or SF, where it is uncommon to own a car and often inconvenient to take the metro. Therefore they will have a large bandwidth in which to raise their prices in large cities before users start to disengage with the service, opting instead to walk or take the metro. Smaller towns, where people don't use cabs as much, do not present a large market for Uber, but it costs them next to nothing to get users and drivers to download the app, therefore there are no prohibitive costs of investment stopping them from expanding operations other than a natural lack of demand.
If they jack prices up too high for an extended period of time in the cities, another company will enter the market and pick up the churned customers, much as Uber did in the broken, monopolistic taxi market.
So ultimately they will be able to make a very healthy profit, and will not need to worry too much - unless the government decides to intervene with some serious anti-trust legislation, but it probably won't as long as Uber is paying a cut to the cities that it operates out of.
You are right that there are low barriers to entry in this market - it's why most drivers do both Uber and Lyft. The underlying technology is the same, and the capital (drivers) is not proprietary and can be shared between different companies. However, if Uber were to stipulate that drivers sign an employment contract, and then enforce that they were not working for the competition, this would raise the barriers to entry for competitors. Likewise, there isn't much differentiation in the taxi market. It's nice if a driver comes with water and a nice-smelling car, but ultimately it's not a deal breaker.
Ultimately, the network effect is key. Get the most users on your service, get the most drivers driving for you, beat the competition, then erect barriers to entry around your castle. Just don't piss the peasants off too much, or they might try and revolt :)
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/12/04/leaked-uber-numbers-which-w...
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/chrismyers/2015/05/13/decoding-u...
Assuming all this is correct (leaks sometimes are not) this does not solve the competition problem. The more money they make in a market the more attractive it comes for someone else to enter that market.
>You are right that there are low barriers to entry in this market - it's why most drivers do both Uber and Lyft. The underlying technology is the same, and the capital (drivers) is not proprietary and can be shared between different companies. However, if Uber were to stipulate that drivers sign an employment contract, and then enforce that they were not working for the competition, this would raise the barriers to entry for competitors. Likewise, there isn't much differentiation in the taxi market. It's nice if a driver comes with water and a nice-smelling car, but ultimately it's not a deal breaker.
The problem is the parts of their business that are unique have low barriers to entry, while the other parts are inherently inefficient (having each driver pay all the capital and running costs is more expensive than centralising). Sure the current taxi industry was ripe for innovation, but once that genie is out of the bottle there is nothing stopping someone else out ubering Uber. How does Uber stop this happening?
Additionally, Uber doesn't have to jack up prices (with "monopoly pricing") to earn a healthy profit. In its mature markets, it's already quite profitable.
Given that, where do you think there is an opening? If it's so easy to compete with Uber on a local level, why isn't Lyft beating it in any single market (despite $1b raised)?
The market is going through a lot of innovation right now and what the end result will be is not known. I just can’t see how even if Uber wins that they have a way of preventing competition eroding their margins. All the regulation in the taxi industry was driven by the players wanting to control the cut-throat competition that existed before regulation. Competition is great for consumers, but not so good for the owners of taxis.
The difference is that traditional taxis had no monopoly power. They were (and are) undifferentiated commodities—I don't even have any idea who owns a cab I'm in.
Uber's network is a substantial moat which protects it from undifferentiated price competition.
Again, how do you propose that a competitor would build a viably competitive network in an Uber city?
I would pick mid-size markets and optimise for unit costs. I would settle on a single fuel efficient car model (or two) and then work on making my capital and servicing costs as low as possible. I would use trained and experienced employees and implement tracking technology to ensure that the drivers are polite, prompt, efficiently located, and don’t drive the vehicles like taxi drivers do (helping keep wear costs down). I would then bombard the local media market to achieve name recognition and app take up and then run a price war to gain market domination. Since I had optimised for unit cost I should be able to defend this domination against new entrants as long as I kept my pricing at just above my costs. I would make little profit, but my market would be defendable. Rinse and repeat in each new markets.
I don’t think such a business is worth the effort, but all it take is one person who does.
Namely, I see 3 primary flaws:
1. A marginally lower price is not by itself enough to achieve market penetration. If it takes 5-10 minutes longer to get a ride on your platform (due to fewer drivers), I'm not going to use it—even if you are 20% cheaper (wiping out Uber's entire margin).
2. You're ignoring the pooling savings which come from being able to easily coordinate shared rides due to a huge installed rider base.
3. Uber can spend you into the ground. They have a massive war chest and continued huge revenue from their mature markets—enough to undercut you until you run out of oxygen.
The biggest flaw of these 3 is that I just don't think price alone is sufficient to overcome network effects. If it were, the $100+ vouchers which I see also-ran competitors giving out would have made a dent in Uber's market share.
Competing against Uber in even a single city would require hundreds of millions in capital to basically buy your entire network overnight, and once you succeed in that market you'll enjoy less profitability than Uber does today.
There's a reason that crappy marketplaces like Ebay and Craigslist are incredibly sticky—networks are overwhelming.
A monopolist doesn't have to make its moat unbreachable, it just needs to be insufficiently profitable to overcome.
The only possible risk I see to Uber is from corrupt politicians.
I think you have assumed that I would not have as many drivers on the road as Uber. I would have as many or more - hence the need to go after mid-size markets to begin with. The time for the driver to turn up with my service would be the same or better than Uber.
2. You're ignoring the pooling savings which come from being able to easily coordinate shared rides due to a huge installed rider base.
I am not ignoring it. If there is demand for this service and I have as many cars on the road as Uber then I can offer the same pool service. I will still have the same unit cost advantage.
3. Uber can spend you into the ground. They have a massive war chest and continued huge revenue from their mature markets—enough to undercut you until you run out of oxygen. The biggest flaw of these 3 is that I just don't think price alone is sufficient to overcome network effects. If it were, the $100+ vouchers which I see also-ran competitors giving out would have made a dent in Uber's market share.
If you limit the size of the markets you go after then there is a limit to what even Uber can spend trying to kill you. You just need to be able sustain any loss over the length of time that you think Uber can fight you for. The key to success here is have enough resources to survive the level of damage anyone can throw at you. Personally I would hold off until Uber just goes public when they can’t afford to waste as much money anymore.
More fundamentally the reason none of Uber’s competitors like Lyft (or even Uber itself) has pursued this model is that you can’t sustain it at the capital cost that VCs demand. It is a model which will only be pursued by businesses with a low cost of capital in much the same way the container shipping industry is run. The problem for Uber long term is once a business enters with this model they will be hard to fight.
I have to say these discussions are lots of fun :)
By having a large enough number of clean, reliable and uniform cars a competitor would provide a more consistent and predictable ride than Uber, which relies on its drivers subsidizing the cost of a variety of different vehicles.
Sure, you would be getting a McTaxi instead of an a la carte experience, but at least you would know what you order is what you get.
The reason McDonalds is successful is not because they produce great food, but because they meet a minimum standard in consistent way. The way Uber currently works make this hard to deliver.
California wasn't able to get that result with its $7m fine.
Unfortunately, this world cannot have win-wins, so I've got to find someone to hate in this situation!
Why not?
The city will conduct a four-month study on the effect of Uber and other for-hire vehicle operators on the city’s traffic and environment.
While the study is being conducted, de Blasio won't seek to cap the number of new vehicles Uber or other car services can put on the road. But de Blasio administration officials say a cap is still a possibility in the future.
Reducing the surface area of roads does not magically remove cars from the roads, it just creates congestion and traffic.
If anything, Uber's model would seem to reduce traffic since their cars are more deliberate vs. taxis' aimlessly wandering.
NYC should try to figure out how to partner with Uber. Taxi's are already expensive enough to be something of a luxury (though filthy), Uber is a far better experience.
Most traffic theory maintains that this actually does magically reduce traffic. People who would have driven now decide that there's too much traffic and find another way. Similarly, expanding highways doesn't reduce congestion, the number of cars just increases to the previous levels of congestion.
The main issue seems to be that Uber isn't replacing taxis but augmenting them: before there were about 2000 taxis in the core of Manhattan during peak hours, and there are now 2000 taxis and about 1900 Ubers. The trips per taxi seem to be slightly reduced, but overall there's still an increase in the total number of taxi-like vehicles circulating, and the total number of trips made by automobile vs. other modalities (subway, walking, etc.). Thereby making it easier to get a taxi, but making traffic congestion worse.
It's in a neighborhood that has no cabs and driving there not pleasant or convenient. Last night the chef told me if it wasn't for Uber, they probably wouldn't have survived
Vonage's auto-translate results for the curious: "Hi it's Molly with Huber and we need your help. We ended the days when you couldn't get a ride home because cab didn't wanna leave Manhattan now married to blog Theo is trying to bring the bad old days back because his millionaire taxi donors are telling him to why on earth would your council member. Ever consider voting for something like that. They should stand up for you. Not orders from the mayor your council member is sponsoring this bill and we need your voice. Please call your council number and tell them to take their name off of mayor-to-bother-as(?) an title bird(?) because you and all New Yorkers deserve a reliable transportation. Paid for by Huber 212-257-1745." "
Uber continues to amaze me with their incredibly skillful political maneuvering. They seem to have roadblocks thrown in their way at every turn and they manage to just keep trucking. Heads down, eyes on the prize; it's really quite impressive to watch. I have to believe it starts at the top with a tunnel vision approach to revenue growth. It's like that old Al Davis quote "Just win baby!".
Whether you agree with what they're doing or not, it is incredible to watch their execution.
Oh, but you got to the club a little faster. Baller, bro.
I am generally inclined to think that people should be free to make their own decisions about their lives. Whatever you may think about the risk/benefit tradeoff, it seems clear to me that drivers in Seattle who have the choice choose to drive for Uber, Lyft, or a private for-hire service rather than put up with the traditional cab dispatcher. I can make guesses at why that might be, overall, but I am certainly not going to tell them that they are making the wrong choice.
Here's an article from way before Uber came around: "Driving a Taxi, Difficult in Best of Times, Gets Tougher" - http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-di...
In what way is this an ethical concern? Many other businesses work with contractors. Considering that drivers compete with each other, work hours of their choice, and supply their own equipment, what exactly makes them employees?
Uber isn't wrong to push the letter of the law, but no one should be surprised that it will take a little bit of time for the law to adapt to this. Uber's vicious and cavalier attitude towards law in general is really disgraceful.
This seems like a classic "ends justify the means" type of scenario, and I'm generally skeptical of these.
1) you don't know who is coming to pick you up 2) the ability to contact your former driver in the event of a bad experience is almost nil 3) you have to trust the taximeter 4) taxis have to jockey for a visual hail 5) there is no guarantee that a dispatched taxi will actually arrive.
while there are concerns (e.g. safety, insurance) that do warrant a strong rational basis for regulation that are in common between taxis and lyft/uber, etc - a lot of the regulations that are in place do not carry over and those shouldn't apply to the lyft/uber.
To its credit, the state of california seems to be making an (if slow) rapprochement between the existing regulation set and a reasonable set... Don't know about other places.
Things were seriously rough in NYC (and elsewhere) before the government stepped in. I expect it to take some time to adapt to a things like Uber/Lyft, and Uber's attitude towards that reality is disappointing.
Then again, it is basically the word of Silicon Valley gods to be as blatantly disrespectful of reality as possible.
If a law is wrong and stupid why is it disgraceful for someone to fight to remove it (sometimes that means breaking it)?
Don't mistake a scorched-earth profit march for some type of civil disobedience.
One can decry Uber's asshole spirit and questionable business practices while applauding the political change their unpleasant activity is accomplishing.
Cities, counties, whatever municipal entities providing autonomous vehicles at subsidized rates, or maybe even "free". These are the entities paying for the infrastructure, after all, and once voters don't own vehicles, the argument will start to be made that governments should operate what what runs on the infrastructure.
But that's decades away, and there's money to be made now, in the current system. And Uber/Lyft/Google whoever else is in the business may provide the tech to the governments.
Anyway, like I said, it's just a hunch at this point, but it won't surprise me if things slowly move that way.
A world where transit is dominated by things like Uber is a world where those who can't (or don't want to) afford $600 phones + $50/month service charges can't navigate a city.
And yes it's great to see someone siphon billions of dollars away from government/taxpayers and into the hands of a select few. It's also great to see them do this by ignoring any and all laws they see fit to. What a shining example of corporate responsibility and ethics.
https://www.quora.com/Why-has-Airbnb-not-been-sued-or-regula...
A company should never act unethically. That does not make all laws worthy of respect. Just have a very detailed understanding of the consequences.
"A bro stands athwart history, yelling cant stop wont stop."
Disrupting that is likely to take political capital, and application of that political capital at an earlier stage of the process than what AirBnB and Uber have done in their fields, or its going to involve a lot of risk for participants and investors, and not just the kind of limited-downside financial risks that investing in a corporation, startup or otherwise, usually involves.
AFAIK, this is not a technical problem; such solutions have existed for quite a while. Drug control laws, laws governing scope of practice of various classes of health care providers, and insurance rules all require that, even if your diagnosis and recommended treatment come out of such a system, its done under the authority of a provider with a particular kind of license with a particular degree of contact.
A possible alternative might be a startup willing to offer such services to third-world countries that have really bad medical systems (which in turn would mean not enough political power to prevent it). Unfortunately, I don't know if there are enough money in such a venture - definitely nowhere near the current "get $1B quickly" trend.
There seems to be a lot "uber workers this" and "lyft workers that" without much substance.
(That is, for the precisely one ride I've gotten.. Something in the backend appears broken and nobody can request rides even though I'm online, and support hasn't been helpful on this >_<)
Can answer any questions you have, but I doubt there's going to be a lot to answer. Signing up as a driver and doing what you gotta do is a pretty straightforward process.
Why companies like YellowCab do not offer something similar to Uber? They developed the app but the app is jut front end to dispatcher: so there is no guarantee that cab will actually come (I tried it).
For example, ability to pre-pay taxi via iPhone so that there is guarantee that cab will actually pick me up. Or maybe hailing taxi via iPhone? Or something like Lyft Line?
Is management of cab companies to blame? Or is it taxi drivers?
I used them to get to and from the airport for a trip this week, and it was pretty interesting to compare with what I've been reading.
First, of course, the experience as a user was great. This is no surprise, but it sure does cement my desire to use them over any other service. I wanted to avoid taxis at all costs. I was ready to drive to the airport twice each way to handle all 8 people who were going, and pay for parking, rather than deal with that. I've done it before and wow, it just sucks. You call and get a surly dispatcher, you have no idea where your car is until it arrives, it might just not show up, credit cards are a joke, you have to figure out what to tip, etc. Uber was great. Hail in the app, see within seconds exactly where your car is and who's driving it, track them all the way, get in, ride, then get out on the other end and go, without even needing to explicitly pay. It just works! Even getting two different cars at 5AM in the suburbs was no problem. No cars were available at first, but within a few minutes they appeared.
I'll note that it's not just taxis who are problematic. I also checked into Super Shuttle, because heck, there's so many of us that we should be able to get a whole van at a good price. Checking on their web site, I thought that's how it would be. They wanted $28 plus $10/person, which worked out to quite a bit cheaper than four Uber rides (two each way). And we'd all go together, cool! Of course, it turns out that this is the price for each way, so the actual price would be double. They are pretty careful not to make this clear until very late in their reservation process. To be fair, all the info is there if you pay very close attention, but they make it extremely easy to assume that the quoted price is the whole thing. Compare with Uber, which is happy to give me a pretty precise quote, and matched it (near the low end!) all four times.
OK, we know all this. It's a great service (unless you get a bad driver who attacks you or something) but it's built on the backs of the poor oppressed drivers. Except both drivers I talked to were ecstatic about Uber and loved doing what they do. One was relatively new on the job, having been an assistant manager at a pizza place until a few months ago. He started out doing Uber part time, then graduated to full time once it became apparent that it was the better choice. The other one has been doing it for about two years. He bought a brand new Toyota just to drive for UberX, and he's put over 60,000 miles on it since then. He loves the flexibility (apparently he's somewhat "on call" to help family members out doing various things, and when he needs to help them he just signs out of Uber, goes off and does whatever tasks this involves, and signs back in) and the money is pretty good. He usually hangs around downtown DC on weekends and makes good money accumulating lots of short trips, but hangs out doing occasional airport runs on other days to earn a bit more.
So they're good with customers, they seem to be great with drivers, and all I have left is a vague sense of unease at how they approach regulations, by basically barging in and ignoring them. Except they're totally on the up-and-up in Virginia now, having reached an accommodation with the relevant authorities to be completely above-board.
After all the stuff I've read about them over the years, I felt a little guilty using Uber for this trip, but practicality won out. The guilty feeling didn't last.
Edit: I forgot to mention, the second guy, with the new Toyota, previously drove a cab. It was awful, and says he tries to convince his cabbie friends to switch to Uber at every opportunity. They charged him $150/day to drive for them no matter what. No fares? Fuck you, pay me. He's extremely happy that Uber came along to give him a much better way to make money.
Not that I particularly want to defend taxi companies, but they also own and maintain the cars. Purchasing a newish vehicle and maintaining it isn't free - while not being charged daily, it's still a sizeable invoice you have to pay, no matter what. $150/day does seem extortionate, though.
I'm all for "disrupting" the taxi industry, but please don't disrupt traffic because you're too lazy and/or clueless. Is there a way to report asshole Uber drivers?
In Seattle, the behavior of uber drivers has started to mirror Taxi cab drivers: surly attitudes and aggressive.
> What does it have to do with Uber?
If these are Uber drivers picking up/dropping off passengers, then it's Uber's problem, isn't it? Setting aside the contractor/employee dispute, these drivers are engaged in activity for which they'll get money from Uber, so it definitely is Uber's problem.
> A lot of drivers are doing that
Not in SF. I've lived here 10 years, and never saw this level of ineptitude. These days whenever I see a driver being an asshole, I immediately check to see if it's an uber driver; and 9/10 it is. I sometimes work in a cafe which is on a corner; and I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Uber drivers doing a U-turn at the stop sign, confusing other traffic.
> don't even get me started on taxi drivers in New York City
Irrelevant, since we're talking about SF.
There is nothing wrong with doing a U-turn at the stop sign, it's absolutely legal [1]
1. http://www.pe.com/articles/insurance-629158-traffic-vehicle....
Many drivers work for a few months, realize that after costs they're making minimum wage, if that, and then quit. Naturally, Uber needs constant access to fresh blood in order to keep the scheme going.
Either the pedestrian is ruined for life, or society has to pick up the bill.
That's one of the clearest examples of externality you will ever see.
Our free choice evangelists try to frame the whole issue as "one Uber driver, one satified customer who only exercised a choice, and no one else exist in the world".
It's dishonest, but that's Internet discussions.
When there are no pax, many insurance providers DO cover it under personal insurance. Some (like geico) don't, but I would wager that the majority of Uber are insured every second of the day.
Even if the healthcare system eats the cost (as it would in my country), it's not supposed to. That's akin to entering a health insurance contract and then demanding the insurer pays for the theft of your iPhone.
Road traffic is insured by car insurers. The Uber driver doesn't have any, the car insurer therefore doesn't pay, so someone else pays. It doesn't matter if you rationalize it with "oh, that someone else is also some insurer". It is someone not involved at all. Ergo an externality.
I am yet to meet a single person complaining that this is bad. There is no increase in road accidents. The service is great. The drivers are very polite and are always on time. One must wonder, how can you be so blind to an obvious example of free market at work?
But my point is - willingness of some people to pay for something in no way makes something worth existing. People do pay for kidnapping and murder.
Or more day-to-day, mundane examples - why do we have spam, both electronic and the shitton of leaflets that go to trash every day in every city? Because someone paid for it. The Internet as a useful resource of knowledge is in constant battle with people paying for SEO. I could write hundreds of such everyday examples.
The point is, people are optimizing extremely locally when it comes to their decisions. Sometimes because they simply don't care, often because they don't know better. But just because they're willing to pay for something doesn't make it good or validate its existence.
Submitters: please don't rewrite titles unless they are misleading or linkbait.
(Source: I'm an Uber employee)
It helps them that their opponent isn't sympathetic at all. Non-zero medallion values, by definition, mean that there are too few cabs on the road (and in New York, there are). The Medallion Mafia pisses me off; just a bunch of rent-seekers stealing money from drivers.
I'm actually glad to see the Medallion assholes get "disrupted". I just wish that it were a different company taking the lead in doing it.
This modern day exploitation should end. Uber's huge profits are because they exploit people for labor. Ban it already.
If there is any truth to the comments that claim many drivers quit after determining they make at or near minimum wage, it seems like they got into Uber believing that drivers can make $90,000 a year
If you're recruited by Uber, enter into a loan, and then Uber drops the rates to a level where you're not profitable, that can be a problem. There are a bunch of stories of this kind, eg: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/uber-drivers-struggle... http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/5/27/uber-promote...