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The Great Taxi Upheaval
An anonymous reader writes: Uber, Lyft, and a variety of competitors are becoming ubiquitous. Their presence is jarring not because of how different they are from conventional taxis, but simply because they're different at all. Taxis really haven't changed much over the years. Watch a movie from the '90s and you can't help but chuckle at the giant, clunky mobile phones they use. But you can go all the way back to movies from '30s and scenes with taxis won't be unfamiliar. New York Magazine has a series of articles about the taxi revolution currently underway. "So far, Uber appears to be pinching traditional car services—Carmel, Dial 7, and the like—hardest. (They have apps, too, but Uber's is the one you've heard of.) The big question is about the prices for medallions, because so much of the yellow-cab business depends on their future value. ... [I]t's hard to see how those prices won't slip. Medallions, after all, are part of a top-down system formed to fight the abuses and dangers of the old crooked New York: rattletrap cars, overclocked meters, bribed inspectors. Its heavy regulation in turn empowered the taxi lobby and (somewhat) the drivers union. That system may be a pain to deal with, but in its defense, it provided predictability and security. The loosey-goosey libertarian alternative, conceived in the clean Northern California air, calls upon the market to provide checks and balances. A poorly served passenger can, instead of turning to a city agency for recourse, switch allegiances or sue."
A look at how other online rating systems have been rigged suggests you're being hopelessly naive.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I would presume perfect information means complete information. If that is the case then why would any business be compelled to release information that could be perceived as critical to their operations without regulation or the threat of regulation? As we have seen with the GM case keeping consumers in the dark about safety issues pads the bottom line and they would have gotten away with if it weren't for those pesky NHTSA regulators. I always find it amusing when the captains of industry get on television and berate government regulation and accountability their first line of defense for impropriety is always the mantra "it may be unethical but it is not illegal".
I do think that the goals regulation should be to enforce transparency, clarity, and legal accountability more than just simply restricting certain types of activities.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
I was talking with a former cabdriver just the other day, and the major reason he left the field was because of the danger. In his urban taxi career he had eleven "runners", or people who dash without paying, but it was the one robbery that unnerved him to the extent he left the field. Although Phoenix is one of the most gun-friendly cities in the nation, management forbade him to carry, a rule typically enforced by insurance companies who care more about their liability exposure than employee safety.
The great advantage of Uber is that because everyone has to sign up as a member of the system before getting rides, the company knows who the customers are, and who is riding with whom at a given time. The increased driver safety, not any abstract political philosophy, is why services like this will replace traditional cabs.
A complaint directed to a government bureaucrat has the possibility of threatening the firm's ability to do business overall. In the absence of regulation, a customer who has been wronged has the ability only to sue with regard to his own personal case, and that prospect doesn't trouble companies: they'll take the hit in court, and it may be that the plaintiff can't even collect from them anyway.
I don't deal with oil or finance, but my experience with medicine and airlines in the US, where I was born, and in the EU, where I have lived for a long time now, certainly speaks in favour of more regulation.
That healthcare is cheaper here for the individual is obvious. As for airlines, consider this: delays in flights in the EU are quite rare now that the airlines would have to compensate passengers; it wasn't fear of losing face and negative online reviews that made airlines stick to their promised schedules, it was the state imposing a heavy cost. As soon as I step outside the EU and fly in parts of the world without a similar law, the punctuality of departures is visibly worse. And the regulation imposed has been smart; airfare is very low in the EU now, often lower than other forms of transportation.
Are you sure you calculated your gas costs right? That's a helluva lot of money to be spending on gas, even for an SUV. At $4/gal, that's 3000 gallons/yr. At 14 MPG, that's 42,000 miles/yr.
The average vehicle is only driven 12,000 miles/yr, the average commute vehicle about 15,000 miles/yr. If your gas cost is accurate, your use case is just so far outside the norm that your anecdote is probably only applicable to about 0.01% of the population. (Your other vehicle costs seem absurdly high too, even if insurance is included in "replacement costs".)
Which translates into an average speed of 42 MPH, which is unusually high. You must've lived ~70 miles away from your workplace and spent most of your driving on the freeway to (1) rack up that many miles, and (2) have such a high average MPH.
UberX lists their Chicago rates as $2.40 + $0.24/min + $1/mile. There is absolutely no way you're replacing your 42,000 miles/yr commute with fewer than 5000 UberX miles. At 42,000 miles/yr @ 42 MPH and 500 commutes/yr (250 workdays, 2 commutes per day), completely replacing your SUV with UberX would cost you:
($2.40)*(500) + [ (1 mile / 42 MPH)*(60 min/hour)*($0.24/min) + $1/mile ] * (42000 miles) =
$1200 + [ ($0.343/mile) + ($1/mile) ] * (42000 miles) =
$1200 + $56,406 = $68,406/yr
I mean think about it. It's effectively a taxi service. There's no way it can be cheaper than driving your own car (unless it's an UberX carpool) because that would mean the UberX driver would be losing money. Any reduction in your commute costs now that you got rid of the SUV is because you're taking public transportation. Any solo rides you're taking on UberX are costing you more than it took you to drive your SUV.
The IRS places the standard deductible cost for mileage at $0.56/mile. That's probably a good average to use for a commute vehicle's cost per mile nationwide. UberX costs nearly 3x that.
Sheesh. Is this really a question? How do you know when you buy a plum in the supermarket that it isn't poisoned?
Back in the 1800s, foods often did contain noxious ingredients, much the same way present day drug dealers cut their products. That's why developed countries started having government departments responsible for trading and food standards.
The reason very you can shop for your plums without worry is because of regulations and departments that check them.
You just demonstrated the opposite of what you hoped.