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How Uber Takes Over a City
schwit1 suggests Bloomberg's story on one aspect of Uber's corporate behavior that may leave a sour taste in the mouth of anyone who'd like to believe the Uber-vs.-the-Cartels narrative. The company hired David Plouffe, known for managing Barack Obama's rise to fame, and many others as well, to help them navigate inevitable and ongoing moves for regulation. The scale is impressive; according to the article:
Over the past year, Uber built one of the largest and most successful lobbying forces in the country, with a presence in almost every statehouse. It has 250 lobbyists and 29 lobbying firms registered in capitols around the nation, at least a third more than Wal-Mart Stores. That doesn't count municipal lobbyists. In Portland, the 28th-largest city in the U.S., 10 people would ultimately register to lobby on Uber's behalf.
And while the article focuses mostly on the example of Portland, the effort is ongoing and nationwide.
Coming over here taking our illegal immigrants jobs!!
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Seems to me they're fighting an uphill battle. They are losing territory fast. And they are building those nice new massive headquarters. I see financial problems for them very soon.
Uber Uber Ãoeber Alles
If the govt operates via bribes, can you really blame a company for using the same system everybody else is using to achieve their own ends? Like it or not, that's how the system works. The right fix is to stop governmental corruption to begin with.
Wondering if all those lobbyists and mr plouffe himself are contractors or employees.
... just remember: sometimes you need lobbyists to protect yourself from government.
This is an example of it: a social app's userbase is trying to protect themselves from the rent-seeking taxi cartels.
The Uber vs the Evil Cartels has always been a pile of shit, designed to appeal to a certain kind of idiot who will drool all over it ... but it's a lie, and it's always been a lie.
It's systematically ignoring laws and regulations while going "wah wah, we're teh underdogs".
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Uber are just a bunch of self entitled douchebags, with a lot of backing who throw temper tantrums to insist they be allowed to not be covered under laws.
Fuck Uber.
...with a monopoly. And the customers are cheering them on, as usual.
Uber opponents need to make up their mind: Is Uber terrible for blithely ignoring the law, or for working to change it? You can't argue that both are bad, unless you can make a successful argument that the law as-is is perfect... and good luck arguing that the medallion system and all of the abuses that arise from it are the ultimate expression of good government.
Uber isn't stupid. They know the existing transport monopolies are maintained due to political connections aka lobbying. Uber knows there is no way it will be able to upset this status quo without support from local politicians. That, unfortunately, means lobbying. Love it or hate it, it's how things get done these days.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
heard from a local reporter that Uber cars would hit the streets that very evening.
It's the only way to keep politics pure.
Uber is 1000 times better for transportation than the taxi cartel, and no thanks to government's relationship to this industry, lobbying aggressively is an act of self-defense. Instead of denigrating Uber for playing this game, blame the governments which have made this necessary, and blame yourselves for not voting the bastards out when they create cartels.
Do we really need to go much further?
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Maybe they could start with Illinois. Our elected politicians are not doing such a great job.
They could start by taking over Chicago.
I mean seriously, why is this a surprise? How else are you going to fight a legislated cartel except with lobbyist? They would be fools not to have lobbyists, and quite an army of them, if they're going to go after an industry that's as heavily legislated as taxis.
Hope you don't plan on lobbying.
All regulation isn't bad, and ignoring regulation (breaking the law) generally is bad. But some regulation, especially that brought on by corporate-government alliances, can be harmful. I'm torn.
Have you heard of keiretsu? In post World War II Japan they had an era of robber-barons much like that the US experienced, at the same time they were industrializing. Which makes me think some of what we're seeing in China is just what happens during and immediately after any industrial revolution, but that's a different topic.
Part of Japanese culture, the idea that a business owner is responsible for the welfare of the families of his employees, allowed massive business conglomerates to form and ally with the Japanese government without taking too much advantage of workers. In the US unions had the same balancing effect. But what I'm getting at is that in both countries there was significant regulatory capture and the building of infrastructure was funded by government-corporate alliances. New technologies: railroads, the telegraph, and port systems were erected for mutual benefit by companies that were allowed free reign.
I'm not going full fascist here, but it's undeniable there were some mutual benefits from these forms of cooperation, making up for some to all of the problems the same entities caused, depending on your political point of view. What does this have to do with Uber?
This amount of lobbying in the present corrupt US congressional state of existence is sure to lead to regulatory capture, which is sure to lead to something I'm going to call infrastructure.
Rapid ad-hoc commercialization of immediately available resources is an immensely powerful technology. It's not recognized yet, but Uber is at the front of a wave of change. Cars are just the beginning. You can rent driveways now, for a single day. Collaborative reputation-based commerce and ubiquitous internet access is allowing the closest thing that fits a consumer's need to be provided. It's oil for the capitalist machine.
How many people have a bicycle they haven't used for years? A lawn mower they use only every two weeks? Computer cables? Rent out your CPU to a Bitcoin mining group? Need to rent a generator for the weekend? Need a cup of sugar? People don't know their immediate neighbors anymore but they'll soon have a reputation on their mesh network.
As a tool of commerce this is every bit as powerful as the railroad was in its day. And it needs just as much support, recognition, and regulation. The government just doesn't have the tools yet to cope. But Uber's regulatory capture will create the framework. It's going to be corrupt, wasteful, and poorly written but that will change over time in the same way regulations written for railroads changed over time.
Government always gets worse, fnar fnar. No, it doesn't. Do you see Chinese chain gangs building railroads today? Do you see corporate-owned towns with single all-powerful individuals built to service trains? Do you see a single company wholly controlling access to one rail line? No. Government doesn't always get worse and over time as technologies mature and knowledge disseminates regulation of an infrastructure improves.
This doesn't need to be regulated.Yes it does. I believe in free enterprise. I really do. I've read enough history to see the power free association and free ownership brings. I believe anonymity should be a protected right. I believe in all-but-absolutely free speech. But I've also read enough history to see the harm unfettered capitalism brings. If the government doesn't regulate this new form of commerce networks will form into net-negative predatory entities. They'll lie, cheat, and steal from the naive, even from their own members. Just as a traditional company is forbidden from false advertising, cheating their customers, and breaking con
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
When the "govt operates via bribes", the government is corrupt, and needs fixing.
The Portland, Oregon government is extremely corrupt. The Portland city government has been allowing huge apartment buildings to be built with NO parking. The overpopulation has caused traffic jams during all daylight hours, not just the to-and-from-work hours. The constant traffic jams have increased the already severe pollution.
One of the reasons the air pollution is so severe is that Intel is allowed to release 6.4 tons of fluorides each year into the air.
The Portland city government passed a law preventing grocery stores from providing free plastic shopping bags. So the stores now provide paper bags, which cost 10 times more. The production of paper bags is far worse for the environment. Why legislate paper bags? Apparently because there is a plant that manufactures paper bags in the Portland metropolitan area.
Uber is 1000 times better for transportation than the taxi cartel
Why? Seriously, I haven't used Uber and the last time I rode in a taxi was years ago so I have no dog in this fight. Why did you think Uber is better? Better service? Better value? Or is just that they are sticking it to The Man? I'm legitimately asking because I just don't really see what is so amazing about Uber as a casual observer. Saying they are "1000 times better" is obviously hyperbole but what makes them better if indeed they are better?
If they are actually providing a better value then more power to them. I'm definitely for disrupting industries that need disrupting. If the only advantage is that they aren't the incumbent companies then that isn't an adequate reason to my mind to support them with actual dollars. It just not clear to me which is the case here.
One of theses days, Craigslist Rides will come into being.
Passionately Indifferent
Lobbying doesn't immediately mean evil, you sophomoric children. Lobbying is how laws are changed, so it's what you do whether your goals are positive or negative.
Uber isn't a philanthropic organization, but nonetheless we should cheer them on, because how the Uber situation falls out helps determine what you are allowed to do with your car. You are being told that you are not permitted to use your car as you see fit, to make money, in a capitalist system in which it is essentially illegal to be out of money.
If you're cheering for the entrenched taxi services, you should know that taxi licenses do not protect you from any of the problems you think Uber causes. Taxis will come very late, even take other fares while "on their way" to you, or simply not come at all, and there is no recourse against them whatsoever when that happens. Taxi drivers regularly rape and/or assault passengers. Taxi drivers regularly take the worst possible routes, especially at times of day when it's difficult to get another fare, so as to run up your meter. Taxis are dirty and they smell bad. Taxis are often very poorly maintained, and I've often heard alarming thunks and rattles from beneath them that, had I heard them under my vehicle, would have kept me at home with a wrench in my hand.
Can anyone name one reason why "traditional" government monopoly-licensed taxis are superior to Uber? One reason which is not complete bullshit? Because so far, nobody has come up with even one.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If they are actually providing a better value then more power to them.
Of course they are. They don't need to pay for a license. They pocket 90% of the savings and the user gets the other 10%.
Force them to pay the same licenses fees as every other taxi driver, and their price will be the same as regular taxis. Possibly even more if they can get them out of business.
The problem is that it destroys the jobs of taxi drivers, but does not create new jobs.
Does it really? Or does it make using a taxi service a better value so that the usage of taxis overall grows? Do we really want to subsidize a jobs program for taxi drivers or is there a better way to employ those resources? While there is some clear disruption going on it's not at all clear that that is a bad thing. If you spend two dollars on a taxi ride that could only cost one dollar then you have effectively subsidized the taxi driver and cannot use that extra dollar for some more productive use. If there is some externality that would be a serious problem for society then that is a relevant concern but providing a subsidy to taxi drivers when one isn't needed is stupid.
A journalist calls this "the 'sharing of remains' economy", where the real jobs disappear, and only some small cheap tasks remain.
That's a nonsense argument because it doesn't consider opportunity cost. Saving "real jobs" even if they are inefficient means that you have capital allocated in a sub-optimal way. Rather than employing that capital (both human and financial) in an optimal way you waste it subsidizing obsolete business models. If you take your argument to its logical end most of us should still be working on farms where the "real jobs" were because improving productivity and capital efficiency would be a death spiral. Fortunately the real world doesn't work like that. Efficient allocation of capital in the long run benefits society.
I'm not sure I understand the narrative direction here.
While most people likely find the whole lobbyist thing distasteful, it would be rather ridiculous for a business that challenges long-entrenched collusive bureaucracies (defending millions of dollars of registration fees etc) to proceed without due attention to those realities.
-Styopa
I am amused by the continued anti-Uber diatribes. Uber doesn't "take over" by lobbying, or by defrauding their customers. Uber succeeds by providing a far superior, less expensive, more convenient transportation service than existing taxi companies.
I've had enough horrible cab rides in enough cities to have zero sympathy for traditional taxi services. I will take Uber or Lyft over a regular cab any day of the week. I have never had an experience with either one of those services that could hold a candle to some of the nightmare stories I could tell you about cab rides. All my friends are in complete agreement. Everyone I personally know who has tried Uber loves it.
When the politicians love Uber too (and they certainly do in Washington D.C.), then you know that cab services are on the wrong end of history. All the blather about how taxi companies are superior because they are vetted and regulated by the government is laughable. Taxi companies can and do sidestep or ignore those regulations. Despite the supposed criminal background checks, some cab drivers do rape, assault, and rob their customers. (Just Google 'cab driver rape' and read the stories.)
At least with Uber I know I'll be in a clean vehicle with a driver whose name and face are shown to me before I get in, and who will take me to my destination without trying to cheat me because I'm from out of town. I'll have a fairly accurate estimate of the price before I get in the cab. And best of all, if something goes wrong, Uber will actually have a record of my trip, the name of the driver, the vehicle I'm in, etc. "Lack of privacy" is not something that bothers me when I'm using a service like this.
Of course they are. They don't need to pay for a license. They pocket 90% of the savings and the user gets the other 10%.
There is more to value than price. Presumably they are cheaper from what you are saying. (I honestly have no idea and can't be bothered to look) But what about the service itself? Is it a better service? Are they more timely? Is it safe? Are the vehicles clean? Is it reliable? Basically, when you consider everything and weight it according to what really matters, is Uber a better value than a traditional taxi?
Force them to pay the same licenses fees as every other taxi driver, and their price will be the same as regular taxis.
As a potential customer I don't give a crap about whether or not they have to pay license fees. That doesn't improve or detract from the service as far as I'm concerned. I also don't care about the legal battles over the licensing. What I do care about is whether at the end of the day Uber better value for money. So I put it to you again, why is Uber better? Why would I give Uber my dollar instead of a traditional taxi company? Where will I get the best value for money?
They're terrible for ignoring the law before they tried to change it.
Ignoring an unjust law is not always a bad idea. That's how we got lots of important laws changed. The Civil Rights movement would never have happened if people just went along with unjust laws. Muhammad Ali went to jail for being a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. While I'm certainly not saying that taxi rides has anything close to that level of moral imperative if the law is a bad law then I don't have a problem with people doing the right thing prior to the law being changed. There may be consequences to this course of action. The important question is whether what Uber is doing actually is the right thing and I think that is perhaps unclear. I very much doubt they would make any headway in changing the laws without first demonstrating that they are in effect a pointless subsidy to taxi companies and the only way I'm aware of to do that is to ignore the law and actually show that.
My wife and I use Uber on a regular basis. We, and most of our friends and acquaintances, have switched to ridesharing platforms and have not looked back. The main reasons are:
1) Convenience - car to your doorstep in minutes, rather than 20 minutes after the 15 minutes you waited on hold. Immediate availability and prompt, easy service is probaby 90% of the reason we use Uber. Certain use cases are possible now that were highly impractical before, like requesting an Uber from the office at lunchtime and having it be there by the time you get out of the building. I don't live in NYC so street hailing is a long shot and phone dispatch is a long wait.
2) Ease of Payment - just arriving at your destination completes the transaction on your chosen credit card; no more lies about only accepting cash and dirty looks when the cabbie has to dust off the old credit card imprint machine.
3) Quality of Service and Ratings - I have had mostly great experiences with Uber drivers, who get 5 stars. I had one that was awful, he got 1 star and a report that he (literally) didn't know how to drive. The ratings seem pretty accurate. In cab world, it's a crap shoot, and the quality of drivers has been 50/50 at best. To be fair, none of the bad cabbies have been as bad as the one awful Uber driver I had. But I've had plenty of great Uber drivers that were better (personality, road knowledge, driving skills) than all but the best few cab drivers I've ever had.
4) Cost - at least in my region, Uber is not really competing on cost; that is to say they're often as or more expensive than a comparable cab ride. Sometimes, certain rides are a few bucks cheaper, but it's almost never a pricing slam dunk that would drive choice over the above reasons. The cost is always reasonable unless it's big surge, in which case I can choose another RS, a traditional taxi, public transport, etc. They don't pull any funny business with the cost, unlike many cabs I've been in--no games with meter vs zone pricing and haggling over a short ride that somehow costs double what's on the sticker.
For us, the Uber platform has just been a hands-down better experience. It's not a bunch of hoopdies offering cut rate prices, it's a fast, no-hassle experience for which we frequently pay extra.
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Oh and I forgot 5) Cleanliness and Smell. Speaks for itself.
Nothing posted to
I used Uber for the first time while on vacation a few months ago. Up to this point, I was hesitant to use the service. I'm not sure why in hindsight, but my girlfriend insisted it was a good service. I was extremely impressed. We used it for four trips. We were picked up each time within five minutes by new, clean cars. The drivers were courteous and made pleasant conversation. In total I spent ~$25. So, yeah, I'm sold. It was much better experience and better value than any cab ride that I've ever had.
I don't use taxis often - actually, I've never ever paid for one, only ever been in one along with others (like going to the Christmas party at work, paid by my boss).
I live in a country where buying a car comes with a 250% (not a typo) tax on the price of the car. Cars are f**king expensive around here. I drive less than 2000 miles per year, the rest of the time my car is just sitting in the driveway turning to rust.
If taxis were not a monopoly, prices would likely come down until even someone like me would find a taxi less expensive than a slowly gathering a collection of rust.
> 2) Ease of Payment
2.a. Payment is handled via Uber, not the driver, and price is agreed ahead of time. No possibility for hidden charges, unapproved charges, sightseeing tours, etc.
2.b) Pricing Standardization. Ever been in a DC Taxi before they installed meters? They had a "zone" system and your rate was based on how many zones you crossed. Not familiar with the city? Good luck figuring it out. Every city has its own quirks and pricing games. With Uber, you know exactly what you're going to pay and how the transaction will be handled.
5) Convenience. No standing on the corner waiving your hands in the air. In a strange city where cabs aren't everywhere? How do you call one? How long will it take? Where are they? With Uber, you'll see where your cab is while it's on route and know exactly when they'll arrive.
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Of course it smells clean, Uber hasn't been around for that long. They will have forced taxi's out by the time they start smelling 'off'. Do they even have a requirement to make the seats washable? Eww.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
I question whether Uber drivers will ever want to serve the core. Short trips and high accident rate doesn't sound like a recipe for success.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Maybe is 1000 better because he's one of the paid monkeys to cheer for Uber??
Uber is to the taxi business what email is to snail mail. Customers want something better. Uber is better. Simple Mr. Valls? (French Prime Minister wanting to make Uber illegal in France)
...by providing a convenient service that the public wants at a price it believes to be fair?
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
I'd like to know how many people who are pro-Uber have ever driven a taxi. As a former taxi-driver, I say fuck Uber. There may be a lot of compelling reasons to attack so-called big taxi, but that also only exists in the largest cities. I drove a taxi in a smaller college town, where everyone has to get registered, have a background check, etc. Uber came in and refused to do this, though they could afford to pay lobbyists. When they went into NY, for example, they agreed to follow certain laws and then completely failed to do so. They do this everywhere they go. It's part of the reason why there are protests in France.
How many of you who are pro-Uber have ever driven for a living? Delivered food? Driving your own car vs. driving a company car are completely different things. Driving your own car, you had better be a mechanic too or you're going to be making minimum wage when you're done fixing your car. The taxi companies in this town all have mechanics and garages. Some of them may lease out the cabs too, but mostly the insurance and maintenance are all taken care of for fairly cheap by bundling it all together and doing it in-house. For Uber, you are expected to do all of that yourself. And Uber tries to charge less than taxi companies, when they're not doing ridiculous "surge" pricing... something taxis wouldn't dream of doing because seriously.... charging 2-4 times as much because it's busy? That's downright bull shit.
Uber is using its drivers as temporary workers, saddling them with all of the transport costs and liability. It does a worse job than local corrupt taxi companies at weeding out bad drivers. It also goes to the other extreme of weeding out drivers who don't kiss ass constantly so they can get perfect ratings. You ever drive drunk assholes around town? I can tell you that there were plenty of situations where me being polite and ass-kissing was not the right way to deal with things.
Uber's plan is to replace all of their drivers with bots, ASAP. So anyone working for them that thinks this is going to work out for long and that they can make serious money and count on it is just seriously gambling with their job security. I don't know what the turnover is. But again, back to taxi drivers... There's some serious experience there, of the streets, of people, and especially of driving for long periods. Some new shmuck who's never driven commercially before but feels all entitled because he/she has a smartphone app directing them around? That's an accident waiting to happen, and they will be liable, not Uber. I'm all for learning how to do stuff, but Uber's model is basically all newbies, as near as I can tell. And that's part of why we do background checks on taxi drivers. If you keep getting into accidents or keep getting speeding tickets, then you don't drive a taxi or a city or a school bus, limo, etc. Because you're proven yourself incapable. Does Uber give a shit? Apparently not.
A different company could maybe pull this off, but Uber just keeps playing the asshole card. Fuck Uber.
Why? Seriously, I haven't used Uber and the last time I rode in a taxi was years ago so I have no dog in this fight. Why did you think Uber is better? Better service? Better value? Or is just that they are sticking it to The Man? I'm legitimately asking because I just don't really see what is so amazing about Uber as a casual observer.
I can't say for everywhere, but, where I live, Uber is better because I can actually get one. Last time I needed to go to the airport, I called a taxi service, and the dispatcher basically laughed at me. I called another taxi service, they told me to call the first taxi service. Finally I requested an Uber and they picked me up right away. In a clean car, cleaner than any taxi I've ever been in.
So that is basically why. Better availability, cleaner.
I will say that my first experience with an Uber driver was getting rear-ended in a low-speed collision. I was anti-Uber for a few months after that.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Of course it smells clean, Uber hasn't been around for that long. They will have forced taxi's out by the time they start smelling 'off'. Do they even have a requirement to make the seats washable? Eww.
Seeing as Uber comprises an army of private people's vehicles that they have to drive around in all the time, and not a commercial fleet of 24/7 3-shift cabs, I don't think that's accurate. Plus bad-smelling ride == bad review, so in theory even if it did happen its self-correcting.
As for "forcing out," even though I personally prefer Uber to traditional taxis, I don't think the latter is going extinct any time soon.
Fluff, I see from your many posts on this issue that you have a very negative view of RS services, even to the point of making posts like the above that are just silly. I'm asking honestly, what's fueling the vitriol? Did something bad happen to you or a loved one while using one of these services? Are you from somewhere in Europe where you have an awesome, heavily vetted taxi regime that you don't want to see undercut? Just curious.
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I for one, welcome our new Uberlords.
Like I've said before, I was brought up to respect the rules. We seem to be entering into a "I want what I want and I don't care about the later consequences" kind of society, and that's not a world I want for my kids. To have a choice of a job at McDonalds, WalMart, or Uber is not what I want for my kids. The last taxi driver I had a conversation with was leasing his cab, and he had a plan to own it one day. I was going to take him 5-10 years but he was working towards something. Those are the types of people I feel should be rewarded.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Like I've said before, I was brought up to respect the rules.
And what do you do when the rules are wrong? Just because something is a rule doesn't mean it is right nor does it mean it should be respected. Sometimes you have to show that a rule is wrong by your actions and accept that there may be consequences for that. I don't just meekly accept any rule if I think it is wrong. Not sure why anyone would.
To have a choice of a job at McDonalds, WalMart, or Uber is not what I want for my kids.
Nice strawman argument you have there. As if those would ever be the only three options...
The last taxi driver I had a conversation with was leasing his cab, and he had a plan to own it one day.
So what? If it's a bad business model why should I care? I see people literally daily who are entrepreneurs and quite a few have really stupid business plans. That's the risk you take when you want to own a business. I'd suggest the guy have a backup plan because most startup businesses fail and there is no guarantee that the business environment will be the same in 5-10 years. The guy certainly shouldn't be entitled to anything any more than any other entrepreneur.
Those are the types of people I feel should be rewarded.
People who should be rewarded are people who take risks and add value by doing so. If he wants a slow steady income that's fine but I'm not persuaded that he should be entitled to anything. If Uber makes traditional taxi's obsolete by providing more value to customers then it makes no sense to protect the guys providing less value. Nobody protects me in my job from competition so I see no reason why your taxi driver should get special treatment.
I live in the city and take taxis quite often. While traveling for business, my counterparts used Uber exclusively when we went out at night. My conclusion: I didn't notice any difference in the service offered, other than the Uber driver had a mini van rather than a sedan. The wait time seemed comparable to calling a taxi. I'm not sure how you would "hail" an Uber driver, though.
Anyway, from a customer's perspective, I am definitely perplexed by the Uber hype.
If the amount of labor needed to produce one person's worth of goods and services is less than one person's worth of effort, then you are going to have people sitting around doing nothing. So your argument is that our society will do better and better as we have more and more people sitting around doing nothing.
Your statement about "one person's worth of goods and services" is a non-sequitur. You do not seem to grasp what capital efficiency or opportunity cost means. Capital efficiency is about spending resources in the most effective manner possible generating the maximum benefit. We have a finite amount of resources (manpower, money, raw materials) so you want maximize the benefit generated with them. Any time you unnecessarily support a business that is not using capital efficiently you are by definition wasting money, brains and materials. Doing so to protect a potentially obsolete business model is particularly stupid.
I'd say it's better to efficiently allocate HUMAN capital to maximize our benefit to society.
If you can be bothered to read carefully you'll notice that I mentioned human capital explicitly. But human capital is not the only kind that matters.
Weak-minded government officials are an example of government corruption.
Anyone who accepted the idea, "not allowing parking lots was to push people into not having cars", was weak-minded. The idea was always to save the builders money, and have residents use the surrounding streets instead. The resulting lack of parking reduced the values of surrounding houses, because, for example, house owners could not have parties if their guests could not find a place to park.
How many of you who are pro-Uber have ever driven for a living? Delivered food? Driving your own car vs. driving a company car are completely different things. Driving your own car, you had better be a mechanic too or you're going to be making minimum wage when you're done fixing your car. The taxi companies in this town all have mechanics and garages. Some of them may lease out the cabs too, but mostly the insurance and maintenance are all taken care of for fairly cheap by bundling it all together and doing it in-house. For Uber, you are expected to do all of that yourself. And Uber tries to charge less than taxi companies, when they're not doing ridiculous "surge" pricing...
Uber is using its drivers as temporary workers, saddling them with all of the transport costs and liability. It does a worse job than local corrupt taxi companies at weeding out bad drivers. It also goes to the other extreme of weeding out drivers who don't kiss ass constantly so they can get perfect ratings. You ever drive drunk assholes around town? I can tell you that there were plenty of situations where me being polite and ass-kissing was not the right way to deal with things.
Uber's plan is to replace all of their drivers with bots, ASAP. So anyone working for them that thinks this is going to work out for long and that they can make serious money and count on it is just seriously gambling with their job security. I don't know what the turnover is. But again, back to taxi drivers... There's some serious experience there, of the streets, of people, and especially of driving for long periods. Some new shmuck who's never driven commercially before but feels all entitled because he/she has a smartphone app directing them around? That's an accident waiting to happen, and they will be liable, not Uber. I'm all for learning how to do stuff, but Uber's model is basically all newbies, as near as I can tell. And that's part of why we do background checks on taxi drivers. If you keep getting into accidents or keep getting speeding tickets, then you don't drive a taxi or a city or a school bus, limo, etc. Because you're proven yourself incapable.
I have wondered which would be more efficient: Uber, or giving the many taxi companies, Uber like software. A taxi company would be good at maintaining its vehicles, and buy hybrids, or electric cars. Uber would be able to operate its technology more effectively, and better strike against cronyism.
I consider taxi driving in America a minimum wage job. Good drivers, could eventually go on to driving buses, and 18 wheel trucks, vehicles that weigh 10 or 20 times more than an average car. Using low skill, low wage bus drivers, now that is a problem.
I live in the DC area. So about a month back, my parents were visiting. we went to a restaurant that was not terribly near to either our home or their hotel. As the weekend metro was being the weekend metro, we decided to cab back to our respective locations. I called an Uber for them since I figured it would be easiest. Since you can only dispatch one Uber per account, me and my wife had to take a cab. Looking at the difference between those two rides is why I stopped taking cabs.
My parents uber arrived promptly, it was clean and comfortable. It took them to their destination quickly, and the pricing was transparent and conveniently billed to my card.
When my wife and I finally hailed a cab, it was dirty, and the air conditioning was broken (It was about 90 F) The front seat had been pushed back as far as possible, and was in fact kind of bowed. The driver attempted to take some odd circuitous route back to our home until I asked him to take a more direct route. When we got there he tried to get us to pay cash.
This was an extreme example, but it made me think of all the other negative experiences I'd had with cabs in the city, they have been on the whole uncomfortable, inconsistent, dirty, poorly maintained, and discourteous (including drivers that pulled away as soon as they heard where I was going). At that point I realized that Uber was a better option. The worst Uber experience I've had so far was one that smelled slightly strange. For my area, it really is no contest, Uber is just better than the cabs.
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Uber is 1000 times better for transportation than the taxi cartel
Why? Seriously, I haven't used Uber and the last time I rode in a taxi was years ago so I have no dog in this fight. Why did you think Uber is better? Better service? Better value? Or is just that they are sticking it to The Man? I'm legitimately asking because I just don't really see what is so amazing about Uber as a casual observer. Saying they are "1000 times better" is obviously hyperbole but what makes them better if indeed they are better?
I'm in the same situation as you, but from listening to my friends here in Seattle that love Uber so much, they are more expensive than Seattle cabs, but they show up quickly, you can see their status on the phone, they are clean, the drivers have been polite, and will even have things like free bottled water on hot days in special cases. On the flip side, Seattle cabs have a habit of not showing up, lying about having shown up and trying to call you (this has happened to me several times*), have old, dirty cars (all are old cop cars bought at auction), and several people I know have had drivers get angry and yell at them (usually about news such as when something is going on in the middle east).
*This is the primary reason that I have not used cabs in years. Not only do they take forever, understandably that when I want to use them, probably lots of other people do to, but that they will just not show up and lie to the company about it. It creates a pretty bad impression calling the cab company three times over an hour and having them tell you that they driver said they stopped at the address each time but nobody was there and did't answer the phone. Of course, I was on the sidewalk outside my apartment with my suitcase and cell at the time, and no time in that hour did a taxi even drive down the street, let alone park infant of my house. I could see it creating jobs as people who have given up on cabs have taken up using Uber.
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This echoes my experience with Uber in northern New Jersey, except for #4. In my experience, Uber was about half as expensive as a shitty old cab, and instead of some shit-box, I got to ride in Mercedes and the like, for less than $10 per ride.
Otherwise, my experiences were basically the same (though I never had any horrible Uber drivers either). The cars are newer and nicer, the drivers are better and nicer, I don't have to wait 60 minutes for a cab to arrive, etc. Also the drivers are a different crowd: while not all of them were native English speakers, the Uber drivers all spoke much better English than the cab drivers.
What a crap.
Insinuating that hiring lobbyists, rather than a disruptive business model, is what has allowed Uber to outcompete traditional taxi services, is bull peppers bordering on slander.
The reality is that taxi medallions have become little more than a lucrative form of legalized extortion, and their inflexible nature has made them inferior to the service Uber is providing. Taxi drivers can't be in as many places as Uber drivers without creating and selling way more taxi medallions. Which is something the people running the medallion system on both sides don't want, because it would commensurately devalue medallions.
It's just like how the aliens in Independence Day work: First they attack the major cities, slowly spreading their malevolent activities until the entire world is sucked of all its value, then they move on to the next victim. Well, more like a virus or a parasite, maybe. Uber doesn't want to bleed everyone dry all at once, the vile people running it want to burrow deep in your brain and lay their eggs. Yeah, that's about right. Fuck Uber!
A system that runs on lobbying is by definition a corrupt system.
Anyone could, but you'd just ignore it again. Fans of Uber, nuclear power and GMO products are physiologically incapable of addressing straight criticism with a straight response.
Accounting isn't by nature negative. Accounting for Enron, cooking their books as Arthur Andersen did, is negative. So is lobbying for a parasitic company like Uber.
Other than low insurance coverage and unprofessional drivers working for less than minimum wage after paying for gas and maintenance. You know, those aforementioned reasons that don't exist for Uberfans.
I haven't used Uber and the last time I rode in a taxi was years ago so I have no dog in this fight.
This probably applies to most people but to judge by the hyped up Uber shills here, everyone pretty much uses taxis a couple of times a day, and so the savings are impressive.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
They forgot to mention that taxi service in this town is generally awful and even hated by a large number of people here.