...Uber and Lyft will make more and more money because taxi companies refuse to keep up with the times. The last time I took a taxi, long before uber and lyft came onto the scene, I was so overcharged for the short little ride I took that I vowed to walk before I take a taxi again. Long live Uber and Lyft!
Once they have killed off the taxi industry, what is their incentive to keep prices down? Basically, if Uber and Lyft take over they will be replacing a competitive marketplace with a duopoly, or a monopoly if only one of them survives. Less competition is always worse for the consumer.
The video adds nothing. It is useless fluff trying to garner ad dollars.
Beats me. I didn't watch it. I prefer to read it. A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but it takes 10,000 words worth of data to store it. A video takes 1 millions words worth of space to store it. Give me the 1,000 words, please.
Ridesharing is also a different market from the traditional cab market in many ways. It's people getting together as individuals to carpool tp the palces they want, with the added convenience of a common app interface to link up drivers and riders. It's not ideology that causes Uber to not take out taxi licenses, but the fact that they are offering a new product to a new market. Bureaucrats and old-line cab companies scramble to understand what's going on in the same way that RIAA scrambles to make sense of the evolving music market.
So basically like a bulletin board for hooking up people going somewhere and other people wanting to go there? Sounds great. Uber should do that instead of running a for hire taxi service like they do now.
Uber could even still make money (finder's fee) for hooking people up. The drivers would lose less money going to their destination because the riders could share some of the cost. However, legally the rider can only pay up to their pro rata share, so regardless of the number of riders, the driver cannot legally ever recover 100% of the cost, let alone make a profit. His maximum savings is 1/(number of passengers + 1).
They should get licensed. Perhaps the law needs to be changed to legalize it. In the mean time, I say amend the law so those earning under $2,000/year only need personal (not commercial) auto-insurance. Why? I figure if someone is earning less than $166/month, they're not "really" doing anything that crosses into commercial territory, if you know what I mean. At that point, it's more hobbyist than making a living.
If I were to use the service, I don't care how much they earn from being a taxi, they had better have insurance that will cover me if they crash. It is not fair to make the consumer bear the risk based on how many dollars the cabbie makes.
If they are only driving a few hundred miles per year commercially, their insurance will be far cheaper than a full time cabbie.
3x more revenue is probably partly due to not have to worry about things like employee benefits, fleet maintenance, etc., but with that big a difference surely quite a few more people are using cabs than before.
Well, if that was the case, the the 3X more revenue is due to the news not knowing the difference between revenue and profit. I expect that Uber has 3X the profit, because they are screwing over their drivers, not being properly licensed, and several other illegal cost saving measures.
As for 3 times the revenue, that is simply not possible, unless literally 3 times the number of previous livery passengers have suddenly started taking livery services. I find that unlikely to the point of impossibility.
This incident shows that there were 300 reckless aircraft captains, who ought to be stood down, along with air traffic controllers and all decision makers in the line.
Doesn't matter whose side, what war, nor the phase of the moon. As a civilian, I don't fucking care anymore who is fighting who. Sick of it all. They are ALL arseholes. Yes, including your side, whatever side, whatever colour, whatever politics, whatever language.
I bet if the people on board were given the choice "arrive a day later / pay more" or "possibly arrive dead, a couple of weeks' later, to be used as political footballs for some time", they'd choose the former (at a guess).
Which would you choose?
Of course after having the knowledge we have now, I would choose to go around. With the knowledge I had before, I, like everybody else, would not have been concerned about going through.
why was it flying over a war zone where both sides had Russian surface-to-air missiles?
As I answered above, over 300 other civilian planes flew over the area the same week. There was no "no fly" zone and flying over the area at over 32,000 feet was considered negligible risk.
It is only Monday morning quarterbacks trying to blame the victim that say they shouldn't have been flying there. If the plane hadn't been shot down, planes would still be flying over the area and nobody would say a word about it.
What we must not forget, is that Malaysia decided to fly over a war zone.
This does not talk the attack on the airplane right, but it creates circumstances...
Over 300 other civilian planes flew over the area the same week. There was no "no fly" zone and flying over the area at over 32,000 feet was considered negligible risk.
It is only Monday morning quarterbacks trying to blame the victim that say they shouldn't have been flying there. If the plane hadn't been shot down, planes would still be flying over the area and nobody would say a word about it.
Once again, there is no reason for these systems to be accepting any kind of input from anything other than the drive controls. Any car that does is broken and needs to be recalled. I suppose that means every car currently being manufactured, but that is not my fault or my problem.
The wealthy guys who own solar panel factories, drive around in fancy cars called Tesla S and use zero gas or coal, charging from nuclear and solar electricity powered sockets.
Well, I suppose they all live in France then, because they sure don't use zero gas or coal if they live anywhere else.
Why was it made illegal again? To protect the taxi industry.
And lucky for you, because you are operating a Taxi if you are doing it.
The FAA has exactly the same rules about commercial flights, and yet oddly, there doesn't seem to be any air taxi cartel.
You can attribute it to the taxi cartel if you want. I would be willing to bet that these laws predate taxis and probably go all the way back to the days of horse drawn carriages.
If I sign up, using my own car, how am I not sharing the car that I have with others?
So, generally, by your logic if I show up to work with my own tools I'm now in a tool sharing business?
No, you also have to have an app. And even though many other contractors may have apps and still manage to operate according to state laws, you have to claim you are a technology company that provides tool sharing services and that you are then somehow immune from all the licensing, bonding, training, permitting and other regulations.
In collage I often gave people rides to work for 5 bucks for gas. And gas was only $1.xx back then so I made a small profit.
Ride sharing is legal and applies if:
1.) You were already going to the destination and
2.) Each passenger pays at most their pro-rata share of the expenses.
If you were making money doing it, you were breaking the law. Any legal ride sharing is losing money by at least 1/(number of passengers+1).
If the market were flooded with low cost taxi services then the refiners fire of consumer assessment would weed out the poor service and prices would go up for the quality/reliable services.
Not in the U.S. In the U.S. people will gladly pay 20% less for a product with half the quality. Otherwise Wal-mart would be out of business.
That's my general take on environmentalists. It only works if you apply the rules to the people whom you care little about because they are different from you.
An environmentalist is a person who is 10 times better than you because they use only 99.9% of the resources that you do. Or in some cases (like Al Gore), many, many times more resources.
The drone owner did not set foot on the shooter's property until after the drone had been shot down. You're using a later act as justification for one that came earlier? No, you don't get to do that.
No, I am not. I am saying his drone was trespassing on the property.
The definition of criminal trespass involves a person being someplace they are not allowed, not an aircraft.
That depends on where you are. In some places, it is trespass if an inanimate object under a persons control is present on another's property without permission.
This is is what allows planes to fly over your property without paying you or getting your permission. What this guy did possibly doesn't even qualify as him defending his property rights.
First, airplanes are flying on average 30,000 feet above your house. They can't make anything out from that altitude and at that speed. They COULD fly as low as 500 feet, depending on the nature of airspace in the area, but they very likely would be flying much much higher.
Second, the airplanes are allowed to TRANSITION your airspace. They are not allowed to sit there in your airspace and record what you are doing.
It wouldn't have mattered if he was trying to shoot crows or rats, they still would have charged him
Actually, they wouldn't have because nobody would have cared if he was shooting crows or rats. Only one person cared that he was shooting drones, and that person was involved in criminal trespass so if I was a cop I wouldn't be putting much credibility in his position.
If Uber allows women to move more freely and work at jobs and go to school, something they weren't allowed before then I would think this is a first step.
Uber is not doing it. Taxis are doing it. Uber does not contract drivers in SA, they just use existing taxi services. Uber has nothing to do with liberation of women in SA other than making a claim to be responsible.
"relied on private drivers (if they could afford them) or the limo companies that Uber now works with (for regulatory reasons, Uber in Saudi Arabia does not work with contracted drivers using their own cars—all Uber rides go through existing companies"
From the article, no change of labour is occurring in saudi, just a change in the access to it.
Yes, so the headline would still be just as accurate if they put the word "Taxis" in instead of Uber.
Why do passwords need to be rotated? I have read lots of things saying that you should but never seen a compelling argument. All of the reasons for rotating passwords are more appropriately handled by changing password immediately. Rotating passwords happens regardless of an incident, which is wasteful, and only ensures that somebody locks up after the horse has left the barn.
Slashdot Mirror
...Uber and Lyft will make more and more money because taxi companies refuse to keep up with the times. The last time I took a taxi, long before uber and lyft came onto the scene, I was so overcharged for the short little ride I took that I vowed to walk before I take a taxi again. Long live Uber and Lyft!
Once they have killed off the taxi industry, what is their incentive to keep prices down? Basically, if Uber and Lyft take over they will be replacing a competitive marketplace with a duopoly, or a monopoly if only one of them survives. Less competition is always worse for the consumer.
The video adds nothing. It is useless fluff trying to garner ad dollars.
Beats me. I didn't watch it. I prefer to read it. A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but it takes 10,000 words worth of data to store it. A video takes 1 millions words worth of space to store it. Give me the 1,000 words, please.
Ridesharing is also a different market from the traditional cab market in many ways. It's people getting together as individuals to carpool tp the palces they want, with the added convenience of a common app interface to link up drivers and riders. It's not ideology that causes Uber to not take out taxi licenses, but the fact that they are offering a new product to a new market. Bureaucrats and old-line cab companies scramble to understand what's going on in the same way that RIAA scrambles to make sense of the evolving music market.
So basically like a bulletin board for hooking up people going somewhere and other people wanting to go there? Sounds great. Uber should do that instead of running a for hire taxi service like they do now.
Uber could even still make money (finder's fee) for hooking people up. The drivers would lose less money going to their destination because the riders could share some of the cost. However, legally the rider can only pay up to their pro rata share, so regardless of the number of riders, the driver cannot legally ever recover 100% of the cost, let alone make a profit. His maximum savings is 1/(number of passengers + 1).
They should get licensed. Perhaps the law needs to be changed to legalize it. In the mean time, I say amend the law so those earning under $2,000/year only need personal (not commercial) auto-insurance. Why? I figure if someone is earning less than $166/month, they're not "really" doing anything that crosses into commercial territory, if you know what I mean. At that point, it's more hobbyist than making a living.
If I were to use the service, I don't care how much they earn from being a taxi, they had better have insurance that will cover me if they crash. It is not fair to make the consumer bear the risk based on how many dollars the cabbie makes.
If they are only driving a few hundred miles per year commercially, their insurance will be far cheaper than a full time cabbie.
3x more revenue is probably partly due to not have to worry about things like employee benefits, fleet maintenance, etc., but with that big a difference surely quite a few more people are using cabs than before.
Well, if that was the case, the the 3X more revenue is due to the news not knowing the difference between revenue and profit. I expect that Uber has 3X the profit, because they are screwing over their drivers, not being properly licensed, and several other illegal cost saving measures.
As for 3 times the revenue, that is simply not possible, unless literally 3 times the number of previous livery passengers have suddenly started taking livery services. I find that unlikely to the point of impossibility.
This incident shows that there were 300 reckless aircraft captains, who ought to be stood down, along with air traffic controllers and all decision makers in the line.
Doesn't matter whose side, what war, nor the phase of the moon. As a civilian, I don't fucking care anymore who is fighting who. Sick of it all. They are ALL arseholes. Yes, including your side, whatever side, whatever colour, whatever politics, whatever language.
I bet if the people on board were given the choice "arrive a day later / pay more" or "possibly arrive dead, a couple of weeks' later, to be used as political footballs for some time", they'd choose the former (at a guess).
Which would you choose?
Of course after having the knowledge we have now, I would choose to go around. With the knowledge I had before, I, like everybody else, would not have been concerned about going through.
why was it flying over a war zone where both sides had Russian surface-to-air missiles?
As I answered above, over 300 other civilian planes flew over the area the same week. There was no "no fly" zone and flying over the area at over 32,000 feet was considered negligible risk.
It is only Monday morning quarterbacks trying to blame the victim that say they shouldn't have been flying there. If the plane hadn't been shot down, planes would still be flying over the area and nobody would say a word about it.
What we must not forget, is that Malaysia decided to fly over a war zone. This does not talk the attack on the airplane right, but it creates circumstances...
Over 300 other civilian planes flew over the area the same week. There was no "no fly" zone and flying over the area at over 32,000 feet was considered negligible risk.
It is only Monday morning quarterbacks trying to blame the victim that say they shouldn't have been flying there. If the plane hadn't been shot down, planes would still be flying over the area and nobody would say a word about it.
Once again, there is no reason for these systems to be accepting any kind of input from anything other than the drive controls. Any car that does is broken and needs to be recalled. I suppose that means every car currently being manufactured, but that is not my fault or my problem.
The wealthy guys who own solar panel factories, drive around in fancy cars called Tesla S and use zero gas or coal, charging from nuclear and solar electricity powered sockets.
Well, I suppose they all live in France then, because they sure don't use zero gas or coal if they live anywhere else.
Why was it made illegal again? To protect the taxi industry.
And lucky for you, because you are operating a Taxi if you are doing it.
The FAA has exactly the same rules about commercial flights, and yet oddly, there doesn't seem to be any air taxi cartel.
You can attribute it to the taxi cartel if you want. I would be willing to bet that these laws predate taxis and probably go all the way back to the days of horse drawn carriages.
If I sign up, using my own car, how am I not sharing the car that I have with others?
So, generally, by your logic if I show up to work with my own tools I'm now in a tool sharing business?
No, you also have to have an app. And even though many other contractors may have apps and still manage to operate according to state laws, you have to claim you are a technology company that provides tool sharing services and that you are then somehow immune from all the licensing, bonding, training, permitting and other regulations.
In collage I often gave people rides to work for 5 bucks for gas. And gas was only $1.xx back then so I made a small profit.
Ride sharing is legal and applies if:
1.) You were already going to the destination and 2.) Each passenger pays at most their pro-rata share of the expenses.
If you were making money doing it, you were breaking the law. Any legal ride sharing is losing money by at least 1/(number of passengers+1).
If the market were flooded with low cost taxi services then the refiners fire of consumer assessment would weed out the poor service and prices would go up for the quality/reliable services.
Not in the U.S. In the U.S. people will gladly pay 20% less for a product with half the quality. Otherwise Wal-mart would be out of business.
That's my general take on environmentalists. It only works if you apply the rules to the people whom you care little about because they are different from you.
An environmentalist is a person who is 10 times better than you because they use only 99.9% of the resources that you do. Or in some cases (like Al Gore), many, many times more resources.
From the article: "has built stronger, higher tsunami walls near the new plant" and "Regardless, the 31-year old reactor"
It's sad that 31 years old counts as 'new'.
Consider that if they had had some really new nuclear plants that Fukushima probably would have already been shut down.
Awesome, so basically if it hadn't been for anti-nuclear protestors, we likely have never had a Fukushima incident.
The drone owner did not set foot on the shooter's property until after the drone had been shot down. You're using a later act as justification for one that came earlier? No, you don't get to do that.
No, I am not. I am saying his drone was trespassing on the property.
The definition of criminal trespass involves a person being someplace they are not allowed, not an aircraft.
That depends on where you are. In some places, it is trespass if an inanimate object under a persons control is present on another's property without permission.
How could we maintain the universe indefinitely?
We can't. We don't maintain the universe at all so we certainly can't do so indefinitely.
Regardless of what was in the guy's mind it was a criminal act and he should be charged, jailed, and required to pay damages.
I agree, but it looks like the police decided to charge the victim who was merely protecting his property instead of the criminal trespasser.
This is is what allows planes to fly over your property without paying you or getting your permission. What this guy did possibly doesn't even qualify as him defending his property rights.
First, airplanes are flying on average 30,000 feet above your house. They can't make anything out from that altitude and at that speed. They COULD fly as low as 500 feet, depending on the nature of airspace in the area, but they very likely would be flying much much higher.
Second, the airplanes are allowed to TRANSITION your airspace. They are not allowed to sit there in your airspace and record what you are doing.
Drone operators view spying on other people as a civil liberty, and if you complain, you're some sort of evil bastard.
Go read some drone forums. You'll see every manner of justification for being a perverted peeping Tom.
Yes, and then suggest drone registration and watch as they go "But...but...but...my PRIVACY!?!"
It wouldn't have mattered if he was trying to shoot crows or rats, they still would have charged him
Actually, they wouldn't have because nobody would have cared if he was shooting crows or rats. Only one person cared that he was shooting drones, and that person was involved in criminal trespass so if I was a cop I wouldn't be putting much credibility in his position.
Maybe it's the beginning of the answer.
If Uber allows women to move more freely and work at jobs and go to school, something they weren't allowed before then I would think this is a first step.
Uber is not doing it. Taxis are doing it. Uber does not contract drivers in SA, they just use existing taxi services. Uber has nothing to do with liberation of women in SA other than making a claim to be responsible.
"relied on private drivers (if they could afford them) or the limo companies that Uber now works with (for regulatory reasons, Uber in Saudi Arabia does not work with contracted drivers using their own cars—all Uber rides go through existing companies"
From the article, no change of labour is occurring in saudi, just a change in the access to it.
Yes, so the headline would still be just as accurate if they put the word "Taxis" in instead of Uber.
Passwords rely on secrecy and need to be rotated.
Why do passwords need to be rotated? I have read lots of things saying that you should but never seen a compelling argument. All of the reasons for rotating passwords are more appropriately handled by changing password immediately. Rotating passwords happens regardless of an incident, which is wasteful, and only ensures that somebody locks up after the horse has left the barn.