- Over the four years of the study, the number of cars in Manhattan seeking ride-hailing fares increased by 81%. There are now about 68,000 ride-sharing drivers across New York city. That's about five times the number of distinctive yellow cabs licensed to operate there, he found. There are so many, his work suggests, that they spend about 45% of their time empty just cruising for fares. That is a lot of unused cars clogging a lot of busy streets.
It worked some places for decades. I think crowded urban areas have every right to tightly regulate limo services. However out in the burbs it's another story. The only way to avoid drunk driving in the burbs for many years was to not drink, and that's a bridge too far for a lot of people. I have no idea if there are stats, but anecdotally, I can say that Uber/Lyft have stopped me from getting behind the wheel after drinking many times. In the old days, you'd have to call a cab, wait an hour, then hope someone else didn't just hop into your ride, because the cabby didn't give a fuck who he was picking up. The thing about Uber is that there's plenty of room for them to make money in a regulated environment. If they were smart, they'd work with the government to try to shape regs, rather than oppose any and all attempts at regulation.
You're not arguing for deregulation in urban areas, you're arguing for less-stupid taxi regulation. I agree - taxis were and are awful. They were an industry ripe for disruption. But that disruption should be along the lines of "this medallion allows you to dwell in this zone for this many hours a day not including 4-6pm and therefore costs 10% what a full one costs."
I'm arguing for safety realized through convenience. That could be satisfied by taxis or by competing services. The thing I know is that there is no way before a couple years ago that I could get a car on demand within 10 minutes at 1:00 am on a Tuesday. Uber's regulatory conundrum notwithstanding, I would like to continue to be able to get that car when I need it.
Taxis are regulated. "competing services" are not. I will happily agree that the companies that operated within that regulatory framework were ossified and anticompetitive but that's an operational problem, not a structural one. Your 10 minute 1am car is earning its driver $3.50 an hour and costing its company five billion a year. Yes, it's convenient but it also isn't steady - state. The argument here is that venture capitalists are underwriting a Dickensian lifestyle for the drivers and fucking up traffic for everyone else and should Uber's note holders decide they're sick of the experiment, we'll all be paying market rates once more.
I think an Uber driver's union would be fucking awesome. Also fucking useless as there's nothing preventing scabbing. That's the thing about the gig economy - if you're in it, that means you're willing to take the job for shitty pay with no benefits and no security. You are, by definition, cheaper and worse than the people who won't work gig-to-gig. And I say that as a freelancer - a union freelancer, in a skilled position, in a highly-regimented Union profession. I've gotten thousands of dollars of work redoing bullshit that people think they could get some Mandy loser to do for them for less, and they ended up paying twice.
https://www.waze.com/carpool I'm really curious as to where, exactly, Uber's investors think they'll make their money back. With Didi pushing into Mexico I don't even know if there are any greater fools left.
Sounds a lot like the I.W.W.'s hayday to me.That's the thing about the gig economy - if you're in it, that means you're willing to take the job for shitty pay with no benefits and no security. You are, by definition, cheaper and worse than the people who won't work gig-to-gig.
One. Hundred. Percent. I've been paying too much attention to the economy since 2008. Every macroeconomist worth his salt will point out that inequalities and worker protections are as bad or worse than they were during the Gilded Age. I'm going to a votech school. It has a multimillion-dollar CNC lab. It shares a zip code with Microsoft. it has a food bank.
Speaking of government oversight and how it affects value . . .