I used Uber recently for the first time recently in San Francisco and San Diego (I was at the Decentralized Web and NAACL 2016 conferences) and I thought Uber was a nice service. Each of the 8 times I used Uber I sat in the front seat to talk with the driver. All 8 drivers were fairly upbeat about being able to earn extra money whenever they had some free time. A few said that it was their full time job.
I had a mild argument with my son about Uber (he is a fireman and a union guy). He thinks that Uber is really unfair to union taxi drivers who jump through some hoops to get licensed, etc. Besides wanting good service, I rate businesses like these on how much profit is captured by the person doing the work vs. the company that they work with. I don't have any data on this, so I am judging Uber based on the low cost of shared ride service and the general friendlyness of the drivers.
> He thinks that Uber is really unfair to union taxi drivers who jump through some hoops to get licensed, etc.
So they were forced to jump through ridiculous hoops, so should we force everyone to follow the same stupidity?
If anything, the solution is tear down these bureaucratic barriers and open up the competition for everyone. But you'll never see the taxis supporting this, because they know they'll lose, and would rather have their business propped up artificially using governmental force.
Taxi is a perfect market (exchangeable, homogenous product, low barriers of entry) so all profits will be competed out. But since drivers also need to make a living, everywhere in the world they have lobbied for protection so that they can keep some of the profits. Without that, they would work for (almost) free since many people would have an incentive to enter the market.
Since they are also providing a service to the public governments have granted them extra protection.
This is a system that has been working for a long time, and in the long run, Uber will not be able to change this.
Competition from Uber and Lyft is so fierce that New York cabbies are going out of their way to be polite, engaging in chatter with riders and being helpful with packages, luggage and giving extra care to senior citizens.
> I had a mild argument with my son about Uber (he is a fireman and a union guy). He thinks that Uber is really unfair to union taxi drivers who jump through some hoops to get licensed, etc.
I have multiple problems with ridesharing services:
1) They foist the risk off onto the contractors while keeping all the profit themselves. They could have been a well-run national taxi company that serviced suburbs (and would have had STAUNCH defenders), but that won't get you unicorn valuations.
2) Most of them are using VC money to subsidize the ride costs. This is fine--until they run out of money. Then the cities will be left to pick up the pieces when suddenly there aren't enough taxi drivers anymore to service the demand. Uber and Lyft actually tried to use this as leverage in Austin to get their way politically. So, the threat is not theoretical. These companies are not trying to service the customer; they are trying to become the taxi monopoly.
3) Uber/Lyft/etc. drivers often don't comply with local laws surrounding carriage services. This includes licensing and insurance but also includes simple things like "Where in the airport am I allowed to pick someone up?" I have had a not-insignificant fraction of drivers who simply don't know where they are going--especially if "surge pricing" pulled them in from an area outside their usual haunts.
4) I have a problem with Uber, specifically. It seems like it's run by a bunch of nasty, rich, party boys and their treatment of people they regard as beneath them is absolutely disgusting.
I like the fact that the ridesharing services have forced most cities to start issuing more taxi permits. I like the fact that the ridesharing services function in the suburbs where taxis won't go(mostly--I have had some misses). I like the ridesharing services when they lobby for laws attempting to break the taxi monopolies.
So, my verdict is still out.
(Edited: I can haz English. Sheesh, my grammar is starting to suck.)
I have no opinion on Uber leadership coming into this, and would just like to see some elaboration on point 4?
I certainly would agree that there are companies with leadership teams as you describe, so I'm not opposed to that notion. Just wondering about this specific case.
1) They had a big party a couple of years ago where they had a large display that showed where several famous tech people were at the very moment in Uber cars. They did this without notifying or getting permission from said people[0],[1].
2) They rented the building next to ours for training. We rent several parking spaces in the lot on the other side of our building from the city. They repeatedly parked in our reserved spots and told their drivers to park there even after repeatedly being told they were reserved (purchased by us) and not to park there. They would literally move their cars, wait 5 minutes, then move them back. During breaks they would stand in front of the door to our building smoking and acting surly as if to try to intimidate us. I don't know how high up the management chain our people went, but it was clear they weren't going to do anything about it. Eventually our neighbor kicked them out!
1) This has long been a problem with taxi companies since long before Uber -- look at almost any cab and it will say something on the side like "vehicle leased to driver" or "driver is independent contractor".
3) True, but "hey, let's enforce the regs on the book" is a Pandora's box that most cabbies don't really want to open, because that would mean enforcing the ever-present laws about not rejecting people for having the wrong destination/race, not demanding more than the regulated fare, rejecting credit cards, etc.
Your son's argument seems confused. Taxi drivers in the US typically aren't unionized and their mandated "livable" rates are mostly eaten up by medallion rental fees, which freely adjust on the market, and are bid up to the point that it only leaves behind the previous unlivable wage for the driver.
(It turns out that "having an expensive final product" doesn't mean that every contributor's market value is expensive. Who knew? I mean, other than people familiar with the concept of economic incidence.)
> Here is the thing about Uber and Lyft (and much of the “sharing economy”).
> They don’t pay the cost of their capital.
> The wages they pay to their drivers are less than the depreciation of the cars and the expense of keeping the drivers fed, housed, and healthy. They pay less than minimum wage in most markets, and, in most markets, that is not enough to pay the costs of a car plus a human.
> These business models are ways of draining capital from the economy and putting them into the hands of a few investors and executives. They prey on desperate people who need money now, even if the money is insufficient to pay their total costs. Drivers are draining their own reserves to get cash now, but, hey, they gotta eat and pay the bills.
I had a mild argument with my son about Uber (he is a fireman and a union guy). He thinks that Uber is really unfair to union taxi drivers who jump through some hoops to get licensed, etc. Besides wanting good service, I rate businesses like these on how much profit is captured by the person doing the work vs. the company that they work with. I don't have any data on this, so I am judging Uber based on the low cost of shared ride service and the general friendlyness of the drivers.