Rideshare services - Uber, Lyft, Hailo, etc.

nobody seems to mind surge pricing for airlines, hotels, etc etc basically everything. in the long term more cabs and market pricing is gonna make cab rides more affordable and accessible, surge pricing once in a while doesn't change that. it was almost impossible to hail a legal cab and take it to a poor / far out part of the nation's biggest cab city until recently and nobody seemed to care.

uber is a terrible company for totally different reasons.

what are they?

it flaunts the law openly which gives it an advantage over anybody playing fair and had the venture money to get away with it, pretty clearly aims to be a monopoly, brags about how well paid its drivers are when they'll pretty obv have their wages driven down to oblivion eventually, gets its way via lobbyists / behind closed doors

oh, lyfe

agree wth the breaking the law/lobbyists stuff being shitty. but i'm not so sure about wages & monopoly. i mean, i'm sure they aspire to be a monopoly (don't we all) but will they? are taxis a natural monopoly? there's still competition among taxi companies, right? why would rideshare apps be any different then? i guess downloading two apps onto your phone is a bit more of a pain in the ass than saving 2 separate taxi company numbers

it flaunts the law openly which gives it an advantage over anybody playing fair and had the venture money to get away with it, pretty clearly aims to be a monopoly, brags about how well paid its drivers are when they'll pretty obv have their wages driven down to oblivion eventually, gets its way via lobbyists / behind closed doors

this is like, all interweb companies since the 90s

uber's insane valuation shows that a lot of people think that it's more than just a company that eats the taxi industry - like if that's all that happens in the end then yeah it will have to compete on price. if it ends up serving as the technology for a deeper transportation network then it might actually end up w/ a pretty scary monopoly.

yea but then we can just anti trust it

more like goober

I stand with iatee

......

waiting for public transport?

:)

lol

some rich ppl put money on it becoming 'technology for a deeper transportation network' isn't justification for doing anything now though

well yeah esp since it isn't a monopoly yet, but I do think not giving your money to a thuggish company when there are other alternatives is probably a good idea

also cars suck? this isn't hard.

the conviction that it's absolutely necessary to be able to travel anywhere at any time for the right market price is so fucking gross and unhealthy.

meanwhile fossil fuel extraction is destroying all the poor rural areas that these companies and their users won't give a shit about until coastal flooding gets bad and it's way too late. fuck yeah they should be blocked but more than that literally all their resources should be redirected toward alternative energy development.

this kind of energy being invested in a "new" form that is really just a more efficiently parasitic version of the old one, while the new forms that earth wants for survival are put on the backburner is so infuriating.

where are the wind turbine thugs? we need amoral assholes making a shitload of money on solar panels. the possibility is there. if a company can make their dream of strong arming taxis out of existence a reality surely we can dredge up an incentive of billions in an artificial market of solar panel bucks or w/e. we have smart economists, even on this board, maybe they could combine a model for an alt energy market with one for being kewl and kill two birds with one stone.

mega otm

nobody seems to mind surge pricing for airlines, hotels, etc etc basically everything.

People freaking hate airline pricing, are you kidding me? And what they especially hate about it is the unpredictability and time-dependence.

There are def amoral asshole thugs making bank off of solar panels are u kidding

Xxp

They just arent as sexy or visible or clownish as these jokers

ppl shouldn't charge for stuff other ppl want or need tbh

/nobody seems to mind surge pricing for airlines, hotels, etc etc basically everything./

People /freaking hate/ airline pricing, are you kidding me? And what they especially hate about it is the unpredictability and time-dependence.

they might not love it but it I don't see articles on 'why we need to regulate airlines so they can't charge more for holiday flights'

idg matt's rant. money spent on cab rides you call from an app on your iphone wouldn't have otherwise been spent on r&d for renewable energy. the rich dudes who fund uber also throw insane amounts of money at tesla.

also more cabs makes it easier for people not to own cars

I think surge pricing feels particularly predatory because most cities don't have good comprehensive 24 hr public transit. In the absence of good PT, cabs fill some of that role (practically and...emotionally, say), and the idea of a public good suddenly being subject to surge pricing doesn't sit well with most ppl.

uber itself doesn't help matters by being so nakedly malevolent and shitty

I would be interested to hear or read an analysis of uber in the framework of the "right to the city" http://newleftreview.org/II/53/david-harvey-the-right-to-the-city

my friend drives for uber, or did drive quite a bit til she found out what see you next tuesdays they are

ppl shouldn't charge for stuff other ppl want or need tbh

― irl lol (darraghmac), Sunday, 28 June 2015 14:26 (Yesterday) Permalink

excuse me didn't give u permission to blow my mind dude

I've become hooked on Uber tbh. I don't drink like I used to but the peace of mind is awesome.

https://speedbird.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/uber-or-the-technics-and-politics-of-socially-corrosive-mobility/

socially corrosive mobility – I like it.

It's very much like the charter school movement, or what happened with deregulation of the telecoms, where instead of outright dismantling a public-sanctioned monopoly, they give private players unfair advantages and erode the public-sanctioned monopoly.

― my jaw left (Hurting 2), Tuesday, November 25, 2014 10:54 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is what I keep thinking of too - or, closer to transportation, the brief era of "jitney buses" in Los Angeles, which similarly could cream-skim choice trips, while the trolleys were stuck with increasingly unprofitable franchised lines (struggling in part due to the fact that the streets they ran on, paid for by the trolley companies among other entities, were increasingly choked by cars and jitney buses). To paraphrase Robert Fogelson, the jitneys could ruin the trolleys, but not replace them, since they were never going to run out to all the unprofitable places the trolleys ran. Similarly, MCI could destroy AT&T's financial base in long-distance, but was not about to launch a replacement for Bell Labs or guarantee state-regulated low rates for local service.

You can argue that in both cases the "losing" entities made their own beds, insofar as the trolley companies were happy to have made their buck on land speculation when they first ran the tracks out into the boonies, heedless of future service threats, but there's a lot more to that story and anyway the real loser is the consumer who, once the trolleys were finally shut down (not directly by jitneys, which in fact were banned by law in anticipation of this outcome), has no way to get around besides buying a car.

The question I guess is how much does any of this apply to Uber? Can they effectively soak up the most profitable customers that would have otherwise gone to medallion taxis? And if so, what kinds of effects would that have for consumers? In the extreme hypothetical, if Uber could put all taxis out of business, I think there would suddenly be large swaths of cities where people either cannot get a ride (where the medallion taxis were required to provide one) or are subject to much, much higher "surge pricing." The other stuff about insurance and liability and so on, I really don't know enough about taxis to say... and then the issue of driver compensation which should probably be front and center...

I dunno, the whole business model just kinda wigs me out, it feels like it's "for" app-obsessed libertarian inhumanoid "share economy" boosters like the sick fucks who invented this butler service for busy yuppies on the go, or this thing where you have peons go fetch you cash from an ATM. I realize this is a knee-jerk reaction and that it is possible someone could eventually invent a "share"-based business that doesn't overwhelm me with creepy vibes and assumptions about its creators/intended customers.

In other cities I suppose there's also a question about what this would do to transit services, if frequent transit riders were to switch to Uber, but I sort of doubt it since the price difference is so huge - most people who're really commuting five days a week on the train is not going to switch to Uber, right? In NYC at least, transit ridership is the highest it's been since the Depression, so that's not a super pressing question...

I live in a suburban neighborhood where standing on a corner flagging a cab is an impossibility. Miami is a driving town. Uber consistently prices $7-$10 less than a cab ride of comparable length. Its business practices are heinous and I'm waiting for the first successful class action law suit though (and it's still technically illegal here).

if you use uber you are an advocate/a lobbyist/collaborator ?

this appeared today: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/fred-grimm/article25618213.html

when uber is a crime only criminals will uber

https://speedbird.wordpress.com/2015/06/29/uber-or-the-technics-and-politics-of-socially-corrosive-mobility/

― j., Monday, June 29, 2015 10:26 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is good and worth reading imo. first couple paragraphs i was put off by the style/verbosity but it really does sum things up really well re: this neoliberal fantasy-verse and the risk to things which were, in the first place, not left to the smooth flows of the open market for a reason.

Where innovations in personal mobility could just as easily be designed to extend the right to the city, and to conceive of on-demand access to all points in the urbanized field as a public utility, Uber acts to reinscribe and to actually strengthen existing inequities of access. It is an engine consciously, delicately and expertly tuned to socialize risk and privatize gain. In furtherance of the convenience of a few, it sheds risk on its drivers, its passengers, and the communities within which it operates.

Maybe I'm just a closet app-obsessed libertarian inhumanoid "share economy" booster, but I'd probably try the butler for yuppies.

The ATM one, not sure much, since I'm usually not that lazy.

where are you gonna be between your home and anywhere else cash is needed that you couldn't just go to an atm along the way anyway

who uses cash?

lol @ defending fucked up exploitative & racist taxi companies like some socialized public good from a left wing pov

as of right now, uber is cheaper, pays drivers more, gives them more flexible hours, and goes places taxis won't go. onus is on leftists to show how despite all these things it is still inequitable. you can't just say mrmrmmmarket? socialize risk privatize reward?

lol, assumed at first 'fucked up exploitative & racist taxi companies' referred to uber, then wondered why you did a 180 degree turn and were sticking up for them.

Anyway, 'pays drivers more'- does it?

Where innovations in personal mobility could just as easily be designed to extend the right to the city, and to conceive of on-demand access to all points in the urbanized field as a public utility, Uber acts to reinscribe and to actually strengthen existing inequities of access.

like this is just such empty fantasy feel-good economics. who's going to drive "on demand access to all points in the urbanized field" (what does that even mean?) and who's gonna pay? do i have to pay for people who chose to live in the burbs to cab to work every day? taxis and uber complement public transit, why not just say "let's have really good public transit"?

can max or someone translate the David harvey out of marxese? all the surplus values make my head spin

xp- yeah, google "krueger uber"

taxis and uber complement public transit, why not just say "let's have really good public transit"?

i think this is where a lot of these discussions break down--i mean for one i think "let's have really good public transit" is a given for everyone involved in the conversation except maybe travis kalanick. i mean, markets built on top of solid public infrastructure and institutions--who doesn't want this in every arena? so the answer to "why not just say it" is sort of like, well, because that's fantasy feel-good policymaking. the cities we live in now, with few exceptions, have bad public transportation, and anything that 'disrupts' the quasi-public transportation that residents rely on is going to change attitudes about cities, about distances, locations, etc. etc. etc. that stuff is worth examining! even if uber is better than what it's replacing, which in many ways it is.