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Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

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Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#31

Post by snitko »

Lazare wrote: post #2

I feel like I'm missing something. Reasonable people can disagree about what jobs should/should not require a background check, but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. > Unfortunately, the rules passed by the City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It…

If a business feels like regulations created by the government are not reasonable, it has all the right to decide to stop doing business. Government shouldn't be regulating such things in the first place, but since it does, it surely can't force businesses to continue working under them.

> but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them.

It is outrageous. I mean, it's a vehicle. Not a spaceship, for gods sake. This person has licence and good rating in the app? Good enough for me. If it's not good enough for you, don't use Uber. What right do you (or government, for that matter) have to tell other people what to use or not, I really don't know.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#32

Post by jevinskie »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #26
clamprecht wrote: post #8

Is the issue the cost of fingerprint checks? Can't fingerprint checks be made cheaper? Isn't there a YC company that is in the background check business? Edit: Ah yes, https://checkr.com/

> Is the issue the cost of fingerprint checks? Can't fingerprint checks be made cheaper? The logistics and costs are both high. Honestly I'm all for background checks but fingerprinting is completely unrealistic. There are a lot of on-demand services nowadays some of which drive you places, others go into your home. I can't imagine Uber and Lyft will be the only ones required to do fingerprinting eventually. Someone…

I don't see why fingerprinting has to be such a hassle. It wasn't for me. I was able to schedule, online, an appointment with my sheriff's department, get digitally fingerprinted, and background checked all within five days for under $50.

Granted, the privacy aspect is the ever-present issue.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#33

Post by BinaryIdiot »

jevinskie wrote: post #32
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the issue the cost of fingerprint checks? Can't fingerprint checks be made cheaper? The logistics and costs are both high. Honestly I'm all for background checks but fingerprinting is completely unrealistic. There are a lot of on-demand services nowadays some of which drive you places, others go into your home. I can't imagine Uber and Lyft will be the only ones required to do fingerprinting eventually. Someone…

I don't see why fingerprinting has to be such a hassle. It wasn't for me. I was able to schedule, online, an appointment with my sheriff's department, get digitally fingerprinted, and background checked all within five days for under $50. Granted, the privacy aspect is the ever-present issue.

> I was able to schedule, online, an appointment with my sheriff's department, get digitally fingerprinted, and background checked all within five days for under $50.

I think you just described a good part of the hassle. Not everyone driving for Uber / Lyft have $50 to use for fingerprinting services and a similar cost, even heavily discounted, represents a significant cost to the companies if they're covering it. Then you have the whole part where, currently, anyone can pick up people and provide lots of supply for the customer demand but if they all have to wait that introduces a huge amount of friction (so less drivers).

Granted this is just in the city of Austin so it's possible to handle it without great difficulty. But if this were to apply across the nation? That would be devastating for the businesses.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#34

Post by darawk »

Lazare wrote: post #2

I feel like I'm missing something. Reasonable people can disagree about what jobs should/should not require a background check, but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. > Unfortunately, the rules passed by the City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It…

Why is it even remotely reasonable that taxi drivers should have background checks? Are we really that worried about rogue taxi drivers? What is the worst case scenario here? What exactly does a background check for taxi drivers prevent?

The idea that the state should have anything to say about driving a car in exchange for money is absurd on its face and nothing more than the worst, silliest kind of security theater in my view.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#35

Post by [deleted] »

rumcajz wrote: post #22
argonaut wrote: post #6

Sounds like a business opportunity for a startup: we will operate in compliance in areas where Uber/Lyft won't.

Would you invest in a startup which can be destroyed by its competition at will, i.e. by Uber agreeing to do the checks? Not gonna fly.

[deleted]

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#36

Post by viscanti »

Lazare wrote: post #2

I feel like I'm missing something. Reasonable people can disagree about what jobs should/should not require a background check, but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. > Unfortunately, the rules passed by the City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It…

> Would their drivers refuse to undergo them?

Refuse is probably a strong word here but I imagine significantly less people are willing to drive in somewhere to give their fingerprints for a background check than just entering a social security number in a web form. So there's more inherent friction. But then Uber needs to maintain an office (or a set of offices) in every city that provides convenient parking and some kind of fingerprinting system. So it puts uber in a business that they're not in and makes it harder for drivers to become drivers.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#37

Post by nekopa »

hdmoore wrote: post #25

Less people voted for Prop-1 than signed the petition to create it (39k vs 65k). Uber and Lyft spent over $8m and lost. Sources: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/01/19/austin-group-gathers... , http://kxan.com/election-results/ , http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local-govt-politics/ube...

Was the petition online?

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#38

Post by lern_too_spel »

snitko wrote: post #31
Lazare wrote: post #2

I feel like I'm missing something. Reasonable people can disagree about what jobs should/should not require a background check, but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. > Unfortunately, the rules passed by the City Council don’t allow true ridesharing to operate. Why? Like, I read the whole article twice, and I'm still confused. It…

If a business feels like regulations created by the government are not reasonable, it has all the right to decide to stop doing business. Government shouldn't be regulating such things in the first place, but since it does, it surely can't force businesses to continue working under them. > but it doesn't seem entirely outrageous that the drivers of buses, taxis, and similar transportation services should have them. I…

One of them could take all of the other's business in Austin by integrating with a background check service, but they were both either too stubborn or too slow to implement integration with such a service in case their proposition failed. Now they're both losing business on top of the money already lost campaigning.

Re: Lyft and Uber to Halt Operations in Austin After Voters Reject Proposal

#40

Post by dragonwriter »

pdq wrote: post #20
clamprecht wrote: post #8

Is the issue the cost of fingerprint checks? Can't fingerprint checks be made cheaper? Isn't there a YC company that is in the background check business? Edit: Ah yes, https://checkr.com/

An instant nationwide fingerprint background check would have a big market opportunity. Not sure why that hasn't been created yet (to my knowledge). Checkr is just a standard background check, of which Uber/Lyft already do similar checks.

Because where such checks are required, they are usually required to be done at a state-certified location of the state of the jurisdiction imposing the requirement, with checks against specific state and federal databases.
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