Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis • Hacker News Board

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#181

Post by stephenr » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:47 AM UTC

Malician wrote: post #171

stephenr wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

regular basic inspection/maintenance (in Australia it's once a day from memory) of taxis mean a customer is much less likely to get stuck somewhere because their taxi had a mechanical failure. Taxis drive a LOT more km/miles than regular cars - more driving, and particularly more city driving === more wear and tear on the cars systems. Yet again it seems to me that the fandom around uber in the USA is because your ta…

Except this doesn't actually happen. I have always had much better cars riding in Uber, much better service, and felt safer, too. There is nothing good about cabs. I have a list of cab horror stories long as my arm.

So your argument is basically: the law says X must happen. X doesn't happen, so laws are inherently bad.

Why are Americans so uniquely able to have terrible implementations of things and just treat the idea in general as the fault, not the implementation.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#182

Post by civilian » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:47 AM UTC

morgante wrote: post #117

HillRat wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd like to see a dialectic about why income inequality increasing is bad, in of itself. One main issue is that income inequality decreases socioeconomic mobility by inflating the cost of scarce goods that improve earnings capabilities. So 4K TVs are cheaper but college tuition becomes unaffordable, because good universities and grad programs are valuable, scarce goods that the wealthy can outbid everyone else on. P…

> So 4K TVs are cheaper but college tuition becomes unaffordable, because good universities and grad programs are valuable, scarce goods that the wealthy can outbid everyone else on. Except that such goods are increasingly not priced via the market. If you're smart enough to get into an elite university, you don't have to worry about the cost. Full stop. That being said, I do think we have a societal responsibility t…

It's one thing when a billionaire gives away their money and are able to direct it at the charities they want. It's another thing when it's taxed and coordinated by the government. The United States government has the bias just as you showed-- to help the american people. But most of these tech billionaires recognize that it's imperative that we help all people, regardless of where they were born.

It's why I'd rather give to GiveWell than to my local shelter.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#183

Post by halis » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:48 AM UTC

They don't even pretend to care about every day consumers anymore.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#184

Post by chillacy » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:49 AM UTC

AndyNemmity wrote: post #106

hueving wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methinks you don't know what uberTAXI is.

I didn't, never used it. So it's an app that hails you a taxi. Does that make Uber a taxi service?

No, unless they're paying the drivers. They're basically providing an interface to find taxis.

Just like how Amazon can sell you a pack of Coke without being a food manufacturer.

Or blogs can bring affiliate traffic to Amazon without being PCI compliant.

Kayak and Hipmunk can get you a plane ticket without being an airline company.

Etc.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#185

Post by jacobolus » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:52 AM UTC

ricw wrote: post #93

This is unbelievable. Never have I used a more corrupt and unfriendly taxi service as the one in Boston / Cambridge. And they are supposed to be subsidised?! I have 1) been driven round crazy detours to up my cost 2) been forced to drive a detour because the card machine was broken and they only accepted cash 3) been turned down because my destination wasn't far enough 4) been shouted at because I was watching the fr…

I lived in Cambridge for about 6 years from ~2004–2011. Nothing but positive experiences with Boston-area cabs. The drivers were uniformly friendly and competent, and had no trouble with the ridiculously convoluted MA street layouts. When I was carrying suitcases or moving boxes of books around, they were patient and helpful with loading/unloading. When I left my wallet one time, the driver called me as soon as he found it and promptly returned it.

Maybe you just got unlucky? Or maybe things have deteriorated since other transportation started undercutting them?

Yay for anecdotal evidence, right?

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#186

Post by morgante » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:52 AM UTC

civilian wrote: post #182

morgante wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So 4K TVs are cheaper but college tuition becomes unaffordable, because good universities and grad programs are valuable, scarce goods that the wealthy can outbid everyone else on. Except that such goods are increasingly not priced via the market. If you're smart enough to get into an elite university, you don't have to worry about the cost. Full stop. That being said, I do think we have a societal responsibility t…

It's one thing when a billionaire gives away their money and are able to direct it at the charities they want. It's another thing when it's taxed and coordinated by the government. The United States government has the bias just as you showed-- to help the american people. But most of these tech billionaires recognize that it's imperative that we help all people, regardless of where they were born. It's why I'd rather…

Yes, I personally would prefer to redistribute internationally (and hence that's where all my personal donations go) but from conversations I've recognized that it's politically unpalatable to the vast majority of Americans. The vast majority of people somehow think that their fellow Americans are more deserving than the international poor (and will quite strenuously argue that things like having toys for local kids is more important than literally saving lives).

The nice thing about our tax system is that you can write off donations. So even if we did adopt stronger tax measures, billionaires could still choose to support more effective causes than the government.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#187

Post by hx87 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:53 AM UTC

tomdell wrote: post #125

maverick_iceman wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The medallion owners were making an investment. Every investment carries a risk. If they were profiting from their investments then they were not going to share those with anyone else. Why then should others share their losses?

Imagine you want to open a restaurant. You know that it will be successful - you've done your research, whatever, yadda yadda. The government charges you a hefty initial tax to open your restaurant - it's a steep cost, but you expect that you'll be able to pay it off, because you know your place is going to do well. Seriously, you've paid attention to history - these kinds of things - the way you're doing it, anyway…

If only taxi medallions were issued in a reasonably fair manner, such as a fixed fee with no quantity limits, or an annual auction with quantity limits...

A better analogy would be if the government, starting in 1930, only allowed there to be 3 restaurants in the city, and sold you one of the licenses for a sum of 1 cent. Now it's 2015, there are still only 3 restaurants in the city, and because the license is permanent and transferable, now it's worth $50 million. Then food trucks come and take all your business.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#188

Post by ptaipale » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:54 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #160

ucarion wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You identify most of the difficulty of this scenario: 1. Taxis are a dying industry, but taxi drivers are not adapting. 2. As a result, taxi drivers are suffering. Their livelihoods, which have brought food to their families' tables for decades, are being taken from them by forces they could not anticipate or control. Of course, 3. We care about these taxi drivers. Suffering is bad no matter what industry you work in…

To this end, we should br taxing self driving cars to create a pension fund for taxi drivers. Taxing one cab company to pay another doesn't seem to address your listed concerns at all.

It's good to care about taxi drivers, but not because they are taxi drivers.

Go back >200 years. In England, Spinning Jennies replaced weavers, and there were luddites who tried to resist, but the solution was not to start subsidizing weavers; and not even a specific tax to weaving machines to provide for the weavers specifically; the solution was to slowly build a social security system, and not just for master weavers (who had been relatively well off) but everyone.

Agreed, taxing one company to pay another does not make sense, but neither does subsidizing people of a certain profession just because they are no longer productive, by putting a burden on something productive just because it is better.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#189

Post by hx87 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:54 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #14

rev_bird wrote: post #2

This is a pretty surreal move: >The law says the money will help taxi businesses to adopt "new technologies and advanced service, safety and operational capabilities" and to support workforce development... [Larry Meister, manager of the Boston area's Independent Taxi Operator's Association] said the money could go toward improving a smartphone app his association has started using, or to other big needs. I'm not an…

I mostly agree with you, and I would have wholeheartedly agreed with you 2 weeks ago, but I just read a book ("Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank) that makes some interesting points about how liberals have shifted from representing working people to representing professionals, and to worshiping innovation. While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality.…

Or, you know, we could tax the disruptors (and the rest of the economy) and give everyone an UBI.

Re: Massachusetts to tax ride-hailing apps, give the money to taxis

#190

Post by PieterH » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:55 AM UTC

brownbat wrote: post #21

There are two competing narratives about ride-hailing apps success: 1) They are profitable because they are finding loopholes in relevant legislation, or, 2) they are profitable because they are injecting competition and new ideas into a stagnating industry dominated by government-protected monopolies (or oligopolies). Your opinion of the law will likely depend on which narrative you find more persuasive.

3) they're profitable because they fit demand to supply better, with less administrative overhead.