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

reuters.com

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

#201

Post by [deleted] »

BurningFrog wrote: post #173
tro2102 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? I don't necessarily disagree with this sentiment, but this doesn't really address the question, which is about what happens to an industry when it's made redundant by technology. Cab drivers competing with self-driving cars can't "suck it up". "what if they don't want to" in regard to people working? Again, I feel you haven't read the spirit of this comment accurately. What ha…

> what happens to an industry when it's made redundant by technology We have over 200 years experience of countless industries being made redundant by technology. It's not a new scary thing that has never happened before.

[deleted]

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

#203

Post by scottmf »

Azkar wrote: post #45
JoshTriplett wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cab driver is unsure how to process credit cards Or, quite frequently, the cab driver doesn't want to process credit cards and are you sure you don't have cash?

If the taxi even shows up at all...

Or you hail one and they don't want to go where you're going.

It amazes me how consistently poor the service is from old-style taxis across the world.

Is there a worse industry for consumers?

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

#204

Post by pmorici »

zaidf wrote: post #136
gaius wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber drivers are like employees, but without employee rights. This is great for Uber and its investors, but not so much for "working people".

Citation needed. If you were right, you wouldn't have employed baristas etc. quitting their jobs to drive uber. To make your claim without acknowledging well-established upside of not being employed by Uber is disingenuous at best. Many drivers I talk to enjoy not having fixed work hours and the general flexibility not usually offered when you become an employee. Your argument speaks for none of these Uber drivers.

Uber recruits drivers through deceptive if not outright false ads for starters. The ads I've seen said things like "Make $70,000 per year driving for Uber in city X!"

That statement is outright false a full time Uber driver makes $12 an hour after expenses under the _best_ of circumstances. People quit jobs, take out new car loans, and generally make long term commitments based on statements from Uber like the one above.

Uber also has total control over pricing, and lowers prices and changes what they pay drivers often with little more than a couple weeks notice if that. The driver has taken all the risk with regards to changing jobs, going into debt etc and Uber has them over a barrel. I can't think of another industry where a contractor would work under conditions like that where they let the company control the rate they get paid and change it at any time on short notice.

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

#205

Post by armenarmen »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #69
acidburnNSA wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like it. For self-driving trucks, someone suggested to me once that we could give all the truck drivers promotions to "logistics supervisors." They ride along and do paperwork and the trucking companies stop hiring for that position. I just feel like it's more likely that the trucking companies see that they can save money by firing them and tell them goodbye.

They will always need drivers just to stave off banditry and handle emergencies. What is likely is a single manned truck leading small convoys of automated machines.

I've never heard the banditry argument. But it makes sense. Assuming that some variety of Asimov's laws will apply to self driving trucks they won't be able to defend their cargo (beyond locking and calling for help) it makes sense that there would be some sort of security detail. I wonder if, in the style of Ned Lud, if the robbers will in part be the same displaced truck drivers?

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

#206

Post by ucarion »

BurningFrog wrote: post #168
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…

> Taxis are a dying industry, but taxi drivers are not adapting. How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either. Let's be clear: The people hardest hit by Uber/Lyft is taxi company owners . > Clearly, asking them to adapt overnight would be too demanding Uber has been around for half a decade. How many decades does it take?

> How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either.

To be clear: I don't know either. I'm an outsider to this industry. I'm just offering arguments.

> Let's be clear: The people hardest hit by Uber/Lyft is taxi company owners.

I don't think this is true. They're losing the most money, but they have lots of money. Taxi drivers risk losing all their revenue, which is worse.

> Uber has been around for half a decade. How many decades does it take?

I think this is the hardest question. According to the people behind this bill, half a decade is not enough. I agree with that judgment.

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

#207

Post by dmoo »

dsacco wrote: post #134
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…

In response to your main issue regarding socioeconomic mobility - why is this, in turn, a problem? If you can demonstrate that reduced social mobility is an issue, and that this is increased by progressively greater income inequality (the latter of which I probably agree with on cursory inspection), then it seems income inequality is a net loss. However, from a utilitarian perspective, I don't see a reason to care ab…

I would guess that if income inequality is high and mobility is impossible people may consider other options. If there is no chance that they can earn a better way of life they may band together and take it. It's not like these things haven't happened before.

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

#208

Post by hx87 »

spriggan3 wrote: post #24
xname2 wrote: post #19

It should be totally opposite: 1) uber drivers are in lower income than taxis drivers 2) uber economy is new and innovative, while taxi is old and dying

or better 3) uber is a taxi company and should follow the same laws and regulations as other taxi companies. Which would of course destroy uber's business model which is based on dodging the law, sorry, "disruption".

or even better

3a) as in (3), but there are either no quantity limits whatsoever, or if there is a quantity limit the licenses are valid for one year only and are sold at open auctions at the beginning of every year.

Travis Kalahnick might be an asshole, but I'd take him over Eddie Tutunjian any day.

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

#210

Post by staticfish »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #57
maverick_iceman wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One Bus Away was developed by University of Washington students, not government bureaucrats.

How do you believe University of Washington students know the location of each bus in the Metro Seattle area, in "real time"? Also, to play devil's advocate, isn't UW technically government funded, at least subsidized for "in state" students?

Simple. they pushed and pushed until they could get wheel arch counters installed on the buses.
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