301–310 of 539 posts
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Works globally, processes payments, eliminates bad drivers.
The last bit is problematic, as one of the criticisms against them is that they don't eliminate the bad drivers. People drive with all sorts of criminal records which they tried to spin as something positive.
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We also have 200 years of people in the redundant industries complaining about it, and 200 years of government regulating to make the transition less painful. Why should we stop that with taxis?
> 200 years of government regulating to make the transition less painful. i find that hard to believe - what was done in the last 200 years to lessen the pain of any transition?
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> "the tax will produce…$1.5m/year" If that's $83 per taxi-driver, then I agree: handing that $83 to the driver will not have a significant effect. So rather than use the tax to directly subsidise taxi-drivers income, what if it's used to invest in taxi infrastructure? Or perhaps invest in things that level the playing field, providing equivalents to some of Lyft/Uber's tools? Research or software into the most profi…
I completely agree with you that this could be meaningful if it's used to improve taxi infrastructure, although I'm skeptical that the government will be able to effectively allocate money to build software tools that compete with Uber and Lyft. But regardless, why is the MA taxi industry waiting tax ride-hailing apps? Why not just ask every taxi driver for $83, which seems like a small price to pay for job security?
I guess it's because of fragmentation: the "MA taxi industry" is an amorphous unidentifiable mass made up of hundreds of individual cab companies and thousands of drivers. There's no one body to say "Hey, pay $83 and we'll make things better", and even if there were, without a state regulation to compel the payment, many drivers wouldn't chip in, leaving a much higher fee for those who did, or a much poorer investment fund. Those who did chip in would want preferential treatment or the exclusion of those who didn't pay, and we'd be in exactly the position where we are: those who want to evolve tools and invest in the industry (and have the means) do so at their own cost and to their own benefit, and those who don't, don't.
Sometimes there's a role for tax and regulation to force change. That said, like you, I'm skeptical that the government will spend the money effectively.
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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 weav…
The Luddites were active around 1811 and welfare in the UK seems to have come in around 1906. The solutions at the time were closer to "suck it up". The government used "show trials intended to deter other Luddites from continuing their activities. By meting out harsh consequences, including, in many cases, execution and penal transportation, the trials quickly ended the movement."
That was the era of Charles Dickens and workhouses for the poor.
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> What happens to an entire class of working people In a free market capitalist society, the most optimal case is that they spend a significant portion of their earnings buying capital (i.e. stocks and bonds), so as time goes on more of their earnings come from capital. Unfortunately, in the USA at least, we make capital accumulation ridiculously hard for working class people due to the cult of homeownership and a ta…
Homeownership is capital accumulation. I'm not sure that a system where a large part of GDP is directed at stock purchase is sustainable; that's how private pensions are supposed to work but the system is creaking.
I like the idea of some kind of modern/virtual self-sustained living, where you own your house, produce your own energy and cover all costs by dividends from stocks of the same companies you buy products from.
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Low socioeconomic mobility is a problem because the potential for any individual to contribute to the good of society is at best loosely correlated with their previous socioeconomic status. If people who could have been top-notch scientists, engineers, civil servants and entrepreneurs were prevented from doing so because they couldn't move up the ladder (and inversely, rich rent-seekers couldn't move down), society i…
What is socioeconomic mobility (of a person) in this discussion ? Is it rate of change in salary ? > If people who could have been top-notch scientists, engineers, civil servants and entrepreneurs were prevented from doing so because they couldn't move up the ladder (and inversely, rich rent-seekers couldn't move down), society is deprived of their contributions and is worse off. Why are they being perevented ? If I…
> Why are they being perevented ?
Well, education is expensive -- and has an opportunity cost -- so low-income people often cannot afford to improve their skills and earn more income. If I am poor, and I have enough intelligence to become a good scientist, engineer, or artist, but cannot afford to go to university and gather the requisite skills, then this is a loss to society.
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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?
Without people you can also do tricks like electrifying the chassis, so anyone who tries to touch it gets an electric shock.
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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 weav…
> putting a burden on something productive just because it is better What aspect of Uber is better than a regular taxi? I can hail taxis from my phone just as well. They take me to the destination. I think Uber found a way to subsidize their fleet with drivers own cars and not pay some taxes to the state which the regular taxi drivers have to pay. Maybe I am missing something...
I would argue that the reputation system for drivers (and passengers) is an improvement over the current taxi system. The online booking system (app) is massively better than any taxi booking system I've used. These are strong incentives.
Obviously taxi systems involve paying the state for a licence to operate, but the ~500k price (depending on location) is solely due to an articficial scarcity. There needs to be some external regulation, so Uber/etc should pay some per trip/km charge.
One of the biggest problems with Uber and Taxis is insurance. Basically this cost/risk is being directly transferred to the driver, who may have no assets. It isn't acceptable for a service like this to have un-covered liabilities.
The other big gap is that Uber and Taxi companies have terrible employment practices. Failure to pay payroll tax is only the tip of the iceberg.