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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

#321

Post by angry_octet »

robocat wrote: post #269
tao_oat wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like you've ever been poor. Quality of life is about far more than the goods you can consume. It's also about job security, your chances of getting promoted, autonomy, fulfillment, and so on. If you know that you're [absolutely screwed][1] if you get fired, or get sick, or miss a paycheck, you don't really get to feel safe. [1]: www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2015/01/07/majority-of-americans-are-…

It doesn't sound like you have ever been to a poor country. > It's also about job security, your chances of getting promoted, autonomy, fulfillment, and so on For a large number of people in the world, they are wanting food, basic safety, and healthcare.

The fact that there are many billions of poor people in the world does not mean that attempting to address inequality in America is pointless tinkering at first world problems.

Being well traveled isn't usually seen as helpful training for ignoring beggars and minimum wage people who need food stamps to eat, but there you go.

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

#322

Post by fastball »

angry-hacker wrote: post #286
bmon wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that cab companies aren't ripping you off already? In my area, you pay over twice the amount for a cab compared to uber.

And what do you think happens when they have the monopoly and/or VC's start wanting their money back?

The app changes.

That's what is so great about the fluidity of Uber, without medallions and regulation and such.

If Uber starts to increase prices because they have a monopoly, a lone person can build an app that's cheaper.

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

#323

Post by cpkpad »

PieterH wrote: post #190
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.

This is much more the case. The digital reputation system works better than all the taxi background checks. The routing works better. And it eliminates insane rules which effectively make taxis drive half the time without passengers (e.g. restricted pickup zones -- if a taxi takes me to the airport, they can't bring someone else back).

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

#324

Post by fnj »

erklik wrote: post #292
xg15 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how would you solve the problem based on that experience?

Some sort of basic income or a welfare scheme. As someone else mentioned, Australian's out of job get paid $300 or $400 depending on how many kids you have etc and how much savings. This allows the government to make sure that everyone out of a job doesn't go homeless but its not enough to be comfortable so people don't become dependent on it. ( Some people do become dependent on it, its not a 100% unfortunately )

Comfortable? Exactly how does $1200 per month come anywhere near paying housing, food, and clothing even for one single person?

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

#325

Post by tim333 »

jwallaceparker wrote: post #311

You and a friend are stranded on an island. You both spend all your working hours catching fish by hand in order to eat. You use some leisure time to build a fishing rod, which enables just one of you to catch enough fish to feed you both. It would be foolish to destroy the fishing rod to preserve both your jobs as fishermen. One of you would fish and the other would do something else, like build shelter and cut fire…

Not sure it takes fewer drivers to satisfy the demands of customers. As Uber like apps make getting a ride cheaper and nicer the useage is presumably going up so there should be more drivers but making less per hour.

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

#326

Post by zigzigzag »

cookiecaper wrote: post #170
edko wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. Self-driving trucks will make their jobs obsolete overnight. Imagine the immediate effect of all those people being without a job. What will happen to retail when those truckers buy less or stop buying? What will happen to wholesale shortly after? What will happen to all other industries? That truck drivers keep their jobs, or that they are gradually able to…

>Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. You'll find that "software engineer" is becoming the most common profession in many states where truck driver previously was. [0] If truck drivers become software engineers, that's a big quality of life upgrade. You'll also find that prior to the computer revolution, "secretary" was the most common job, because it took a lot of people to coordinate normal bu…

Exactly.

There's another possibility that nobody really likes to think about: automated trucking won't even start for decades or more. The railway industry is a good example of this. Trains run on dedicated pathways with hardly any traffic, they're the perfect example of a system that should be entirely computer controllable.

Yet the world still has many, many train drivers. Computers could have and arguably should have replaced their jobs long before we even started thinking about the infinitely harder problem of cars and trucking, but outside of a few well known projects it hasn't happened because:

1) There are very few computer programmers in the world who can develop and lead ultra-high reliability automated driving software projects.

2) Of those programmers, many aren't interested in rail projects, partly because so many programmers are in the USA and Americans don't use rail much.

3) The companies that need to buy the tech tend to only have civil engineering expertise at the top and no software engineering expertise, making it impossible for them to select the best providers in the market, meaning the market doesn't force evolution towards better technology and project failures are frequent (markets need informed customers and there aren't enough informed customers in the tiny railway industry for this to work well).

4) Drivers unions are very powerful and railways are often state owned or at least heavily regulated, so there's little commercial force of will to pick fights with the workforce.

The London Underground is a good example of these dynamics in action.

Everyone here is assuming that the trucking industry will immediately adopt auto-driving technology if it's available. But that's making some big assumptions.

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

#327

Post by cpkpad »

quickben wrote: post #3

Well, things should be equal. Why should a taxi service have to perform a regular vehicle inspection and a an uber driver be exempt from it? Either make the Uber driver go through regular inspections or cancel the regulation for the cabbies.

Uber's reputation system and screening and similar play the same role (together with normal vehicle inspections). Uber vehicles in Boston are in much better shape than cabs.

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

#330

Post by cpkpad »

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

In Boston, Uber drivers make much more than taxi drivers. Taxi drivers pay around $200 per day to rent a medallion from an investor (medallions were $600k investments at the time Uber came in). They had to work insane hours to make a profit on top of that.

Most Uber drivers are former taxi drivers, charging less, but making much more in the end, both by virtue of spending less time waiting, and by not paying rent.

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