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

#421

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:41 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #273

visarga wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

In my area, Uber is better because their drivers don't treat me like shit - and I'm not talking about being servile, but simply greeting me back and not ranting the whole way about how rides should be $20 minimum. Before Uber, I took a taxi only in emergencies, simply because it was more often than not an unpleasant experience. Their association is also corrupt as hell, so they can't even claim that over Uber.

I had an unpleasant Uber experience a few months ago where my driver illegally drove in a bike lane to make a right turn at a light, cutting off another car at the light that was legally trying to proceed right. The two drivers got into a verbal altercation that lasted for another light, and then my driver was ranting about it for the rest of the entire drive. I got the feeling that the Uber driver used to be a yellow cab driver who was doing the same thing now but without a medallion. I should point out that driving in the bike lane was especially infuriating to me because I bike every day, whereas I almost never take cars.

The big difference between Uber and cabs, however, is that I left the driver a negative review on Uber, and their customer support got back to me. If he keeps pulling that crap he's not going to be able to drive for Uber anymore. There's essentially no recourse for cab drivers. Sure, they may have contact info posted for their company by law, but if you try to contact them you won't reach anyone who cares.

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

#422

Post by 150latefees » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:45 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #298

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…

> If you're smart enough to get into an elite university, you don't have to worry about the cost. Full stop. This presupposes that you are already in a social position that allows your intelligence to be recognised and that puts you in a position to even apply, or know that applying is an option.

I cannot emphasize enough how true this is. Growing up as rural poor, it was an alien concept to me that there were tiers of colleges with different academic specializations. College was just a single monolithic concept to my people. If you were learned real good, and pass that big test, you could be admitted to college just like all those kids who lived closer to town. There was no difference in our minds between the community college 20 minutes away and the public university an hour and a half way. And once you get to the community college and shake off that fog, realize that college is a granular thing, then it is just all you can do to drag yourself up to that state university. Your family has no understanding at all why you would want to move to the state university. Its much further away, harder for you to help out, much more expensive. It just doesn't make any sense within their understanding of the world. Forget about an elite university, its been two years, and you are only now discovering calculus, formal logic, the scientific method. How will you ever compete with the hoards of whites who have been saturated in this world from the beginning?

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

#423

Post by curioussavage » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:47 PM 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.…

The assertion that free trade and technology are not good for the working class is totally false. Yes, the specific group of people whose jobs are no longer needed have to adapt but even they along with everyone else still benefit.

What is going down in Massachusetts is called a racket. The taxi boss crooks are going to benefit a little longer at the expense of everybody else.

I'm not in favor of the government providing safety nets but we already have them. Those taxi drivers who haven't been prudent enough to save or invest in other opportunities should use existing resources just like everybody else.

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

#424

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

idiot900 wrote: post #341

visarga wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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...

Taxis in some places have awful service and blatantly ignore the law. Extrapolating from my experience, nearly every credit card reader in a taxi in Philadelphia is broken even though they must be working, and has been for years. As such I use Uber there 100% of the time, even when a taxi is available. By contrast, somehow, NYC cabs virtually always have working equipment - and there I use taxis for the majority of c…

I get the feeling that the regulations in NYC have more teeth to them. The medallions are very costly, and you risk losing many days of profitability on them if your equipment isn't up to snuff.

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

#425

Post by rayiner » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

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…

It's not so simple. Taxis were granted a monopoly in order to serve as an extension of cities' public transit. In return, they lost the autonomy of a normal business. They can't set their own rates. The government sets rates. They aren't allowed to use surge pricing to match supply and demand. Indeed, in many cases they're not allowed to use a GPS-based method to compute the fare, which increases the difficulty of implementing an app.

This level of intrusion into a private sector business would be inconceivable today, post-Reagan. But taxi regulations were implemented at a time when this sort of thing was standard practice.

So you've got all these people who invested into these businesses with these regulations on the explicit promise the government would protect them from competition. Taxis are upset about having to compete because the whole deal was they would not have to, in return for regulated rates. But heavy regulation destroyed any possibility of innovation in the taxi industry. So you have to let ride sharing operate to move forward. But what do you just reneg on the promise to taxis?

I don't think taxing ride-sharing is an ideal solution. I'd prefer the state to just buy out the monopolies using general tax dollars. But it's not totally out on left field if you keep in mind the state isn't free to draw on a blank slate here.

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

#426

Post by guitarbill » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:54 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #344

cpkpad wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Boston. Taxi drivers are jumping to Uber and Lyft wholesale. They make more, and perhaps more importantly, the income is steady. With the taxi system, medallions cost about $600,000 to buy, and were owned by rich investors. Cab drivers rent those medallions for around $200 per day, and after paying off the investor, kept any profit on top of that. On a bad day, they'd lose money. On a decent day, they'd wor…

You're right except the whole "making more" part. Once the market is saturated with Uber drivers like has happened in places like London, rates start to go down, and drivers make WAY less than than the used to. Simple supply and demand. No defense of the medallion system. Maybe the government should "bail out" taxi medallion owners, and simply pay back these medallion costs so that taxi drivers are free to figure out…

> simply pay back these medallion costs so that taxi drivers are free to figure out the next step in their careers/lives without the indentured servitude of paying back the medallion loans hanging around their necks.

this is actually one of the more sensible proposals i've heard.

although i will say that the two cities i've lived in (leeds and manchester) already had private hire vehicles before uber. and it was kind of hit and miss. at this point, i'm not sure uber has to be cheaper - i'd use it just because their user experience is so much better than ringing some terrible phoneline etc.

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

#427

Post by rayiner » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 1:55 PM UTC

Trundle wrote: post #36

acidburnNSA wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Many of them don't want to go back to school or get technical training... What do we tell the taxi and truck drivers when Uber shows up with self-drivers, etc.? Uhhh, how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? I know plenty of people on hn are all about the "making the world a better place" shtick and would work anyway/for the sake of it but for the vast majority of people work straight up means doing things you otherw…

The purpose of government isn't to facilitate innovation or make life easier for professionals. It's to, basically, maximize the welfare of the middle 51%. The former is often a means to an end for the latter, but it's just that.

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

#428

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 2:02 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #344

cpkpad wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Boston. Taxi drivers are jumping to Uber and Lyft wholesale. They make more, and perhaps more importantly, the income is steady. With the taxi system, medallions cost about $600,000 to buy, and were owned by rich investors. Cab drivers rent those medallions for around $200 per day, and after paying off the investor, kept any profit on top of that. On a bad day, they'd lose money. On a decent day, they'd wor…

You're right except the whole "making more" part. Once the market is saturated with Uber drivers like has happened in places like London, rates start to go down, and drivers make WAY less than than the used to. Simple supply and demand. No defense of the medallion system. Maybe the government should "bail out" taxi medallion owners, and simply pay back these medallion costs so that taxi drivers are free to figure out…

> Once the market is saturated with Uber drivers like has happened in places like London, rates start to go down, and drivers make WAY less than than the used to. Simple supply and demand.

That's the problem with a profession where the main skill requirement is possessed by the majority of the adult population. It's never going to be a good job because the supply is essentially infinite. Imagine how different things would be for us as software engineers if everyone knew how to program.

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

#429

Post by CydeWeys » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 2:06 PM UTC

Ericson2314 wrote: post #220

dsacco wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I conflate socioeconomic mobility and income equality? I didn't intend to do that. More to your point - I respond by asking whether or not the socioeconomic standing of a scientist matters for the societal impact of their work. I don't see an easy conclusion here. The scientists driving innovation in industry are generally paid very well (this is relative, but we can probably agree they are paid higher than…

How many famous intellectuals from before the 19th century came from the lower classes? That is what we will return to.

Thank you. There are so many "could have beens" throughout history that didn't happen simply because the vast majority of the human populace was, until very recently, entirely excluded from being able to contribute towards human progress.

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

#430

Post by rayiner » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 2:07 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #378

rhino369 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how taxi medallions came into existence. Cities began to regulate taxis. They set prices, made safety regulations, made it so taxis couldn't refuse service. In exchange taxis were licensed to ensure the prices the city set supported a fleet of taxis. It's hilarious that Uber a billion dollar corporation portrays a bunch of Muslim or African immigrants as rich fat cats. Just lol

What can you say? They've got good PR folks and well-connected political hires.

What's particularly fantastic is that they can maintain this PR shtick in the face of the fact that the thing that makes uber possible--surge pricing--is exactly the kind of "gouging" government-regulated rates we're designed to prevent. "Oh, it's raining? Well that's going to cost extra!"