Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

usatoday.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 270 posts

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#61

Post by weberc2 »

joejerryronnie wrote: post #16

It appears the basic reason for a taxi medallion system is to regulate the industry and control supply to prevent a flood of random drivers being unleashed on an unsuspecting populous. Uber/Lyft business model: Unleash a flood of random drivers on an unsuspecting populous. Not that I agree with the taxi medallion system as it's ultimately been used to grant political favors and prop up unnatural monopolies but it is…

> Unleash a flood of random drivers on an unsuspecting populous.

Not sure if it's a "flood", but the volume of drivers is self-adjusting for the demand. As to the quality of drivers, I have no reason to believe Uber/Lyft drivers are worse than taxis. Chicago taxis drive like lunatics, but this hasn't been so much my experience with Uber/Lyft drivers, who seem to be a cross-section of Chicago drivers. And I don't know that the populace has been meaningfully "unsuspecting".

So all in all, this seems like a net positive--one less thing for the government to spend money regulating in the long run and a better system for everyone else (probably the former caused the latter, but anyway...).

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#62

Post by bitJericho »

incongruity wrote: post #57
xigency wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the VC money and lack of regulations is a huge issue. What people don't realize is that once the taxi companies are dead, the ride sharing apps will be able to raise prices and lower quality. Not to mention the issues already seen with Uber and Lyft, whether at a corporate level or on a driver/passenger level.

And cities are free to regulate the ride sharing operators or reduce taxi medallion and tax costs to let them come back. The government fees/licensing restrictions are the only significant barrier to entry in the industry. Fix those and Uber/Lyft have competition in days.

They do regulate. Uber/Lyft flout the regulations...

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#63

Post by bitJericho »

linkregister wrote: post #42
bitJericho wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a taxi your ride was insured if the driver got in an accident. Your cabbie is certified, and less likely to be crazy. Also half your lyft/uber ride is paid by a VC.

The Uber/Lyft ride is ensured by the company; your driver might be screwed if they crashed on the way to pick you up, however.

You should probably read some news stories about that...

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#64

Post by bitJericho »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #47
bitJericho wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll see what you think of the cab industry when uber raises their prices by 3 times in order to become profitable, after the cabbies all gone.

Yeah, and I bet after Borders shuts down, you'll see Amazon raise book prices sky-high! People always claim this will happen, and it never seems to. If Uber tripled prices, a competitor would start up to cut into their market share.

VCs wont pay for rides forever.

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#65

Post by alkonaut »

brianwawok wrote: post #39
alkonaut wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about where I get a cab where there is app dispatch+ (pre) payment. And no medallions. Obviously taxi companies that still operate like it's 1990 are going to go extinct - my question was why are they operating like it's 1990?

As a monopoly, you usually have no reason to change. You make piles of money with no extra work, why innovate? Uber/Lyft is eating their lunch. Now they need to innovate or die. Very likely they die at this point.

> As a monopoly, you usually have no reason to change.

But they don't have a monopoly and haven't for several years. I mean changing from phone dispatch to apps has to be done in 6-12 months not 6-12 years otherwise yes they will go under.

So what you are saying is that they are too slow to change? What's the reason for that? Is it that the taxi operators are small businesses and they are a too diverse group to be willing to take large risks/investmentst together such as for improving their common dispatch? In that case - the system is almost a perfect storm.

So would you agree that at challenges to traditional taxi in medallion-cities include:

- Small taxi companies (single car to maybe 100 cars) rather than large operators (1000 cars or more) that would have the money to evolve when needed

- Expensive medallions causing overhead compared to Uber/Lyft

- Long history of monopoly causing an unfamiliarity with rapid changes

- (Possibly) regulative hurdles to overcome before you could e.g. pre-charge for a ride or dispatch with an app rather than phone?

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#66

Post by logfromblammo »

dev360 wrote: post #23
degenerate wrote: post #7

Good, it's about time we let some crappy things die. Bailing out the banks and GM got me furious many years ago. Imagine if the government stepped in and saved Altavisa / Pets.com, and all the other dot-com boom companies? What good would that have done? Nothing. Let 'em burn and innovation will rise from the ashes.

I've never been furious about Taxis before I heard of the medallion system in Chicago and New York.. Sounds like something the mob would cook up together with crooked politicians as an alternative source of revenue.

> ...something the mob would cook up together with crooked politicians...

It's Chicago. The crooked politicians are their own mob. Vice crime may be contracted out to the local gangs, but the rackets are kept strictly in-house.

That way, when you want to buy a senate seat, there's no pesky middleman in the way to jack up prices. You can just go straight to the governor and hand him an envelope of cash under the table.

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#67

Post by weberc2 »

bitJericho wrote: post #28
TY wrote: post #6

Anectodal evidence from my trip to Chicago last week. The same trip cost me twice as much when I took a taxi vs Lyft. So guess what I'm going to take the next time...

In a taxi your ride was insured if the driver got in an accident. Your cabbie is certified, and less likely to be crazy. Also half your lyft/uber ride is paid by a VC.

I keep hearing this, but I also keep hearing that Lyft and Uber drivers have to go through a background check. Why should I believe that taxi drivers are less likely to be crazy?

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#68

Post by weberc2 »

jseliger wrote: post #33
bitJericho wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a taxi your ride was insured if the driver got in an accident. Your cabbie is certified, and less likely to be crazy. Also half your lyft/uber ride is paid by a VC.

less likely to be crazy. Having taken many cabs and many rides via Uber, Lyft, and Juno, I'm not sure why you'd claim this. The drivers for ride-sharing services are far safer, saner, and more careful than cab drivers. The reason is not hard to ascertain: at the end of almost every trip drivers and riders rate each other.

This seems to match my experience.

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#69

Post by bdalgaard »

jseliger wrote: post #33
bitJericho wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a taxi your ride was insured if the driver got in an accident. Your cabbie is certified, and less likely to be crazy. Also half your lyft/uber ride is paid by a VC.

less likely to be crazy. Having taken many cabs and many rides via Uber, Lyft, and Juno, I'm not sure why you'd claim this. The drivers for ride-sharing services are far safer, saner, and more careful than cab drivers. The reason is not hard to ascertain: at the end of almost every trip drivers and riders rate each other.

I think there are similar related downsides that could be said about ride-sharing too. If we are giving anecdotal experience then I will say that ride-sharing drivers in Chicago are much more likely to blow through yellow/red lights or park in a cross-walk. The reason is not hard to ascertain: I can easily call 311 on a taxi as a pedestrian with the taxi number.

Personally, I see a lot of people happy killing all of the problems with taxis (particularly in Chicago) but I fear that we are "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". Taxis in Chicago have a ton of problems, but I still have concerns about ride-sharing too.

Re: Chicago taxi industry sliding towards collapse

#70

Post by maxerickson »

gricardo99 wrote: post #59
degenerate wrote: post #7

Good, it's about time we let some crappy things die. Bailing out the banks and GM got me furious many years ago. Imagine if the government stepped in and saved Altavisa / Pets.com, and all the other dot-com boom companies? What good would that have done? Nothing. Let 'em burn and innovation will rise from the ashes.

"Let'em burn" with respect to "the banks" has been researched and cited as exacerbating the great depression[1]. I know there are folks legitimately concerned with moral hazard, and genuinely believe letting it all burn down would have been the better approach. I'm just glad they weren't in charge when everything went into a tail spin. I think it would have been a LOT worse for everyone. The Automaker bailout, in hin…

I think there is a legitimate question about how long the status quo can keep being propped up though.

It is interesting how angry people get about the bank bailouts though, as if it was narrowly targeted at the owners of the banks and not targeted at preserving the entire economy.

Post reply on HN