Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#41

Post by kd5bjo » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

gbear605 wrote: post #21

evanlivingston wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be better?

Suppose that there is a helicopter overhead that you (and the five thousand people around you) would pay a dollar to get rid of. If you tax that flight $5000 and distribute it to the 5000 people who could hear that helicopter, then you get that dollar and you're just as happy as if that flight didn't exist. If you tax that flight $10,000, and distribute it to the 5000 people, then you get two dollars, making you happ…

This misses the differential impact of the disruption on different people. Freelancers that do audio recording, for example, may need to throw out and redo some of their work when it gets interrupted by a helicopter flyby. You either need to identify these people and five them a higher proportion of the tax revues to compensate, or price your tax/redistribution high enough that these high-value individuals are fairly compensated.

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#42

Post by nickserv » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 7:05 AM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #40

holy_city wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that making a luxury service more expensive will discourage use, unless we can make each flight cost tens of thousands of dollars. I'd rather just ban assholery than create a steep asshole tax. It doesn't bother me that a few rich people will have to wait in traffic like everyone else (or better - stop traveling for cross-town meetings and take a phone call!). Leave low altitude flight to emergency serv…

The point isn't to discourage use per se. The point is to force the entity producing negative externalities to pay for the damages they are incurring. If the business is still economical to run after these costs, it should be run, and the money can be kept to reduce taxes, pay for other noise abatement, etc.

If it's agreed that the behavior is damaging, why allow it? If you take the slippery slope down, then you could simply pay off any negative behavior like rape or murder.

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#43

Post by delfinom » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 9:59 AM UTC

jmugan wrote: post #28

I find it depressing that non-emergency helicopters are legal. The amount of noise they create to transport a few people ends up being a net negative on quality of life.

HAha. You think non-emergency helicopters are a problem? Wait until everyone and their mom is getting deliveries from thousands of drones. It'll be like in a soccer stadium with vuvuzelas outside.

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#44

Post by cafard » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 5:11 PM UTC

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #3

holy_city wrote: post #2

I'm an LA resident and there's not many kinds of businesses I think should be categorically banned, but helicopter transit is one of them. It's a public nuisance. I will regularly need to interrupt phone conversations to let a helicopter pass over, which is sometimes impossible when they decide to hover (though this is usually police helicopters).

The rest of the country gets by without lookie-loos enraptured by the latest highway chase.

Hah. Trying living in much of the Washington, DC area. The notion of a highway chase is mostly ridiculous here, but one has plenty of VIPs hurrying about by helicopter, and now and police searches.

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#45

Post by jessriedel » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

nickserv wrote: post #42

jessriedel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't to discourage use per se. The point is to force the entity producing negative externalities to pay for the damages they are incurring. If the business is still economical to run after these costs, it should be run, and the money can be kept to reduce taxes, pay for other noise abatement, etc.

If it's agreed that the behavior is damaging, why allow it? If you take the slippery slope down, then you could simply pay off any negative behavior like rape or murder.

The slipper slope goes in the opposite direction too. All behavior causes damages (negative externalities) to someone somewhere, but we don't outlaw all behavior.

There is a pretty well developed theory of econ & law of when it makes sense to have financial penalties and when it makes sense to have criminal penalties. I don't think I could do justice to it in this comment box, but suffice it to say, "only criminal penalties, no financial ones" is wrong.

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#46

Post by vkou » Tue, Oct 01, 2019, 8:54 PM UTC

jessriedel wrote: post #39

vkou wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That price would either be insultingly low to anyone impacted by the horrific noise, or so high as to make running such a business uneconomic. Just ban the bloody things outright.

You don't know what is and is not economical. Pick a price that will reduce average taxes on affected citizens enough that they are indifferent if the flights occur or not. If that price is too high to make the business economical, it will not occur, which is economically efficient.

Should we place a tax on murder? Certainly there's a payoff at which point, 50% of the voters will shrug their shoulders, and say: "Well, if someone's willing to pay 5 million dollars to want someone dead, surely they've got a great reason to... My property taxes just went down by half a percentage point!"

Re: Airbus-owned Voom brings its on-demand helicopter service to the US

#47

Post by gadjo95 » Thu, Oct 03, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

I used it 2 times in Brazil (I think their first market) and really enjoy the whole process. I used it to go to the airport. Friday night with traffic, you need almost 2 hours to reach the airport from my home. Using that I could do it in 45mn door to door. (20mn ride to the helipad, 10mn wait, 15mn ride) You can also enjoy the view which is a big plus.