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Uber Boston Has Been Served

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Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#31

Post by ataggart »

tptacek wrote: post #10
andygcook wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that pretty much sums it up correctly. The City of Boston placed a sting operation on one of the Uber drivers in the issuance of ticket (i), where once they saw the driver had used an unauthorized meter, they made him pull over where a police officer was already waiting. It's unfortunate that Boston has issued a cease and desist on the service though. I live in Boston, and Uber is great as it's almost impossi…

As always in situations like this, my thoughts are simultaneously on how awesome Uber is, and how not awesome every other service/scam that takes advantage of this flexibility might be. It is very important that cities be able to provide visitors with a reliable way to get a ride from point A (usually: the airport) to point B (usually: the convention center hotel) at a predictable price. Obviously, Uber doesn't preve…

Obviously, Uber doesn't prevent visitors from getting to the convention center directly; Uber isn't taking up spots at the cab stand at LGA. But if the "Uber way of doing business" effectively drives regulated cabs out of business, that's a problem.

I'm not clear on the "why" of your final sentence. Is it that no regulated cab companies could stay in business serving the airports? Or that Uber would eventually take over the airport traffic? Or that regulated cabs would be replaced by unregulated cabs at the airport?

As it stands, Uber seems to be supplying a market poorly served by extant firms.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#33

Post by mbell »

ryanglasgow wrote: post #27
tptacek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons (neither dispositive): (i) The cities in which Uber operates usually have dysfunctional cab systems. San Francisco, for instance, is notoriously underserved. (ii) Much of the regulatory overhead in running a cab/livery service really is an artifact of top-down market controls from the turn of the last century that have been exploited to lock the market to a privileged few operators.

These are two good reasons for the law to be reformed, but not for why Uber is above the law. I see no reason for Uber to be exempt from the same regulations other services must abide by.

Laws don't change for the hell of it, certainly not because someone looks over the books and says "well thats silly". To get a law changed requires drawing mass attention to its silliness. Often times the best impetus is to get the public pissed off, taking away a service the public loves is a great way to piss them off.

Its a chicken and egg problem. There has to be igniting situation to get change to happen and a company can not operate 100% legally without the change occuring. As a result its sometimes in the company's best interest to ignite the fire themselves and eat any blow back.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#34

Post by tptacek »

ataggart wrote: post #31
tptacek wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always in situations like this, my thoughts are simultaneously on how awesome Uber is, and how not awesome every other service/scam that takes advantage of this flexibility might be. It is very important that cities be able to provide visitors with a reliable way to get a ride from point A (usually: the airport) to point B (usually: the convention center hotel) at a predictable price. Obviously, Uber doesn't preve…

Obviously, Uber doesn't prevent visitors from getting to the convention center directly; Uber isn't taking up spots at the cab stand at LGA. But if the "Uber way of doing business" effectively drives regulated cabs out of business, that's a problem. I'm not clear on the "why" of your final sentence. Is it that no regulated cab companies could stay in business serving the airports? Or that Uber would eventually take o…

It's not that Uber itself would muscle out regulated cabs, it's that other firms operating under the same rules Uber secured for itself could. Like most people I find Uber itself to be benign.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#35

Post by uuilly »

Uber, AirBNB and Food Trucks are interesting for two reasons:

1) They are on a collision course with the regulatory state.

2) Their employees are, by and large, young liberals.

Cab medallions are not much different in concept than wind and solar subsidies. In both cases, the government is picking a winner.

Our types of companies have been happily immune from the meddling of the regulatory state. As we crawl out into the real world we are dog-fooding the polices we voted for. Hopefully we will realize how bad they taste.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#36

Post by mbell »

jhcoaps2 wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two reasons (neither dispositive): (i) The cities in which Uber operates usually have dysfunctional cab systems. San Francisco, for instance, is notoriously underserved. (ii) Much of the regulatory overhead in running a cab/livery service really is an artifact of top-down market controls from the turn of the last century that have been exploited to lock the market to a privileged few operators.

Marijuana shouldn't be regulated as it is. Should startups be allowed to sell Marijuana? Of course not, either everyone should, or nobody should. Level playing fields and all that.

Ironic example given that every medicinal marijuana dispensary in the country is operating in spite of Federal law. They only get away with it because the US government has decided to, at least for now, turn a blind eye.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#37

Post by tptacek »

mindcrime wrote: post #30
tptacek wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this statement says anything; it's a rhetorical NOP. You'd want to accompany it with the reason why municipalities could be assured that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B in the absence of regulation.

You'd want to accompany it with the reason why municipalities could be assured that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B in the absence of regulation. How is it a proper role of municipal government to "(assure) that visitors would have a reliable way to get a ride from point A to point B"??? I reject the fundamental premise this is based on. I mean, you have to consider the uninte…

The system clearly isn't fulfilling the needs of San Francisco consumers. But that doesn't logically imply that the only answer is to toss the regulations; instead, it could just mean that San Francisco needs to issue several hundred new medallions.

I'm not sure how simply certifying cabs overcomes information asymmetry here. The signal that competes with the certificate is "advertised price", but the whole point of cab regulations is ensuring that customers receive a predictable price and a safe, complete, timely carriage to their destination. Permission to solicit uncertified cab business seems like a license to prey on naive riders. It's clearly not in the state's interest for the market for transportation in the city to devolve that way.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#38

Post by tptacek »

mbell wrote: post #36
jhcoaps2 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marijuana shouldn't be regulated as it is. Should startups be allowed to sell Marijuana? Of course not, either everyone should, or nobody should. Level playing fields and all that.

Ironic example given that every medicinal marijuana dispensary in the country is operating in spite of Federal law. They only get away with it because the US government has decided to, at least for now, turn a blind eye.

That's a little simplistic. They're also taking advantage of local and state laws that explicitly allow them to operate. There's no such arbitrage to be had in cab laws.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#39

Post by bengl3rt »

jhcoaps2 wrote: post #23
chimi wrote: post #6

I don't think being a startup should grant you immunity from the law or absolve the requirement to follow local regulations and licensing statutes. Lawyers, doctors, electricians they all have to follow the law too. Why is Uber a special case?

I have to agree with you. The original Ubercab model (allow anybody to sign up as a driver without any vetting of anything) was absolutely atrocious. The new one is better, but uber drivers benefit from customers who feel like the product is as safe as the regulated product without actually doing things like ensuring that the cars are inspected. That said, I pretty much lost respect for Uber when they pretended that…

"The original Ubercab model (allow anybody to sign up as a driver without any vetting of anything) was absolutely atrocious."

What about Lyft? Isn't that essentially what they're doing?

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#40

Post by calciphus »

tptacek wrote: post #13
chimi wrote: post #6

I don't think being a startup should grant you immunity from the law or absolve the requirement to follow local regulations and licensing statutes. Lawyers, doctors, electricians they all have to follow the law too. Why is Uber a special case?

Two reasons (neither dispositive): (i) The cities in which Uber operates usually have dysfunctional cab systems. San Francisco, for instance, is notoriously underserved. (ii) Much of the regulatory overhead in running a cab/livery service really is an artifact of top-down market controls from the turn of the last century that have been exploited to lock the market to a privileged few operators.

Imagine for a moment you got into a taxi and instead of the meter, he had an hour-glass with tick marks on the side and a bike odometer. Would you feel secure about what you're being charged?

Most of the Uber drivers use iPhones, which (especially the older models) have notoriously bad GPS. If it skips off to the wrong street for a few blocks and adds 1/4 mile to my trip, and I don't notice by staring at his screen, how would I know? Normally, I trust the cab company because that little meter is tracked, registered, and supposedly regularly audited.

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