171–180 of 261 posts
>>Also, they finally answered my question about how many cars they have in Stockholm by saying “Like all companies we have numbers we don’t give out”. And unlike other companies our press releases are written by children.
Disruption for the sake of disruption. Some of the taxi regulations are there for good reasons. If Uber cannot provide better, cheaper and safer service at lower price with the same rules they do not have right to exist. And if they want to bring a regulation down they should do it for the whole industry if it is already obsolete.
I choose them exclusively.
You don't have to be perfect to be better...
I find it odd that Uber is constantly fighting various countries' laws to be considered "a taxi service, but not a taxi service", when they could just change their business model a tiny bit and fall straight into the middle of the "limousine service" classification. Why not charge just-time instead of time+distance? Would it screw over the drivers?
Sometimes it would screw over the drivers, sometimes the customers, and depending on how it was priced you could force that to one side or the other. Distance + time is the most fair solution, as if there's no traffic and you get there super fast the driver still gets a fair fee (unlike if it was time only), if there's lots of traffic and it takes ages to get there then the customer doesn't have to pay a huge fee (li…
That's why most taxi services are not time-only, but limo services are (you're going to rent a limo for an evening, but you'll barely drive it)
Reading their press release (the Swedish one, I'm a native Swedish speaker) I get a feeling that they are, quite frankly, not a serious business. It's filled with paranoid tinfoil hattery where they claim the Big Nasty Government is out to get them without actually pointing out what rules they're asked to comply with. Sweden is fairly big on consumer protection, and price comparisons is generally a mandatory part of…
>all groceries are mandated to list price per weight/volume/appropriate other unit so you can find out, say, which bag of rice is cheapest per kg, for instance - the same goes for taxi services and price per km That's actually really interesting and I had no idea that was the case. In a supermarket, would such a list be in the isle next to the food? Or would it just be available from management or something like that…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Painting all users of unlicensed cabs as "drunk people" may be a helpful way of coloring your argument, but nonetheless if the only advantage unlicensed cabs is speed of arrival, then that is still providing for unmet demand." They were drunk people, that's largely who used them. I have been one. If the risk of these services outweighed the time advantage, people wouldn't be using them. False, this assumes perfect i…
I don't assume perfect information; all economic activity bears risk and your choices are guided by your risk tolerance. Sometimes, you make a bad choice and suffer the consequences. Eliminating choices doesn't eliminate those consequences, it simply forces you to either adjust your risk tolerance against your will or engage in even riskier activity. You agree, then, that awful crimes could still be occurring elsewhe…
Not when you're drunk they aren't. It's arguable that a choice was being made. Secondly, if there isn't perfect information, it's not possible to accurately gauge the risk.
Sometimes, you make a bad choice and suffer the consequences.
And we don't, as a society, think it's reasonable to have people on edge about making the right choices all the time, so we seek to mitigate those consequences as a group.
"Eliminating choices doesn't eliminate those consequences, it simply forces you to either adjust your risk tolerance against your will or engage in even riskier activity."
OK, cool, now how terribly awful a transgression is it to force (OMG!) people to call a cab instead of stumbling into one? It's not. And that's what people do now.
And no, I don't agree with your estimation. It is not impossible to tell if crime rate has dropped, it is not likely that crimes are going unreported due to the taxi 'black market' and it's relatively easy to determine if the alternatives are safer, and they have been.
"safety may not be the only priority people have. It is entirely based on your own subjective risk tolerance."
Sure, we can agree on that, and democratically we as a society have agreed that some risks are intolerable even if (gasp!) some people have to get the bus or pay an extra 50p for a cab. So we make laws.
Come on, stop messing around, you know this is the bit you really object to, society deciding amongst itself that your unregulated business is not wanted and cannot be run here. Yes, it is the government (or the people) inflicting their will on others in the interests of safety and progress. You'll never persuade me this is wrong.
Reading their press release (the Swedish one, I'm a native Swedish speaker) I get a feeling that they are, quite frankly, not a serious business. It's filled with paranoid tinfoil hattery where they claim the Big Nasty Government is out to get them without actually pointing out what rules they're asked to comply with. Sweden is fairly big on consumer protection, and price comparisons is generally a mandatory part of…
>all groceries are mandated to list price per weight/volume/appropriate other unit so you can find out, say, which bag of rice is cheapest per kg, for instance - the same goes for taxi services and price per km That's actually really interesting and I had no idea that was the case. In a supermarket, would such a list be in the isle next to the food? Or would it just be available from management or something like that…
Only if you swim between the isles. I believe you meant aisles.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the flipside, sometimes it really makes new businesses think about the role they play in society. Just because Tom, Dick and Harry has money and wants to start a business, it doesn't mean that they can do whatever they like. There are bad apples looking to make a quick buck when they can. Of course, the good apples are the ones to suffer as well. It's a hard problem to solve. Should businesses be only about making…
I may be a little cynical here but I think that businesses are amoral institutions by nature. They exist to generate a profit. That is why consumer protections have to be put in place by the government because businesses would not change a policy so long as it was continuing to generate a profit. It would be great if businesses considered the "social good", if you will, of their actions but I don't think that is real…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, part of the problem is that in the US, not only would such things fly, but they have been on the receiving end of some suspect pressure and investigations. Most of the taxi systems in Uber's homeland are highly regulated and effectively run by strong lobbying organizations who are very vocal about their concerns and distaste for having their business threatened. In the US, such allegations are not only reasonable…
They only thing they (or their subcontractors) have done to date is apply for an exemption which they weren't covered by and then complain about it. If they include the proper information in their app and get it certified as a meter than they might have a case. Now they just come of as spoiled and childish. Also a sign isn't required and the yellow plate gives you advantages in traffic (bus lanes etc.), but they'll p…
We're sort of arguing past eachother on the other point. If we agree that Uber isn't out to rip people off and their customers like the way that they do business, why should they need to change? If you acknowledge that the changes required are superficial, why are they required?
And based on the way in which Uber is marketed, you're either completely unfamiliar with the service or you're being more than a little disingenuous when you suggest that a yellow license plate wouldn't affect their business. Part of what they offer is the appearance at your destination of having been delivered by a private driver.
Taxi Stockholm charges 45 SEK + 246-280 SEK/10 km, which looks like more, but it's hard to compare without knowing how much of the time is spent at low speeds. Taking the pessimal estimate of 15 minutes in a standstill to charge the hyperdrive, followed by a 10 kilometer spurt at lightspeed, we get an upper bound of 50 SEK + 445 SEK/10 km, or 165% of the article's index fare. I honestly can't tell if that's competitive.
I imagine that's why they don't want to make a sticker.
Oh, and then there's the much higher fixed price for city center travel. I trust that doesn't get added on to a trip that crosses the boundary.
Disruption for the sake of disruption. Some of the taxi regulations are there for good reasons. If Uber cannot provide better, cheaper and safer service at lower price with the same rules they do not have right to exist. And if they want to bring a regulation down they should do it for the whole industry if it is already obsolete.
