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

#141

Post by maverick_iceman » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:04 AM UTC

dpeterson wrote: post #102

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 know most people hate Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged here but that is literally what happened in the book. Roark Steel was made to give "green steel" to the unprofitable competitors to keep them in business.

Ah, you're confusing Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. Roark is an architect in Fountainhead. What you have in mind is Rearden Steel giving money to Associated Steel of Orren Boyle.

But I agree, the current situation is eerily similar.

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

#142

Post by ajmurmann » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:04 AM UTC

tro2102 wrote: post #109

Trundle wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

how about "suck it up and do it anyway"? I don't necessarily disagree with this sentiment, but this doesn't really address the question, which is about what happens to an industry when it's made redundant by technology. Cab drivers competing with self-driving cars can't "suck it up". "what if they don't want to" in regard to people working? Again, I feel you haven't read the spirit of this comment accurately. What ha…

I think that's why we need something like universal basic income. Keeping dysfunctional companies our entire industries alive is holding everybody back and also unfair to people who are part of smaller industries that fall through the cracks.

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

#143

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:07 AM UTC

gaius wrote: post #113

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While free trade and disruptive technology is good for the professional class, it inherently increases inequality. You seem to be asserting this without any explanation, but it's pretty clearly wrong. Do the math. Cab driver making $30K is displaced and has to take a different job making $25K, with the result that $30K of value is captured by cab riders via lower fares while the former cab driver suffers $-5K. But…

Sure, anyone can do equality as a side effect of a race to the bottom. But that's not a great outcome nor one a country should aim for.

There is no bottom. The less things cost the less difference there is between having money and not.

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

#144

Post by ilostmykeys » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

When Uber switches to a fleet of self-driving cars (with lower paid drivers, since they'll just sit and watch 98% of the time), this tax would be absolutely nothing short of taxing innovation to save an inefficient business model. Wow. I thought Capitalism was evil. Now I don't know what to think.

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

#145

Post by rhino369 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

adrianratnapala wrote: post #34

taneq wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The right thing for the government to do would be to either deliver on their promise of an artificially scarce market (which they made when they instituted the taxi medallion system) by cracking down on unlicensed operators, or to buy the licenses back off the licensed taxis and then abolish the system and free up the market. What they're currently doing is like if a shopping mall charged resident shops a hefty fee,…

Hmm: - an industry wants to operate as cartel, - but it can't police defectors charging market prices, - so it gets the government to enforce the cartel, - and calls this "regulation" even though it gouges, rather than protects the public. And somehow it is unfair if this gets undermined by events? To take your mall-and-hawkers example, what exactly is wrong with that situation? In practice it doesn't happen very oft…

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

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

#146

Post by xhdjdjjxjs » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

edko wrote: post #88

dsacco wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your comment as a contribution to discussion, but I'd like to see a dialectic about why income inequality increasing is bad, in of itself. I see this implied quite a bit on Hacker News. Usually something along the lines of, "But doing this will increase income inequality" stated as a counterpoint. If overall quality of life increases, I am personally unconcerned with income inequality. I haven't seen definitiv…

Rather than start a dialectic, let's consider concrete examples: is there any society with a large income inequality that also has a world-class standard of living for all of its members?

Yes, all of them.

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

#147

Post by ucarion » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:08 AM 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…

You identify most of the difficulty of this scenario:

1. Taxis are a dying industry, but taxi drivers are not adapting.

2. As a result, taxi drivers are suffering. Their livelihoods, which have brought food to their families' tables for decades, are being taken from them by forces they could not anticipate or control.

Of course,

3. We care about these taxi drivers. Suffering is bad no matter what industry you work in. Suffering is worth avoiding.

Ultimately our answer has to be to say "your job doesn't really exist anymore, you need to find a new one". But it matters how much time we give taxi drivers. Clearly, asking them to adapt overnight would be too demanding, so there's a balance to be made between market efficiency and the realities of our apish learning rates.

In the long run, a lot of jobs are going the way of the taxi, and perhaps basic income is the long-term solution. But we can't implement basic income today. It's a massive solution to what is currently a minor, contained problem.

Every country's policies are a gigantic legacy codebase. Basic income would be re-writing a huge chunk of the code, where this tax is adding yet another minor hack to keep the thing running smoothly.

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

#148

Post by maverick_iceman » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:09 AM UTC

a_c wrote: post #64

If this logic make sense, perhaps AirBnB need to be taxed to support hotel industry, Iphone should pay to nokia and internet should be taxed to landline

Not to say, real doctors need to be taxed to support homeopaths, power plants taxed to support oil lamp manufacturers etc. etc.

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

#149

Post by stephenr » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:11 AM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #136

gaius wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber drivers are like employees, but without employee rights. This is great for Uber and its investors, but not so much for "working people".

Citation needed. If you were right, you wouldn't have employed baristas etc. quitting their jobs to drive uber. To make your claim without acknowledging well-established upside of not being employed by Uber is disingenuous at best. Many drivers I talk to enjoy not having fixed work hours and the general flexibility not usually offered when you become an employee. Your argument speaks for none of these Uber drivers.

> If you were right, you wouldn't have employed baristas etc. quitting their jobs to drive uber.

Right. No one ever took a job without knowing the full effects of said job.

Everyone is 100% aware of the situation of their employment and of the inherent consequences of that job.

Next up: obesity is just a media circus, nobody actually eats more than they need to survive.

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

#150

Post by edko » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 6:11 AM UTC

cookiecaper wrote: post #133

edko wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When self-drivers become the norm, taxi and truck drivers, and their families (a significant section of the economy) will be the first to suffer, but it will not end there. The knock-on recessive effect on every other sector of the economy will be huge. Anyone thinking lightly along the lines of "truck drivers should adapt to the new economy", feeling safe for being in another industry, should remember how the housin…

We can't keep going with this type of attitude; it's blatantly anti-change. The government's job is not to ensure that everyone has comfortable finances. The government's job is to provide a framework that makes it possible and a structure that removes nefarious actors. As long as that's occurring, the economy is self-governing, and we shouldn't be propping up legacy economic sectors just because we feel bad for the…

Truck driver is the most common profession in most states. Self-driving trucks will make their jobs obsolete overnight. Imagine the immediate effect of all those people being without a job. What will happen to retail when those truckers buy less or stop buying? What will happen to wholesale shortly after? What will happen to all other industries? That truck drivers keep their jobs, or that they are gradually able to transition into new ones, is not just necessary not to feel bad about them, but to keep the whole economy running. Innovation is good. Unemploying a huge sector of our economy overnight because of innovation, I am not so sure.