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

#221

Post by lpolovets » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:34 AM UTC

Obviously the logic is mystifying, but the math behind this is baffling as well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_the_United_States#... says there are 1825 cabs in Boston. Boston is 10% of Massachusetts' population, so let's say there are 18k cabs in the state.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-massachusetts-uber-idUSKCN... says 5 cents/ride-hailing app will go toward taxis, and Uber+Lyft do 2.5m rider per month.

So, the tax will produce 2.5m rides/mo * 12 months * 5 cents/ride = $1.5m/year.

That works out to... drum roll... $83 per taxicab per year. How is this supposed to help taxi drivers with anything? Maybe as ride-sharing increases, this becomes $200 or $400 per cab per year, but that's still a small sum. I imagine a few hundred dollars is a small consolation when you lose 50% or 90% of your business.

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

#222

Post by xg15 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:34 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #168

ucarion wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Taxis are a dying industry, but taxi drivers are not adapting. How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either. Let's be clear: The people hardest hit by Uber/Lyft is taxi company owners . > Clearly, asking them to adapt overnight would be too demanding Uber has been around for half a decade. How many decades does it take?

> How do you know? My impression is that most taxi drivers are very busy adapting. But I don't know either.

The taxi driver I was taking with was mostly adapting to special-purpose taxi services like delivering IKEA furniture. That already meant a big revenue cut for him in contrast to normal taxi service.

I asked him about Uber and he said last time it was completely impossible to make living for him based on the revenue you get from Uber routes.

Self-driving cars weren't even part of the long-term plan back then...

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

#223

Post by xg15 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:35 AM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #173

tro2102 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> what happens to an industry when it's made redundant by technology We have over 200 years experience of countless industries being made redundant by technology. It's not a new scary thing that has never happened before.

So how would you solve the problem based on that experience?

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

#224

Post by maverick_iceman » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:36 AM UTC

scottmf wrote: post #203

Azkar wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the taxi even shows up at all...

Or you hail one and they don't want to go where you're going. It amazes me how consistently poor the service is from old-style taxis across the world. Is there a worse industry for consumers?

Not to mention the blatant racism of many taxi drivers.

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

#225

Post by xg15 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:38 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…

What if they can't because they literally have not enough time to go back to school - because they need most waking hours for work, otherwise they couldn't cover their costs?

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

#226

Post by Ericson2314 » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:38 AM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #89

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…

Good point; "a rising tide lifts all boats". If that were true, then yeah, it'd just be a psychological question of how OK people will be with seeing a rising class of professionals get accelerated wealth while they just rise in quality of life at a 'normal' rate. And how big is the professional class compared to the others? At what point is there social instability? Where's the breaking point, if anywhere? I don't t…

In high school I was taught that it correlated with mental illness.

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

#227

Post by briandear » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:40 AM UTC

thesumofall wrote: post #196

I believe they have a point. The traditional taxi industry _can_ be rescued. Living in Germany I use myTaxi which is basically providing the same interface as Uber but connects you with professional taxis that are regulated, insured, and being paid proper wages. There is simply no difference in convenience (even the opposite: you can book taxis in advance) and the driving experience itself is typically by far better…

Define a 'proper' wage please? I don't know what that means apparently. I would think it would be a wage at which the supply curve and the demand curve meet for your particular skill.

However if seems that you're implying that people ought to get paid more than the demand curve for their services would support, which is why I ask the question because that would be absurd. That would mean that someone else would have to subsidize this person by paying a higher price which would reduce demand for the product.

Only the market can raise wages in any real way.

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

#228

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:40 AM UTC

thesumofall wrote: post #196

I believe they have a point. The traditional taxi industry _can_ be rescued. Living in Germany I use myTaxi which is basically providing the same interface as Uber but connects you with professional taxis that are regulated, insured, and being paid proper wages. There is simply no difference in convenience (even the opposite: you can book taxis in advance) and the driving experience itself is typically by far better…

[deleted]

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

#229

Post by altano » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:41 AM UTC

jacobolus wrote: post #185

ricw wrote: post #93

This is unbelievable. Never have I used a more corrupt and unfriendly taxi service as the one in Boston / Cambridge. And they are supposed to be subsidised?! I have 1) been driven round crazy detours to up my cost 2) been forced to drive a detour because the card machine was broken and they only accepted cash 3) been turned down because my destination wasn't far enough 4) been shouted at because I was watching the fr…

I lived in Cambridge for about 6 years from ~2004–2011. Nothing but positive experiences with Boston-area cabs. The drivers were uniformly friendly and competent, and had no trouble with the ridiculously convoluted MA street layouts. When I was carrying suitcases or moving boxes of books around, they were patient and helpful with loading/unloading. When I left my wallet one time, the driver called me as soon as he fo…

I've ridden cabs in both Boston and Cambridge probably about 30 times over many years and every single experience was totally fucking horrible in lots of different, equally hilarious ways.

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

#230

Post by legutierr » Sun, Aug 21, 2016, 7:45 AM UTC

ap22213 wrote: post #158

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…

Sadly, the reality is that most people seem to side with your perspective. And, like that, the great middle class boom that drove the golden age of the 20th century is over. Recently, I've had the jarring realization that for Humans (and maybe nature, in general), the stable equilibrium point is inequality. And, like the cab drivers, a lot of us have to 'suck it up' and realize that the 20th century (and perhaps the…

You believe that it was the strength of the middle class that drove the high growth rates the US experienced in the 20th century?

And you think that the relatively low growth rates we see today are attributable somehow to high levels of inequality, and the resulting decline of the middle class?

Well, that sound about right. But I wonder, who are the mainstream economists that are making that same argument? Because the only advocacy for reduced inequality I read seems to ground its arguments in the logic of humanitarianism and social justice.

Maybe I'm not reading the right things. The fact is, though, that while humanitarianism and social justice are nice, the reason that I myself am worried about inequality is that it seems to be making the pie smaller for everyone (at least relative to what it should be). I wonder why people advocating for reduced inequality aren't making the growth argument their first argument.