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Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

bbc.com

41–50 of 520 posts

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#41
post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

So if these companies shut down, where will their underpaid workers go?

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#42
post #30
post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party that all available drivers are punctual and competent. It is not a choice I want to make. Too much responsibility is already dumped on consumers under the guise of choice. Quality control of services I utilize is something I expect to pay for.

Has centralised quality control for taxi drivers worked somewhere?

Our "grand old" taxi company in my town who advertises for being the only reliable option with professional drivers failed on me five times on a row. On successive rides I got a standard neo-nazi lecture about immigrants, my Visa credit card was refused apparently for transaction costs, two of my drivers got lost and one tried to drive to my destination using mostly sidewalks for driving on.

I sent feedback each time to only receive a generic "we are sorry, we have failed our quality controls and this will never happen again" copy-pasted message. Maybe it's more straightforward to advertise than getting rid of drivers who can't behave.

With Uber I know my bad ranking (I have always rated my drivers 5 stars, so far) has at least some effect on the misbehaving driver.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#43
post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

"exploiting THEIR workers." - The UK has full employment right now. If they're working uber, they're doing it because they like working for Uber.

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#44
post #23

It's pretty amazing how consistently Uber fails to abide by even the most basic regulations. How many times does a billion dollar company get a second chance? Every time this happens people talk about how the Mayor will get in trouble for this, but let's face it, ride hailing apps are 10 a penny. Lyft, Taxify, MyTaxi? No one in London is going to miss Uber.

> Taxify Bolt > MyTaxi FREE NOW :)

This is an interesting thing.

Free Now for instance, previously MyTaxi, previously Hailo. How many time will this thing get rebranded? How many times will my data be shared with new entities?

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#45
post #23

It's pretty amazing how consistently Uber fails to abide by even the most basic regulations. How many times does a billion dollar company get a second chance? Every time this happens people talk about how the Mayor will get in trouble for this, but let's face it, ride hailing apps are 10 a penny. Lyft, Taxify, MyTaxi? No one in London is going to miss Uber.

Do you even live in London? I love when people talk about a whole city in general terms like they can speak for millions of people.

Well get this, I live in London and I love Uber and I would definitely miss Uber if they stopped operating here. So your statement is wrong. In fact, our general slack channel at work had a ton of people posting sad faces about this news. But yeah sure I guess you know what every Londoner thinks...

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#46
post #37
post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

"regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices." - We had these before Uber, and it was worse. Uber has pushed up quality in general. Market pressure is often a better way of doing these things rather trying to have a central inspector who can't see everything all of the time.

On the spectrum of healthcare (NHS private partnerships) to municipal transport (Uber) to food delivery (Deliveroo) to casual labor (Task Rabbit), it feels like there are different levels of expectation for governments to fulfill needs, as opposed to leaving it to the free market, ranging respectively from total provision to no involvement at all.

Even when society decides it’s up to the private sector to fulfill its needs there needs to be regulation to avoid the “race to the bottom” from meaning an actual race to rock bottom.

Uber surely provides an amazing service to consumers but at what cost to labor rights, road traffic, and in this case, public safety?

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#47
post #30
post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party that all available drivers are punctual and competent. It is not a choice I want to make. Too much responsibility is already dumped on consumers under the guise of choice. Quality control of services I utilize is something I expect to pay for.

I think the driver ratings could be largely derived from app data. How close to pickup do they get on average? How close to drop off do they get on average? How erratic is their driving? Do they speed a lot? Other traffic violations? A lot can be gleaned from the GPS and other data. The only remaining factor would be the human side of things: are they nice, is their car nice to sit in?

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#48

TFL should actually provide a reliable service if they want to start pointing fingers. They talk about security and safety but it's not safe to have to wait around hoping for the off chance a scammy black cab will spot you after your TFL train gets cancelled for whatever reason.

It sounds like you've never been to London? Who says 'TFL train'?

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#49
post #30
post #10

I know this opinion is not popular but I'm so happy everytime I see bad news for Uber and all these companies that only exist thanks to basically exploiting THEIR workers. Private transporting is not sustainable and it is not something that has to be affordable for everyone, even less by lowering workers wages or playing with the tariffs by demand. Taxi regulations gives us passengers safety and fair prices. There ar…

> you can see your trip, its aproximate cost, the driver's rating Here's the thing: I don't want to rate my driver. I want to be able to rely on a third party that all available drivers are punctual and competent. It is not a choice I want to make. Too much responsibility is already dumped on consumers under the guise of choice. Quality control of services I utilize is something I expect to pay for.

It's not like Black cabs in London are guaranteed to be safe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Worboys

Re: Uber loses licence to operate in London, will still operate while appealing

#50

TFL should actually provide a reliable service if they want to start pointing fingers. They talk about security and safety but it's not safe to have to wait around hoping for the off chance a scammy black cab will spot you after your TFL train gets cancelled for whatever reason.

It sounds like you've never been to London? Who says 'TFL train'?

I live in London mate, I was making a distinction between a train that is operated by TFL and a train that is not. I also didn't call it a tube because I was referring more to the overground.
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