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Uber Boston Has Been Served

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Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#41

Post by creativename »

untog wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #4

Two tickets were apparently issued: (i) For operating an unlicensed livery service (ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors,…

I'm torn too, but the meter thing is a very sensible point. Taxi meters in NYC (the only market I have experience with) are basically entirely locked boxes- the drivers can't do anything beyond poke the buttons on the front. This is, of course, very sensible- otherwise there's a danger of unscrupulous drivers modifying their meters to charge passengers more. This is only the case for yellow cabs in NYC, though- I'm s…

About taxi meters: from my experience, the mileage may be fixed, but it always seems that the cab driver is able to press something/manipulate the box somehow when they need to add additional fees (in Boston, specifically, in fact).

For instance, when I get picked up at many airports the cab driver adds some additional fee (usually between $3 and $8). For all I know, they're just making this number up - how would I know what the toll at the airport exit costs?

Also, many cabs have a list of flat rates for common routes (from Hotel X to airport - $35, etc.) It seems that in these cases it would be independent of whatever the meter says.

I guess these things make it seem questionable to me how much regulations on metering can actually matter. Is it just a matter of "if we catch you doing this (ie. someone reports questionable activity), we're going to revoke your license"?

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#42

Post by zacharycohn »

fxm4139 wrote: post #12

This is especially sad considering a recent cab experience I had in Boston. I lived in Boston for a about 5 years before moving out to Seattle, where I recently started using Uber. Boston has one of the worst cab situations especially if you go out late at night. I was back in Boston a few weeks ago, and ended up running into a few friends and stayed up till 3AM. When it was time to go home, there were either cabs th…

(Hello fellow Seattlite!)

I'm with you here. I rarely take cabs here in Seattle (I mostly bike/bus everywhere), but when I travel it can be indispensable.

I can't tell you the number of times I've had to (look up a local cab service and) call a cab, wait for it for 10-20 minutes... and not have it show up. Or schedule a cab to be there to pick me up early in the morning and take me to the airport and... not have it show up.

Three clicks on my phone and 2 to eight minutes later, there's an Uber.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#43

Post by rhizome »

tarr11 wrote: post #26
tptacek wrote: post #4

Two tickets were apparently issued: (i) For operating an unlicensed livery service (ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors,…

Had to look up "rent seeking", I'm sure I'm not the only one In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth, for example, spending money on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created. A famous example of rent-seeking is the limiting o…

You might also be interested in the concept of regulatory capture, which is kind of rent-seeking's opposite (IANAE). Say you have a company that provides web-security audits and you help press for a law requiring websites to have current security audits. Boom, guaranteed business.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#44

Post by andrewpi »

tptacek wrote: post #4

Two tickets were apparently issued: (i) For operating an unlicensed livery service (ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors,…

Except Uber isn't a cab, it's a private car service, which is generally less regulated. Rates for private car services are generally negotiated between the driver and passenger, and if both parties agree to use Uber's GPS-based software, I don't see what Massachusetts's problem is.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#45

Post by AJ007 »

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.

Uber is not exempt, but they have the right to fight the laws with whatever legal means they can afford.

For any well developed market, radical innovations in productivity can almost assuredly be illegal. Standards of service must be set on a national level, not a mico one.

Imagine if every time you went to a different city, Uber's user experience changed drastically. You never knew what Uber would cost. Perhaps sometimes you had to do things that completely broke Uber's experience. Imagine if Boston's Uber app was just a button that said "call dispatcher" and then you had to pay cash at the end of the trip. Why bother?

Uber is not challenging the right of a municipality to issue rules or regulations. What they are challenging is an antiquated system of bureaucracy, for a specific market, which wastes both a city's budget and customer's time.

I think we will see the Uber strategy applied to a very wide rank of micro-regulated markets. And its going to work. The cities that "win" will lose, big time.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#46

Post by bri3d »

untog wrote: post #16
tptacek wrote: post #4

Two tickets were apparently issued: (i) For operating an unlicensed livery service (ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors,…

I'm torn too, but the meter thing is a very sensible point. Taxi meters in NYC (the only market I have experience with) are basically entirely locked boxes- the drivers can't do anything beyond poke the buttons on the front. This is, of course, very sensible- otherwise there's a danger of unscrupulous drivers modifying their meters to charge passengers more. This is only the case for yellow cabs in NYC, though- I'm s…

I agree that the metering complaint is valid - I suspect it may be possible to create a nefarious drop-in replacement Uber Driver app which reports longer rides. The only location / metering source Uber has the iOS app and there's no additional hardware or software protection on the driver's Uber iPhone beyond the standard OS protections, which are easily circumvented by a jailbreak.

In contrast, real taxi meters provide no software access beyond a few defined interactions and limited and intentionally obvious physical access (start/stop meter) only, and the hardware is built to be relatively secure from tampering.

Uber could use the rider's app as a verification of distance, but as there's currently no incentive for users to keep the Uber app open while they ride, I suspect this method wouldn't work right now.

I like the idea of Uber, but, like Square, I think it's only a matter of time before a nefarious party exploits the easy availability and comparative insecurity of smartphone hardware to scam someone and disrupt a new smartphone-based industry.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#47

Post by ryanglasgow »

mbell wrote: post #33
ryanglasgow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

I never said the law shouldn't be changed, it should. But just because a company is "first to market, cutting edge", does that make it exempt from regulation?

Given the New Years Eve pricing debacle, I'm glad regulation is being put in place. Taxi's are underserved and a horrible experience, but their pricing is both consistent and 100% transparent during and after the ride. Uber's pricing is a confusing mess. Time, demand, distance, and vehicle are all factors and you're only aware of the price after the ride.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#48

Post by gojomo »

tptacek wrote: post #4

Two tickets were apparently issued: (i) For operating an unlicensed livery service (ii) For using a non-approved mechanism for metering the ride The C&D at issue here covers (ii). At its heart, the complaint is that Boston has standardized on a way of metering passengers, and Uber has replaced that standard with GPS. Presumably, cab drivers in Boston could not simply choose to replace their meters with GPS monitors,…

The small parts of the regulation that weren't rent-seeking -- a legitimate interest insuring a certain level of safety and responsibility, back when it was hard to hold bad-actors accountable -- have been made obsolete by mobile/reputation/marketplace technology.

Now, bad or inconsistent service can be made widely known almost instantly -- not just through Uber's own mechanisms, but also other review/complaint platforms.

The whole legacy regulatory architecture now can and should be discarded, replaced with a minimal kernel of regulations about clearly identifying a service provider and its terms, to enable the new market-oriented feedback mechanisms to work.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#49

Post by gojomo »

rhizome wrote: post #43
tarr11 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had to look up "rent seeking", I'm sure I'm not the only one In economics, rent-seeking is an attempt to obtain economic rent by manipulating the social or political environment in which economic activities occur, rather than by creating new wealth, for example, spending money on political lobbying in order to be given a share of wealth that has already been created. A famous example of rent-seeking is the limiting o…

You might also be interested in the concept of regulatory capture, which is kind of rent-seeking's opposite (IANAE). Say you have a company that provides web-security audits and you help press for a law requiring websites to have current security audits. Boom, guaranteed business.

I'd categorize regulatory-capture more as a sibling to rent-seeking (rather than its opposite). Twisting regulatory processes to benefit larger incumbents is often the mechanism that is used to extract rents.

Re: Uber Boston Has Been Served

#50

Post by jhcoaps2 »

bengl3rt wrote: post #39
jhcoaps2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My understanding of zimride/lyft is that they're more about arranging carpooling than acting as professional taxi service.

Does Lyft let random people sign up to work as gypsy cab drivers? If so, I think that's insane.

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