Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#41

Post by amanaplanacanal » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 2:16 PM UTC

tuyguntn wrote: post #32

I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens, if there is no properly run public transportation system, medical system and education. Why should anyone pay extra from their income, if private companies are going to profit from providing a service to the public which was intended to be built using taxes by the government?

If this is more than just a rhetorical question, you can get copies of the federal, state, and municipal budgets to see where the money collected is actually spent.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#42

Post by Spivak » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

raincole wrote: post #15

If the exact idea were born in any other country than the US, HN would be celebrating it. No kidding: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43980845

In Shanghai additional routes are part of the normal public transportation system and aren't a private company who is competing with public transportation. It changes the tone quite a bit, even if the underlying idea is pretty good.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#43

Post by afavour » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 2:37 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #7

afavour wrote: post #3

> Meanwhile, the federal government is cutting support for public services, including transit systems — many of which still haven’t fully recovered from Covid-era budget crunches. Though ridership nationwide is up to 85 percent of prepandemic levels, Bloomberg News recently estimated that transit systems across the country face a $6 billion budget shortfall. The gameplan is clear. Take the high value, richer customer…

I don't especially like Uber as a company, but it's not reasonable to spin a service that outcompetes a publicly-funded competitor as a conspiracy against the public, and in many of the cities Uber operates in, the transit authorities had been faceplanting all on their own without any help.

I won’t disagree with you for a second that transit authorities have been faceplanting all by themselves. But I also don’t see what I described as a conspiracy, it’s just how business works.

While Uber competes with public transit the price they’re able to charge is limited by that competition. Once that competition is gone (and siphoning off a segment of its customer base is certainly a way to make that happen) the company is less constrained in how much they can get away with charging.

Uber doesn’t have the obligations a public transit authority has, they’re free to pick and choose the most profitable routes to compete on and ignore the less profitable ones. Uber doesn’t have to deliberate engage in nefarious practises to destroy a transit system, they just have to do what works for them.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#44

Post by xnx » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 2:50 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #34

mousethatroared wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they smell like urine, are generally filthy and they are the most likely place a middle class person is to be trapped in a small environment with a mentally ill person. If: - America solved its mental health crisis - Americans became cleaner - Americans became better behaved in public Then Americans who can afford not to take the bus would reconsider it.

Or you could spread people out more, by putting more buses on the routes. Fewer people per bus, buses are more conveniently timed, and more middle class passengers will want to take the bus. They'll save money by ditching their cars. A bit more money can find more cleaning, as well as giving places for the mentally ill to go other than riding around all day. Ya know, as long as we're making up fantasies. Americans ar…

> putting more buses on the routes. Fewer people per bus, buses are more conveniently timed

I think Uber is attempting exactly this.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#45

Post by xnx » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

tuyguntn wrote: post #32

I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens, if there is no properly run public transportation system, medical system and education. Why should anyone pay extra from their income, if private companies are going to profit from providing a service to the public which was intended to be built using taxes by the government?

> I wonder what's the purpose of collecting tax from citizens,

In my city, it's to pay interest on debt, overly generous pensions to retirees, and settlements to police lawsuits.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#46

Post by rented_mule » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #30

kalleboo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same as package delivery - Amazon takes the easiest portion, FedEx/UPS the middle tier, and then USPS gets handed off all the most difficult addresses

Precisely - USPS legally is required to delivery everywhere, they have no choice. Their pricing doesn't adequately reflect the difficulty of delivery either. FedEx/UPS can also be very picky about which services they offer to who. I've had plenty of FedEx/UPS return shipments that they refuse to pickup due to service level agreements on different shipment classes. USPS you can literally click on their website for the…

This varies. UPS and FedEx deliver to my door. The USPS will only deliver to my nearest post office, not to my door.

There is no home mail delivery at all in our town, nor in much of our county. Each affected home gets a free PO Box.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#47

Post by 9283409232 » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 5:35 PM UTC

mousethatroared wrote: post #37

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even need to go this far. Passenger cars-- heck, even coach buses-- are engineered for passenger comfort and convenience. City buses are engineered to secure the driver against passengers, to be simply maintained and hosed out as needed, and to accommodate overcrowding standing-room-only discomfort. Seats are hard, leg room is deficient, shoulder room is deprived, and that's even before we talk about trying…

I wouldn't mind the plastic seats if someone took the opportunity afforded by these materials to pressure wash the cabin every now and then. Imagine the bus smelled like detergent and was spotless. Piss, the occasional feces and I have to celebrate profane graffiti calling for cops' death as art.

I agree. If you're going to make the bus completely plastic, at least wash it down at night when it heads back to the depot.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#48

Post by gruez » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

Avicebron wrote: post #18

mousethatroared wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they smell like urine, are generally filthy and they are the most likely place a middle class person is to be trapped in a small environment with a mentally ill person. If: - America solved its mental health crisis - Americans became cleaner - Americans became better behaved in public Then Americans who can afford not to take the bus would reconsider it.

I'm strongly convinced that economic precarity, homelessness and the stressor that brings, is more likely to manifest itself as "mentally ill" than just, "well for some reason we have a lot of crazy people now", it's not too hard to maintain minimum hygiene if you have a roof over your head, three squares, and a bit of positive socialization from work/school/church/library/whatever

Being homeless and not having a place to shower excuses you looking unkempt and smelling bad, but that's not what people are upset at homeless people for. There's plenty of people who smell bad despite being housed (eg. teenage boys, gamers, or anime convention attendees), but they get nowhere as much flak as "homeless people". People are upset at antisocial behavior like urinating in public, aggressively approaching others, and setting up encampments. Except for maybe the last item, all of those things are a homeless person chose to do.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#49

Post by gruez » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

steveBK123 wrote: post #30

kalleboo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same as package delivery - Amazon takes the easiest portion, FedEx/UPS the middle tier, and then USPS gets handed off all the most difficult addresses

Precisely - USPS legally is required to delivery everywhere, they have no choice. Their pricing doesn't adequately reflect the difficulty of delivery either. FedEx/UPS can also be very picky about which services they offer to who. I've had plenty of FedEx/UPS return shipments that they refuse to pickup due to service level agreements on different shipment classes. USPS you can literally click on their website for the…

> Their pricing doesn't adequately reflect the difficulty of delivery either.

What's preventing them from properly pricing their services? The whole implication in this line of discussion seems to be that Amazon is taking advantage of USPS, and they're somehow hapless to prevent that from happening.

Re: Uber Just Reinvented the Bus Again

#50

Post by crazygringo » Sat, Jun 07, 2025, 8:10 PM UTC

bgwalter wrote: post #39

crazygringo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take the high value, richer customers from the public transit system as it declines and ensure its complete demise. Richer customers don't pay more for public transit. It's not like clothing, where they buy a better product and produce most of the profit. Removing some customers from bus systems doesn't have much of an effect. Bus systems are very flexible in changing routes and times to meet demand. It's not going…

Richer customers don't pay more, but they have the influence to keep public transit nice and functioning because they use it themselves. I suppose that in New York and London richer people use the subway to escape traffic jams. They can tell their politician friends (or bought politicians) to keep subsidizing it. In Europe privatization of public transport has been a disaster. Routes are cut, the trains don't run on…

I don't think rich people have as much influence on public transit as you think.

And in New York at least, truly rich people take a car service. Subways are for the normal people. The truly rich want their own private space and they want sunlight.

In any case, nobody's talking about the privatization of public transport, which is the conversion from public to private. This is about alternate private options becoming available. The public option stays. And it's not about subways, it's about buses.