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Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

metropolitan.fi

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Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#61

Post by geezerjay »

azemetre wrote: post #55
TomMarius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. No one is allowed to opt out and people are forced to pay even though they don't want to or straight up can't use it and/or don't agree with it.

No one is stopping you from renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country. The problem with your argument is you seem to want all the benefits for yourself with zero drawbacks. Society doesn't work like this and successful societies will never work like this.

> No one is stopping you from renouncing your citizenship and leaving the country.

That's a page taken out of the fascist dictatorship's playbook. If your position was remotely defendable I'm sure that the best argument you could come up wouldn't be a variant of "if you don'agree with me then let me expell you from where you were born".

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#62

Post by jimmywanger »

davnn wrote: post #12

I thought Finland was one of the few places where taxi prices were high enough that taxi drivers could make a fair living off it. Those days are probably gone.. I don't see the great innovations that ride hailing services bring to the table at this point. Having another person drive you around should expensive in my opinion.

> I thought Finland was one of the few places where taxi prices were high enough that taxi drivers could make a fair living off it.

Please explain why taxi drivers, or any occupation should be able to make a "fair living" (ill defined term) off of it.

In the majority of cases, the only thing regulation of an industry does is raise artificial walls and lower overall use of the good/service. Or maybe you think the DPRK, Venezuela, and Cuba are good examples.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#63

Post by dang »

staticelf wrote: post #18

Finland is just killing it lately, I wish Sweden could be more like Finland.

I realize you're not saying that as a putdown, but please don't post unsubstantive comments about nationalities to HN—it provokes off-topic, often flamewarrish subthreads.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#64

Post by qplex »

jpatokal wrote: post #9
mandelken wrote: post #7

Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. Their use is exactly for night or irregular use. Go to Mumbai, Jakarta, or any low income country and you'll find yourself stuck for hours in a cheap taxi. We need regulation because the market will not build railroads and metro's. "A developed country is not where the poor drive a car, but where the rich take public transportation". Visit and compare Switzerland with Egypt…

This argument seems like a non-sequitur. Helsinki already has a well-developed public transport system, particularly considering its size, and nobody's about to abandon it and switch to taxis, regulated or not. Jakarta and Mumbai have crappy public transport because of a toxic mix of poverty and incompetent governance, and in both taxis are a luxury for the richest of the rich. I always figured the primary point of t…

The overall quality of the taxi service _will_ go down with the price cuts. There isn't any way around this.

It was obvious already when Uber was testing their service in Helsinki without adhering to any of the legal requirements.

But it's not just Uber - many other taxi companies operate in Finland already with comparable smartphone apps etc. And they also manage to do it without breaking the law ...

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#65

Post by goty2 »

jimmywanger wrote: post #59
goty2 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a regulated market you just, in theory, take the closest taxi because you have no choice. But if there are five companies covering the same area, each company is going to have less coverage or need more cars. Each company is going to have to drive longer to pick up passengers. One company might have no cars available and passengers waiting, while another company has empty cars doing nothing. All in all there is le…

That is ridiculous. That's like saying that the food market is more expensive because you can have multiple vendors of food in one area, so it somehow promotes price gouging. I personally like having differentiated choices of food rather than going to the state sanctioned store close to your house because they all have the same things anyways. > All in all there is less utilization of cars. Sure. Because there is com…

The food market is more expensive if there are multiple vendors and the customer don't shop around.

The price gouging doesn't come from multiple companies, but from the free pricing. Some independent taxis in Sweden charge 10x as much as established companies. Therefor few people would hail a random cab in the street.

Less utilization means the drivers have to charge a higher price to cover their overhead.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#66

Post by jimmywanger »

goty2 wrote: post #65
jimmywanger wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is ridiculous. That's like saying that the food market is more expensive because you can have multiple vendors of food in one area, so it somehow promotes price gouging. I personally like having differentiated choices of food rather than going to the state sanctioned store close to your house because they all have the same things anyways. > All in all there is less utilization of cars. Sure. Because there is com…

The food market is more expensive if there are multiple vendors and the customer don't shop around. The price gouging doesn't come from multiple companies, but from the free pricing. Some independent taxis in Sweden charge 10x as much as established companies. Therefor few people would hail a random cab in the street. Less utilization means the drivers have to charge a higher price to cover their overhead.

> The food market is more expensive if there are multiple vendors and the customer don't shop around.

Wait, what? The customer is prevented from shopping around for rides? Before Uber, you couldn't call multiple driving services and get a ride. What is your point?

> Some independent taxis in Sweden charge 10x as much as established companies. Therefor few people would hail a random cab in the street.

This makes no sense on the face of it. You could just ask before you get in how much the fare is going to be.

> Less utilization means the drivers have to charge a higher price to cover their overhead.

No, that means they have to drive more and hope they get rides which increases supply and decreases cost. By your logic, the more empty apartments there are in a certain area, the higher the prices for apartments are going to be because of "less utilization" and "covering the overhead".

How do you justify any statement you just made?

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#67

Post by nitwit005 »

mandelken wrote: post #7

Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. Their use is exactly for night or irregular use. Go to Mumbai, Jakarta, or any low income country and you'll find yourself stuck for hours in a cheap taxi. We need regulation because the market will not build railroads and metro's. "A developed country is not where the poor drive a car, but where the rich take public transportation". Visit and compare Switzerland with Egypt…

> Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment.

You mean, cars don't scale in an urban environment.

The limits on the number of taxis is typically to force up the cost so the taxi drivers could make more, not to improve traffic.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#70

Post by fulafel »

nitwit005 wrote: post #67
mandelken wrote: post #7

Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. Their use is exactly for night or irregular use. Go to Mumbai, Jakarta, or any low income country and you'll find yourself stuck for hours in a cheap taxi. We need regulation because the market will not build railroads and metro's. "A developed country is not where the poor drive a car, but where the rich take public transportation". Visit and compare Switzerland with Egypt…

> Taxi's don't scale in an urban environment. You mean, cars don't scale in an urban environment. The limits on the number of taxis is typically to force up the cost so the taxi drivers could make more, not to improve traffic.

Cars don't scale outside urban areas either: Widespread daily private car use is not environmentally sustainable even with EVs, which still have about 50% of the lifetime CO2 footprint of fossil cars.

Taxis have the advantage that you can use them very sporadically, so they're a good solution for a world with less cars.

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