Taxi deregulation coming to Finland • Hacker News Board

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#71

Post by TomMarius » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 6:27 AM UTC

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.

I don't want any of the "benefits" for the price they're forced to me. That's the whole point.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#72

Post by Reason077 » Fri, Feb 02, 2018, 9:36 AM UTC

geezerjay wrote: post #60

Reason077 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback. Most of that return is not direct in the form of ticket revenues, but externalised in the form of economic growth along the metro routes, as well as environmental and social benefits. Even where you have private companies building and operating metros, it's usually with the direction and financial support (such as land grants and l…

> Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback Actually that's far from the truth. Any form of railway transport, with some notable exceptions like some french TGV lines, are absurd money sinks. The value of railway services in particular but public transportation systems in genetal manifest themselves mainly as externalities.

Right. That's exactly what I wrote in my comment above.

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#73

Post by geezerjay » Sat, Feb 03, 2018, 7:51 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #72

geezerjay wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Building a metro requires enormous investment, with a huge but very long-term payback Actually that's far from the truth. Any form of railway transport, with some notable exceptions like some french TGV lines, are absurd money sinks. The value of railway services in particular but public transportation systems in genetal manifest themselves mainly as externalities.

Right. That's exactly what I wrote in my comment above.

You've stated that there is a payback. There isn't. It's a money sink, and the only way that such a project is justified is mainly by state funding (public service contracts, state-owned corporations, etc)

Re: Taxi deregulation coming to Finland

#74

Post by tinus_hn » Sun, Feb 04, 2018, 12:53 PM UTC

qplex wrote: post #64

jpatokal wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ...

Monopolies are hardly a recipe for quality service.