Like so much “free market” it’s a conscious choice to create a corrupt state of affairs.
I get the impression uber plan to become important and big enough to regulate their way to a monopoly also.
Cut the taxi firms out. They have no right to an expectation of the continuation of their corrupt business model.
Also some projections of the economics of electric cars are that they will be unstoppably price efficient in fleets, add in self driving and our current reasonably regulated market will be an anachronism…
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Those betting on Uber’s market valuation in our casino stock market are counting on Uber becoming a monopoly of self-driving cars using the fleet price-efficiency you mention. But that’s going very long (15 years out), so for now it’s a lot of speculation that’s only good for Wall Street.
Ideally, what has to happen is for at least three Alpha-level American cities to work together and found a non-profit to create a taxi-hailing/payment app of their own. Eliminate false-scarcity medallions but require independent drivers to meet Irish-style license, insurance, and vehicle inspection requirements (probably also criminal background checks because America) for their local municipality if they want to be on the app. The result: trained and screened drivers in good cars keeping more of their fares, convenience and safety for customers, a decent revenue stream for R&D and system operations, and rentiers cut out.
But it won’t happen, because the medallion companies will use their lobbying money hold onto their monopolies like grim death and because the rentiers like Uber who want to kill them will also be screaming “soshalism,” which despite its bogus application is still a hot-button profanity in Idiot America.
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