There’s also more than enough room for a regular for profit company providing a ride hailing app, merchant services and payroll/book keeping services to independent drivers and cab companies. A fee for service model where the company does not employ drivers or maintain fleets, but provides a support frame work for those who do.
No different than payroll companies like ADP or PayChex. Or newer iterations that offer more comprehensive services for specific businesses.
Its a much better business model with an actual chance of profit. The most successful “start up” I know people at focuses on payroll and financial services for freelancers and small companies. They’ve been profitable since soon after they launched, and mostly seek investment to fund expansion in place of debt.
It’d be the difference between disruption by exploiting labor, and exploding regulation. And doing it by supporting labor and throwing some genuinely useful functionality into a stagnant market. What success Lyft and Uber have is almost entirely down to the convenience of hailing a cab or booking a livery car by app. The rest of it is just slipping a cab company through regulatory gray areas. Finding a technicality that lets livery cars accept street hails where that’s not allowed. And fucking workers to make it pay. These are just teched up gypsy cabs.
I went from a heavily used 14 year old car with 170k miles on it to a 2 year old dealer maintained lease return, still under warranty and “certified”. My insurance went up, but only because of the increased value of the car (my insurance company is very transparent about pricing).
Its not the same as a new car, but near enough. If there’s an impact from the reliability of the car its more than out weighed by the increased replacement value and parts/maintenance costs of a newer vehicle.
I’m thinking the issue on this stuff is going through an agent or broker. Those guys are salesmen, I am a salesman. Salesmen lie. I’ve never seen anyone get a fair quote that way. Almost everyone I know shops by going directly to the company themselves. And the best quotes I’ve been able to get come through places I have prior association with. Especially my credit union, the bank that holds my auto loan. And best of all through USAA, who I’ve got access to through military family.
Less certain poor neighborhoods than all outlying areas not on a Subway line. Along with the problems with how the current taxi commission works. Medallions became so expensive that small cab companies and independent drivers became a thing of the past. With most drivers paying expensive rentals to drive some one else’s cab, they needed to stick to the densest, wealthiest areas to make a living.
Mid Town and specific neighborhoods south of 96th street. Despite it being illegal most cabs refused to take fares out of that area, and there were no cabs to make pickups outside of it.
Other areas were serviced by gypsy cabs, dollar cabs being one type. Better bus service killed the dollar vans years and years ago. The green cabs mitigated the costs of a medallion, and spread cab service around the city. But they didn’t kill the gypsy cabs, ride hailing aps legitimized them. They initially contributed to better service in the outer boroughs, but by now it pays so little they focus on the same places the yellow cabs do, and suffer many of the same issues.
