only if they have the necessary skills and facilities to drive a cab. Over here in blighty, licenses are non-transferable and guess what, virtually no corruption.
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Iād be interested in @thirdworldtaxiās thoughts.
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There is no external cap on the amount or drivers on the road for Uber, so any market manipulation through artificial scarcity is down to their own direct shenanigans. With Taxis, there is an added layer of painful irony that a system put in place (limiting cars on the road) for positive reasons got twisted into market manipulation. Naked greed versus subterranean greed. Other than that, same exploitation, different day.
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Right now Uber X is fluctuating between a 20% and 30% commission. Thatās before gas and maintenance. Uber has lied about 1099 income and shows no signs of stopping.
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Also, Uberās drivers arenāt vetted.
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I agree with you!!! My wife would never do it if she didnāt have the skills to do it.
The only problem with their business model is the lack of insurance. As a cab driver in Portland, I can tell you with certainty that they are driving around uninsured or underinsured
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This seems a lot like whatās happened with public schools: there are a lot of reforms that would benefit taxi drivers and their clients, but the sort of ādisruptionā that Uber and Lyft represent only benefits them accidentally, if at all.
I recently ran across an argument that pointed out that Marx almost never referred to capitalism; he wrote about capital, and the processes of its accumulation. Once you accept the accumulation of capital as a primary social goal, then the subordination of workers, and all the other ills, follow.
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Itās unfortunate, but thatās not the same thing as āwrongā.
The people who took out loans to buy medallions were buying things of no intrinsic value, and they knew that full well.
They werenāt buying homes, or jewelry, or educations, or business inventory. They were investing in a politically maintained system designed to maintain artificial scarcity.
Not much different really than the RIAA/MPAA buying its own artificial scarcity system from Congress, except perhaps that what the AAās are selling is a luxury good which is easily foregone, while the taxi medallion system creates artificial scarcity of a necessity (urban point-to-point public transportation).
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Arenāt Uber basically operating an illegal unlicensed minicab service here? I can remember the PSAs a few years ago.
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Thereās nothing wrong with regulations that require safety inspections, insurance, bonding of drivers on all cab services, both traditional and Uber/Lyft style. Iām in no way so libertarian that I would object to that.
Itās regulation that is designed to create scarcity - to tell safe, insured drivers that no, you canāt enter the market, all the slots are taken - which really roils my bowels.
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AIUI the license (and the laws in question) cover the use of taximeters. Uber UK is basically exploiting a loophole and the licensed cabs are trying to get the law changed to protect their monopoly
Iād like to see Uber in the US Virgin Islands. Down there, a taxi medallion can easily go for $40k, and you pretty much have to be a local to get one - I have NEVER seen a non-local drive a legitimate taxi in my almost ten years of living there during the '80s, and the time visiting throughout the '70s '90s and '00s.
It costs $6.00 per person (two or more, plus a $2 fee per bag) to go 2.5 miles from the airport to the center of Charlotte Amaliaā¦
But thatās the beauty of the Shareconomy. Not only can you shift the economic risks to disposable day laborers but all regulatory issues, too.
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See, Iāve no problem with the taxi coās here in Newcastle; you can use an app to call them, like Uber, theyāll update you via text as to where they are, and theyāre cheap and good. Some of them will even, you know, deliverā¦
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Thatās the problem. They arenāt necessarily cheap in, say, That London.
Yeah, but London isnāt real, is it? Itās like Narnia.
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I was thinking of Private Hire types. From what I have looked at in the past few minutes they are skirting that by claiming that the guy in the suspiciously minicab looking vehicle just happens to be going the same way, despite the marketing to both the customers and the āindependent contractorsā.
Not that I really have a use for either out here in the sticks.
Wait? Itās not real? What about that one time when I was there, in the 90s? It felt realā¦ to be fair we only spent a few days there.
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it felt like days, but it was only minutes in realityā¦
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