Hailing or waiting for a taxi was a horrible experience in most cities. Leveraging the smartphone platform's ability to track location in real time, along with its ability to be connected and handle payments created a better service. This did compete with existing Taxi monopolies (which had enormous costs associated with rent seeking in many jurisdictions, not just labour costs), but it also competed heavily with non-consumption, car ownership, and car rentals for those on trips. The pattern of social life has changed in many cities where the inconvenience, lack of reliability, and cost of using a taxi had previously constrained peoples' options, and forced reliance on owning a car, driving when they shouldn't, or staying closer to their neighbourhoods or going home early.
It's true that most of what gets called Uber for X is just enabling casual labor, without significantly expanding the market, and that's why so few of them achieve anything close to an Uber-level of success.
Or any time I've tried to hail a taxi among a bunch of other people (after an event or at 2am at the city center when all the bars close) and I'm stuck hoping I'm the lucky chosen one the next time a taxi comes, losing out each time to a group of people.
Or any time a taxi driver took advantage of the fact that they knew my options were limited late at night.
Uber solved major points of frustration with taxi services.
She won't use anything other than Uber/Lyft/etc. now since they have the GPS constantly running, and a record of who she gets in the car with.
So I use a taxi app. Real time tracking, payment, etc. No Uber, no undercutting safety standards or labor laws.
In the UK you have to also pay fees up front (and pass certain tests) but the fees are relatively modest[1] and the tests include things like knowledge, medical fitness and criminal records, which all seems reasonable. This legally applies to Uber drivers too, although whether it is enforced seems to be in doubt[2].
(I'm not talking about London black cabs which operate on a slightly different system)
[1] The fees for my local council are in section 10 here: http://www.dacorum.gov.uk/docs/default-source/licensing-docu...
[2] https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/uber-may-face-21m-...
The equivalent system existed in Ireland until 2000, with taxi licenses changing hands for over $100,000. I'd be surprised if this doesn't persist in other European countries and cities.
In places with good public transit, this resulted in people using public transit to get home when taxis weren't available, now everyone just takes an uber/lyft. Additionally, this also hurts the speed at which busses can travel. However, now you see places like manhattan have far more cars on the road at any given time than before considering the taxis never left, and the number of cars went up to meet demand.
It was always so. The medallion system was imposed after taxi drivers rioted, set stuff on fire and attacked the police, since they disliked the competition from unemployed people who tried to make a living during the Great Depression.
"Striking taxi drivers was nothing new–the first strike took place in 1908, a year after the first taxi company was founded. But this strike had a hostile energy to it, as strikers went hunting for scabs to punish. As one driver put it, “the bastids that was scabbin’, we pulled the doors off their cabs.” Independent cab owners, who had nothing to gain by striking, had their windows smashed by blocks of ice and passengers thrown from their cabs. Police who tried restore order had their tires slashed and marbles thrown under their horses. By February 5, angry crowds of driving were brawling in the street with the police and torching independent cab cars."
It makes no sense to "build equity" in a car since the car is depreciating very fast especially if you use it a lot for example because you are driving it to serve your debt to Uber.
The truth is that the average person is not able to afford to drive a taxi without renting the medallion. Even building equity on a quickly depreciating asset such as a car used for Uber is better in terms of not having to pay to work.
Also, a Uber loan would not be the only way to get a car to drive for Uber. Even if you have no means to finance the car for yourself, many more people own a Uber-suitable car than a taxi medallion, so the price you'd have to pay to work for Uber would in any case be lower.
The original discussion was whether Uber or taxis would be more worker-restrictive. I don't think driving a Uber gives total freedom, but I fail to see how driving a taxi is any better for the worker.
If they look unhappy, maybe the customer will give them bad ratings for bad customer experience…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicabs_of_New_York_City#Meda...
Taxi Medallions are different, especially in large cities. They can cost $300,000 to $1,000,000+, upfront. Most taxi cab drivers have to take out a loan or lease the medallions in order to pay for it, and then they're beholden to the loaner for a long, long time.
This is why taxi cab drivers HATED when Uber starting taking away their business and didn't just shrug their shoulders, buy a black car, and join Uber. They are pretty much stuck and can't easily get out of it.
That's completely different than these other professions where if something isn't working out, you can switch which place you go to or try something else next week or next month.
Medallions exist to keep the supply of taxis limited. It ensures cab drivers have a certain standard of living. They can also be sold, so if the driver is retiring or wants to change to another career, they can do that.
It's not a perfect system but it strikes a decent balance between worker protection and limiting externalities (e.g. by making sure not everyone decides to become a cab driver and clog up roads).
edit: I guess Uber shills are out in force today.
I mean, slavery could also be described as "not a perfect system". Medallions in NYC had wholly undergone regulatory capture, so while the system may have started with good intentions, it had since been perverted into a self-perpetuating machine that prints money for a couple of lazy fat cats, to the detriment of everyone else.
Medallion system is nothing like slavery. False equivalence.
>>it had since been perverted into a self-perpetuating machine that prints money for a couple of lazy fat cats, to the detriment of everyone else.
The medallion system benefits citizens because it ensures that taxis don't dominate city streets at the expense of regular car owners.
But the medallion isn't an indicator that you're an expert professional driver. So it's different than, say, an M.D. or a law degree that are required because those things are difficult and the public needs protection from frauds.
Of course, the analogy is far from perfect; in fact, I didn't really intend an analogy, as such.
A degree obviously isn't a license token you can move from one person to another, like the taxi medallion.
That is not fiction or speculation--it is history. You can look up the problems New York had before the taxi medallion system.
I am by no means defending the taxi system. It was rife with problems (especially outside the very biggest cities): unreliable pickups, long wait times outside of a very small number of areas, not wanting to take credit cards, bad driving routes to overcharge, and a whole litany of other complaints.
The only reason why the whole system hasn't devolved into a free-for-all is that Uber and Lyft have so much VC money subsidizing ride cost that nobody can get under their prices--they are below the bottom.
The real competitor to Uber/Lyft is the company who can take the existing cabs and cab companies and insert them into an app that does real-time bidding on their end and works like Uber/Lyft from the consumer end. Austin, TX showed that once Uber and Lyft quit sucking the oxygen out of the space, competition and new options start opening up.
However, Uber and Lyft will have to both implode first. And the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.
The telling thing to me is that Uber and Lyft came back to Austin with no concessions after throwing a hissy fit and leaving. That tells me that they saw something that scared them and they needed to squelch it before it escaped to other cities.
Edit: I stand corrected. The state legislature overrode the Austin laws. (Side: Wish I could put an overstrike through my comment.)
Make no mistake, this is 1990's Microsoft levels of predatory behavior. It is nothing to be praised.
They came back when legislature said "Actually you don't need to do that."
I'd hardly characterize it as a hissy fit.
Uber: I don't wanna do that! Uber: stomps feet Uber: goes home Uber: Bribes Texas state into passing laws to force Austin to accept them.
So half or more of your fare are going to some guy that bought the medallion years ago (or some investors actually), and just rents the privilege for other drivers to drive, it doesn't go the driver's pay, or propper car maintenance, etc...
That is pure rent seeking via "regulation", and Uber and Lyft are cutting through it. (and I am glad they are doing it).
Uber was a private car service with black-cars only to begin with and evolved to allow more car types, which made it competitively priced to taxis.
Critically, when they began, they were intended for limo businesses to use to minimize driver downtime, hence the idea that Uber is merely a contract marketplace was normal and non-exploitive.
Now, that people are driving for Uber "for fun" or "to make extra bucks", Uber has found itself dealing with a large unsophisticated assembly of drivers, whom it can be claimed that they are exploiting (i.e. exploiting their ignorance). Is it a fair assessment? I'm not sure, but I can point at other business verticals like residential cleaning services, and moving companies that function as a market of independent contractors who united only under a 'brand' that does client-contractor matchmaking. At least in this respect, Uber is not unique.
They also view laws and regulations as inefficient, and don't understand that they often exist for good reasons (such as consumer protection).
If Uber ends up putting taxi companies out of business and becomes dominant, THEN we will see its true face and start hearing arguments for regulating it.
If someone doesn't want to drive for Uber, they can be a taxi driver instead...
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/25/technology/yellow-cab-bankru...
Maybe a better question to ask is: which protectionist laws can my app help circumvent? "Uber for breaking down NIMBY coalitions and real estate developer cartels" would be extremely welcome.
> Because Uber drivers are all self-employed, they're not unionised or protected in any way. Thus, Uber pays its drivers a pittance, and is able to undercut and undermine existing taxi services who are forced by unions and law to pay drivers a living wage.
What country are you in? In the USA, taxi drivers are also self employed, not unionized, and paid a pittance.
The fact that Uber drivers willingly and voluntarily engage in that work rather than pursuing alternative work doesn't align well with your narrative.
Uber's success hinged on the fact that they did a lot of things right, most importantly building something that's a net positive to the end user. Breaking laws just helped them expand quicker.
The end user for Uber doesn't care at all about wages for the drivers. "Oh that's so sad... but I need to use Uber because it's hassle free."
Because Uber drivers are all self-employed, they're not unionised or protected in any way. Thus, Uber pays its drivers a pittance, and is able to undercut and undermine existing taxi services who are forced by unions and law to pay drivers a living wage.
That's the key to being Uber for X. Ask: can I use the internet and shady business practices to exploit workers to undercut a business that previously workers were protected in?
If the answer is Yes, then you can be Uber for X.