> powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example)
DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents. The people get to write the rules, called laws. Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right?
What I can't understand is the moral grandstanding, e.g. "What gave him the right?" Are taxicab medallions worth it? I never take it seriously when someone starts talking like this about the marriage between taxis and local governments, like it was some holy industry that didn't deserve to be disrupted.
Imagine how long it would have taken for local governments to "fix" something like that. Can you explain to me what it would take for a city council to (1) identify a problem (and in a timely manner, instead of twenty years of "if it ain't broke don't fix it"), (2) come up with a solution, and (3) somehow prioritize this ahead of all of the other important things they work on?
You are correct, no one handed Travis Kalanick the "right" to change something, but I'm okay with the fact that he took it upon himself.
I'm in favor of the rule of law. If I was in favor of the rule of law when it did good things and not when it did bad things (and I ready admit that the medallion system is one of the bad things), and wanted outside companies with private capital to ignore the rule of law to fix the bad things... I wouldn't be in favor of the rule of law at all.
The ultimate question is who we choose to decide whether things are good or bad. If you support the rule of law in a democracy, you have the democratic process. If you support companies outspending and outmaneuvering local governments, you're entrusting capital with making these decisions, and they probably won't reflect the will of the people. It is, to be clear, an entirely legitimate political perspective to believe that we'll get a better society by letting the holder of the most capital make decisions instead of letting the people each have one vote. But that's a very strong claim that should be made clearly, and those who believe in democracy even when democracy happens to produce occasional bad outcomes are not particularly grandstanding, just believing in democracy.
How do you know if "more people agree"? Has there been a public debate and a vote?
If there was a vote, it would be direct democracy, which has some serious drawbacks. One is that most people have very little time to become informed on these issues; that's why they elect representatives to deal with them.
Finally, straight majority rule is just mob rule. Someone said, 'democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner'. What if the majority wanted to take your house away? Take your business away? Stop someone from speaking? Stop the minority party from accepting donations? That's why we have the rule of law, not the rule of the majority.
I agree that not every law is just, but some are less just than others.
So I'm fine with rule of law, and fine with getting fined for violations of medallion regulations.
Which ever way it goes, its fine and fair.
In Australia, after the local regulator/government started fining UberX drivers for illegally operating a taxi service (rightfully so IMHO), Uber told the drivers not to worry, continue driving and they’ll pay their fines for them.
Any person, other than a person holding a driver's license issued pursuant to section 19-505 and a New York state class A, B, C or E license, neither of which is revoked or suspended, who drives or operates for hire a licensed vehicle in the city except a commuter van, shall be guilty of a violation, and upon conviction in the criminal court, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty days, or both such fine and imprisonment.
Obviously courts can impose fines - do you honestly think the only thing a court can do is throw someone in jail? Fines are not for torts - penalties are, and there's very strict rules around penalties (they can't be punitive and can only be used to recover costs incurred by failure to perform a contract). You have no idea what you're on about.
The process of fining you is literally a court procedure. The city official doesn't have any authority to fine you - they bring a prosecution against you in court, and provide you with the details by which you can either plead guilty in front of that court (possibly via mail or an online form) and take the sentence that the court gives you (which is most likely to be a fine unless the judge has more information), or plead not guilty and make a defense. Anything else would be a violation of due process.
Again, try looking outside your bubble of the US. This is certainly not the case in countries outside the US.
They cite passenger safety concerns, but there's been not-too-subtle protests by Black Cab drivers who simply refuse to change their archaic business model and a very stark lack of actual Uber users concerned about safety. Not only is it far less convenient than Uber, calling a Black Cab means you need to venture onto the street and if you're not in central London you're basically stuffed. There's also the matter of cabbies being many times more expensive than Uber - a £20 Uber would be £50, at least.
The Black Cab drivers are being petulant children about it. I'm sorry their livelihoods are under threat but they either need to evolve or die. They literally blocked off a major London road right outside my offices in protest against Uber a few months ago; right off Blackfriars Bridge they parked horizontally in the middle of the road, causing absolute mayhem. Usually I'm fine with people striking, but there was no legitimate grievance here - a better competitor came along and instead of embracing change (and progress) they simply threw their toys out of the pram and demanded the politicians (who are in their union's pocket) simply get rid of their competition.
The politicians didn't take much persuading, and just like that we rolled back to Black Cabs (which half of Uber users were priced out of in the first place). Unions are generally a force for good, but this was just a shameless attempt by the Black Cab union to have the competition erased, where previously they operated in what could easily have been described as a monopoly - previously they only faced competition from minicabs and Addison Lee, which largely had an entirely different customer base.
The fact is that Uber came in, heavy handed, and used it's usual "fuck the rules, we're here" attitude towards running its service. It's hardly surprising that it fails to get license renewals when it's not only shown scant regard for the rules and regs, but open contempt about changing so that they fit them.
The majority of New Yorkers did not appear to support his views in respect of taxis. That is why Uber was able to organise a grassroots opposition.
> What gave him the right?
The Constitution and culture of civil society that gives the EFF “the right” to organise constituencies of grassroots support.
Under the law, which is how every modern society is governed, the mayor makes these decisions irrespective of majorities (if they exists) on particular issues; that's on purpose.
> EFF
The EFF does not violate laws and claims no right to do so. It does claim a right to organize people and speak about issues; Uber has that right too. Uber does not have the right to break laws it doesn't like.
You could say people voted with their wallets.
Money should never overwhelm the will of the people. I say this even though I hated the way taxis used to work, with the artificial limitation, and I love a chance to take a much more convenient app based ride, I really despise how they got away with violating at least any standard of reasonable behavior, but also they were apparently violating the law literally - one example being paying the hackers not to hack and not telling anyone.
It’s like the quote from the Chronicles of Riddick, “sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with another kind of evil”.
So the identity of the rent seekers at the top hasn't even changed. But you use an app now... so, yay?
I think anybody who takes a rent seekers' side over even the most despicable politician doesn't deserve to live in a Democracy.
This really turns taxi service into some great horror. Uber didn't cure cancer or even invent the Internet (nor is it cheaper than cabs in cities I've been in); they just made a marginal improvement in one form of transportation, partly by using massive wealth to take on losses and by imposing externalities on others: The cost of cars on the drivers, safety on the passengers, traffic on the rest of the city (a big reason for medallions, afaik, was to avoid the traffic jams that Uber creates in cities). Cabs worked fine for many years, and still do.
> It’s like the quote from the Chronicles of Riddick, “sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with another kind of evil”.
Evil? Cabs are evil? If we're getting our philosophy from the Chronicles of Riddick, it suddenly all makes sense. The better sources of philosophy would disagree.
So should anyone who wants be able to break laws and abuse people? If the only justification you need is that cab service isn't great, what good are laws?
You could say it, but that's not how democracy or legitimate government and lawmaking works. And in Uber's case, the wallets voting are a few investors who subsidized the customers.
Markets don't have elections and most politicians/bureaucrats don't exactly have the competency to decide what should be good for everyone. Letting people vote with their wallets has largely worked.
Of course no system is perfect, but this is as fair as it gets.
This issue has nothing to do with central planning. Free market theory does not support legal anarchy. It really should work that businesses can do whatever they want, irrespective of the law? Can they murder? Steal? Damage your property and life? It's absurd.
The excellent Cuban health system achieves the same for roughly 1/10th the cost.
Which part of "double the price same product" counts largely "worked" and why do you want me to give up my cheaper system for yours?
If only I could walk into a health care facility and see the prices posted on the wall for various procedures, or get an estimate upfront, the way I can at any auto garage...
Furthermore, don’t ever say “excellent Cuban” anything. There’s a reason why people try to cross shark infested waters on dingy rafts from Cuba to Key West, Florida. People vote with their feet and wallets.
What makes Uber legit? People support it.
Although I guess a government doesn't need the support of the people to maintain legitimacy, it just needs to be able to maintain a monopoly on violence. And if Uber had a monopoly on the taxi industry maybe it wouldn't need the people's support either.
> What makes Uber legit? People support it.
Really? Uber has the legitimacy of government? Wow.
Problem is some wallets are empty and some are full, whereas in a democracy every vote has the same weight.