The part where it goes off the rails is limiting the number of cars. This is why taxi's are so expensive, it's not a truly fair market.

Also, I strongly disagree with the author's sentiment that more people using uber vs public transit is bad. Shortening people's trip time sometimes as much as 1 1/2 hours to 20 min is a huge benefit. Transit could be better, but it won't be if it doesn't have to compete with a genuinely good experience.

Additionally, consider the number of people who have not driven drunk because uber is cheap enough that they are willing to do it. Transit doesn't run as much at night, and people are not willing to either wait the 2h to take night transit if it exists, or pay $50+ a ride for a taxi. We can argue all night about whether or not people should do these things rather than drive drunk, but the cold hard reality is that services like uber have actually reduced the number of drunk drivers by making efficient transport affordable.

There's hard data to support the drunk driving claim, too. It has been noticeably reduced in areas that allow Uber vs. those that don't.

Totally agree with you. The MTA, now THAT's a transportation monopoly.

That sounds like a good solution that would benefit drivers. Hopefully this can be realized

I don’t think this is given - e.g., in NYC, Chicago, and SF, most cabs are driven by poor immigrants[1] and most rent (in economic terms) is extracted by medallion owners.

[1] Nothing wrong with being an immigrant - I’m one myself, although not poor anymore. I’m just pointing out that pre-Uber system didn’t offer much protection either. Since driving is an easily obtainable skill with no differentiation whatsoever, driving for hire - be it a cab driver, truck driver, or Uber driver - will always be a low-earning job.

Sounds good for the taxi cartels... not good for the drivers who would now have fewer job options and less control over accepting work on their terms.

And of course a huge blow to consumers which is the whole point of Uber's existence anyway.

Drivers don't have that now. They have extremely little control over what rides they can turn down, and most drivers barely break even.

As for consumers, yes, it's generally felt as a blow when they have to start paying the actual costs of things, instead of coasting by on VC subsidized things.

The current solution benefits drivers sufficiently to entice them to do it over a different job. I’m not sure why people feel that the current situation must be changed.

I haven’t been to Paris lately but my friends there describe it that way: Uber drivers there now need some hard-to-get and I believe limited license, so the drivers there are a lot less abundant, prices are higher and wait time longer.

I wouldn’t be surprised if city hall economists publish some impact study on drivers’ revenue, or on congestions: both are hot topics there.

Kids have that insidious tendency to grow up, and to sometimes make their ideas become real.

Sounds lovely and pithy, and Id love to agree with you. But is it, really? Didn’t Uber replace exactly this system, meaning it was, in fact, reality for decades?

Yeah and the system was awful for consumers

I am waiting till someone builds a taxi app that would work exactly as IRC servers worked 20 years ago and Uber dies in it's own monocultural misery. Now that's capitalism.

They tried that in Austin. I think they had a year to grow market without Uber or Lyft, and once the ridesharing companies came back, the companies were decimated.

What part of "VCs subsidize riders" is Capitalism?

All of it? It's not like the VCs aren't expecting a return on investment. They're literally Venture Capitalists. You don't seem to equate investing (which this is) to capitalism, but you're mistaken.

Reality is what we choose to make of it. In the case of the US, reality is crony capitalism running a yearly trillion dollar deficit, billlions wasted on military contracts like Zumwalt, and overspending-underperforming healthcare. Let’s leave the buzzwords and ideology aside.

Sounds pretty good. Charging less than the actual cost of a trip is just anti-competitive, so everyone here should be against that. Unionized and minimum wage guaranteed drivers sounds good to me, as I fail to see any reason why the drivers shouldn't be making at least minimum wage.

The author sounds like a caricature out of an Ayn Rand novel. "Traditional taxis already have a sensible limit to minimize congestion"? "Fairness fees"? wew.

Is that more or less regulation than taxis currently have in the US?

More, since taxi drivers are considered contractors and have no minimum wage.

i really like HN comments so much (not joking) this is great. It summarized the entire article perfectly I can already tell. Thanks vtail.

We have this, it is called taxi cabs.