> A 10% increase in heavy drinking seems small by comparison. Why not focus on that fact?

10% seeming smaller than 62% is not a fact that anyone should be focusing on.

There are actual numbers that can be compared in context; the fact that a percentage of one thing is expressed as a larger number than the percentage of another thing doesn't mean it's more important. Very few people die of drunk driving accidents (as compared to the number of people who drink), so if 20 fewer people in an area per year die from drunk driving, but incidents of binge drinking in that area increase from 1 million to 1.1 million, it's not simple to say that the outcome has been positive. Maybe 21 more people get esophageal cancer. Maybe 21 more cases of domestic violence end in a homicide.

That being said, this is a wealth effect and inevitable if you're making progress. People are drinking (out) more because their perception is that with rideshares it has become safer (easier to get home.) A cure for HIV would cause an increase in the spread of other sexually transmitted diseases, for example, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't cure HIV.

One material difference I can see between rideshares and a cab is that rideshares are often cheaper because 1) they are subsidized by investors and 2) they can be shared. This doesn't say anything interesting about Uber; if you wanted to make cabs cheaper, you can tax them less or subsidize them. The other, which I think might be more important, is that many rideshare users don't feel the need to buy a car, and that the rideshare demographic is largely similar to the binge drinking at bars/clubs demographic. Of course, taxing cars or the parking around bars/clubs could have the same effect.

I agree with you on all but pointing out the cancer rates.

If we're looking at it purely from a statistical point of view, then yes, the numbers might not look that good in favour of "more drinking + ridesharing is better than less drinking + drink driving".

Ethically, I consider people drinking themselves to an early grave of their own free will to be "less bad" than a drunk driver killing someone else on the road or a drunk person committing a violent crime against another person.

I make this point in the context of the rest of what you've said, though, which raises good discussion points about "should we fix X really bad thing if it leads to people doing more of Y maybe-less-bad thing?"

Ethically weighting deaths is a dangerous road. What would you say to "Innocent deaths from drunk driving go to 0, but suicides increase 1000-fold"?

This is a question I don't feel equipped to answer, despite having asked myself many times.

I think it's widely accepted (and I believe) that "drinking + driving + killing someone else = very bad", and that "drinking + assaulting = very bad", but I don't think I know enough about the health implications of drinking.

If a person really was drinking themselves to death of their own free will (i.e. they are aware of the physical health effects, and they do not experience any addictive effects from alcohol), then I don't see an ethical issue with them choosing to do that.

But if suicide rates go up, why could that be?

My opinion is that if someone who chose to drink (i.e. knew the risks and was not addicted) accidentally fell off a bridge or accidentally shot themselves with their own gun, it is their own fault.

When someone is suffering in terms of mental health such that they are addicted to alcohol, or are depressed, or feeling suicidal, then I just don't know. It feels to me like that although the alcohol is not the root cause in these situations it definitely could've pushed them over the edge. I think this is analogous to "someone who felt suicidal committed suicide after another person told them to jump off a building"... I really don't know where I stand on the issue.

> One material difference I can see between rideshares and a cab is that rideshares are often cheaper

Taxis (at least in Melbourne) used to be uniquely awful for getting home after a night out. They'd make you "prepay" a ridiculous amount like $50 cash for a trip that should have cost $15 and then refuse to give any change at the end of the trip. For the specific set of customers I was in, taxis were more expensive than themselves because they were basically stealing from us.

The paper does open with that, so at least the authors acknowledge that right up front:

"Recent studies show ridesharing services, such as Uber and Lyft, reduce intoxicated driving.However, ridesharing may also have negative health effects by increasing alcohol consumption."

"When we focus on areas with relatively weaker public transit options, we estimate UberX is associated with a 17.5% to 21.8% increase in instances of binge drinking"

Considering that public transport in the US is generally weak, the underlying driving force seems to not be Uber itself but alternative means of transport for everybody.

Even in non-US, late night service can be spotty.

Especially if/when the metro closes.

Like late night taxis who realize you're a bit drunk and just desperate to get home to bed.

Uber has changed everything here. I can leave the bar at 3am and know I can get home without being sized up for extortion by a professional taxista who is colluding with the other late-nighters on the shift.

Is an increase in binge drinking necessarily bad? Americans dont drink much. Shows my historical roots.

You can't compare apples and oranges percentages. If drunk driving accidents went from 13 to 8 incidents (62% drop), but the 10% increase in heavy drinking is applied to 10,000,000 people, then the negative health effects could outweigh the accidents by a huge amount. I think your key words are, "seems small by comparison". You'd have to know the actual numbers.

But this is America, and self-harm is a fiercely protected liberty. Harming others is not.

If we could put half of the energy we put into policing other people's vices into policing Corporate vices, think of what we could achieve.

Should we not be studying the trade-offs?

Yes we should study the trade-offs. But that calculus should also include the fact that most people genuinely enjoy going out and getting drunk with their friends.

Yet rarely if ever does that term ever into the equation. I'm not saying it necessarily outweighs the public health costs. But a truly fair accounting of all the trade-offs should take the hedonic benefits into account.

Serial killers enjoy murder, but that doesn't mean we necessarily want to encourage it.

I'm all for increasing the safety of nights out, but if it's got a corresponding increase in harmful or dangerous drinking behavior, that's a significant finding too.

The post you were responding to was trying to correct an over-correction. You've now introduced a superfluous over-correction.

To put it another way - you've disputed a point that nobody was making.

Normally we make a clear distinction between people harming themselves and people harming others, also known as "your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose".

Binge drinking regularly harms others.

Same effect in Austin. Very interesting to see how the metrics changed when ride-sharing apps were banned as well.

That one could attribute %62 of alcohol related collisions (and their associated injuries and fatalities) to the price fixing by cab licensing bodies is very interesting indeed.

Taxi companies and driver unions insist they provide safety and reliability. Appears there was an externality they need to account for.

Uber is priced the way it is because rich financiers are subsidizing rides. If Uber were running a profitable business, the rides would be as expensive or more so than taxis. Another problem with taxis is they don't show up when you call them, and you don't know what it will cost until the trip is over.

With Uber/Lyft, I never have to worry about being stuck outside in the cold, drunk, waiting 60 minutes for a $30 taxi.

> If Uber were running a profitable business, the rides would be as expensive or more so than taxis.

Might be off topic, but in downtown Chicago before/after work cabs (including tip) are often cheaper than Uber/Lyft (with no additional tip,) although they offer other conveniences (payment, tracking, can be "hailed" to anywhere, etc.) At less busy times ride sharing can still be a bit cheaper than a cab.

Was once a compelling theory, but in the last earnings (Q3 2019), Uber's ride hailing business was "adjusted EBITDA" profitable, with an increase in revenue growth. It's not hard to imagine them being GAAP profitable if they decide to sacrifice a little bit of revenue growth.

EBITDA is nonsense disguised to hide costs.

If you need to adjust it to appear profitable, then you are not profitable.

(Yes, I am aware that there are valid use-cases for EBITDA, but in general it is used as a way to avoid accounting for actual costs).

You can use fancy terms and fancy accounting to make it seem like Uber isn't subsidizing riders, but it doesn't change the facts.

What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with cabs.

You look at the rate of drunk driving accidents before availability of Uber in Portland. You look at the rate of drunk driving accidents after. The second number is 62% less than the first.

America was already prone to binge drinking.

Also, public transit also reduces drunk driving, so it’s hardly unique to taxis.

Anglo-Saxon drinking is the worst kind of drinking. In places where being fall-down drunk is not socially acceptable we drink differently and nobody is racing to puke on the sidewalk. It's not that difficult, just use moderation.

Binge drinking is defined as 4 drinks for women or 5 drinks for men in a 2 hour period [0]. That's hardly falling down, puking on the sidewalk levels of drunk.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/binge-drinking.htm

That's the minimum amount i.e 4.99 drinks within a 2 hour period is not binge drinking. Also, I have a drink just about every day or every other day, and I haven't had 5 drinks within a 2 hour period in at least the last decade. It would cause me to fall down and puke on the sidewalk.

That's fair. I suppose I'm just used to my own (probably unhealthy) drinking habits. I only drink one day a week, usually at some event like a football game or wedding, but I drink a lot when I do.

I suppose that varies by person and by what qualifies as a drink, but if I had five pints of microbrew in two hours I'd be drunk, and done for the day.

Certainly varies by person. But there is a standard definition of a "drink": 1.5oz of 40% liquor, 12oz of 5% beer, 5oz of 12% wine [0].

[0] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/what-standard-drink

You'd also have to piss like a race horse.

People over-attribute the impact of culture on drinking habits. In reality genetics plays the largest factor in problematic drinking. Just look at the epidemic of alcoholism in American Indians, despite that culture having no prior traditions of drinking.

The thing is Northern Europeans are probably more genetically prone to alcoholism than other European populations. For example British Jews, even the non-religious subset, binge drink at much lower rates than the rest of Britain. Predictably the population has a much concentration of genes associated with resistance to alcoholism.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/329933...

I admire your confidence.