Most traditional taxis are independent contractors as well. It's the ridematching versus dispatch system that is the advantage, not the employment model.

It's easy to see all the folks here who don't remember having to wait an hour for a taxi to show after calling, if it ever did. Pushing a button on your phone and getting a ride five minutes later is magic in comparison.

Why is a quickly arriving taxi more important than workers rights? Yes it's more comfortable, for you. But this model is just not sustainable for most people.

Don't forget that this thing is subsidized. It never proved to be profitable. These companies invested huge amounts of money in lobbying all over the world, fermenting social unrest and subverting democracy for a failed business model.

They try and play a long game where we both lose workers rights, and have only bad monopolistic transportation available.

Who says it is? I'm questioning whether the taxi drivers actually have any more rights. The parent comment here said that the disruption that caused ridesharing to rapidly grow this mobility segment was because the drivers were independent contractors instead of being employees. My point is that taxi drivers were never employees, either, and that the success of the ridesharing companies had more to do with user experience and reliability than their business model.

Or maybe it's because they give cheap subsidized service. What's the long game? How can they keep it cheap and make profit? They can't. Because it's an extremely inefficient endeavour.

I understand your point but I'm not sure it's relevant. Taxis managed to survive for a long time without any artificial money injection, it's probably at a stable equalibrium. Allowing this artificial market to keep growing is just a endorsing a bubble. The bigger it gets the worst the collateral will be when it'll finally collapse.

Ridesharing is profitable today. The reason these companies lose money is because of investments in other areas. Whether that's wise or not is up for debate, but both Lyft and Uber are public companies. Neither is seeking VC money at this point for further injections.

Both Lyft and Uber are public companies. If you know this is a bubble for sure, there are plenty of opportunities for you to cash in on that. In fact, if you have solid research that proves it's a bubble, plenty of people will pay you for that research.

fomenting not fermenting.

I think uber and lyft should pay more to their employees and raise their rates to reflect that. We don't need to go back to taxis, I agree with you on that, but the fare should reflect the real cost of the ride for a fair wage for the service.

And if the ride is subsidized by VC, all the better!

Everyone keeps saying the substitute for Uber/Lyft is taxis. Maybe this is HN bay-area bias but it is just wrong. The substitute for Uber/Lyft in 95% of the US is driving your own car! Driving your own car has significant externalities, eg. More need for parking, more emissions, more drunk driving.

I don't live in CA but used to do a fair amount of work travel out there. If they don't have Uber/Lyft in the future, I'll just make work get me a rental car.

It could also be good public transportation. Much more efficient.

I'll believe in public transportation in CA whenever Marin county gets a BART station. Trust me if that happens we'll be able to ride our flying pigs everywhere.

What a dishonest, cherry-picked example to justify your pessimism.

The Bay area is finally electrifying Caltrain, which has the potential to connect the South bay in more ways then the current commuter connection. BART is also being expanded both in the East bay and the South Bay. And the only reason you are not getting a high speed rail to South California is because politics got in the way. But this high speed train will go between Bakersfield and Merced, making it the first true high speed train in the USA. All this while the Metro in LA is expanding and adding much needed connections in South California.

This all said, Marin County is an incredibly affluent part of the Bay area, it could really easily fix their connectivity issues to the rest of the Bay area with better and more frequent buses (I wonder why they don’t).

Is it really cherry-picked? Or if it is, is it really that difficult to pick out the "cherries"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atherton_station

What do you mean? Redwood City is not that far away which has a proper Caltrain stop. And—just like Marin—Atherton in an incredibly affluent community.

Sure, I will admit, California has some problems when it comes to their public transit projects. But pointing to the richest communities and how they are not getting trains is not a good example of those problems.

EDIT: Previously wrongly stated that there was a BART station close by.

Caltrain runs once an hour for half of the day. You're screwed if you don't know exactly when you'll get to the station and find a parking spot.

Thats why I mentioned the electrification of Caltrain as a good public transit project in California. With electrification, it becomes far cheaper and easier to run the trains more frequently. Currently it is just commuter service making the South bay kind of disconnected from San Francisco for anybody but commuters. With electrification, this train has the potential to become much more then that.

I know it's quicker off the mark at peak times, but is the cost difference enough to run dramatically more trains?

Yes, electrified trains require far less crew and other workers, which means the current size staff size can operate on a wider timespan for practically the same cost.

Also the acceleration and deceleration will clear the tracks far easier and quicker for the next train to arrive, leaving less congestion during peak hours and less load on the system overall.

Well then something is broken with PT in your neck of the woods. Too bad for you.

I think OP's argument is the reason why it's "driving your own car" in those markets outside of denser cities is because operating a taxi fleet is not profitable at those densities, in part because of employee protections and other regulatory hurdles, and that removing those protections (and shifting additional costs to the state) is what allows uber/lyft to create an alternative to "driving your own car" in a place where taxis have not been able to profitably operate.

I think I follow that. My main point is that outside of NYC and SF, Uber/lyft worked by creating new utility not by taking it from taxis. Now the state is steeping in and killing that utility without providing an alternative.

They're not employees. What rights are missing? Do you have an issue with contractors in other industries? Why or why not?

> They're not employees.

Why does this keep getting repeated? They're not contractors. They have little-to-no control over who their "clients" are. They don't develop relationships for repeat service with those clients; don't set their rates (I'd gladly pay some drivers more than others); are forced to jump through hoops to maintain 4.X ratings or they're booted. The only thing they do have control over is when to start and stop working. That's just a much more flexible part-time job as far as I can tell.

Their client is Uber. They have complete control to work for them or not. No different than tech support hired on contract. They don't develop relationships with customers, they work for the company that contracted them.

Nobody is guaranteed a contract either. If you don't perform satisfactorily then the contract is terminated. No different than tech support that are rated poorly in communications.

Drivers control their rates [1], when they work, where they work, how long they work, and which rides they accept (with user, time and direction shown first). Only thing missing is destination upfront, however that can change anyway. No different than tech support dealing customer requests regardless of effort.

1. https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/