Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

This is a bit much. The concern over a new piecework system is valid, but it seems you are holding up traditional cab companies as the good guys who follow employment laws.

Do cab companies pay minimum wage and provide benefits to drivers? I don't think so. The drivers are not employees, but independent contractors, who have to pay to lease their cabs, and who are fucked if they can't get enough fares to cover the lease, gas, etc.

Cab companies complain about Uber because they have rigged up the medallion system, which suppresses the supply in order to drive up prices -- not the price of cabfare, so much, but the price of medallions. It's not a coincidence that Uber first took off in the SF Bay Area -- not (just) because so much b.s.-tech-stuff gets started here, but because SF still has the same number of cab medallions that it had decades ago, and it's often impossible to find a cab.

(p.s. I've never ridden Uber, Lyft, or any of the other services.)

No doubt that Uber gains a competitive advantage by disregarding laws or engaging in regulatory arbitrage. No doubt that taxi regulation in many (most?) places is an example of regulatory capture, designed more to protect medallion-owners' investments than serve the public. It is also worth noting that Uber uses recent technology to provide services more efficiently than prior business models, and that this could confer substantial benefits on the public.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I like unions. I am not a fan of trade guilds. They serve different functions, though there are times unions themselves forget it and those are times that they and I often end up on the other side of issues (like immigration). The AMA and ABA are trade guilds.

The cab issue is a bit different, and not related to unions at all. It's related to following the law. Uber is an organized criminal operation that disregards laws that apply to other businesses, like wage payment and minimum wage laws, laws on benefits, etc., based on rather thin legal reasoning. Uber's legal positions on employment law are just like John Yoo's - a thin veil for knowingly criminal behavior, attempting to create cover to protect the perpetrators. Their position on licensing law isn't much better. But they're being protected because they're a fad with the UMC.

Uber's also not new. It's just a piecework labor system. If we can't hire them to do the work at the factory because of the damn minimum wage laws and 40 hour work week, let's just send the work home with them, pay them by the piece, and make enforcing the law almost impossible. Again, we got laws....

I'm not arguing with you, as I tend to agree about Uber. But how is their treatment of drivers different than the treatment of cabbies by the owners of medallions (when it comes to pay, hours worked, etc.)? Is it just that they have found a way around the licensing fees?

I just googled and see that they are avoiding "insurance provisions, minimum vehicle standards and signage requirements" with which cab companies must comply. But when it comes to taking advantage of a non-employee/contractor system, how are they different than any cab company out there?

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

This is a bit much. The concern over a new piecework system is valid, but it seems you are holding up traditional cab companies as the good guys who follow employment laws.

Do cab companies pay minimum wage and provide benefits to drivers? I don't think so. The drivers are not employees, but independent contractors, who have to pay to lease their cabs, and who are fucked if they can't get enough fares to cover the lease, gas, etc.

Cab companies complain about Uber because they have rigged up the medallion system, which suppresses the supply in order to drive up prices -- not the price of cabfare, so much, but the price of medallions. It's not a coincidence that Uber first took off in the SF Bay Area -- not (just) because so much b.s.-tech-stuff gets started here, but because SF still has the same number of cab medallions that it had decades ago, and it's often impossible to find a cab.

(p.s. I've never ridden Uber, Lyft, or any of the other services.)

stp.

TM

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

No doubt that Uber gains a competitive advantage by disregarding laws or engaging in regulatory arbitrage. No doubt that taxi regulation in many (most?) places is an example of regulatory capture, designed more to protect medallion-owners' investments than serve the public. It is also worth noting that Uber uses recent technology to provide services more efficiently than prior business models, and that this could confer substantial benefits on the public.

I agree with your latter point completely. But for the medallion system, Uber or something like it could have sought to work within the existing system, essentially providing a software package that would enable taxis to better serve customers, and charging them for it. In other words, they could have been like OpenTable. But the medallion system, and the fact that rides are a commodity while restaurant meals are not, prevented this or made it vastly less attractive.

I think the Uber technology focus would make it very difficult to impose wage-and-hour laws on them. There isn't really a difference between an Uber driver and me agreeing to give someone a ride if they pay me -- it's just that the Uber driver uses (and pays for) some technology as part of offering that service.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

But for the medallion system, Uber or something like it could have sought to work within the existing system, essentially providing a software package that would enable taxis to better serve customers, and charging them for it.

It could have, but that would have left in place the market-distorting restriction on supply that the medallion system represents and thereby substantially reduced its ability to be welfare-enhancing.

I have no problem with objections to Uber based in safety, insurance and signage or other substantive regulation, but complaining about them because they don't comply with the existing cartel is really weird.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

I'm not arguing with you, as I tend to agree about Uber. But how is their treatment of drivers different than the treatment of cabbies by the owners of medallions (when it comes to pay, hours worked, etc.)? Is it just that they have found a way around the licensing fees?

I just googled and see that they are avoiding "insurance provisions, minimum vehicle standards and signage requirements" with which cab companies must comply. But when it comes to taking advantage of a non-employee/contractor system, how are they different than any cab company out there?

TM

They use technology to create a system that is more efficient and puts an additional boundary to those looking to enforce the laws (e.g., the argument that they are a technology platform).

I didn't, and don't want, to argue that cab companies and the like don't push many of the rules beyond the line every day. The difference, though, is between that group of punks hanging out down by the high school and the mob - a high degree of organization and efficiency.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I think the Uber technology focus would make it very difficult to impose wage-and-hour laws on them. There isn't really a difference between an Uber driver and me agreeing to give someone a ride if they pay me -- it's just that the Uber driver uses (and pays for) some technology as part of offering that service.

What's are the key differences between doing it on the Uber platform or over a phone or radio through a dispatch system?

I see just one big one, and it doesn't help Uber: With the traditional cabbies, of course, you pay the cabbie, but with Uber, you pay Uber and Uber then pays the cabbie - doesn't that simple fact shift the legal analysis against Uber rather than the other way around? Why shouldn't Uber be focused on things like withholding taxes, hours (which they track) and all the other accouterments of employment?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

It is also worth noting that Uber uses recent technology to provide services more efficiently than prior business models, and that this could confer substantial benefits on the public.

I'm impressed you can say that with a straight face. So this is all for the public good, and not because they're greedy bastards who want to make a lot of money (NTTAWWT)?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'm impressed you can say that with a straight face. So this is all for the public good, and not because they're greedy bastards who want to make a lot of money (NTTAWWT)?

These things are not mutually exclusive.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

by the way, yesterday, during the snow storm, when there was not a cab or car service to be found available in Boston, I relied on the ultimate innovation to get me a ride: a hotel bell-hop!! Bang up, A+ job, and I tipped the guy a fiver and we were both happy.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

by the way, yesterday, during the snow storm, when there was not a cab or car service to be found available in Boston, I relied on the ultimate innovation to get me a ride: a hotel bell-hop!! Bang up, A+ job, and I tipped the guy a fiver and we were both happy.

How did you enjoy your experience with surge pricing?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I'm impressed you can say that with a straight face. So this is all for the public good, and not because they're greedy bastards who want to make a lot of money (NTTAWWT)?

I very carefully didn't say that at all. They are clearly a bunch of bastards who want to make a lot of money, and don't mind disregarding the law. That doesn't mean they don't also have technology and a business model that "could" be better for the public than the current one. If they are unregulated, I'm not sure it will be. They have an obvious desire to monopolize and would like to capture all of the gains from their model as profits. But even the most rapacious monopolists might not be able to capture all of the upside.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Perfect.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I very carefully didn't say that at all. They are clearly a bunch of bastards who want to make a lot of money, and don't mind disregarding the law. That doesn't mean they don't also have technology and a business model that "could" be better for the public than the current one. If they are unregulated, I'm not sure it will be. They have an obvious desire to monopolize and would like to capture all of the gains from their model as profits. But even the most rapacious monopolists might not be able to capture all of the upside.

Their technology is only as new as the gps and internet, and is generally capable of being programmed by my 14 year old. I'm not sure what there is that is interesting in their business model other than using the gps and internet to do what dispatchers have long done.

Well, except perhaps if you think ignoring the regulations is a key part of their business plan, in which case, well, they're no still no Charles Ponzi, but it's something.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Their technology is only as new as the gps and internet, and is generally capable of being programmed by my 14 year old. I'm not sure what there is that is interesting in their business model other than using the gps and internet to do what dispatchers have long done.

Well, except perhaps if you think ignoring the regulations is a key part of their business plan, in which case, well, they're no still no Charles Ponzi, but it's something.

You're completely discounting that users may prefer to be their own dispatcher.

Although whenever I've thought about using Uber or Lyft (which I've not done), I'm mostly amazed that existing cab companies hadn't already deployed these technologies on their own.

Then I remember that they don't face much in the way of competition.