What are your thoughts on the Uber situation?

I use Uber pretty often. The cars don’t stink and the drivers don’t talk on their phones. Most of them speak English and they never ask you how to get to where you want to go. Great service.

No sympathy for the taxis. The remained uncompetitive for years by their own choice. They didn’t even try to modernize or change with the times, and they made no effort to be friendlier, not have stinking cabs, or anything customer friendly. Basically they did nothing to improve their lot.

So someone smarter and more modern came in.

Too bad for taxi drivers.

@josie @elbanditoroso I share similar sentiments, especially about the attitude of the taxi drivers. However, butt hurt drivers’ feelings aside, do you think that Uber has the potential to go crazy with their business and head in the Walmart direction? I just wish I knew more about the working environment of Uber. Right now it appears to me as if it’s just a side thing to get extra cash.
And I love how it’s another option. Luckily I’m in a place with decent public transportation, so I don’t have to take cabs. However, I did take a cab once and i was awful and expensive. I’m glad to know that there’s a new, supposedly less expensive and less brutal fallback option available.

See this is what I don’t understand;

I hear so many of those in politics carrying on about encouraging and expounding on the benefits the free market and how it will self-regulate and then when something like Uber comes along and does exactly what they are promoting, they get their panties in a wad and want to stop it at worst and regulate it at best.

You can’t have it both ways guys. Either you are 100% free market or you are communist scum with socialist tendencies and probably scabies.

Your choice.

The way taxis run changes from city to city, so I don’t think it’s fair to decide what to do with Uber on the basis of taxi performance. We have great taxi service here, so I don’t share that complaint at all. I have lived in cities with appalling taxi service, and I can well understand the need for improvement or an alternative.

I can’t put my finger on what I dislike about the concept of Uber. I’ve never used it, and hope never to have to use it. I have used Airbnb a lot, and many people compare the two businesses in terms of whether they should be regulated. I think I just see more risk in even a short cab ride than I do in a stay in someone’s home, especially when reviews are factored in. Partly because you’re always directly interacting with the driver, but not usually the homeowner, and partly because it would be easier for a dangerous driver to get great reviews as an Uber driver than it would for a terrible host to get great reviews as an Airbnb host. And a driver may interact differently with people of different race, sex, etc.

So, I support more regulation for Uber, but not for Airbnb.

The one aspect I find disturbing about both businesses is that they show the increasing difficulty people are having maintaining their lifestyles. That people have to hire out their own cars or their own homes in order to keep them… there’s something wrong there. I see both models as a symptom of growing income inequality. But I still think people should have the right to participate in these businesses.

Taxis here have to pay for a taxi licence, which in Sydney is over $350,000. They have to pay insurance, they must have camera equipment in their cab and I think there are other fees they have to pay to own a cab. In Australia, the person driving the cab may not be the owner. I’d say these days, it’s often not the cab owner who’s doing the driving. They are people who are contracted to drive that taxi. I’ve spoken to cabbies and it’s not uncommon for them to have to earn $250 before they even start to make any money. They have to pay to lease the cab for their shift, fuel etc. They’re often guys just trying to make a living and they’re driving cabs for 12 hours a day to earn a crust.

I don’t have a problem with competition, or with Uber. I do think there has to be a level playing field or protection for those drivers who don’t own a cab, and aren’t profiteering but are also just trying to earn their living.

I too thought Uber a great and useful innovation, but I have a good friend who’s been driving for them over 3 months now

My friend has discovered that true to form, Uber is a ruthless and rather sinister operation built around exploiting the people who drive for it. It is basically about exploiting the loopholes in existing regulations and working the lag time between the establishment of facts on the ground and the reaction of creaky regulatory bureaucracy. This is the reason for all the urgency to flood the streets with drivers, annihilate the taxis and other competition, and amass the war chest necessary to buy up the political power to fend off regulation. The folks exploited in the setup are of course the drivers. They are the only ones suffering as the company floods the streets with uber drivers while steadily decreasing fares.