"Licensing to carry passengers" is definitely something I want to see disrupted. There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
It certainly doesn't provide any assurance of quality (as indicated by the horrible drivers and customer service one gets from Taxi Drivers on the Peninsula).
I think it's entirely reasonable to require Insurance, Background Checks, Car Safety Checkups (from a third party), Drivers Valid License - Basically anything that is in place to protect consumer safety, instead of there to protect incumbents market ownership.
For example - in London, acquisition of "The Knowledge" is not there to protect consumers, it's there to reduce the amount of competition. I would absolutely not require "The Knowledge" prior to anyone becoming a Lyft/Uber driver.
And, as one who has taken thousands of taxi-rides, I can tell you that Uber/Lyft are not just innovation, they are mind-blowing revolutionary disruptive innovation to this industry. They are a much bigger deal for cab rides, than the iPhone was for the smart phone.
> There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
The value is in that the license can be taken away if the owner does not comply with the appropriate requisites for the activity. The relationship between a taxi driver and their passenger extends way beyond the mere act of driving, so the driver's license is not enough.
> There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
> I think it's entirely reasonable to require Insurance, Background Checks, Car Safety Checkups (from a third party), Drivers Valid License - Basically anything that is in place to protect consumer safety
You contradict yourself.
> I would absolutely not require "The Knowledge" prior to anyone becoming a Lyft/Uber driver.
The Knowledge is not for delivery; it's for picking people up on the street (which is many times preferable to ordering Uber on your phone). I don't want my taxi driver to spend 2 minutes blocking the road while he enters the destination into the navigation app, nor doing it while s/he's driving.
Lots of places have a "License to Carry Passengers", and the purpose of that license is to prevent new drivers. It's not to protect passengers. I'm fine with requirements that protect passengers. I'm not fine with requirements whose sole purpose is to prevent new drivers.
Regarding the knowledge (yes, I know it's for black cab hails) - if you think that's useful, and are willing to pay the increased rates that result from the higher level of service (and as one who has taken London Cabs, I can attest it's a wonderful service, just not one I would be willing to pay for), then you should be free to pay for that service, in the same way that others should be free to provide and advertise it.
But don't make it a requirement to run a service like Uber/Lyft.
It's not useful/a service; it's a way of ensuring order on the road. You can't (legally and safely) use mobile phones while driving; and when taxis stop on the side of the road, they should resume driving ASAP, not wait until they finish typing the destination.
Regarding "app" services, I agree, it's not necessary as they can map the path in advance, but they can't replace the existing "taxi" service (i.e. hailing taxi) that way (and I feel it's reasonable for cities to protect that service to a certain extent).
The major reasons why Uber/Lyft changed my life when ordering taxis:
o Single Contact point - I don't have to power dial a bunch of different services, or try and find out who is currently picking up in my region.
o Always, Always, Always a driver available. There were so many times when I just could never get a pickup on the peninsula. With Uber/Lyft, no matter how busy it is, or what concerts are playing, I can always get a ride. 100% of the time. (And yes, I know surge pricing makes those rides pricey, but I would much rather pay 3x or 4x and have a ride in 5 minutes than spend an hour to 90 minutes waiting for a cab. )
o When the driver/dispatch claims they are on the way - they always show up. Not only do they always show up, they show up reasonably on time. And, better yet, I can see if they are moving in my direction. That real-time car location technology is a major innovation.
o The feedback mechanism means I haven't been picked up by one psycho, or in one half-broken down vehicle yet. I'm not claiming they haven't existed on Uber/Lyft, I'm certain they have. But, those types of drives will be downvoted so quickly they'll cease to be a driver very quickly. With Taxis, I had a ton of drivers on the peninsula I dreaded being picked up by. One of them was frequently undergoing some weird psychotic episodes which had him shouting out to voices. Another was just an asshole. I frequently got into old cars with non-working windows, and often doors that would not open from the inside.
o No screwing around having to "pay through an app" - you don't pay - you just book your ride and get out at your destination. Particularly when you have a bunch of bags and stuff - that's awesome.
These are just a few of the reasons why Uber/Lyft changed everything. I can't believe anybody who frequently took taxis on the Peninsula would claim otherwise. Price is about #7 or #8 on the list.
> "Licensing to carry passengers" is definitely something I want to see disrupted. There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
So you're cool with just getting in any old stranger's car? Really?
First, they are an Uber driver, so presumably they have at least filled in a form or applied. I know my Lyft drivers frequently have applied to be Uber drivers but haven't been approved, so there is clearly some type of process.
But, more importantly - how familiar are you with Taxi Drivers on the Peninsula. Many of them are very new to the valley, many of them have just started driving, and quite a few of them are scary, psychotic, or just plain mean. I have yet to have that experience with Uber/Lyft, and when I do, I expect my, and others feedback, to correct that situation immediately rather than have to deal with it for any prolonged period of time.
Also - think of the hundreds (thousands?) of people a day for the last 10 years who carpool over the bay bridge. In that situation, you truly are getting into an absolutely random strangers car. People don't seem to have any issues with that - and there is ZERO background check, tracking, or awareness of those people.
The world is not as scary as people seem to think it is - In terms of risks, the most dangerous thing is likely not your driver, but the fact that you are in a car in the first place. They kill 30,000+ people a year.
> First, they are an Uber driver, so presumably they have at least filled in a form or applied. I know my Lyft drivers frequently have applied to be Uber drivers but haven't been approved, so there is clearly some type of process.
If taken to their limit(including sharing of trips), the economics would work so well that we could be talking about something that could replace the personal car in many many cases.
Yes - mind blowing. Perhaps because I've taken thousands of taxi rides, that even a hundred Uber/Lyft rides later, I still can't comprehend how wonderful it is to just push a button and see a car pull up. I wasted so much of my life waiting for taxis, many of whom never showed up, many of whom showed up 30 minutes late, and sometimes were never available - that Uber/Lyft just continue to blow my mind. Easily the most exciting use of my iPhone.
I trust ratings by the general public a lot more than I trust some authority that I've never heard of deciding some person is fit for driving a cab. Corruption is a thing that happens with authority figures and while you can bribe the general public, it's not like the person bribing the public won't recognize their own benefit to just being a better driver.
There is much more incentive to not suck when you have daily ratings as opposed to whatever the limit is for taxi cab drivers.
Yes..? Yelp has some great reviews. I'm looking at pictures of dishes from my local restaurants and the scenery around them right now from a reviewer.
Which appointed agency would you rather have tell you what food is good/bad? The local health boards?! Don't make me laugh, I worked in a sit down restaurant for years and every single inspection was a quick walk through followed by a free meal we'd give the inspector and a high rating.
This wasn't one store. This is every single store I worked at in multiple restaurants across three different cities and two different health departments.
I don't agree with Yelp reviewers' taste in restaurants, but they host reviews of lots of other services too, and their reviews of the service has been somewhere between "not correlated" and "inversely correlated" with the actual service I've had.
No, by disruption he probably means becoming a multi-billion dollar business, not to an anti-regulatory stance. Could Uber have succeeded if they had tried to follow all of the regulations like Hailo did?
And by innovation, he probably doesn't refer to the slur that you did by calling their workforce "gypsies" but to the resource locality problem solved by an app.
FWIW, "gypsy cab" is a general term for illegal cabs.
I would argue that the use of the word gypsy is actually a slur against Romani people. I'm a little confused by your comment as you seem to be implying that a gypsy is a bad thing and it's thus offensive to the drivers to be called gypsies.
I hope I'm misinterpreting because that's like getting mad at Alice for calling Bob a n*, not for using a racist slur, but because it compares Bob to a black person.
When someone uses a slur in a negative connotation like pico did it is usually considered offensive. I really don't get how lhnz calling out the ugliness of that comment is bad on him.
I agree, it is offensive. It wasn't clear to me that lhnz was calling out the ugliness of pico's comment. The way his comment was worded sounded different to me. Like he was saying "how dare you insult someone by calling them a gypsy", not "gypsy is an insensitive slur". I'm having a hard time articulating that properly. My comment was meant to ask clarification, not as an accusation.
Uber's innovation was in removing a hails requirement for a mutual line-of-sight between the passenger and a cab. This increases the number of cabs accessible to a user. It also allows cabs to move towards users, which is analogous to providing an index to speed up a locality of reference problem in a computer [0].
It is an innovation that works on purely economic grounds.
He was insinuating that Uber's innovation was cheap workers and then slurring these as "gypsies". It's easier to point out somebody's smear than it is to describe their misunderstandings related to innovation and domain knowledge, so my attack was on his method not his content.
Edit: You can't honestly downvote me based on a discussion from first principles of why something was innovative or can you? Sigh.
As a response to your original post, I would argue that the term gypsy is widely considered derogatory, and that I was not saying "how dare you call somebody a gypsy". I was saying that I felt that he was purposefully using it as a derogatory smear. I think it's fair to assume that he was using it as a smear and I think it's interesting that you wish to defend him by accusing me of the same thing that I accused him of.
You're perverting my intention which was to point out that he was normalising a smear as a negative externality to defending his anti-Uber beliefs and that this isn't okay.
Sorry, that was absolutely not my intention (and I didn't downvote you). I was trying to figure out your intention because your phrasing confused me. As I said, I hoped I was misinterpreting your sentence, and I was. Your intent is now clear and thank you for clarifying.
The term gypsy is widely considered derogatory, but it is also widely used and accepted as normal by people unaware of that.[1] I don't think it's fair to assume pico was using it as a smear, but in the ignorant casual sense that people refer to illegal cabs as gypsy cabs, or say they got "gypped". Still insensitive, but I don't think he was trying to use a slur.
I'm not trying to defend his usage. You're right, it's not okay. But I think there is a distinction to be made in educating someone as to the history of a word vs. assuming they used it intentionally.
[1] In Conan O'Brian's documentary, there's a scene where an attendee of his show says to him something like "we got jew'd", to which Conan says "you know I'm part Jewish, and my producer over there is Jewish?". And the guy says "sorry...we got gypped" and then everyone carries on like it's normal. Meanwhile I was like "wait, that doesn't bother you in the exact same way?".
> Uber's innovation was in removing a hails requirement for a mutual line-of-sight between the passenger and a cab. This increases the number of cabs accessible to a user. It also allows cabs to move towards users, which is analogous to providing an index to speed up a locality of reference problem in a computer [0].
That's not Uber's innovation, since livery cars are not allowed to accept hailed fares in most places anyway. The only difference is an app instead of traditional voice.
So in other countries you can only use Uber to pay and not to hail? Are you sure this isn't just a weird exception.
I didn't know that "gypsy cabs" was a legitimate term of description to use to describe unlicensed cabs. I think it still sounds offensive, but I guess that would mean that he wasn't the instigator.
What I mean is in most US cities (I don't pretend to know about anywhere else), there is a large class of livery services that, unlike cabs, cannot accept fares hailed from the street, but will come pick you up and give you a ride if you call them. Uber is basically an extension of that concept, except, instead of you calling a person on the phone, you use a smartphone app.
This isn't innovation. It's gypsy cabs with an iPhone app.