| > If one can improve the lives of the people and make them happier by subverting the law, this is really damning for the government. People run to below-costs services like cats to catnip. You can make anyone happy by selling them $10 bills for $1. The problem is, what happens when all the competitors are gone, and the reason for below-cost offering ends? > More importantly, even if you grant the government the authority to take away people's freedom to do things the government considers too risky, purely out of paternalism, the fact is that the government had no reason whatsoever to believe that Uber cabs are less safe Of course they had, and we grant such authorities all the time. There's a special type of insurance covering commercial transport of people, it's illegal to engage in commercial transport of people without such insurance (and for good reason, if accident happens, then both the driver and the passengers are screwed); the problem, in Uber's case, was too little enforcement, and Uber shielding itself behind "independent contractor" veil and pretending they didn't encourage it. > the reason traditional taxi companies are unhappy about Uber breaking the laws precisely because the laws help protect their business and extract rent at the expense of the consumers These laws didn't came out of the blue and weren't just instances of random regulatory capture. The laws creating barriers to entry and (in some places) granting taxi companies limited monopoly are the flip side of the legal requirements that come with the taxi service being treated as a part of public transport infrastructure. Things like the legal requirement for taking passengers in unprofitable locations, or having cars in the fleet adapted for the needs of people with limited mobility. Things Uber did not do, because it didn't have to (and couldn't, really, with their "just a platform" business setup). Instead, Uber offered subsidized rides for able-bodied people in city centres, and no rides at all for elderly or disabled or people living further away. > Weren't you just a moment ago saying that the drivers were "underpaid"? If it ain't the drivers who are subsidized, then who is, exactly? The rides were. The prices you paid for a ride were sometimes less than the driver would get from Uber, but Uber wasn't going to pay the drivers more than they needed to (at least not until some follow-up competition came). > If it's all VC subsidies, they'll run out That's why Uber is betting so hard on self-driving. They've been operating on a loss for many years now, and they know they can't sustain it. > and in the meantime, the customers keep benefitting from subsidized rides. The meantime always ends, eventually. Leaving behind a thoroughly destroyed market. C.f. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2013/04/03/the-locust-economy/ |