[makhanko]

As Uber's similar difficulties in New York show, the governments both North and South of the 49th parallel consider city transportation to be their exclusive domain and are not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers.

In Vancouver, Canada the quasi-government regional transportation authority is heavily subsidized by taxpayers and is still running in deficit. They are not exactly happy about competition from the companies like Uber.

[freshhawk]

You should know that Translink (aka the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) has nothing whatsoever to do with Taxi's. That's regulated at the provincial level.

> quasi-government (sic)

aka, the corporate structure used by participating municipalities to operate a unified public transportation system in a metropolitan area

> heavily subsidized by taxpayers

That's literally what the "public" part in "public transportation" means (gasp! that's socialism!)

> and is still running in deficit

Like every public transportation project everywhere? A valid and important criticism of Translink but at least a robot drives me to work on a monorail every day faster than I could drive there on empty roads, never mind in traffic.

All of this is completely irrelevant to the actual story unless you think that Uber is in competition with public buses, but you don't seem that confused.

> not shy to regulate it instead of looking out for consumers

You've clearly never lived somewhere with a booming unregulated taxi market. Do you take things like not getting extorted, scammed, robbed or raped when jumping into a strangers car in the middle of the night for granted? You can thank the people regulating the taxi industry.

Regulatory bodies, like any group of people given some power, public or private, will try to expand it's power base and will abuse that power but taxi regulation was brought about by people looking out for consumers.

I think this decision in particular is outrageous protectionism but your take on things made me think an adult opinion was warranted.

[3pt14159]

The domain of solutions to the problem of rape and extortion by vehicle operators for hire expands beyond the purview of governments. Do not confuse first world economies (and the regulations that people feel necessary to enact) with solution sets. Just as militaries in third world counties are unorganized and corrupt, so can their private taxi operators. Yet since the distinction between operators of taxis is one of regulated vs nonregulated one tends to view this fact as the defining difference, which may not be the case.

[freshhawk]

That is a very good point. Social norms are much more important here than the regulatory punishments.

As to the I would argue, however, that it is exactly the enshrining of human rights into law and the regulation of necessary but historically predatory industries that is the distinction you are drawing between civilized and uncivilized societies.

Those social norms do not just appear in a vacuum.

[patrickaljord]

> but you don't seem that confused.

> your take on things made me think an adult opinion was warranted.

This is one of the most arrogant and patronizing comment I've read on HN, you should have read your comment before posting it, you really sounded prickish on this one.

[alextingle]

Sometimes you need a slap to make you listen. I think his comment was spot on.

[freshhawk]

I figured it would come across as at least slightly prickish because it was very very patronizing. I wouldn't say arrogant though, considering the majority of the comment was correcting the easily google-able falsehoods in the parent comment. Arrogant would be preaching your subjective political view while getting all the facts wrong.

I defend the use of patronizing mockery as a proper tool to discourage comments that smugly dismiss facts to push a political ideology.

[barry-cotter]

If you click on the permalink you can flag individual comments.

[ef4]

> That's literally what the "public" part in "public transportation" means

That's not really true. There are counter-examples of privately-owned public transportation systems. Tokyo's subways for one. Greyhound bus lines for another.

The "public" in "public transportation" really just means that it serves the general public. In the same way that you're "in public" even when you're in a privately-owned shopping mall.

[graeham]

I don't think translink and Uber are serving the same market.

[opendna]

Translink is completely and totally irrelevant to this story. You'd as accurately blame the New York Yankees for Uber's problems in Vancouver.