What do you guys think of Uber's threat to leave Houston

They are very exploitative. They prey on the week and desperate who get paid below minimum wage with no benefits while running their cars into the ground.

A bunch of scumbags is what they are and anyone using the service should feel ashamed of themselves.

 

You don't sound smart here. None of the drivers I've had seem weak or desperate.

Many have had their own jobs or businesses and do it for some extra money on the side. Usually the cars are quite nice.

Taxi cab drivers on the other hand...wow. Not much positive to say there.

 

I'm sorry they took away business from your Yellow Cab job and I'm just so ashamed I use their service. Your cabs stink, they're dirty and all of your driver friends have the same **** attitude as you.

 

Taxis are certainly upset, but I think everyone in Austin loves Uber as a service. It seems unfair to regulate taxis more heavily than Uber though - from a business standpoint, you just want everyone on an equal playing field. So you either deregulate taxies or regulate Uber. The latter is more likely.

Regulations take time, especially when you're talking about new industries and new technologies - government is inherently slow and generally behind the times. These battles are coming, city by city. We've seen the same with things like Amazon and state sales taxes (and internet sales taxes in general).

 

uber/lyft are "independent alternatives to public transportation".

your partisanship is showing. this is not a left/right issue. however, if we look at the demographics of who is using uber/lyft its younger, college educated people in living in urban areas...these people are more likely to be on "the left" than on "the right". also, arent "conservatives" always the ones screaming about local control?

what this was about was a company wanting to write their own rules and spending millions of dollars to bully the city into getting their way. glad my city rejected them. like i said, i would not have even bothered voting if they had not been so deceptive and misleading about the whole thing.

 

And so it begins..

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/09/brief/

Take a look for yourself, but there's movement in the Capitol from Senate Republicans to override Austin and Houston and ban the enhanced background check requirements (as well as the additional requirements that the City of Houston has for Uber).

This is the fracking ban all over again. Denton went against the oil industry and successfully passed a referendum to ban fracking and then the state came in and banned local governments from regulating oil and gas. The Supreme Court came in and doubled down by striking down Houston's ability to regulate emissions from the oil industry.

 

overriding city ordinances at the state level is a bad idea

keep Austin free (free to be stupid in this instance)

 

Sure, this happens, but the move to make regulations worse last year made no sense IMO. Only people who are happy about this are the cab companies.

 

No plastic bags, no Uber, bad traffic, 14hr wait for decent BBQ. Austin sucks now.

 

It definitely is a left/right issue. Minimizing government regulation and maximizing free enterprise is a core Republican tenet. Uber has an ideological ally in Republicans. It's only that the left is conflicted because while they favor sensible regulation, they are more heavily populated by actual Uber customers who don't want to see the company leave.

In this case, I agree. Taxis are regulated by municipalities as well as the state. If Texas wants to prevent municipal regulation of Uber, they should take regulation of traditional taxis too. That would actually be fine with me if they can do that -- but it'd be a mistake to create an imbalance by having cities regulate taxis but not ridesharing.

 

Something isn't adding up here. Why is Uber so vehemently opposed to these regulations? Couldn't the added cost be passed along to the drivers? Wouldn't a presence in Houston be beneficial to thier overall brand, even at lower margins?

Just doesn't add up.

 

My oldest son doesn't drive and uses Uber all the time, and he thought the 9 million dollar attempt by Uber and Lyft to push through a referendum (the 2 companies financed the collection of signatures to get it to a vote and then spent nearly $9 million in ads on TV, radio, billboards, yards signs - the works) combined with the threat to leave the city if they didn't get their way, was an attempt at blackmail. Just so people get a sense of the scale of Uber and Lyft's attempt to push this through, the referendum was the most expensive local election in the history of the city. It offended him, a regular user. He wasn't alone. The referendum went down in a massive defeat by the voters of Austin. Uber and Lyft ****ed up. So what are they doing now? Attempting an end around. Here's a quote from George P. Bush (yes, another freakin' Bush - we're plagued with them). It's from the same link quoted by geeimsobored:

"Austin claims to be a forward thinking city... This is what happens with liberalism - the government wins and the people lose."

The people spoke, you dip****! We voted and we voted the measure down. The city government spent almost nothing, with Uber and Lyft spending upwards of $9 million. The people won and Big Business lost. Yes, Uber and Lyft are big businesses now. What does "liberalism" have to do with anything? So what have Uber and Lyft promised you, George P. Bush? Some nice campaign contributions sometime in the future? Why should you care? What ****ing business is it of yours how the people of the City of Austin voted, Mr. George P. Bush, Land Commissioner?

Spoiler

What happened to the GOP mantra of letting the "people" decide? What happened to their mantra of "local control?" And again, what did "liberalism" have to do with any part of this? The Republican Party is a dangerous, running joke. They talk out of both sides of their mouths with such appalling regularity that I have to question the intelligence of their most ardent supporters. What happened to supporting democracy? I can't think of a better example of democracy in action. The people of Austin spoke. Now we'll see if Uber and Lyft attempt a reach around.

I thought this was in D&D, so I spoilered a bit of my post.

 

Because Uber and Lyft relies on a constant influx of new drivers. Their model doesn't work without continuous growth in drivers to keep prices low (in order to undercut alternative forms of transportation). Plus, their driver turnover has spiked because Uber has reduced the share of fares that drivers receive so they need new drivers to compensate.

Anything that makes it harder to become a driver is bad in the minds of companies like Uber and Lyft. They've become addicted to growth in unregulated markets and they adapted their business models around the assumption that city regulations wouldn't impact them.

 

The noted liberal enclave of Midland, Texas also introduced expanded background checks, and then Uber left the city.

 

Well, that was stupid. Not having a contingency in place was pretty f***ing dumb. Business that operate with the belief that nothing will change aren't businesses for very long. What are they going to do when more cities take notice of what happened yesterday?

To double down on their apparent stupidity, Uber and Lyft apparently thought that constant robo calls, texts, ads, etc., etc. were a good idea. Spending $9 million vs $100k and they lost handily. I'd be willing to bet that people started voting against them just because they were so harassed over the last couple of months.

 

God forbid we keep prices low

 

nothing public about a peer-to-peer financial transaction

 

That's fine. They will always be cheaper and more convenient than taxis as they are in Houston right now.

Houston is the test case. They've been running in Houston for a year now with enhanced background checks and other requirements and prices have remained competitive.

This is about bullying local governments. This is no different than sports teams holding cities hostage by threatening to leave if they don't get publicly funded stadiums and tax benefits.

 

Uber isn't asking for public funding.

They are asking for costs not to be forcibly imposed on them.

They are the ones being bullied.

If there is a market for a ride-sharing service with more extensive background checks, someone will create a service that meets that need. Or Uber will change its policies to attract more customers.

Force need not enter into the picture. Some people just get off on imposing their will.

 

Sooo . . . . if the States End Around works . . . . Then the BackGround Checks would end . . . ..
1. Would that be limited to just Uber/Lyft (Unlikely) - so then Yellow Cab can cut their background check programs as well
2. Would it only be in the case of Transportation or Could I contend that if Uber/Lyft do not have to do background checks then my business, regardless of what it is, should not have to do enhanced background checks?

I wonder what the unintended or intended but not told consequences of this action will be

Rocket River