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

commodore calls us "little fascists" for voting against uber/lyft, but if anyone is being "little fascists" it is them.

a company comes into a city and demands that the local government allow them to write their own regulations and play by a different set of rules than their competition. they spend 10x's more than has ever been spent on a local election and if they dont get their way they threaten to take their ball and go home. this is not "free market" at all.

expecting the government to bend over to a private company is the definition of fascism. the way i see it, voting NO on prop 1 was the anti-fascist thing to do.

perhaps the solution would have been to deregulate the taxi companies and allow them to operate under the same rules as the ridesharing companies. government should be there to ensure a level playing field and for the last year uber/lyft had a government-endorsed competitive advantage. again, this is not "free market".

all this being said, the taxi industry has done a horrible job of adapting with the times and utilizing new technology. ridesharing changed the game and taxi companies are still playing by the old rules. the minute this technology came up they should have been moving to transition to it.

i see a parallel here b/t taxi companies and blockbuster. blockbuster could have made the transition to what netflix became, owned the market and prevented any competition from getting a foothold. they already had the brand, the product and infrastructure. instead they failed to adapt and now they are dead.

 

they certainly are hoping for grousing about their CHOICE to leave town. the problem is that there are already other ridesharing options and they opened the door for them, where they once had the market cornered. when (not if) they return there is going to be more competition (good for the consumer) and a bunch of drivers and customers who are angry at them for their CHOICE to use them as pawns in their battle with the city. this is bad for business.

you think the ridesharing companies are happy about spending $9 million on an election they lost? you think they wanted to screw their employees and loyal customer base and generate a ton of negative publicity so that they can use it as a threat to other cities?

its actually going to work the other way...cities across the country are going to see that austin stood up to companies trying to push us around and write their own legislation. we are going to serve as a model for how to not let multi-billion dollar companies come in and buy an election. losing in austin was a huuuuuge blow. we are one of the fastest growing cities in the country, a tech hub with an active group of young professionals with tons of disposable income. uber/lyft are currently not profitable...they are operating on venture capital and hemorrhaging money. austin might be one of the few cities where they were actually making money. they badly wanted to win here so they could use it as leverage against other cities. if you think the ridesharing companies are happy with the way the vote turned out in austin you are cray-cray.

 

Obviously, I think they would have been happy to win. But they can still make money in Austin by complying with the new rules if they chose to. They've chosen to sacrifice the market instead so they can have a better argument in other cities. If they folded to Austin then Houstonians would know that the threat to leave if we don't give them what they wanted was empty. So, they weren't trying to throw the election, but their CHOICE to leave is definitely a rhetorical cudgel. I expect it will work for them too. The Austin electorate is not like those in other cities. Houston voted down red light cameras and the equal rights ordinance. If Uber goes on a referendum in Houston, they'll win whatever they ask for.

 

How was the experience overall? I was reading the big issues with get me was the app itself not showing where the drivers were and how long it would take them to pick you up.

 

Ride sharing does not work with these regulations. You can call it a rhetorical cudgel to leave, but that's the bottom line.

They can leave without a word (like lyft did with Houston) or they can campaign to actually roll back the new unnecessary taxi lobby rules.

I'm glad they're campaigning

 

Nobody missed Lyft in Houston. If Uber leaves Houston then it sucks but we move forward and will eventually forget about them. If ride sharing doesn't work with these regulations then someone will figure how to do it. Competition is good and right now there is no competition. Uber will eventually monopolize the rideshare market and be able to demand whatever it wants and maybe it already thinks it has the way its acting.

The only regulation I don't like is that Uber will soon allow drivers to take tips. I liked the convenience of leaving the vehicle and not really having to think of paying extra. I'd rather Uber just increase their prices by 20% but that's just how the American service economy works.

 

We will move on with the garbage service from yellow cab

 

Is there gonna be a vote on this soon?

 

I don't believe that for one second.

 

Uber has been running with these rules for a year in Houston . Is there some evidence that they're operating at a massive loss because of this?

 

Why not? Both uber and lyft are pulling out and no one is coming in to take the ride sharing business. Unless you think gogetme is a serious business, which I don't

 

Not a loss yet, but harder to run the business right. Uber is now saying the process to sign up drivers is slowing down too much and they will probably have to pull out. Of course we know lyft didn't bother with the headaches in the first place

 

Again do you have any data to support this? Uber could've easily pointed to data during the Austin campaign to show how much they're losing in Houston. I didn't see a thing from them about this.

 

Yes, Uber has released data showing this. Not profits, but they say it now takes up to 4 months to sign up a new driver in houston. That's fine for taxis where it is a full time job, but not for Uber when people can drive for small amounts of time or quit at anytime

 

An excellent post, jo mama. I also think they screwed up and that they will eventually return. Uber was very popular here and the supposed "hassle" about finger printing was exaggerated a lot, in my humble opinion. Why they didn't seriously sit down with the city of Austin and seriously discuss how to make this work is a mystery to me. Instead, they attempt blackmail and pull out the Monday after the election, when the city had done nothing to prevent them from operating for weeks, if not longer, while discussions were held on a compromise.

Weird to see a large company basically commit suicide.

 

The fingerprint issue isn't about the hassle, it's about it making the ride sharing business model completely unworkable. It makes signing up new drivers take too long. Why would they make this up? If it wasn't true either Lyft or Uber would stay to take all the profits.

And we can talk about them coming to the table, but the fact is they were doing very well in the city, then for whatever reason the City Council decided to pass some regulations at the behest of the Taxi lobby. They stayed through the referendum, and even before that circulated a petition that got enough votes to request rolling back the regs, and the city counselors decided to send it to voters.

What's weird to me is seeing a supposedly leading tech city commit suicide on ride sharing. Austin is the biggest city without Uber or Lyft.

 

Mr. Clutch, I respect you. We're here to give our opinions, God knows, which we're both obviously doing here, along with everyone else posting in this thread. Having said that, I have seen nothing to support your version of events here in Austin. I never saw any advertising by opponents of Uber/Lyft. Zero. If the cab companies were behind this, wouldn't they have opened their wallets and gotten on radio, TV, the newspaper, put out flyers, yard signs, and all the other things Uber/Lyft did, to the tune of $9 million dollars? Heck, Uber/Lyft paid former Mayor Lee Leffingwell $50,000 bucks to help them with this referendum. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of anything Uber/Lyft didn't do to get what they want.

Yet, somehow, they can't come up with a workable compromise with the City of Austin. Instead, they took their ball and went home after their attempt at blackmail (if we don't win this election on Saturday, we're leaving on Monday), leaving all the drivers and all the riders (including my son, who used them all the time because he doesn't drive, and who also thinks that what Uber/Lyft did to Austin sucks) in the lurch. It doesn't add up.

 

I respect your opinion as well, Deckard, and I can understand where you're coming from. I don't live in Austin, but I do have friends there and one them was very turned off by the advertising from Uber and Lyft.

So obviously the companies didn't do a good job of convincing voters (I personally don't think companies should be in that kind of position in the first place, but that's probably for D&D).

But I can talk more about Houston, and the Taxi lobby is who got the fingerprint reg passed here.

Here's the Chronicle article with a counselor admitting it was the Taxicab's idea.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/new...es-lobbying-effort-yielded-little-5706787.php

"The city always planned to place the same public safety rules on all companies, Paez said, though she acknowledged taxi lobbying forced the new firms to submit to city background checks and vehicle inspections rather than let third parties conduct them. "

I also think the bottom line in all this, whether Uber and Lyft screwed up their campaign, whether or not they are likeable companies, is that ride sharing doesn't work with old-style Taxi regs. Taxis are full time jobs, ride sharing isn't. Uber and Lyft need to constantly be signing up new drivers who may only drive a few hours a week or even month.

Here's a good article on it how the supply of drivers is crucial, and slowing down the signup of new drivers just makes it unworkable:

https://austinstartups.com/josh-baer-the-tone-of-your-article-is-awesome-b60209de7d2f#.84k7qv4hh

 

Mr. Clutch are you Benton Love from Slate.com? Your posts are almost word for word like that guys.