Austin (TX) city council tried jacking with rideshare companies shortly after they entered the Austin market ten years ago, prodded by the (then politically relevant) taxi cartel. The cartel tried imposing various “safety” regs on the vetting of drivers (fingerprinting, etc) to hamstring them. I remember there was already data showing a drop in drunk driving fatalities exactly correlated with the arrival of ridesharing (and a lack of mass driver assaults of passengers). The companies pulled out.
I don’t even remember how the impasse was resolved but suffice to say Uber and Lyft returned minus the petty regs.
A humorous if not tragic anecdote from that time—savvy locals and visitors wanting to get to central Austin would book rides to addresses in the incorporated community of Rollingwood just across the river. Drivers knew the drill and would still drop them off downtown. Reverse the process for the other side of the trip. The tragic irony was the reason enclaves like Rollingwood and Westlake Hills even existed as downtown-adjacent incorporated entities to make this possible was as past defenses against predatory annexation by Austin and for parents to relocate to the adjacent independent school district to avoid forced busing (that is, to avoid the mandated hour-a-day cross-town busing of their school children to distant campuses in the name of school integration, not the actual integration) back in the day.
Progressives see the economy as one big scam. Their intent is to find money and figure out a scam to get some for themselves and for their allies.
Progressives see Amazon as a scam. They see rent and home builders as as a scam. They even see the grocery store as a scam. And they sure as hell see their employer as a scam.
Progressives don't care if the policy harms the business or consumers. Their only interest in the business is to extort money and the business serves no other purpose anyway.
That said, Uber and Lyft should just raise their price and see what happens.
Well written. Thanks. Can you provide the reference in the Summa theologica where Aquinas explains that the fair price is the market price? I would like very much to see how he words the question, the answers he rejects, his reasoning and how he presents his answer.
Interesting what is happening here. Coincidentally, I too, drove for Uber and Lyft throughout several years in San Francisco and Los Angeles. I dubbed it, personally, the "new unemployment" for it was typically a job many undertook when nothing else would pan out. The city of Minneapolis did clearly overstep- because they did not understand the gig economy and the agreement you mentioned. However, Uber and Lyft are pretty terrible. They have consistently lowered wages (over the years) to an abysmal, practically insulting rate. They often depend on new drivers who do not understand the totality of their overheard- break pads, oil changes, gas, wear and tear, insurance, etc. When the older drivers get fed up, there is a new batch of drivers ready to see if they can do it. If you truly think you can sit in a car for ten hours straight a day- then yes, you could potentially make it. That is a rare ability. I think we also take for granted the act of driving. We see it as a banality. However, it is a job- a job that requires you to show up with a $20,000+ piece of equipment with operational knowledge. No small feat when you put it that way. Not many jobs ask that of someone only to give back so little. Of course, you can opt to not take that job. Fair enough. But there are drivers who took it with a knowledge of their base pay and slowly watch it decrease with no warning and no say in it. By the time you add up all of those extras for your car needs, and of course, gas- you are typically making far less than minimum wage. Anyway, rant over. Everyone should at least be respectful of their Uber drivers, it is a hard job.
also-they should have tried harder to reach an agreement that makes sense.
Austin (TX) city council tried jacking with rideshare companies shortly after they entered the Austin market ten years ago, prodded by the (then politically relevant) taxi cartel. The cartel tried imposing various “safety” regs on the vetting of drivers (fingerprinting, etc) to hamstring them. I remember there was already data showing a drop in drunk driving fatalities exactly correlated with the arrival of ridesharing (and a lack of mass driver assaults of passengers). The companies pulled out.
I don’t even remember how the impasse was resolved but suffice to say Uber and Lyft returned minus the petty regs.
A humorous if not tragic anecdote from that time—savvy locals and visitors wanting to get to central Austin would book rides to addresses in the incorporated community of Rollingwood just across the river. Drivers knew the drill and would still drop them off downtown. Reverse the process for the other side of the trip. The tragic irony was the reason enclaves like Rollingwood and Westlake Hills even existed as downtown-adjacent incorporated entities to make this possible was as past defenses against predatory annexation by Austin and for parents to relocate to the adjacent independent school district to avoid forced busing (that is, to avoid the mandated hour-a-day cross-town busing of their school children to distant campuses in the name of school integration, not the actual integration) back in the day.
Progressives see the economy as one big scam. Their intent is to find money and figure out a scam to get some for themselves and for their allies.
Progressives see Amazon as a scam. They see rent and home builders as as a scam. They even see the grocery store as a scam. And they sure as hell see their employer as a scam.
Progressives don't care if the policy harms the business or consumers. Their only interest in the business is to extort money and the business serves no other purpose anyway.
That said, Uber and Lyft should just raise their price and see what happens.
Well written. Thanks. Can you provide the reference in the Summa theologica where Aquinas explains that the fair price is the market price? I would like very much to see how he words the question, the answers he rejects, his reasoning and how he presents his answer.
Interesting what is happening here. Coincidentally, I too, drove for Uber and Lyft throughout several years in San Francisco and Los Angeles. I dubbed it, personally, the "new unemployment" for it was typically a job many undertook when nothing else would pan out. The city of Minneapolis did clearly overstep- because they did not understand the gig economy and the agreement you mentioned. However, Uber and Lyft are pretty terrible. They have consistently lowered wages (over the years) to an abysmal, practically insulting rate. They often depend on new drivers who do not understand the totality of their overheard- break pads, oil changes, gas, wear and tear, insurance, etc. When the older drivers get fed up, there is a new batch of drivers ready to see if they can do it. If you truly think you can sit in a car for ten hours straight a day- then yes, you could potentially make it. That is a rare ability. I think we also take for granted the act of driving. We see it as a banality. However, it is a job- a job that requires you to show up with a $20,000+ piece of equipment with operational knowledge. No small feat when you put it that way. Not many jobs ask that of someone only to give back so little. Of course, you can opt to not take that job. Fair enough. But there are drivers who took it with a knowledge of their base pay and slowly watch it decrease with no warning and no say in it. By the time you add up all of those extras for your car needs, and of course, gas- you are typically making far less than minimum wage. Anyway, rant over. Everyone should at least be respectful of their Uber drivers, it is a hard job.
also-they should have tried harder to reach an agreement that makes sense.