Tag: Uber

Categories
folly free trade & free markets general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies tax policy too much government

Whose Side Are They On?

Uber, Lyft, Taxi, protection, tax, crony, cronyism, illustration

Excuse me if I drive over familiar roadways. But we are witnessing one of the great revolutions in human cooperation.

And our governments and politicians are working mightily to block traffic.

I refer, of course, to Uber and Lyft and the like.

The innovation that these companies bring to market? Enabling everyday drivers to leverage their personal investment in a capital good — a car or SUV — to make extra bucks (or even a living) while efficiently serving people who want rides.

Ride-hailing apps on smart-phones provide more security and consumer guidance than the old taxi services ever bothered to even try. The elaborate online rating system, where drivers rate riders and vice versa, provides a new market in information that outstrips government “regulation” as a consumer defense system.

And consumers get better rides, cheaper.

The Uberization of ride sharing competes directly with taxis, of course, and that’s a problem . . . for taxi companies. And the politicians who have regulated them for years. This regulation never was about consumer protection, but politicians just feathered their own nests with campaign contributions through crony capitalism, helping some taxi services at the expense of others.

And customers.

The latest idiocy hails from Massachusetts, which has enacted a 20¢ per trip tax on all ride-sharing apps, with 5¢ of each charge slated for subsidizing the old, established taxi services.

Taxachusetts’s Republican governor, Charlie Baker, has been sucked in to the government racket, choosing to support old cronies rather than customers.

Still, it could have been worse. The advocates of the tax had initially demanded Uber be banned.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Uber, Lyft, Taxi, protection, tax, crony, cronyism, illustration

 

Illustration based on original cc photo by GörlitzPhotography on Flickr

 

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture nannyism national politics & policies

Digs at the Gig Economy

Uber, Lyft, sharing, economy, HIllary, Bernie, illustration

In Texas’s progressive enclave of Austin, the government has regulated Uber and Lyft out of the city.

Massachusset’s uber*-progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren cautions that the “much-touted virtues”of the “gig economy” that these services represent are actually dark signs of the times, providing workers a false “step in a losing effort to build some economic security in a world where all the benefits are floating to the top 10 percent.”

Vermont’s Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent candidate for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, is also no fan. Why? These services are not regulated.

Sanders’s charge that these person-to-person (P2P) ride-sharing services are “unregulated” is of course the opposite of the truth. They are self-regulated for safety and efficiency in ways that taxi services never were. How much extra value did governments add, with their regulations of the taxicab industry? They just reduced competition and made cabs more expensive.

P2P online cooperation is revolutionary. And “progressives” are stuck in the past, itching to suppress that revolution. “Initially,” writes Jared Meyer in the July issue of Reason, “hostility mostly came from state and municipal governments, at the behest of local special interests.” But as the services became more popular, opposition shifted. To the national Democrats like Sanders, Warren and . . . Hillary Clinton. She promises to “crack down on bosses who exploit employees by misclassifying them as contractors or even steal their wages.”

Par for the course: the Internet provides more opportunity than ever, and all some progressives see are the old socialist fears of “exploitation” and “greed” . . . while they greedily suck up to unions and special interests.

The bright side, Meyer argues, is that they are on the losing side.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

*I guess the pun here is intended. Or not. You choose, P2P style.

Printable PDF

Uber, Lyft, sharing, economy, HIllary, Bernie, illustration

 

Categories
crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets general freedom

Drive Free or Die

Uber, taxi, sharing, free uber, Common Sense

Ever told your kids to share? That’s aiding and abetting, you know.

Sharing is illegal.

At least, it is in Portsmouth, New Hampshire . . . regarding Uber.

The popular ride-sharing company may be widely heralded as the flagship of the new sharing economy, but a Portsmouth city ordinance effectively blocks the service, requiring that the company provide background checks on all drivers, which Uber calls “draconian.”

While the company is trying to get the city to alter that mandate, several Uber drivers have ignored the ban, continuing to pick up passengers. In October, police stopped Stephanie Franz, who now faces a $500 fine.

Chris David has also continued to drive for Uber. After he recorded a verbal altercation with a cabbie on a city street and posted it to YouTube, David was charged with wiretapping — a felony.

Taxi companies are upset, too, claiming the ordinance creates “a free-for-all.” A Portsmouth Taxi executive bemoaned, “Anybody can come in.”

Before the ordinance took effect in September, only 28 cabs were allowed to operate. “That’s like limiting the number of restaurants and bars in Portsmouth to 28 to keep them full day and night,” argued Assistant Mayor Jim Spilane.

In the “Live Free or Die” state, barriers to earning a living and heavy-handed criminal charges have led to the pro-Uber slogan, “Drive Free or Die.”

Tonight at 6:30 pm, there’s a #FreeUber rally at the Portsmouth City Hall. If you’re nearby, please go help explain that government regulations ought to accommodate economic advances, not frustrate them.

That is, if you can find a legal ride.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Uber, taxi, sharing, free uber, Common Sense

 

Categories
folly free trade & free markets general freedom nannyism responsibility

The Uber-Huge Mistake

Uber, car, ride, London, taxi, regulation, waiting, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

Uber’s challenge to old-fashioned ride service — to the taxi industry — is at least twofold.

One, it shows government regulation to be counterproductive and kind of witless.

Two, it shows that innovation — particularly by decreasing transaction costs — can rapidly transform a market for the good of consumers.

Recently, politicians who play to special interests — in this case, to taxicab companies and taxi drivers — have made some spectacular blunders. Perhaps the best-known is Bernie Sanders, who claims to see severe “problems” with Uber’s online ride-sharing service, but whose campaign staff uses Uber for ride-sharing . . . and nothing else. Hah!

But the London transit regulators have made the biggest splash.

Their latest proposal? To require Uber drivers to wait five minutes before picking somebody up.

Evens the playing field, you see.

Uber is so much quicker to respond to the paying riders’ needs that taxicabs apparently cannot compete in Old London Town.

The folks at Uber publicized the expected company reaction: the regulation would be a “huge mistake.”

But really, it’s a HUGE ADMISSION.

It shows that Uber’s service is superior, and that government regulators are more interested in protecting providers (taxicabs) than customers (pedestrians seeking rides).

It also shows these regulations for what they really are: protectionism for special interests, not protection for the safety of consumers.

Remember what Frédéric Bastiat said about protectionism: it’s always about placing obstacles in front of some producers (and the market in general) to aid a select (literally privileged) group of producers, regardless of consumer wants and needs.

Hobbling Uber to save taxicabs! What’ll they think of next?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Printable PDF

Uber, car, ride, London, taxi, regulation, waiting, Paul Jacob, Common Sense

 

Categories
free trade & free markets

A Ride on the Private Side

If you’d like to catch a flight without the usual delays and post-911 regulation-inflicted hassles, used to be you had to own your own plane, charter one, or buy a time share in one.

Now you can use a smartphone app to book a seat on a private jet — just as you use an app to book an Uber driver outside the confines of the hyper-regulated taxi industry. Sure, private-jet seats are still pricey. But the New York Times reports that lower-end bookings are comparable in price to that of first-class seats on Delta or American.

Private JetNew services find spots for you on planes en route to pick somebody up that would otherwise be empty, or let you subscribe to blocks of time for use on a variety of jets. Result? More and more passengers are able to ride private jets thanks to startups like JetSmarter and Magellan Jets.

Those of us who lack the means to exploit this option-expanding development should still welcome it as a step in the right direction, away from burdensome regulatory regimes that slow us all down. I doubt we’ll get rid of the regulatory bog at the airport any time soon. After all, we’re still stuck with the government-subsidized USPS postal monopoly despite the competition in package delivery provided by UPS and FedEx.

But without the pressure and example of such relatively unencumbered alternatives, our situation would be worse; our prospects, dimmer.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture

The Uber Rebellion

Customers in Germany and elsewhere have flouted irrational attacks on the popular ride-sharing service Uber.

As I have explained before, Uber’s software lets passengers and drivers connect in a way that bypasses regularly regulated taxicabs. Cabbies don’t necessarily oppose the innovation. Many see Uber’s app as a nifty way to get customers. And, of course, many riders see it as a nifty way to get rides.

But taxi dispatchers? Well, that’s another story.

At least it is in Germany, where an organization for dispatchers called Taxi Deutschland has kvetched that the San Francisco company lacks the Necessary Permits to do electronic dispatching in Deutschland. Thanks to TD’s loud complaints, a German court issued a temporary injunction against Uber, prohibiting it from conjoining ride-seekers and ride-givers in happy synchrony.

Uber decided to keep operating in the country anyway, despite the threat of huge fines.

They’ve gotten lots of moral support. In response to the injunction, customers quietly but firmly told regulators “Laissez nous faire!” — a.k.a. “You’re not the boss of me!” — by doubling, tripling and even quintupling demand for Uber’s app. Matthew Feeney of Cato Institute points to jumps in signups in the days following the court’s order: in Frankfurt a 228 percent jump, Munich 329 percent, Hamburg 590 percent.

Last July, in the U.K., Brits surged their signups eight times over after protests against the company.

Keep up the good work, rebels.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.