The taxi industry where I am was fairly well regulated.
Card payment was sometimes contentious. It was generally polite to ask to stop at an ATM on the way to the destination but if it was the only option they'd rather get paid. Now most companies allow you to pay for the fare via their own app which I assume is a licensed white-label or managed service.
The quality of the drivers was better. Uber/Lyft drivers often don't know where they're going and have left me feeling more uncomfortable/unsafe both personally and in terms of driving.
Service is still generally good although overall poorer than it used to be due to the effect Uber has had on the market. Previously there was fairly healthy competition between a decent number of companies, most of which have now merged. I don't believe that would have happened without the external pressure.
> Maybe it was just where I was, but the industry was a government-enforced oligopoly begging for disruption.
The disruption was a $30bn charade though. Would these companies have succeeded if they actually had to make any money? I'm actually quite not sure how to deal with the concept of a company that's lost that much money and still doesn't seem to be close to being profitable. I do believe companies and their executives should be punished harshly for acting criminally though.
> The disruption was a $30bn charade though. Would these companies have succeeded if they actually had to make any money? I'm actually quite not sure how to deal with the concept of a company that's lost that much money and still doesn't seem to be close to being profitable. I do believe companies and their executives should be punished harshly for acting criminally though.
I don’t think it was a charade. When I say that it was a government-enforced monopoly, I mean this quite literally: there were a limited number of medallions, generally owned by private investors (although they like to pretend they are owned by independent drivers). Uber/Lyft/others have problems, but at least their existence democratized the supply-side. Even if they have failed to make a profit (partly because of aggressive competition to win the market), I don’t think the public as a whole is willing to go back to the monopoly.
When something is disrupted, it doesn’t always mean the disrupters will win or even stick around. Sometimes that’s not the part that matters.
Extremely expensive taxi medallions were only a thing in a handful of US cities. Most places don't use the medallion system at all. The irony is that "democratising the supply side" has in many places lead to worse supply than there was before.
> When something is disrupted, it doesn’t always mean the disrupters will win or even stick around. Sometimes that’s not the part that matters.
I thought it was fairly commonly accepted that ends don't justify the means. How a goal is achieved absolutely matters. My local taxi companies were already providing app based booking, payment, and tracking. Uber came in, burned a shitload of cash and ultimately harmed society by doing so. Now prices are higher than the small companies they buried with VC money, yet they're still burning ungodly amounts of money.
Personally, I don't think that type of "disruption" is of net benefit to anyone other than early investors. The destabilisation of the market sector and eventual deterioration in quality of service cause far harm to customers/society in the long run.
Card payment was sometimes contentious. It was generally polite to ask to stop at an ATM on the way to the destination but if it was the only option they'd rather get paid. Now most companies allow you to pay for the fare via their own app which I assume is a licensed white-label or managed service.
The quality of the drivers was better. Uber/Lyft drivers often don't know where they're going and have left me feeling more uncomfortable/unsafe both personally and in terms of driving.
Service is still generally good although overall poorer than it used to be due to the effect Uber has had on the market. Previously there was fairly healthy competition between a decent number of companies, most of which have now merged. I don't believe that would have happened without the external pressure.
> Maybe it was just where I was, but the industry was a government-enforced oligopoly begging for disruption.
The disruption was a $30bn charade though. Would these companies have succeeded if they actually had to make any money? I'm actually quite not sure how to deal with the concept of a company that's lost that much money and still doesn't seem to be close to being profitable. I do believe companies and their executives should be punished harshly for acting criminally though.