Tag: Lyft

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.

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Illustration based on original cc photo by GörlitzPhotography on Flickr

Tags crony capitalism, Lyft, tax, tax policy, taxi, taxicab, taxicabs, Uber

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.

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Tags gig economy, labor unions, Lyft, regulations, sharing economy, Uber

free trade & free markets too much government

Old Rules Gotta Go

Old hat. Long in the tooth. Creaky as an outhouse door.

These are just some of the expressions that apply to how our cities, states and metro areas are run — by ancient principles that do not serve the common good.

Last weekend I wrote about the ongoing revolution in transit, the peer-to-peer online app services offered by Uber, Lyft and the like. These ride-sharing services allow normal folks to give and receive car rides at great convenience.

They blow mass transit “out of the water” and throw taxi service sideways. Super-convenient, they make it cheap and safe for people to co-operate in new and productive ways.

Art Carden, at EconLog, notes the “social waste” that governments add to the system. While the new app-based services provide true solutions to the high transaction costs of negotiating among many people, governments give us squabbles: “the battle over the rules governing the conditions under which people will be allowed to do certain things is pure social waste,” Carden argues. “The social waste is reflected in the resources consumed in the fight over the rules.”

We’ve gotta have rules, of course. But they needn’t require micromanagement, massive restrictions, or high taxes.

The new era will be run (if allowed) on the basis of convenient co-operation, transaction costs reduced by communications technology.

The old era that still rules the roost runs on clunky old ideas that Carden rightly calls “mercantilism,” the political ideology that Adam Smith argued against … in 1776.

Government should undergird free markets, not intrude and dominate by licensing near-monopolies.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags Art Carden, Lyft, mercantilism, P2P, peer-to-peer, taxi medallions, Uber

free trade & free markets

Let Us Drive

How about letting us drive?

Who’s us? Passengers — taxi-ride buyers. Plus anyone else who participates in the market transactions that take us places.

Many Orlando, Florida cabbies are eager to work with the ride-sharing company that makes the smartphone app Uber. They’re tired of leasing cabs for $129 a day while scrambling for enough price-controlled fares to earn a decent living after paying that steep cost. Uber drivers provide their own car and let the firm’s technology connect them to customers. Uber gets 20 percent of fare revenue.

The politics are mostly hostile to the innovation in places like New York City where markets are mangled by super-high license fees and other regulations. The politics are also tough in Orlando, which has been cracking down on Uber drivers. But the mayor and Uber executives have been talking about a deal under which Uber could operate if it submits to … regulation. (Sigh.)

Cab companies in the City Beautiful expect to rapidly lose revenue if innovators like Uber and Lyft get to operate freely. But Orlando taxi drivers expect to gain.

“If you talk to 1,000 drivers,” says one, “950 will tell you they are going to Uber.” Says another: “Let Uber come here. It’s going to be good for the customer and the driver.”

Let them come. Also kill all regulations, including fare caps, that make it harder for cab companies to adapt. Let terms of trade be driven — regulated — by traders. Not by governments.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags Florida, Lyft, New York, Orlando, regulation, Uber

free trade & free markets too much government

P2P Jitneys

Virginia state government has banned Web-based/app-based car-ride services Uber and Lyft from operating in the state. After applying heavy fines. After demanding the services follow rules originally devised for taxis and limo and bus services.

It seems tantamount to banning the automobile a century ago because the horse-and-buggy regulations on the books didn’t fit.

Uber and Lyft call what they provide “ride-sharing” services, allowing people with smart-phone and tablet apps to “hail” rides they need, from almost anywhere to almost anywhere. The folks providing the rides have signed up and even taken classes, and both parties rate each other after the transaction. Riders can “steer clear” of low-rated drivers if they want. And drivers can not offer rides to low-rated riders, as well.

It’s quite a service.

I first heard about this idea from economist David Friedman, a generation ago. He called it a “jitney” system, and offered it as an alternative to mass transit systems that are just too capital intensive to make a profit while still servicing diverse needs.

Now, the idea is off to a good start with two excellent services. Technology has allowed for safe, low-transaction-cost contracting between strangers. This sort of person-to-person (P2P) revolution could change everything.

Including government patronage. Or the need for much government regulation. Taxicab services are heavily regulated in most places. The excuse is usually safety and traffic considerations, but let’s be frank: it’s mostly a government power grab. Horning in on territory. Collecting a fee.

Uber and Lyft leverage the capital car-owners invest, and such P2P services are probably the most efficient contracting systems possible. If free market principles should apply to anything, it is jitney services.

So, Virginia, lay off. Free the P2P.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.