Uber ruined their careers. Should it pay a price?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 гру 2024
- Ridesharing companies like Uber and Lyft have transformed the taxi industry. But what’s good for riders is bad for professional drivers. In NYC alone, six taxi drivers have died by suicide and many others face economic decline. Are they victims of the tech revolution, and what should be done to help them?
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Snead on medallion history & government regulation
www.heritage.o...
Wu’s study on job displacement
itif.org/publi...
Study on health effects of workplace
jeffreypfeffer...
EPI paper on Uber and the labor market
www.epi.org/fi...
Kurz on job displacement
www.project-sy...
Doug Schifter’s suicide note
www.facebook.c...
Estimating the Uber effect
www.oxfordmart...
CREDITS
Writer: Louis Foglia
Editor: m.cho
Researcher: Dushyant Naresh
Supervising Producer: Allison Brown
Follow Beme on
Instagram: / bemenews
Twitter: / bemeapp
Facebook: / officialbeme
I've lived in NYC my entire life - so I know that medallion taxi service isn't perfect. I've gotten into a dozen arguments with yellow taxi drivers who refused (illegally) to take me to my out-of-the-way Bronx neighborhood. Drivers are frequently on the phone. Communication is sometimes an issue...Uber, Lyft, et al are definitely superior products.... BUT, but, but.....The medallion drivers work hard and its a super stressful job....capitalism can make room for compassion.....
The people who paid for the medallions definitely got screwed over. That is the danger of government regulation because the government officials are the only ones in this story who did something unethical.
The medallions were a bad idea to begin with. Some people got lucky and made a ton of cash. Now that bubble has burst and the market is correcting itself to their true value. Uber vs. Taxi is going to be irrelevant when driverless cars take over both.
Louis Foglia
Louis Foglia nAh. Gotta keep up with the times
Don’t blame capitalism. Blame the government. They held back their taxi business with the medallion bs made so many years ago.
People were profiting billions of dollars with the medallions. How much of that money went back into improving taxi service? Why should Uber and Lyft pay for the corruption and incompetence of the city government?
I am happy that Uber exists. Some of the worst customer experiences I have ever had in my life have been with NYC Yellow Cabs.
Why should a customer pay for rude service, smelly cars, and overcharges?
Why should a customer have to argue with a cabbie, when they illegally refuse to take you to your destination?
With Uber, I never get refused pickup, I am in a nice car, I know the price up front, and I get better service. Consistently.
It is sad for the taxi drivers, but people are going to spend their hard earned money with companies that provide better experiences.
Agreed. This isnt the first or the last time some kind of job market was taken out by a better company/product.
Can you think outside of yourself, the way the system was run is unfair to someone that had to pay close to a million dollars for a medallion. Yes, the service with Uber and Lyft are better, overall, but that is not the point. The point is the playing field is lopsided and not equitable for all. They should either give back the medallion owners their money or they should require Uber and Lyft to own medallions, one or the other.
You don't seem to understand the situation. The city didn't ask for increasing amounts of money when issuing medallions. The taxi drivers owning the medallions were getting greedy because the huge amounts of money they were making off of having no competition on the streets because the city forgot to correlate the number of medallions with the growing number of residents. Taxi drivers thought they were lucky,turns out their luck ran out. Tough shit...but no one cares.
Preach stan lis, preach.
It's the tragedy that occurs every time an old profession is made obsolete (not in this case but close enough). Prepare for this en masse when Ai starts doing the work of easily replaceable workers. The suicide rate and unemployment rates will go so high that they will punch God in the face. Meanwhile the ones who are temporarily safe from this will scoff and say that those people deserved it for not achieving more in life. They will be next though when fully human like Ai will take over and only the richest of humanity will remain. After that the first episode of Star trek begins.
By this logic, beme news should be subsidizing newspaper journalists who who’ve lost their jobs due digital publications.
This was so easy to fix. Taxi companies should have embrace tech earlier and should have developed their own app. People use Uber and Lyft because it's at their fingertips and the app offers a lot more functionalities than running in the streets looking for a ride.
The problem is that Taxi companies for a long time didn't innovate at all. And if you stay stil in this world... sooner or later somebody is going to replace you.
cicci0salsicci0 They thought the government protected their business. Governments has no business in business
but goverment had the control of the business and they just let uber work in cities where taxis needed to paid a ton of money to work as a taxi driver. so yeah its their fault, they should have done something for the taxi drivers and they didn't
Government had control over the medallion system restricting the number of licences (creating de facto a cartel and a speculatory secondary market for licences). Government did not have control over taxi companies management. Taxi companies were lazy because they were guaranteed by law a profit without competition.
Yeah I get that dude, but they had that Monopoly by law, I'm not saying it was good, the only thing that I'm saying it's that they were lied by the government with the medallions. I understand how the market works but the government created the mess no the taxi drivers
I can agree on that.
So the investors in Uber, had Uber failed, would have lost their investment. And you would not have shed a tear or had compassion. But a regular person makes a bad investment in a medallion, and we bear some responsibility. Even tho they can walk away from that bad investment in bankruptcy. It’s a weird and biased perspective. The 1.3 million they paid for that medallion helped the previous owner make money. Why don’t we blame medallion speculation for driving up the prices to completely unrealistic levels? And if you think there was no corruption in the “medallion owners / local governments” marketplace, it was rampant throughout the country.
belcht The price of medallions rose to the level it did because of supply and demand. The key issue is that the supply was artificially limited by government. However, that same government essentially destroyed the value of medallions once they let ride-sharing companies operate freely. Those holding the medallions were screwed because government did not fulfill their end of the promise, which was limiting competition in order for the medallion to at least maintain its value.
Stupid Flanders They rose because of supply and demand, and people invested in them and made money all the way up to ridiculous. Then they collapsed because of supply and demand, and the last people holding them lost a lot. But to say the government “promised” to keep them valuable is absurd. They were valuable because of public policy and even laws, but both of those change, with time and options. Imagine you invested today in steel because of the embargo. You think you are a genius because the supply is limited. The embargo is lifted and you lose a lot. The government broke a promise to you??
I tend to agree with you belcht, but at the same time, maybe they kinda did? I mean the whole point of a medallion is to limit competition. Not a good system, but one that was in place for a long time. People learned to live in that system. The the gov decides to not undo the medallion system, but just ignore it wrt uber. No due process, no warning, not even a repeal. Just get paid by uber's lobbying to ignore their previous laws. That seems pretty close to a broken promise I think.
I don't know. I'm on the fence.
Seth Johnson I certainly think the government was complicit, but they were complicit in setting up the medallion system as well. Large taxi companies and the unions worked with localities to keep that system in place and limit supply. Uber did the same thing. My point was that it was a bad investment at those ridiculous price.
The government sold those medallions for $10 in 1937 (I think.) The government also got a transfer fee when they were sold. If people paid more than $10 for their medallion, then they were speculating. It is known as the bigger fool method. Unfortunately, they turned out to be the biggest fool.
But, I agree. The city should buy back the medallions for the full $10.00 they charged for them when they sold them.
in chicago all taxis also have two phones on the dash, running both lyft and uber on top of thier normal dispatch, amounting to three streams of revenue generation. the issue is new yorks retarded level of regulation, not tech.
andy14169 Just because taxi drivers have been cornered into joining "the enemy" doesn't mean they were not deceived by their government. In cities where expensive medallions sold by city government have now become almost worthless, those holding the medallions have been royally screwed.
Stupid Flanders Yea its the government not tech.
Stupid Flanders they weren't deceived.. They were just subject to a very old regulation and still are.
There is a major part missing from this analysis. NYC also has many car service companies that you can call for rides. These car services are prohibited from picking up customers on the street. Only taxis with medallions are allowed to do street pickups. Hence, medallion taxi's long-lasting monopoly.
Uber argues that they are not doing street pickups. They function like a car service, only you "call" through an app and not on the phone. This is a major part of the reason why NYC allows Uber to stay in business without additional regulation.
There was a fine print annotation on the screen that mentioned the "advanced booking car services" option around 1:15 but he completely ignored verbally describing what that means & the fact that there was a huge fleet of these "car services" in NYC way before Uber & Lyft - it is just that they were usually used by the very wealthy & businesses, since you had to have an account setup with them prior to scheduling a ride with them.
Another aspect of this story that was very poorly described was that the taxi companies refused to develop their own app, till it was basically too late, in order to compete directly with what Uber & Lyft are doing. I doubt most people even realize they can order a real licensed taxi in most cities using an app on your cellphone - the taxi companies have done a horrible job at marketing this feature and their downward spiral is going to continue.
Hello KCautodoctor, thank you for pointing that annotation out. It is unusual, I don't remember seeing that. Quick fine print!
Also, I completely agree with your comment. Taxi services were late to create their own rideshare apps. And when they did, they were poorly marketed.
I would like to add that car services were also popular in places that yellow cabs would not go to, such as Upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs.
Taxi companies had a monopoly and then things changed. The customer voted with their dollars.
Jacklyn Deans - writing these videos is an exercise in picking the most compelling/relevant arguments and examining them. We noted the distinction in text on screen, but I didnt want to waste time and attention pursuing what I think is a technical argument from uber. They clearly compete with all forms of cab service.
I have to agree with Uber here. If you're booking a car through an app, that's not hailing. Although, they do have a lot of other business practices which are pretty shady,
@@KCautodoctor I used the curb app for years before lyft and uber were in buffalo. Overpriced, unreliable, and cabbies are usually a lot less fun to talk to than uber drivers.
Uber is a car service, it's like calling into a dispatcher, exept you give them your GPS location instead of vocalizing your location.
There use to be an advantage of a taxi, you could hail one in the street, but you still can't hail a car service.
GPS has made "calling" a taxi more efficient than hailing one.
Horses hated the car
LOL.
Henrik Herrmann I think horses are happy cars exist
Cgp grey
Taxi drivers saw their business were taking on water and chose to go down with the ship... times change and taxi industry didn’t evolve... They spent years ripping off people with high fares and poor service. Uber and lyft came along with better service lower prices and modern technology taxis did nothing to save themselves. Sucks for those that made these investments but in every investment there is risk and unfortunately the didn’t pay off. Uber and lyft are not responsible for this and should not have to pay for the mistakes of the industry before they came along.
Netheryk Uber and Lyft cannot pick up people off the streets... they have to request a car through the app. Only yellow taxi can take people who flag them down and that is still the case... you need a medallion to do that. Uber and Lyft are more similarities old fashioned car service where you call ahead for your ride on the phone. Just obviously with the added tech they do it way better. Taxi medallion owners still took risk and didn’t understand how they are and are not protected. Values for the medallion dropped drastically now NOT because Uber came in and broke the rules promised by medallion but because they fit into a different category outside of those rules that made using them more convenient over hailing a yellow cab. yellow cabs should have adjusted or sold medallions before the value got this low ... they took risks don’t be fooled this didn’t happy overnight there were plenty of warning signs they just didn’t understand the protection they had and thought things would go back to normal.
Atleast my Uber driver isn't racist the cabbies.
Also, it's a revolution. Uber and Lyft are the future, you can't stop them.
Why don't these taxi drivers start driving for them?
1. They could still have payments due to the medallion system.
2. If they had their own medallion, their retirement plan has gone to shit, and it doesn't really matter with 11,77/hour
I agree it's the future, but it doesn't mean there isn't a problem that needs attention.
Fred
Fred
We can’t blame the companies for that like Beme claims. This is between the govt regulation of free market businesses and its working class. Taxi businesses were only supplying a need for the people and the govt needs to make up for them because they caused it. End the debt, give them jobs so they can live.
what makes you think that, cheaper and having someone pick you up faster is a better business model.
i was referring to my doubts on the bob's prediction that ride sharing would lose a significant amount of market share.
Did tech companies that invented computers have to pay out all of the mathematicians that once calculated all of a companies math problems? No.
You missed the point. Cities didn't regulate the number of mathematicians to a small number and promise that they were the only ones that were licensed to do math. That's what they did to taxi drivers. If they had never created this medallion program, the free market would have always been in control and we wouldn't care about the taxi service changing.
Levi Morman ..... are you talking about the accounting departments currently existing in every single business around the globe? Dude I am judging you so hard right now
I feel bad for the people who own several medallions. I want to watch Taxi now
One could argue that NYC introduced medallions in the system and therefore they are responsible for it. The inflated price of medallions it's also NYC (politicians) fault, if they met the demand issuing more licenses, NOW cab drivers would have a lower debt and therefore they wouldn't be stuck in that endless loop. They de facto introduced a "stock" for public transportation in the market, they let the bubble grow, and when the bubble bursted people took their lives. You're talking about workers and companies, but it's the government fault.
NYC should buy cab drivers license covering their debt. That's the only solution that doesn't involve limiting innovation or cab drivers taking their lives.
Answer to the question on the title. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Uber and Lyft are a prime example of capitalism and he value of competition in the free market. If these cab drivers want customers back then innovate or power prices. Do something to grow the market and everyone's standard of living in rather than bring stagnant. That is what the invisible hand is for. Of there isn't a market then they will and deserve to go out of business(in this case the cabs). Someone always comes along and replaces them with a better, more efficient idea in the long run(Uber). And as for the medallion system, the government should never get involved in this garbage. It's what turns business and stagnates econmies. Look at the d.c medallion system for proof. Libertarianism and capitalism all the way!
Personal responsibility is every person's co-pay in life - if your job market is changing, due to whatever external or internal factors, then you have to be honest with yourself and re-assess your situation. What if the best idea is to change what you're doing? Is that so bad? Don't get comfortable and let yourself believe that what you did in the past guarantees your future. Every day requires your best effort, you won't reach your best life by coasting.
I travel from coast to coast. I've used taxis and Uber in most major markets in the US.
Uber is faster and easier than a taxi. Just as importantly Uber rides are always, in my experience, very clean. You know when it will arrive and what the vehicle is. My longest wait for an Uber...11 minutes in DC. I'm still waiting for a taxi I ordered in DC and one in NYC...and its been two years...LOL. Lou...for the consumer it is service and value. The taxi industry failed to evolve and even today I see filthy vehicles, indifferent drivers and higher costs for poorer service.
From my experience with the taxi serves, I've been screwed over by them too many time to count. From California, Chicago, Illinois, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Florida. I've been tripled and quadruple overcharged, a $137.98 for a ten-minute drive to a hotel from the airport. Scheduled a 9am pickup. The taxi showed up 1hour 45 minutes and tried Bull Shit me saying that's wasn't the time he was given when I got a confirmation call stating otherwise and because of that aggravation, the prick charged me $300.00 to go 4 blocks. I had one threaten my life because I won't give him a tip to a charity in his back pocket at Knifepoint lucky a squad car came up wondering what was going on. Now I had few good drivers. 2 don't weigh 80+ times I've been screwed over.
Should they get something for losses? The answer is an absolute "NO" If getting a piece of metal with a number on it causes financial problems that lead them to Suicide. It is not other companies fault. The blame is solely on the taxi driver/company. To be too ignorant and stupid to think that their little world could be crush under the ever-changing universe of life. What can the Taxi drivers do then? Simple reorganize by throwing out the medallion system and get caught up with the 21st century. Stop being assholes, learn some professionalism, stop screwing customers because they didn't hit a quota.
Amen. I've had so many cabbies smoking in the car and refuse to put it out when I complain. Taxis were a shit service for so long and they are getting what they deserve.
Bull shit
It isn't going to take long for the drivers of Uber and Lyft to figure out how to manipulate the systems in place in order to do all of the things you just described.
I absolutely would never take Uber because one literally never knows what sort of strung-out crackhead is going to show up and what they are going to show up in.
TheHobgoblyn You should try it. I have not had a single bad experience using ridesharing services. I can name many negative experiences with cabbies.
Blackberry came first and had success but then their business declined once apple and Samsung gained more market share. Apple is not liable for blackberries loss. We live in a free market. In the end all of these jobs will be lost to automation.
Call me cruel, but taxi drivers took in the risk of debt, and they should pay for the consequences themselves
Should amazon support toys r us failed business model? Grow your company with the demand of the public and you won’t suffer. Voting the same politicians into office will also amount to limited or adverse change in the regulations affecting your industry.
The government wasn't charging individual employees of Toys R Us thousands of dollars to be licensed to sell toys.
Moreover-- it sounds like the whole medallion system was set up in the first place because of a toxic environment that was causing roads to be unsafe-- and now that toxic environment has been recreated. Eventually the citizens are going to get fed up with the crackheads driving for Uber and causing traffic accidents and some sort of similar system will need to be put in place to stop it.
Glad you showed the whole picture without really taking a side. Well produced video on an interesting topic.
The key factor you pointed out is now the medallion taxis no longer have the monopoly the power has gone consumers.
Its a shame people are taking their lives but because of that monopoly the medallions were just in an ever-expanding price bubble and uber was just the pin that popped it.
Any bailout or compensation tax is just a loose loose situation for the consumer.
Consumers chose the service they want - Supply and demand
Big business pass on any additional costs to the consumer in full.
Government bails out by spending money received from consumers in the way of taxes.
If the government doesn't have that additional money they raise taxes or they just print more money which is the invisible tax on consumers by making the saved $1 have less buying power.
Consumers pay for all costs no matter what at the end of the day.
you mean lose lose....
Wow! That’s pretty loose!
Regular Cabs need to get an app for hailing taxis just like Uber, the main reason people don't use them is convenience
Most cab companies have created their own apps but were just VERY VERY late in launching them and have done a horrible job at promoting their existence - hence by your comment not realizing there is even an official app available for hailing a licensed taxi cab. In NYC there is Arro and Curb apps - most other cab companies in other major cities also have their own version, just have to search around to locate them.
Here in Mumbai and a few other cities, they have partnered with Uber and Ola (competition) to launch rickshaws (used more than cabs here) and cabs on Uber's and Ola's network. You can use those apps to book rides on these services. That's how it can go
Here's the thing...
My experience of Uber is newer, nicer & cleaner cars. It's a more honest and upfront service, with distance, waiting time & cost visible before hand.
A regular taxi service is the exact opposite.
On the other hand, the medallion scheme should be scrapped! A license should cost but not hold any value.
I haven’t watched video yet, but based on the title alone, no. That’s how the free market works. Should Wal-Mart pay the price for mom and pop shops closing? Should Amazon pay the price for killing off retailers?
Lincoln Riddle The taxi situation is different than both. It's in the details. Again, taxi drivers in many cities have taken on a huge liability in exchange for a promise from the government that their future income will be secure for perpetuity. That promise has been broken. How to make up for it is unclear, but government is unlikely to be able to deal with it without some sort of additional tax, which would most likely be applied to either ride sharing companies themselves or their users.
Lincoln Riddle only if the state gave the mom and pop shop a guarantee that no other shop will ever be allowed to rent a neighboring lot of land, then yes.
Furthermore, imo, in that (allegorical) case its the govt that should pay, and not Wal-Mart, because the government did not hold their end of the bargain, (and not walmart)
What I'm trying to say: contracts with the govt are still contracts, if you break them, they come after you - why shouldn't you come after them when they mess up?
Do you want to give me le kiss? After watching the video, it’s clear this has been allowed due to corruption at the local level in NYC. Taxis should sue the city for allowing Uber to get away with ignoring local law, and Uber should be fined for the act of ignoring local law. But, in my opinion, the laws should be changed going forward. It’s archaic.
Agree 100%
Did the NYC charge $1.3 million per medallion in 2014? Or the black market ? NYC could buy back medallion with equal or less than the price that it sell (since it's considered used item). Any extra that you paid, you should only blame yourself.
A sad lesson! They should have gone free market from the beginning.
This channel is one of the best on UA-cam. Lou, you keep doing what you do. Thank you for the information in a format I love to digest.
driving uber in canada, allowed me the freedom to move to a new city and still make my bills, pays not great but i work only the hours i find profitable. I took taxis for years, and worked at the airport which allowed me to talk to lots of cabbies before uber, sounded like the medallion holders were using needy people to slave their cab all day and only worked the profitable hours themselves, add that to ridiculous wait times, unfriendly drivers, constant money gouging, and from what i hear now from female customers, extreme creepy behavior, i feel uber was just moving into a market ripe to be taken over, and i say this in full acknowledgement that in 5 years the cabs will be all automated, better this happened now, the cab industry has only itself to blame, shame on them for forcing the poor guys left with the hot potato to suffer, the city's should have eliminated the medallions years ago, there is no sacred cow you can feed from forever, these low wage workers are just the first and many more industry's are going to follow, mcdonalds have computer terminals now, grocers have self scans, the car washes are automated, lets not turn into luddites over this, aim up.
u are a good showman, Lou. I appreciate you and your teams work over at Beme. You guys have stayed true to your theme of reporting on situations that fly under the radar for most people and don't make it into mainstream media. Keep up the good work my dudes
So for years and years, drivers and medallion owners had an advantage over everyone else in the city overcharging their clients because there was essentially no competition.
So much that their plack of metal was worth $1.2M after they decided to stop using it. If they were lucky or smart enough to get that license they made a wonderful investment - a work with very limited competition and a low-risk payoff at the end of their career. A change came along - I don't care if it's Uber, Lyft or just change of regulation which caused the rise of the competition and those same people who were overcharged for should pay those who had preferential treatment because that treatment ended?
Looking at how the cab business started, as stated in the video, will the government introduce another regulation and again after few years people will have to pay - this time the Uber drivers - because the rules changed and those did choose poorly?
That's a good piece, surprisingly neutral but I don't buy the logic of payouts. If anything the money won't go to the poor taxi drivers but to wealthy medalion owners who made a bet and did profit on the business, just weren't smart enough to change their investment strategy when things started to change.
In my state of Victoria, Australia they are buying back the taxi licences- $150,000 for the first licence, $50,000 for the second and nothing after the third, because that’s the investors they don’t want to bail out.
I managed record stores for a $2 billion company for over 15 years. We all know what happened to record stores. By the time it was over, I finished liquidating the last store, I was told I was too old to work for other retailers.
My 401k was languishing over the last several years while the company was tanking, when I rolled it over, it lost a lot of value.
Times change, industries come and go. I went to a career change workshop and they said the average person changes careers over 9 times in their life. I thought it was 3 times when I entered the work force.
Uber medallions?
I watched Beme News before it was cool to watch Beme News
Beforehe had a catchphrase
fyi its still not cool
Motorcycles Vancouver là
Miss Casey on this a little
Here is my argument: On many occasions I was about to get in a fight because the cab driver was not pleased with the tip or the lack there of. Sometimes, when you ask them if they are free, they ask you "where to?". UBER NEVER REFUSES BECAUSE OF THE DESTINATION!!! . And the BIGGEST benefit of Uber is that at the end of the ride, you get an e-mail with the cost of the distance and the time and the exact route. As a business, If I'm paying for the ride of a business trip or a guest, I need proof. Back in the day I'd get a receipt with up to 60% more cost, or ones that were registered before the ride was even started, or they would start the meter when they are roaming around before the time they need to arrive at the pick up spot.... You cannot have these fraudulent behavior with Uber. You have everything on record, the time, the roads, the mileage ... everything! And the best part of it, you can rate the driver for misbehavior or great service... can't do that with a cab driver.
How is BEME News not growing by leaps and bounds? This is the most researched and unbiased news outlet I have seen in years. The only thing I can think Lou is not enough videos to get you in the trending list to put you in front of millions. Need to do maybe some creator interviews, to get some exposure. Like do something of course with Casey, maybe Phil DeFranco, Lou from Unbox Thearapy. Use creators that you both can benefit from. I really wanna see BEME take off, with the support and the team you have, you should be able to take the top news channelsmon UA-cam. Keep up the work, more videos more often, and find some creators to work with.
I've been in at least half a dozen situations where friends and family tried to hitch a ride in Manhattan and struggled repeatedly with their apps, lost GPS tracking or battery life. I just raised my hand at the next yellow cab around the corner and got them in a car 20 seconds later. I actually visibly shocked a younger friend of mine who had no idea you could still do that. It's funny but also kind of sad. More advanced tech doesn't necessarily always mean better. I still use Uber and Lyft sometimes, but only if I really need to, not out of habit. (Moreover, ride share services should cover car maintenance costs for their drivers, as wear and tear on driver-owned vehicles substantially reduces the profitability of their work over time - a major hidden expense.)
What do you expect? NYC taxis have had a reputation for sucking for decades now. I worked for an executive car service in Charlotte, NC back in 2000 and everyone was having this same argument back than too. The taxi companies were bitching because we didn't have to follow the same regulations that they did. Our cars were nicer, we had set prices up front, and we were more professional. I could have told you 18 years ago that taxi's days were numbered. This shouldn't come as a shock to anyone in the industry.
It should be noted that the executive car industry is now the ones who are bitching because Uber and Lyft took the market from them. As I have always said, evolve or die.
As an uber driver I think these companies are hell bound and should be investigated for illegal business practices. I drive uber in a used police car and I have videos on my channel on how horrible the experience is.
I very much dislike the narrow approach to these problems. The idea that in a free market economy, winners need to bail out losers, is antithetical and stupid. What we need is a broader approach to the fact that this issue extends to hundreds of industries, taxis, of which, are just one. Universal basic income needs to be the topic, not bailouts.
Tovarish Works
Universal income will come in the farrr future, especially when everything is more autonomous. However today, they need stable jobs. Not govt regulation of businesses.
NA T The supply of available jobs is not growing at the pace needed to replace those whose jobs no longer exist. Many people who have been laid off have already exited the labor pool because they have not found another occupation for which they are qualified. UBI needs to be a topic of discussion now, if it has any chance of being applied in time.
Stupid Flanders
We can’t pull the money for it out of our ass though. It requires autonomous work in all parts of the country/world so there can be universal income.
I understand the unemployment problem but it’s only been getting lower. So it’s getting better. Also we have to consider the 15% of the pop. that have an IQ of less than 80-85 (they can’t do basic work). They need jobs too and can’t leech off of someone forever. Luckily however the military hires them but to talk to high school kids for example. There’s many problems we need solving, but it will get better.
NA T It's not gonna get better on its own. You can't look at unemployment without looking at labor participation rate. Some people who are unemployed and can't find a job for an extended period of time eventually give up and stop looking. Some people are technically employed, but they have low-paying part time jobs (or "gigs") that can't even afford basic necessities.
We don't need automation everywhere to consider UBI. Our economy is already more productive than ever; tax the companies (or individuals) who have most reaped the rewards of advancements in technology. The wealth generated by these innovations has certainly not been distributed in any way that is balanced, considering that income inequality keeps rising and that many CEOs make ridiculous amounts in comparison to their employees. If you want to hear an insightful conversation on the topic, I recommend Episode 130 of the Waking Up Podcast.
And I'm glad you brought up low-IQ individuals. You suggest they "need" jobs; is society responsible for providing those jobs? Do we need to come up with something for them to do, even when the things we have them do could be done better/cheaper by a computer (or not done at all)?
And as more and more jobs get eliminated because of improved technology, what will happen to all the people who don't have the natural ability to become scientists, engineers, or entrepreneurs? Should we let them starve to death because they cannot find full-time work, despite their willingness to work?
Stupid Flanders
Hey man just want to say I appreciate the feedback. Got a long reply.
"Some people who are unemployed and can't find a job for an extended period of time eventually give up and stop looking. " If you stop looking, of course you won't get a job. That's on the individual. For example, my aunt stopped looking for a job after 2 weeks of searching and she just keeps asking the family for more and more $$.
"Some people are technically employed, but they have low-paying part time jobs (or "gigs") that can't even afford basic necessities. " With the rise of technology, come the requirement of high-skilled jobs. It's a natural process of the tech age. I've worked barely making min wage doing UberEats but studied programming on the side to make up the 'high-skilled' areas I'm missing. There are other 'gigs' such as dog walking that can get you $30 an hr! Especially in cities. It just depends on what you do. I should of walked dogs for an easier time getting $ now looking back.
Income inequality is a deceiving word imo. "As many behavioral studies have shown, relative wealth has more of an impact on personal happiness than absolute wealth"[Forbes] (not for me, just the majority), so I think that is why the word is getting big imo.
Anyways there will always be income inequality, it's a part of capitalism. It is the prosperous that give us the jobs and opportunities that arise from their innovation. They also are the biggest contributors to charity and do help the world. We cannot 'give everyone a piece of the pie equally'. Take my aunt for example. Refuses to find work for the last 6 months and just keeps asking for money each month. We are giving her an income because.. she is lazy. Why should we support her? She isn't blood related, but we are not cruel people to let her starve off and die!
The same should be said about lower IQ individuals. Maybe we cannot give them technical jobs, but we can give them ones that require emotional support, which I think no technology can give. Say maybe playing games with the elderly? There are so many ideas we can create, I am just throwing some out there.
I highly suggest you check out this short video (2min) by GatesFoundation-How does global fund work?
I think that the solution using UBI can be implemented by following how we already combat diseases worldwide using the global fund for example. It requires immense investment, and I believe that is where autonomous machines come in. Maybe we take a flat or % amount of $/hr from the machines' labor to invest providing for those in poverty. I do not believe any individual should be required to have a responsibility for the lower class. I just think for each job taken by a machine, it should provide for an individual in need. The problem with that however is how would we even push people under UBI to work, innovate, create, etc.?? It's dangerous to implement it now imo and could only slow progress. Also if we provide people with enough funds for a family, how can we handle the rise of pop. in relation to our resources and/or ubi per individual?
Lastly, as more and more skills get taken over by computers/machines. There will always be a need to repair or maintain them. Of course machines like in a nuclear power plant would be supervised by high skilled/IQ individuals, but basic machines could be monitored by simple people. Then we could easily provide a document spelling out what and exactly how to fix the machine. But that would be my imagination of an autonomous world and thinking how it would work. This could be a shit solution on my end and there might be a better one to be found. Lmk ur thoughts
The idea of winners in the free market needing to bail out the losers seems extremely counterproductive in my eyes. If our country allows for such a system, we have failed to prove that competition is good and invites innovation. It is not Uber’s fault that the taxi industry did not innovate or pivot. Should Apple pay CD stores for providing a much more convenient system of purchasing music to the masses? Absolutely not. Of course, however, there are other issues at fault here. It seems like blaming Uber is the easiest option.
This was a superb comprehensive piece, thanks and keep up the good work.
If the US government can spend billions to bail out crooked corporate banks then we can spend the money to help a few thousand taxi drivers.
I have been following beme for a while. I'm blown away by the awesome work done by the team. I wonder if the news teams from tv or e-news platforms actually watch this and learn something.
Always same problem: they transformed a license to a property. Licenses have not to be sold, but you have apply to a municipality office so the price is fair and can't increase so drastically
If we are honest, it is the Medallion system that ruined taxi driver careers. Read the rest before you flame:
The medallion system creates an artificial shortage of transportation drivers in sedans/SUVs by limiting how many taxi drivers can have a medallion. This artificial shortage allows taxi companies - claiming "supply and demand" - to inflate the price of a ride well beyond what the service provided is worth. When taxis were the only game in town, the price inflation was rampant while customer service went into the toilet. Riders were forced to pay up or find alternate means of transportation - and that's even IF you could get a taxi driver to stop to pick you up. This artificial shortage and price gouging created literal extortion by the cab companies, so it's no wonder that the cab companies looking to benefit from the medallion laws only paid lip service to "objecting" to them. The overinflated prices and limited service caused by the medallion system created huge pressure to develop an alternative to taxi cabs.
Individuals looking to obtain a medallion usually were looking at hundreds of thousands to over a million dollars for each medallion. They would have to put themselves heavily into debt just to have a CHANCE at obtaining one of these medallions. They did so on the assumption that medallions would only appreciate in speculative value over the time of ownership and a profit could be had when the owner finally decided to sell the medallion. THIS IS NO DIFFERENT THAN STOCK MARKET SPECULATION. There is no guarantee that values would increase or even hold steady. The cities certainly didn't provide such a guarantee.
In answer to the huge pressure to develop an alternative to taxi cabs, Uber (then Lyft) entered the scene: The shortage of transportation in sedans/SUVs was immediately relieved and the price for a ride in a rideshare vehicle greatly undercut the grossly inflated rates of the medllioned taxis. The medallions' whole purpose (limiting the number of taxis available in the city) suddenly became ineffectual as riders had alternatives to the extortion assessed by the taxi cab companies. The value of these now-ineffectual medallions naturally tanked, leaving many taxi companies and individuals who had wagered that they were a sound investment to taking a large loss on said investment.
This video asks the question "Should Uber (and presumably Lyft) pay a price for these speculators taking a huge loss on a bad wager?" My response to that is, "You should never wager an amount you can't afford to lose." My second response would be, "Taxi drivers getting burned by the drop in medallion values should go to the bureau/organization that guaranteed that their medallion's value would never drop." THOSE are the people (if they actually exist) that need to be paying compensation to the taxi drivers.
I'm a mother of 4 kids, Owner of a taxi company ,wife and a suffering mother because I dont have the help from anyone other than my husband and our company.,for 7 years we were doing fine with our company but from.the.date that Ubers appear appears to ruin.our life, We paid a lot of insurance, We had to charge people what the commonwealth of Pennsylvania say, We dont buy or sell medallions no...That in NYC,Not in Pennsylvania...but honest, Uber offer better price because they don't paid millions for a medallion like the NYC taxi drivers paid...Also because they use regular car insurance, Taxis paid in Pennsylvania or any states, per car here in Pennsylvania we have to paid $35,000 dollars per car ,so we paid a lot for insurance every year.
We cant reduce the price for that reason, they only one that can reduce our prices is the commonwealth of Pa and instead they give us tickets for everything, The city sucks, they dont help.us in anything...Uber and lyft, use regular insurance thats the reason why the prices are cheaper.
They dont paid nothing expensive like the taxis complies does and thats why they dont the people the same amount like a taxi company that's why uber is more cheaper.
A lot of families are suffering now because in those taxi fathers were working to feed their families and now because uber we are in a really bad business situation and people.make fun of us but nobody knows why we charge more than uber.,this is really sad, We invest a lot.of money we are not millionaires like.uber .
A lot of the people driving a Uber's or Lyft. They have section 8 and recieve welfare and food stamps, they have another jobs, Come.on...this is unnaceptable, that totally unacceptable and disgusting.,We are just fighting to have our taxis companies alive to feed our kids to keep our families together , to paid our Bills and continue working like before ,I really hope that a miracle happens because we still have drivers thanks God that also need calls like us to continue feeding our families. 😭
Outside of NYC, NYS has livery plates/registration for taxis and cabs. Uber and other such companies don't seem to be required to get them, which makes me nervous about trusting them, because the livery plates require special car insurance as well in case your fare gets hurt or killed in an accident.
The government that created the Medallion scam, should ether forgive the loans (like they did with the banks/in the home loan scam, and the soon to be School loan bigger scam)or buy them back at the price they were originally sold for (and forgive any extra moneys that the cabby boughed) but not so for those that were investors leasing out their Medallion, they took the risk, Sorry. Then let the free market have it's way.
I drive Lyft. It's a great side hustle, as a Millennial the side hustle is crucial. I send my sincere condolences to the family of those driver's that have taken their lives. That being said, Rideshare should not solely shoulder the blame for what has happened to the Taxi industry. I was in NY in 2011 and I was asked to leave 2 taxi's because I would take them out of their way. I was in Central Park going to NYU. Historically Black Men have been unable to get Taxi's in NY. Toilet customer service from Taxi drivers in NY has been a subject for many NY comedians. If NY taxi's would have invested in an app when Rideshare showed up, we would not be having this conversation. Taxi's rested on their laurels and now the industry has suffered. I'm in DFW, when Ridshare showed up the Curb & Taxi app showed up and kept Taxis in business. All those Medallion owners could have put money into an up, but they chose not to.
Really well done 👏👏👏 great ending, to offer some sort of resolution. Hope that with the years to come, we as a society can learn to address these issues
Glad I found this channel. Very educative.
I don't know what the best answer is. But, any solution I will support MUST, MUST, MUST include an app. I am in Bangkok for a couple of years and use Grab taxi - a lot. An app, anywhere in the world:
1. Lets you order in your language and is presented to the driver in his language.
2. Lets you watch the taxi come to you on google maps so you can wait inside if the weather is bad.
3. Shows the driver EXACTLY where you are and EXACTLY where to want to end up and a suggested path for him to get there and estimated cost and travel time.
4. Allows you to watch on your phone as you travel in the cab from your origination to destination point (good for sending beloved family in a taxi.)
5. Allows you to order a ride to your door so you don't have to walk a mile in the dark to where taxis drive. This way you you don't raped or mugged.
What taxi drivers are too dense to understand is that the issue is not the cost of the taxi (There is an 80 cent fee, about 30% surcharge for Grab Taxi), but the convenience. I cannot speak Thai. I hail a taxi the normal way about 2/3 of the time as the streets in Bangkok are numbered and Thai use American numbers. However, if I am not near a major street, I am SOL if I didn't have the Grab Taxi app. I rarely speak to my taxi driver as most cannot speak English. I just hail him when I see him approach on the app. I open the door, wave my phone and say, "Grab taxi!" They nod yes, I get in, and we head to the exact spot I want to go as I try to ignore their crazy driving in Bangkok. In Bangkok, I ride about 100 taxis a month. They get their metered amount, plus the Grab taxi fee, a nice tip, and I am happy and off to do my business.
Regular taxis are still using the non-app system developed 100 hundred years ago with horse drawn cabs. If they refuse to enter the 21st century, they disappear. In Malaysia the cabs have fought back against Grab taxi and Grab car by developing their own app. Then, they made a deal and you can use your Malaysian elevated train card in Kuala Lumpur on the elevated train to get near your destination. Then, you can use the same card to hop on a bus or taxi to get home or wherever.
If New Yorkers insist on being more stupid than 8th grade educated Malaysians, then . . . bye, bye.
I drive for Uber and Lyft in Boston. I agree that Taxis got the shaft. Especially now that we can jump into a city we don’t know and use Waze to navigate around, when Taxi drivers have to learn their whole city before being approved to drive (from what I’ve been told). However, I’ve had many a taxi driver cut me off, flip me off, or just act like a Masshole on the road with me and my customers. The customers in my car said, “Well, after seeing that, I’ll never take a taxi again.” They’re shooting themselves in the foot. Plus, I’ve never personally had a taxi driver take interest in me personally and that is one thing I strive to do with my customers. It ups my tips, but more importantly, I meet great people from all over the world and get to hear awesome stories about their lives. The pay could and should be better, yes. But it’s not a long term gig for me and I like that I can drive whenever I choose, as much or as little as I like.
Love the vids. Long live Beme News.
Great video guys, you really deserve more subscribers!
States should figure out a way to ensure that drivers get minimum wage per hour or charge the remaining to companies like Uber. This should apply to any job, including taxi drivers and Uber. The 'gig economy' thing is really just a way for companies to avoid paying things like healthcare, social security, and minimum wage. The medallion thing is very strange. They should do away with that system completely.
To stop these desperate suicides and maintain the value of their sacred medallions, the medallion owners should immediately initiate living-wage profit sharing with their participating cabbies. After all, without cabbies to drive their cars -- their bloody medallions are worthless.
Cabs destroyed themselves by providing horrible service.
People paying this kind of money for a medallion is simply nothing more than a bad investment. People commit suicide due to bad investments all the time. There should be no bailout at any point from any party. It is absurd to think anyone should be compensated or bailed out because they made a bad business decision / investment.
The fact that cab drivers had the medallions as there livelihood is the main problem, they were the ones that inflated the prices and they were just hoping for the price to keep growing and sell it as a profit? They are not commodities. When they complain of the high upfront cost of becoming a cab driver they have to look into their medallion system which screwed them over in the first place.
Either create a online platform for taxi drivers or invest in public transport.
An open and free market keeps prices in check! The cab drivers have had strangle hold on the market for long time with the ablity to basicly name there price.If you fail move with the times you get left behind.The cab companies simply have to offer better rates or if you win then join them.
I can only speak for the ridesharing community in mexican cities, which is where I live and often travel, but the quality of the service delivered by Uber and other ridesharing apps is most definitely unmatched by any taxi driver's vehicle or skills. Where I live, Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, taxis are often times in incredibly deplorable states which leaves you with a lot of discomfort and a serious dent in your wallet as their rates are considerably higher. Many other cities in Mexico allow taxi drivers to drive vehicles with very low safety ratings that have been banned from most developed countries for how low your chance of survival in the event of a car crash is. I wouldn't ever step a foot inside a taxi cab in Mexico as long as there is a ridesharing app available for me to use.
Lou, You've taken investigative reporting to the mainstream! These videos are super informative......... do I see a pulitzer in the making?
Great video. I appreciate how well you cover both sides of the argument.
These videos are so much better than the Casey Neistat days, great work Lou!
The solution is easy. Continue the process of licensing cab drivers, but apply it to uber drivers as well. The government gets revenue, uber is regulated, and all is well. We shouldn't be protecting people's private investments on a LICENSE that was never even meant to be an investment.
They should be allowed to compete under the same rules. The problem is that the taxis have to pay for privilege of being in business while Uber et al are allowed to do business without that burden at the cost of taxi medallion owners losing out on hundred of thousands of dollars. Let them compete under the same rules.
I mean advancements in technology has consistently and will consistently raise the level of skill needed to complete basic assignments. 60 years ago you had hundreds of thousands employed to the telephone company as operators and switchers, now machines handle all their functions
Sam Parkin But will we keep up? Will there always be enough jobs available for everyone who has the willingness (and ability) to work?
Stupid Flanders i dont see why not, but only time will tell, people have to just be motivated, and the government must help them advance with technology, instead of fighting new methods to preserve old ones
Sam Parkin The solution is certainly not to put up barriers to innovation. But we're not keeping up as far as creating new jobs. If you want more insight, look up the video "The Rise of the Machines: Why Automation is Different This Time."
ua-cam.com/video/WSKi8HfcxEk/v-deo.html
Also, government can only help so much with adapting to new jobs. Some people just don't have the capability to be engineers or scientists (even if there were enough of those jobs for everyone). Should they starve to death?
Stupid Flanders they shouldnt starve to death no, but they also need to find there own way to help out, i think the government can do alot more than it is doing, and that is the main issue
Sam Parkin What sort of action do you think the government should be taking?
And "finding their own way to help out" is vague. If the only things low-IQ people can do are not things that are actually valuable to society (and are therefore not jobs that pay), what do?
I occasionally see "greeters" at some supermarkets who are often older or disabled individuals who likely can't do higher skill work. If the store decides to eliminate their job to save money (and because it doesn't actually seem very valuable), what else would someone like that do? And is it something that society values enough to pay at least minimum wage (which is arguably not enough to live decently even when working full time)?
The "share" economy of Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, etc, are creating huge issues wherever they go. They don't abide by any of the requirements which constrain traditional businesses. The medallion and other special licensing in other places required by cabs should also be a requirement for Uber and Lyft. Same, too, for the insurance requirements, bonding requirements, taxes, etc. Airbnb and the like should have to pay the same taxes and abide by the same licensing and inspections that hotels of their area do. It's not a level playing field or a free market if one sector has a lot of requirements to operate and their competitors don't.
The average rate for suicides in the US is 13 per 100,0000 individuals. So if there is 6 suicides per 40,000 cab drivers that does not seem far out of trend.
Turkey could be a good case to study in this situation. In here, regular taxi drivers were also visibly and audibly upset at uber and lyft and other ride sharing companies stealing their customers. Our president, perhaps to appeal more to the working class to get more votes, said "this uber thing has no place here" before the june 24th election. Now I believe its either banned or in the process of getting banned. But the image of regular taxi drivers here is really bad, among tourists and even locals. The stereotypes of taxi drivers smoking, driving recklessly, having bad manners and not knowing adresses or landmarks are really popular. The point is they got their way here, while uber and others get their way in the US. Let's see where these strategies land.
Best article ever! Both sides carefully portrayed. Opinion labeled as such. Not even so much windmill gesturing. I even agree with the underlying premise! Great work - just great.
Sounds like this is a flaw of the Medallions and not exactly ride sharing.
The fault lies with the policy makers who spent decades propping up obsolete and monopolistic regulations and then broke their own standard. It's not Uber's fault that they made a better service than the existing service.
Maybe I'm missing the urgency here. What is stopping these drivers from giving the medallion back? Not selling it back, but literally giving it back and driving for Lyft or Uber? Or driving with Lyft or Uber in the first place?
OR classify Uber and Lyft as taxi services and have them follow the same law? Seems like it's the fault of lawmakers who aren't making Lydt and Uber follow the same law... probably because they don't classify themselves as cabs/taxis, but instead as "ridesharing services" so they don't have to follow the same law.
Taxi drivers rejected the innovation of mobile hailing. Companies like Flywheel tried to help them compete with Uber. The taxi unions rejected these options or provided a bunch of resistance. Taxis failed to heed the demands of the passengers and are now suffering. I also feel for them and am worried about passenger safety and driver insurance and regulation, but the Taxi system decided not to listen to their customers and they are suffering.
This was also the problem in my town, but then local taxi worked together with online service transportation. I usually use local taxi through the online service if the usual car is on high demand and more expensive.
The solution is simple: Uber (or any other taxi-hailing platform) shouldn't get a percentage from drivers, it's simply unfair. Drivers pay for a fixed service that is simply the same whether they get a customer who goes for a short or long distance, so giving Uber a percentage is simply unjustified, especially that Uber does not own a share of the Uber car.
Additionally, but not as relevant to the justification, the driver's maximum potential for earning is limited by the number of hours he or she could work in a day, but Uber's potential is limited by the number of drivers in the world, or more accurately, the number of drivers that its platform could handle. Obviously, there is no comparison between the poor driver and the mighty Uber, a heavy-handed approach is expected sooner or later, from Uber of course!
The dude, Mordecai Kurz thought about letting tech companies compensate for the shock they have on the economy, reminds me of what Bill Gates recently said. Gates said that in the future, companies using robots should pay taxes of the money saved through the robots. To compensate for the people's jobs they take.
Really underrated videos, they deserve more views
The biggest thing going for Uber and Lyft for me is that you can vote with your dollar. You rate the driver/experience, and they can rate you. This makes the situations alot more pleasant for both parties thus creating less hostile environments. No bait and switch on pricing or payment methods, everything is handled before the drive even starts. I have had more bad experiences with traditional taxi's then I have had with Uber or Lyft.
In places where there aren't many taxis, Uber and Lyft are a lifeline. They deserve more money as well.
I disagree with the idea that people who use the services should pay a premium to bail out taxi drivers that bought medallions. Using an example from the video, that would be like people who bought cars in the early 1900s paying a premium to go to horse and buggy drivers that lost out in the car age. It is everyone’s responsibility to provide and take care of themselves and their families. It is not my job/responsibility to provide a soft landing for anyone. If I choose to do that as an individual that’s one thing, but I should not be forced into that responsibility.
We are experiencing a similar problem in Cape Town. I appreciate your excellent analysis on this very much!
At the end of the day... it’s up to the consumer to choose either a taxi 🚕 or ride share company. I travel a lot for work here in Canada. Before ride sharing companies most taxis were a** h****. Cabs are incredibly dirty, most drivers do not care about service nor their cars. Uber/lyft drivers CARE. That’s the difference. It’s their car, and they get rated. Before ride share companies taxis were also charging absurd amounts. There was a NEED for better service, taxis shouldn’t complain. Happens to every single industry out there, it’s called completion.
I had no clue about the medallion setup. Lou bringing the knowledge!
You forgot to mention that Uber subidizes the cost of the ride in order to gain market share. (in 2015 the rider only paid 41% of the actual cost of the ride with stakeholders paying the rest)
The correct response hinges on legalities. If ride sharing apps are not taxis in a legal sense, then the default judgement is that businesses are not liable for their competitors losses. If ride sharing services are effectively taxis, then municipalities are in breach and could lose a lawsuit. I think if taxi drivers had a legal case it would have been made and won already. The taxi cartel was good for drivers and was useful as a means to implement standards on the service itself. The cartel was bad for innovation, however. Is there an arrangement which would not allow races to the bottom and which would allow for innovation?
I think asking compensation from new competitors going freely into a market that was previously very costly (eg, the medallion) should be a thing. And, if said new competitors decide to skyrocket the prices to compensate loss, well, the public can decide weather or not to go back, or move to another more fair competitor. All other options are non-solutions that will take generations of debt paying families to smooth out.
11.77 is really good an hour honestly. Much higher than the minimum and uber and lyft incentivize drivers with additional payments when they drive more often. I would like to point out that most driver won't hit those bonuses because they only drive like 5-10 hours a week.
You're talking about a NYC specific issue, but Uber and Lyft operate all over. If they have to raise their rates to help with this NYC issue, they will raise their rates everywhere.
This is what i don't understand. In Indonesia, some taxi companies now also integrate themselves with Go-jek & Grab app (local version of Uber & Lyft) so they can be ordered there too. Why don't New York's TLC do the same thing?
Honestly, New York City should be paying people with medallions for destroying the value of their investment. It stinks, but the government created the problem and must solve it.
As a Student Loan carrier, I feel no sympathy for these people. My generation got screwed with false promises and a down economy. We manage and nobody helps us. In fact Congress let interest rates go up.
Awesome Video Beme Team and Lou.
Just because they let uber and lyft break a corrupt and out dated model doesnt make mean its unfair in any way. Those regukations shouldn't have been made to begin with. They medalion model only let some get wealthy while lyft and uber provide more families with a means of supporting them selves.