Posted on 09/03/2015 6:18:05 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's no wonder cities like New York have been so hostile to Uber. As economist Mark Perry details in a post on his Carpe Diem site, the introduction of Uber and other app-based ride-sharing services has led to a collapse in the price of New York City's taxi medallions.
For those who don't know, a cabbie needs one of these limited-edition medallions to operate in the city. As a result, the price for a New York taxicab medallion has been astronomical — reaching more than $1 million in 2013.
There's even a company, Medallion Financial, that handles loans needed to finance those medallions. As Perry shows in two charts on his blog, medallion prices and the stock price of Medallion Financial have plunged since late 2013. It's no coincidence that these declines happened a couple of years after Uber launched services in the city. Earlier this year, the number of Uber drivers actually topped the number of NYC taxis.
This is, of course, bad news for old-world taxi cab monopolies — and investors who thrived off them. But it is very good news for consumers in New York and wherever else Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing services operate, providing them more choices, better service and lower prices.
In fact, as Perry notes, Uber is now in competition with a ride service called Via, which offers shared rides in "premium vehicles" in Manhattan for just $5.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
i know uber is awesome, and I love it.
But the first time I tried it was in NYC, and it was extremely frustrating, and I canceled the ride. The dude didn’t speak English hardly at all, and kept peppering me with questions....
In that particular situation, I resorted to a cab...
I do love uber, however....
RE: In that particular situation, I resorted to a cab...
Well there you go, YOU are in control of whose service you want to patronize.
If the number of similar cases for Uber starts to skyrocket, I can guarantee you Uber WILL (if they want to survive ) screen their drivers better.
Free Markets only work to make the consumer king.
BTW, I know of several college students who go to school at the City Universities who are Uber drivers and use the money they make to pay their tuition. How cool is that?
very well said!!!
This is, of course, bad news for old-world taxi cab monopolies —
...
And the crooked politicians who get their palms greased.
Uber is an example that things can still go right in America in spite of the politicians.
We recently used Uber for the first time in San Francisco. The cars were clean, the drivers spoke English, and they were professional in every sense of the word. One time on that same trip, an Uber ride was several minutes away, but there was an empty taxi, and we were running late. So we hopped in. It was so filthy and the driver spoke very broken English. When he started to go in a different direction than we had asked, we told him to stop the car, and we got out. We walked the rest of the few blocks to our destination. Uber was much better, and I felt safer than in the cab.
But the first time I tried it was in NYC, and it was extremely frustrating, and I canceled the ride. The dude didn’t speak English hardly at all, and kept peppering me with questions....
...
Won’t that driver get a lot of negative feedback is he doesn’t shape up?
yes, I think that is right...which is why it is superior to cabs!
I hope to have THAT experience in the future!!!!
I don’t understand. I don’t live in city but this is what confuses me: 1. does each cab driver (even the Somolias I hear about have to pay a million dollars/yr for their cab? - or does the cab company pay million for all their cabs?) 2. how has Uber beaten this system? Seems hard to break a monopoly.
‘BTW, I know of several college students who go to school at the City Universities who are Uber drivers and use the money they make to pay their tuition. How cool is that?’
Oh my, these students must not have heard of low interest student loans they can take out and then not pay off later on.
they are just people with cars.
then they go through the company uber to get cleared, then, you use the app on your phone to see if a driver is near you. if so, you can get an approximate fare, and then “call” them through the uber app on your phone.
it’s very easy.
if you are nowhere near a city, there may not be many drivers near you at a given time...but in cities, near airports, etc., there will often be cars available.
i suppose the way they beat the system comes down to this: they are not cabs. they are just people with cars who will give you rides to where you want to go. and you pay uber, and uber pays them. pretty nifty.
The drivers also have gone through background checks before being approved.
yes
Do Uber drivers undergo police background checks? Is the driver even in the country legally? Cheap rates? Ya, like the kind you get when the illegals mow your lawn; let's bring them all in, right? That way, they can undercut all the drivers that are out there doing it for a living. And after you drive out all the established taxi companies, then you can unionize the Uber driver, start to regulate them, and end up right back where you started.
How about yearly safety inspections on their cars? Do they get these done? Do they have to carry industrial insurance? Who checks on this? What about the cameras in the cars, that the regular taxi drivers are required to have? Are the Uber drivers going to be forced to put these in? If not now, they will be the first time one of them gets robbed or killed. Are they all going to be willing to pay the money to have them installed in their own cars? How about dress codes? The city (Seattle) got tired of being embarrassed by crappy looking drivers picking up tourists at the ritzy hotels, so they instituted a dress code. Is Uber going to have to do that too?
I hear, on this thread, all kinds of happy stories from people about their experience with Uber. But in real life, I have yet to hear anything good about Uber (and I hear LOTS of cab stories). If some driver is just out there with super cheap meter rates, you can bet that he is going to be trying every trick in the book to boost your fare. And who are these Uber drivers? These wonderful college student just trying to pay their tuition, the same as strippers? Pffft. Go hang out at the city licensing office. Most of the Uber drivers are fresh off the boat from Somalia or Ethiopia. They barely speak English, they don't know their way around town, and they don't have 20 or 30 years experience driving on American roads.
The Uber drivers will swarm out on Friday and Saturday nights to pick up all the party and bar crowds, but where are they on the cold, crappy, rainy Tuesday and Thursday nights? It's the money that the real taxi drivers make on Friday and Saturday that allows them to also be out on the crappy nights, providing service 24/7.
So the Uber driver is out there in his 'own' car. How is this any different than a guy who 'owns' his own taxi? And this app that 'just puts the customers in contact with a driver', how is that any different than a phone call to a taxi dispatcher? Yellow cab 'just puts the customer in contact with a driver'. How is one of them a business, and the other not a business?
People (and Uber), are trying to advance the theme that Uber and their drivers are not really a taxi service, just "ride sharing". B.S. They are out there operating a business, just like any other business. If they want to operate as a taxi in a city, then they should have to play by the same rules as any other taxi business. If not, then stop regulating the real taxi drivers. Level the playing field with no regulations for anyone. Then watch the whole thing sink down to the lowest common denominator.
People ask me what I think of this whole Uber thing, and the answer I give them is this: at some point, there are certain economic and social realities that are going to start rearing their ugly heads, starting with 'there's no free lunch', and ending with 'you get what you pay for'. Gee, maybe rules and standards exist for a reason.
RE: ‘there’s no free lunch’, and ending with ‘you get what you pay for’.
There you go, the free market at work.
If Uber can’t make money via Unionized labor, I would probably do some bean counting and if the union is more trouble than my Profit/Loss calculations show, why the heck would I continue operating in that city?
I’d leave.
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