
Uber-Capitalism at its worst - futuravenir
https://ricochet.media/en/852/uber-is-capitalism-at-its-worst
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vezzy-fnord
The author has a very perverse mode of thinking, at least to me personally. He
praises the fact that medallions and price controls cause artificial shortages
and blames Uber for devaluing the medallions through their competition. That's
the most bass-ackwards thing I've read in a while. Yes, taxi companies can't
compete, because they're a state cartel. The author complains about Uber
becoming a monopoly, but laments the poor state-protected taxicab monopolists
because their artificially fixed hundred-thousand dollar medallions are
depreciating!

Apparently we are at whim of a "single private company" controlling our
transportation, but somehow being at the whim of state governments is not an
issue at all.

Circumventing local regulations makes you a greedy monopolist, but instituting
outrageous item and price controls doesn't.

And of course, the ultimate irony: complaining about monopolization and
cartelization while praising unions. I'm not opposed to unions, but they are
demand-side bargaining cartels and to be in denial over this makes you look
disingenuous.

If this is "capitalism at its worst," I can only be horrified at imagining
what the author thinks "capitalism at its best" will be. Food rationing, I
presume.

Terrible article. Only gives more ammunition against left-leaning commentators
and nothing else.

~~~
futuravenir
>He praises the fact that medallions and price controls cause artificial
shortages and blames Uber for devaluing the medallions through their
competition.

I didn't read the text as 'praise' for taxi companies or government
regulation, just a statement of facts about them. Reread that part of the text
from a neutral place.

"Next, it’s time to understand the legal difference between what Uber is doing
and what taxi companies are doing. The taxi industry is highly regulated and
each cab must have a medallion, which is basically a licence to operate a car
as a taxi. With prices over $300,000, these medallions can be valued as highly
as a home. Since Uber has shown up, those prices have plummeted.

Why go through the hassle of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to
become a taxi driver when you can just download an app and become an Uber
driver for free? Taxi companies, which are regulated by the government, cannot
compete."

It's stating that the playing field is unfair and that becoming a taxi driver
isn't a career path anymore.

>Apparently we are at whim of a "single private company" controlling our
transportation, but somehow being at the whim of state governments is not an
issue at all.

This article focuses around Uber's role in our lives, not the government.
There's enough hatred to go around though and we're allowed to dislike two
types of monopolies.

>And of course, the ultimate irony: complaining about monopolization and
cartelization while praising unions. I'm not opposed to unions, but they are
demand-side bargaining cartels and to be in denial over this makes you look
disingenuous.

It depends on how you perceive unionization. I perceive it to be as a means
for workers to make certain they have fair working conditions and fair pay for
their work as a base. Everything else is all part of a layer of bureaucracy
that comes later and/or is corrupted by corrupt actors.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
_It 's stating that the playing field is unfair and that becoming a taxi
driver isn't a career path anymore._

Of course it's unfair. You have an artificially constrained supply.

 _I perceive it to be as a means for workers to make certain they have fair
working conditions and fair pay for their work as a base._

In the same way, a business cartel is a means for firms to coordinate
operations in a manner to mutually benefit in terms of profitability by
vertically integrating stages of production or through more brute price
gouging arrangements.

Of course, they have a high incentive to break down as a result of disobeying
to exploit new opportunities from the leveling that has been done.

Unions serve the same function, but on the demand side (more specifically wage
laborers). You can't support one without also allowing for the other.

------
ThomPete
Given that Uber is going to replace each and everyone of their drivers with
automatic cars it's really just pure capitalism. Not good, not evil.

Calling it "capitalism at it's worst" is putting a lot of noise into the
discussion as it assume that it can be solved with better morals or ethics.

But even if Uber paid it's drivers as actual employers instead of this absurd
freelance status they have it wouldn't change the fact that uber is going to
replace it's drivers because technology allows it.

And so the real discussion is not what do we do with bad actors in capitalism
(we have rules for that), it's not even are uber bad actors.

No the real discussion is what we do with the fact that technology is slowly
but surely replacing workers with machines and leaving an increasing number of
people unemployable because they don't have good enough skills.

This is no ones fault, it's just what technology does and the sooner we start
to accept the premise of technology the sooner we will be able to discuss the
real issues without calling people names.

But this wont happen until the economic models start factoring technology in
and not treat it as an externality. Cause not until then the politicians will
start to be able to see the real impact of technology (both the good and the
bad) in a more balanced view.

~~~
dawnbreez
I suspect that the notorious Basic Income Guarantee may help here.

In all seriousness, a basic income would be ideal for such a situation; its
low-bureaucracy implementation may even make such a system less expensive than
standard welfare, while providing better benefits to the economy as a whole.

------
dawnbreez
So, Uber:

>Provides the same service at lower costs

>Pays more to drivers who drive at peak hours, by charging more at those times

>Is (gasp!) not charging its drivers hundreds of thousands of dollars for the
privelige of having someone barf on their seats

Okay, the accusations of driver-poaching and underhanded tactics are bad...but
then again, the driver poaching could just be drivers going where the better
money is.

In fact, I'd say this is capitalism at its best. It's providing a service
where the service is needed at a fraction of the cost, and without having to
wait for anyone else's say-so.

~~~
ThomPete
You are cherry picking.

Here is some other cherry picking.

Uber doesn't allow it's drivers to set their own prices even though they are
freelancers and not employees.

Uber doesn't compensate for that by at least promoting tips.

Uber doesn't allow the drivers to sub-contract to other drivers.

Because there is no upper limit on how many drivers there can be, each uber
driver is in effect going to fight for less and less market.

Oh yeah and Uber is working on replacing all their drivers.

These are just a few of the issues with uber and is hardly capitalism at it's
best.

~~~
dawnbreez
Fair enough. There are tradeoffs.

My comment was, honestly, more defensive than anything else. I saw that the
article was making broad statements and misrepresenting the problem, and I
proceeded to do the same in return. It's silly and I should've known better.

~~~
ThomPete
Well I too find the article misrepresenting the problem but for different
reasons :) (see my other comment in this thread)

------
sidcool
As Peter Thiel also said, Uber is an ethically challenged company. It's means
are not proper, but it's super convenient for commuters, and that's what
capitalism cares about.

~~~
vixen99
Its means. It's reads as "it is means . . ." or "it has mean are not proper"
which is gibberish.

------
ansgri
tl;dr very Marxist piece about greedy capitalists using hi-tech to devalue
taxi medallions, breaking some minor laws by the way (which isn't great,
though not the pure evil at all).

Though there's an interesting link about LaZooz, a decentralized community
alternative to Uber: [https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/lazooz-the-decentralized-
cryp...](https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/lazooz-the-decentralized-crypto-
alternative-to-uber/2015/03/01)

