
Uber and Lyft Are Adding Jobs, Not Just Stealing Them - ucha
http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-03/uber-and-lyft-are-adding-jobs-not-just-stealing-them
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boona
"Stealing" jobs, is that the narrative we're suppose to subscribe to? Or are
they breaking up a government backed monopoly and democratizing it. I
personally don't care if there aren't any net new jobs if they've created
thousands of small entrepreneurs and provided much needed competition.

Side note: I find it interesting how media outlets decide what the debate is,
create a false dichotomy, then us simpletons are just suppose to pick a side.

What do you think chuck? Is it ok that they're stealing jobs?

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PhasmaFelis
Uber hasn't created "thousands of small entrepreneurs." They've created a
special class of labor that has all the burdens of both employee and
contractor status, with none of the privileges of either.

~~~
dragonwriter
> They've created a special class of labor that has all the burdens of both
> employee and contractor status, with none of the privileges of either.

I'm not even sure that's really the case; taxi drivers were already largely
theoretically independent operators contracting with the cab company which
provides dispatch, provides the vehicle under a lease arrangement, etc.

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VodkaHaze
Good to know quantity supplied/demanded is still related to price

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pessimizer
This is intentionally misleading (but in a typical, not uncommon way.) If you
want to see if employment has expanded, you count hours, not employees. But,
again, this is commonly done when a low unemployment/high employment rate is
needed for press purposes - it's the reason why U-3 is used in government
press releases instead of U-6, which also includes part-time workers who want
full time employment. This is not a universal standard - in Germany, for
example, the distributed unemployment rates include do that category (and
others.) Even worse, US media (NYT, WaPo) frequently compare nominal US and
German rates as if they were measured in the same way.

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kumarski
Before Uber in SF, there were 2,000 taxis.

There are now 20,000 Ubers in SF.

Bad for the environment, good for jobs.

~~~
tonmoy
Those extra Ubers have surely reduced some cars (which are worse). Not saying
the reduced cars outweigh the added cars, but could be worth considering when
thinking about the environmental impact.

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a13n
Yeah until they lay everyone off in favor of self-driving cars in 2 years...

~~~
techthroway443
What seems to be the issue here? If you can get a machine to do something that
a human can do then you give that human the opportunity to place his focus,
time and attention elsewhere.

~~~
Hydraulix989
The issue is that the only jobs that seem to be vanishing through such
"opportunities" (what a weasel word) are all unskilled labor (easiest to
automate). Sure, doing work in the car instead of driving home in California
freeway traffic for an hour a day is an opportunity, except that's not the
problem here...

Most people that work unskilled labor jobs today aren't qualified to work
alternative skilled jobs.

A large class of unemployed (and unemployable) workers is a nightmare
situation and is detrimental in any economy.

~~~
LoSboccacc
eh, if people are so much against basic income, get those unskilled hands
fixing the country infrastructure.

I guess any country has plenty of fixing to do anyway.

most importantly, stop producing unskilled workers. automation isn't going to
go away.

~~~
Hydraulix989
"most importantly, stop producing unskilled workers. automation isn't going to
go away."

Now, we're talking about improving the education system, which has its own
fair share of problems.

There are solutions, but none of them are easy to implement.

Or maybe this (fact that some humans cannot write code, etc. for a job) is a
consequence of the bell curve or the human condition itself?

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green_lunch
They are adding jobs.

However, we now having more people making less money for essentially the same
job. It's a win for consumers, because it's more convenient and in some cases,
cheaper.

But it's a lose for the people that actually made a decent living driving who
now are competing with college kids that are doing the same thing in their
spare time without having any of the same startup costs.

Uber and Lyft removed the barrier to entry by breaking the law and the
monopoly the Taxi unions had over the entire industry. But the result is lower
wages and benefits.

~~~
mgraczyk
Why should the incumbents have security in their position, when as you pointed
out college kids can do the same work at lower cost? It is unfair to the
unemployed and to consumers to provide special protection to incumbents based
solely on their position and earlier entry to the market. That is a classic
case of rent seeking with governmental protection.

Good for Uber and Lyft for breaking the law and pushing us out of that local
minima. Sometimes you have to harm a few privileged rent seekers to remove
coercive monopolies and reduce regulatory capture.

~~~
Qworg
It isn't just regulatory capture though - permits for taxis carry all sorts of
protections for consumers. Those protections are guaranteed by law and I see
no replacement for those protections from either Uber or Lyft.

We used to have the free for all we're building towards and we regulated to
stop it. Why won't history repeat itself?

~~~
petra
It isn't clear that the permits systems provided better protection than UBER's
system, and there's at least theoretical reasons to think UBER's data rich
system could become better than permits, especially if combined with stuff
like background checks,etc.

~~~
Qworg
Agreed, but Uber has no reason to support background checks, etc. Any move
towards regulation would make their business model fall apart.

