

Uber slapped with suit by Philadelphia taxi companies - larrys
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20141225_Uber_slapped_with_suit_by_45_city_taxi_companies.html

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meesterdude
I recently took a cab home in philly, and throughout the ride home the cab
driver was telling me about uber and the impact its had on him. He works 2
shifts and makes $70 but the cab itself is $80/day. He used to own a gas
station and other real estate but the economy screwed him and he resorted to
driving a cab to try and support his kids, which he was barely able to do.

equally, there was a time I had to take my cat to the vet and could _not_ get
a cab home. I called every company I could find, tried the apps for the ones
that required it, but nothing. One of the people that worked at the clinic
drove me about 2 blocks and there was a cab of one of the companies I had
tried, sitting in the parking lot of a gas station. That was frustrating.

So I think its unfair what cab drivers are going through. I think Uber and
other services bring innovation to the market and consumers have expressed an
interest in this. While its true advances in technology often leave a given
workforce obsolete, this is more subtle and "technical" in a legal sense; and
not nearly as dramatic as self-driving cars will be.

I think philly should give these cab companies a break, or tighten their grip
on Uber. Both should be allowed to compete, and do so fairly. Its not in the
consumers interests for one or the other to go away.

Also, I think the "uber is just an app" is BS, because they're setting the
rates and getting a commission from the ride (someone correct me if I'm wrong
on this) so in reality they're operating an automated dispatch service. But I
think their entire business model revolves around that talking point, and
doubt they would be able to compete with taxi's if forced to play by those
rules.

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seanmccann
Sounds like that guy might make more money driving with Uber than having to
pay $80/day to play.

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jrockway
Uber does not provide vehicles for free either.

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pbreit
But you can use your own vehicle, unlike in the taxi industry.

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wcummings
Not really a good thing, as they depreciate in value

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tlrobinson
Hence taxi companies charging drivers $80 a day to rent them?

$80/day * 20 days per month = $1600 / month, which is like 10x the cost of a
lease for, say, a Prius. Meanwhile, Uber drivers can use their own car for any
other purpose. Even factoring in gas and insurance it's hard to believe taxi
drivers are getting a better deal.

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duaneb
It's a little unfair. Uber drivers get screwed over by wages, but taxis are a
miserable affair. Every company has their own hailing app; even though drivers
are required by law to offer credit card charges, I've been forced multiple
times to get cash out of a machine because the machine doesn't work. One time
it was even blatantly unplugged.

Both sides are fucked, in their own way; the taxi companies will need to come
together and figure out something aside from a lawsuit to survive uber (and
uber's successors).

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jobposter1234
I have been told by multiple cabbies in different cities that most personal
revenue ("salary") they make is eliminated by absurd cc processing fees.

A recent driver in a SoCal city told me that his processing rates were 20-30%,
and he was only allowed to use that service by the terms of his cab lease from
the medallion owner. (They obviously operated the cc processing service as
well.)

Shouldn't blunt your frustration, but I wanted to repeat what I've heard from
traditional taxi drivers -- they're sometimes better off not driving you than
driving you and collecting payment by cc.

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dustingetz
I would like a source please

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jobposter1234
Sorry, don't have one. Wasn't trying to convince you of my perspective, or
change your mind. If you're genuinely curious, I'd encourage you to talk with
the next few taxi drivers you interact with, and ask them about it.

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Punoxysm
I use and enjoy the services that uber offers. That said, it uses dubious
loopholes to evade the (misguided, anti-competitive) regulations taxi
companies operate under.

Letting uber evade the bad regulations instead of fixing them is a poor
solution (same with tesla and dealerships).

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m_mueller
Whenever a market gets too distorted or even shut down, shady things (either
illegal or in legal gray areas) start popping up that allow people to evade
the distorted market. Alcohol prohibition, printer cartridges, keurig and
nespresso capsules, taxis, even the war on drugs, you can all boil it down to
this simple principle. At the end this is how change happens when at some
point the attempts to crack down on it are either given up or it leads to such
a severe police state that at some point a revolution happens. So I'd say
don't blame the player, blame the game - but still hold up the player to the
moral standards you'd like to see yourself (e.g. try to give your money to a
better organization than Uber).

When it comes down to these things I like to go back to Immanuel Kant: "Act
only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it
should become a universal law without contradiction.". I care much more about
this than about the law, especially laws that clearly don't have an actual
democratic process at their basis. Laws that come into place because of
lobbies pressuring or influencing politicians through money or other means,
where there is no real possibility for the people to overturn it, are in my
opinion not morally just. Unfortunately this means that there are almost no
laws I find just, other than those in my home country, Switzerland.

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Pyxl101
Well said. I find it absurd how much local governments interfere with local
markets, like with taxis. I see no good reason (that will survive scrutiny
with Kant's Categorical Imperative) to legislate the number of taxis in a
certain area, like with medallions, or charge a high price for them. It's
effectively corruption and regulatory capture. It's anti-competitive and has,
by my analysis, no redeeming qualities that could not be accomplished better
another way.

I don't see a reasonable avenue for a company like Uber to change the laws
ahead of time. They only have the traction and resources that they do because
of their bias for action. A no-name startup petitioning the city to drop their
taxi legislation because the model is "wrong" will get nowhere. I don't see
how Uber could ever have come about with that approach.

Additionally, I am also not convinced that Uber's model falls under taxi
legislation by writing or intent. I do not believe that taxi legislation is
attempting to control for the same problems. Taxis pick up random people on
the streets, with effectively zero relationship ahead of time, and lots of
opportunity for individual consumer ripoff. People who use Uber have
established a relationship with the company ahead of time, before they need a
ride. They have chosen to use Uber _specifically_. The same choice and
discrimination is not part of hailing a cab on the street. Uber offers a
consistent price to people in an area, and its well-known brand has a
reputation to which people can associate bad or good experiences: for the
company as a whole, through their speech, and for specific drivers, with the
ratings system.

That said, I do also have concerns about Uber's attitude and their
intimidating and disruptive tactics toward the press, competitors, etc. They
have not comported themselves well enough to deserve the moral high ground,
though I will tend to side with them anyway on these legislative issues
because taxis are so dysfunctional.

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m_mueller
That's a good point - if Uber should fall under Taxi law, so should
SuperShuttle and various other airport shuttle services. Once there is already
a consumer relationship in place, there is no need to protect consumers more
than with the normal anti fraud protection.

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tach4n
As a Philly native whenever I head up to NYC one of the things that always
strikes me is how much better the cab experience is - which should tell you
something.

The setup we have now is just bad all around. It's not good for the drivers,
and it's not good for the passenger. One of the last times I took a cab here,
the driver spent the whole time on the phone talking to another driver about
how to cheat at inspections, disable the CC machine, etc.

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colinbartlett
Edit: Nevermind. I was confused when the article said, "Pennsylvania's Public
Utility Commission recently allowed UberX to operate in the state, but not
Philadelphia." I took that to mean they were not operating UberX in
Philadelphia. But maybe it means they are? Illegally?

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thenmar
There is UberX in Philly now, although as far as I know there were no
regulatory changes (and Black still operates legally). The PPA actually did a
handful of "sting" operations against UberX drivers when the service started,
calling an Uber and then impounding the vehicle
([http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/10/26/uber-
philadelphia-u...](http://www.phillymag.com/news/2014/10/26/uber-philadelphia-
uberx-ppa-sting-impounds/)).

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duaneb
As far as I am aware (I use uber quite a bit), Uber X is only available in the
suburbs. In the city, it's not available; I've only ever gotten the Uber black
sedans.

EDIT: This is no longer true, apparently my statement about using uber quite a
bit is also no longer true.

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thenmar
UberX recently became available:
[https://www.uber.com/cities/philadelphia](https://www.uber.com/cities/philadelphia)

I've taken several in center city! (unsurprisingly, a much better experience
than CC cabs...)

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91pavan
Seems like Uber cannot catch a break!

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FallFastForFun
goes to show that the only ones upset by Uber are those in competition with
them

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saosebastiao
I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people upset with them. I use uber pretty
regularly, and there is no way in hell I agree with the government sponsored
monopoly that taxis enjoy, but I don't like them. They're a shady company with
shady legal practices.

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Igglyboo
Use Lyft?

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saosebastiao
In Seattle, there are probably 50 uberx drivers for every lyft driver. I don't
know why they haven't caught on more, but they aren't much of an option.

