
What happened to Austin, Texas when Uber and Lyft left town - walterbell
http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-austin-texas-when-uber-and-lyft-left-town-2016-6
======
droithomme
"Uber and Lyft may have left town, but the city of Austin seems to be doing
just fine without them."

Wow, so all these people on Facebook are giving the fingerprints and
background checks that Austin now legally requires of all community sourced
taxi services?

Or ... are they not doing that, and also not paying taxes or subject to any
regulation at all, unlike Uber and Lyft?

Austin's goal in the law was to put controls and regulation on this industry.
The result is trumpeted by this article as a success for that intent. However,
it seems that what has actually been created due to the city's creating a void
in needed services is a totally underground black market system with no
accountability whatsoever. Reasonable observers might note this to be a step
away from regulation and control.

~~~
wtbob
> Austin's goal in the law was to put controls and regulation on this
> industry.

I'm pretty sure Austin's goal was to protect the taxi magnates by putting
their competition out of business.

> However, it seems that what has actually been created due to the city's
> creating a void in needed services is a totally underground black market
> system with no accountability whatsoever.

That's not actually bad when one considers the real purpose of the law: the
taxi magnates get to keep their price floor, and they get to watch the police
power of the State exercised against their underground competitors.

~~~
SwellJoe
That doesn't really make sense, and is an inaccurate representation of what
happened and why. I wasn't in Austin while this was going down, but I know a
lot of folks involved in city government (and I have more harsh words to say
about the city's government than most people in many areas).

Uber/Lyft is who wanted special treatment; not the other way around. Every
company/individual that sells rides in Austin follows roughly the same rules
(with some tweaks to suit the mode of transit): cabs, electric cabs, pedicabs,
etc. They all do the same background check and fingerprinting process.

Uber/Lyft wanted to do their own thing. The city said, no, you're going to
have to do it the same way all of your competitors do it. Uber/Lyft spent
nearly $10 million dollars (enough to pay for hundreds of thousands of
fingerprint background checks, probably a decade worth of drivers) to do an
end run around city council with a ballot proposition to not be subject to the
same rules as their competitors. That proposition failed; badly.

Uber/Lyft left in a huff because they would not receive special treatment.

It is a remarkable act of rewriting history to claim that Uber/Lyft are being
stifled by cab companies when they're only being asked to do what even the
bicycle pedicab drivers do.

If they wanted a level playing field without those requirements (i.e. cabs,
e-cabs, and pedicabs, would have also been exempt from that process and
instead could use a private background check instead of the city process), I
might have been on their side...and, so would the pedicabbers, e-cabbers, and
probably the rest of Austin. What I saw was some spoiled brats at the helm of
billion dollar valuation companies trying to get special treatment and
throwing a tantrum when they didn't get it.

Also: The background check that Uber/Lyft claims prevents them from being able
to operate at all in Austin costs about $40. And, both companies operate in
other places that require similar processes (and every other company that
provides rides in Austin does the same).

They're acting like entitled spoiled brats.

~~~
chillacy
Uber/Lyft's central idea is that a marketplace system with per-driver reviews
delivers a better experience than the traditional government licensing model,
in factors like price, safety, and user experience.

Their whole business model relies on minimum government regulation, so
fingerprinting to them is the first steps towards the end of their business
model. It's an existential threat to them, I don't blame them for trying to
nip this at the bud.

~~~
SwellJoe
That's a slippery slope argument, which is generally considered a fallacy.

~~~
chillacy
Uhh... yes, it's a fallacy to claim that just because A necessarily precedes
B, realizing A will lead to B. But if A usually precedes B, not realizing A
may prevent B.

This isn't new either. A month ago HN was generally supporting Apple's fight
against the FBI. Apple recently spent a bunch of money fighting a seemingly
uninteresting case of an old iOS version belonging to a known mass murderer:
to prevent the "slippery slope" of the FBI using this tactic in more places.

It wasn't certain that the FBI would do this, but there was plenty of evidence
that the FBI would have liked to, given the opportunity.

~~~
SwellJoe
Pretty sure there's a fallacy about making analogies to things that are not
analogous. The city of Austin is not the FBI. The voters of Austin made this
decision; first through their elected representatives, and then through a
ballot measure. There is nothing comparable about the FBI vs.
privacy/encryption and the situation we are discussing. No secretive agencies
or courts were involved. It is not a constitutional matter, at all.

And, if we really were calling slippery slope a valid argument, rather than
the fallacy that it so often is: Austin's legal requirements for providing
rides have been decreasing over the past decade, both in complexity and in
cost of compliance. It's just not very slopey or slippery, as it has been
trending in the opposite direction of what your slippery slope argument
suggests would happen. I'm sure there's still room for improvement and
simplification, but if the stoners I know who pedicab can figure it out, I'm
confident the bright young lads who run Uber and Lyft can, too.

~~~
chillacy
> Pretty sure there's a fallacy about making analogies to things that are not
> analogous

I hope there's a fallacy for superficially pointing out fallacies without
actually examining the argument.

I brought up an example of a case which could have been argued away with the
slippery slope fallacy, where many believed that Apple did the right thing
(maybe even yourself), so it's plausible that Uber might too.

I could have drawn other slippery slope examples too. Like:

Just because I smoke doesn't mean I will get lung cancer. But if I don't want
lung cancer, I shouldn't start smoking.

Boom: big slippery slope fallacy, and I might even get lung cancer without
smoking. But reality is statistical, and not smoking is a smart cancer
reduction strategy.

Back to Uber: Their concern is probably not that Austin will start cracking
down further, but that other cities will as well. Uber doesn't give a shit
about Austin. They have a billion dollar transportation market to go after,
and if that means cutting off Austin (population 900k) to save the rest of it,
it would be a wise choice.

> if the stoners I know who pedicab can figure it out, I'm confident the
> bright young lads who run Uber and Lyft can, too.

Uber is playing for the world, not Austin Texas. You may think that Uber is
being entitled by asking for special treatment, but in Uber's mind, they
probably see Austin as being entitled for enforcing these laws while other
cities don't.

Only time will tell if they win and Austin capitulates due to public outcry or
if Austin does well without ridesharing and the legislation crackdown happens
elsewhere as cities learn they don't have to fear the backlash.

------
bogomipz
I just left downtown Austin yesterday. I was heading to the airport from my
hotel. In the absence of Uber you have to have your hotel call you a cab and
be on the lookout for a car that may or may not be yours. The third cab that
showed up was mine. When the driver saw me approaching the car with heavy
luggage he said "the trunk is open" while he made not attempt at getting out
of the car(I have a bad back). The Taxi was a very filthy vehicle both inside
and out. The seats had grease stains on them and holes in the upholstery. The
driver was eating fast food while he drove and so the whole car smelled like
In and Out burger. He of course expected a tip when we reached the airport.
That's what happened when Uber and Lyft left Austin. The corrupt media, the
corrupt local government and the taxi lobby's attempt at spin is pathetic and
offensive. My experience tells me that Austin is not doing fine without them.
This is from someone who is generally highly critical of Uber in respect to
the poor way they treat drivers and the general jack-assery of their CEO.

~~~
brianbarker
Download Fare and keep your eye on RideAustin when you return. Fare is doing
great, plenty of cars out and no surge.

------
tbrooks
TL;DR

Reporter based in an area with great transportation choices (NYC) says,
"Austin w/o Uber and Lyft ain't so bad. There are new alternatives."

------
lolptdr
With Uber/Lyft leaving town, it has created a huge vacuum in the TNC space and
allowed several other companies including RideAustin (non-profit) [1], GetMe,
Fare, and whole ton of them [2]. It's been a damper but it won't stop people
from engaging with TNCs. There is a general unanimous agreement that Austin
YellowCab or other native Austin cab comapnies are horrible.

[1] [http://kxan.com/2016/05/23/non-profit-ride-hailing-app-
ridea...](http://kxan.com/2016/05/23/non-profit-ride-hailing-app-rideaustin-
launches/) [2] [https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-
prop-1/](https://www.texastribune.org/2016/06/07/austin-post-prop-1/)

~~~
jessriedel
For others: TNC = Transportation network company.

------
nzoschke
Anecdotally I was in Austin for the first time a few weeks ago and it was just
fine without Uber. I did all of the following:

Take a yellow cab from the airport, Walk, get a ride from my AirBNB host, hail
a taxi, borrow a bike, get a ride from other friends, hang out on Rainey
Street with whatever friends are around and use the Getme app it get to the
airport.

Lack of Uber did not affect my visit at all. If anything walking around more
enhanced my experience. What a great city.

~~~
ryanmonroe
Lack of pistachios in grocery stores wouldn't affect me one bit, but I'd still
be on the side of pistachio buyers (and pistachio salesmen) if my city decided
to ban them. edit: or if my city decided that all cashiers checking out
customers with pistachios must be fingerprinted.

~~~
SwellJoe
Uber/Lyft were not banned. They were asked to follow the same rules as every
other driver in the city; they paid an exorbitant amount of money (the most
expensive local election in history, where the opposing side had a budget of a
couple hundred thousand dollars vs. the $9+ million Uber/Lyft spent trying to
buy it) to overrule city council, which failed. When it failed, they threw a
tantrum and left.

The process they were fighting to avoid is a fingerprint and background check
that costs about $40 per driver. Their millions could have paid for a couple
hundred thousand drivers to get checked.

------
criddell
I live in Austin and have been seeing ads from new ride sharing companies. I'm
starting to think that what Uber and Lyft do isn't all that special. Aside
from having the most drivers today, is there anything else that makes Uber
unique?

~~~
nthj
I live in Austin and sold my car about 2 years ago to Uber exclusively. Any
given month of ubering costs about a quarter what my commuting costs would be
with my own car. My wife is unable to drive for health reasons, so now that
Uber is gone, just buying a car isn't ideal, regardless of economics.

While I'm grateful for the new ride sharing companies, I wish Uber was back.
There are a lot of tiny details that Uber nailed that without, my day-to-day
life requires quite a bit more mental overhead.

For example, I cannot have multiple cards on file, so I often have to remember
to swap out the card before I can call a ride based on whether it's a business
meeting. Uber would almost always pick me up within 3 or 5 minutes; even when
the new apps show drivers right around the corner, I usually get matched with
someone 15 minutes away—and the ETA is always way off. This makes scheduling
things more difficult. They're quite a bit more expensive.

None of those things are deal-breakers, of course. But it's kinda like having
an iPhone and then going back to a flip-phone. It still works, you're glad you
can still call people, but a lot of the magic is gone. And while I know all of
the companies are working hard to catch up, the edge cases are numerous enough
that I don't think it's realistic for them to deliver a magical experience
anytime soon.

~~~
alistproducer2
I'm curious, how could Uber have been cheaper than driving your own vehicle?

~~~
nthj
UberPool got me to Capital Factory for ~$4.50 1-way; $4.50 * 2 trips per day *
20 business days => ~$180/month. I could spend roughly that much on any one of
parking, maintenance, depreciation, gas, or insurance.

edit: I use the time to clear out email, so it has a not-insignificant time
benefit as well, but it's still a win on the raw numbers.

~~~
claystu
Do you go anywhere else except to work? What about groceries? Doctor's
appointments? School stuff? Etc...

It's hard to imagine that you never leave the house except for work.

~~~
nthj
Instacart handles groceries for about $100 a year. Drizzly picks up alcohol if
we're throwing a party or get-together. Amazon Prime handles almost everything
else. Some months are more expensive because of doctor's appointments or an
unexpected trip to the Apple Genius Bar and the like, but it's always still a
win. I'll get a ZipCar for about $40 if we want to take the whole day and
travel about here and there.

When we go out in the evenings, I usually order a beer or a cocktail with
dinner, so I'd rather not drive; and parking in Austin during the weekend
hours can easily be more expensive than the Uber rides. We categorize that
under our Entertainment budget because we'd still take Uber for nights out
even if we owned a car, but even if I recategorized it as transportation it
wouldn't affect the results of the equation.

A large part of my lifestyle is subsidized by investors trying to capture a
global market (Uber, Instacart, to some extent Amazon), and I recognize that
this may not last forever, but I'm happy to game the system while I can.

~~~
lawnchair_larry
Curious (and somewhat OT), do you actually feel intoxicated after a single
beer over dinner?

~~~
nthj
I'm 120 pounds sopping wet, so regardless of my own opinions on my
intoxication level, one standard American pint is enough to cause potential
legal issues I am very happy to pay Uber to avoid entirely.

[http://www.brad21.org/bac_charts.html](http://www.brad21.org/bac_charts.html)

~~~
lawnchair_larry
You'd be at around 0.015 over an hour, no chance of legal issues in TX.

------
wyager
All of the "alternatives" that came into town after uber/lyft left are
absolutely terrible.

I have a car, but there are many in Austin (students in particular) who relied
on uber/lyft to get around. Nothing available today can offer the same speed
and reliability of service.

~~~
tzs
> I have a car, but there are many in Austin (students in particular) who
> relied on uber/lyft to get around.

I'm surprised that it would cause much problem for students, for a couple of
reasons.

1\. Uber/Lyft are expensive for a typical student budget. I'd expect students
to rely much more on buses (especially since buses are free [1] for UT
students) and only rarely resort to Uber/Lyft (or regular taxis).

2\. At most major universities I've seen almost everything a student would
need in the way of food, supplies, and recreation is available fairly near
campus, usually within reasonable walking distance. The neighborhoods around
universities evolve to meet the needs of students. Does it not work this way
in Austin?

[1]
[http://www.utexas.edu/parking/transportation/capmetro/](http://www.utexas.edu/parking/transportation/capmetro/)

~~~
wyager
>Uber/Lyft are expensive for a typical student budget

No they aren't. I used them constantly when I lived on campus. Most of my
fares were around $5-6.

It's cheaper than a bus if you place a non-negligible value on your time.

The Austin bus system kind of sucks outside of a few routes. I took the 100 to
the airport a few times and it was brutal. Lyft is $20-30 and super fast and
convenient.

You can survive by sticking within a 5-block radius of campus, but good luck
if you have hobbies, interests, or a job.

------
dbg31415
A few piecemeal service / new ride-share services have cropped up... but by
and large we're stuck using taxis again.

And taxis suck.

~~~
cstross
> And taxis suck.

Taxis don't _have to_ suck (they don't in my home city). So this should be a
wake-up call to Austin's city government to look into why their voters are
dissatisfied with the taxi firms, and consider what action they can take -- as
regulators -- to fix the problems.

~~~
nolite
"consider what action they can take -- as regulators -- to fix the problems"

Cause that approach always works so well...

~~~
pavel_lishin
It works well sometimes, and not well other times. Just because a process
_can_ be bad and lead to bad results doesn't mean it's _always_ bad.

My tap water tastes great.

------
fred_is_fred
Why not just use a taxi if you really need a ride? Are they really that bad in
Austin? I mean I prefer Uber and Lyft always but if they're not available,
taxis work.

------
iamleppert
It makes me happy to see a community taking back themselves from the hands of
big business VCs. Keep the money there, doing things themselves.

Uber and Lyft aren't that special. Their technology is commodity, and they
know it. Ride sharing should be operated like Craigslist, not a ploy to make a
bunch of fatcat VCs and Travis a bunch of money.

------
claystu
I think it's very likely that Uber and Lyft are going to revitalize the
transportation industry by disrupting the old, taxi mindset; however, for
everyone bemoaning the loss of Uber, the lesson of capitalism is that once a
market gets discovered--or rediscovered--firms move in to exploit it.

The new services might be rocky at first, but competition in the marketplace
should rapidly evolve them towards something better.

------
stanley
Can anyone in the know comment on what made Austin's legislators pass these
laws in the first place?

~~~
spilk
There was actually a vote - the people enacted these laws.

~~~
bogomipz
Really? Was there a referendum where the citizens of Austin were able to cast
a ballot? Nobody I spoke with mentioned that.

~~~
ViViDboarder
The article included two signs asking people to vote each way.

It's my understanding that a law was passed by legislators and then a vote was
made to repeal or keep the law. The public voted in favor of keeping it.

------
fulldecent
After reading the headline I was expecting to see an article about a spike in
drunk driving deaths

------
dustinupdyke
Curious as to how badly this whole thing affects SXSW?

~~~
lern_too_spel
SXSW was in March, so not at all. By the time next year's festival comes to
town, the companies mentioned in this article will have reached critical mass.

