Uber drivers living in cars

[Broomstick]

MLM stands for "Multi-Level Marketing". Some of them were out and out scams. Some, like, yes, Tupperware, Avon, Mary Kay, etc. did allow some people to make a living. All of the successful ones, though, treated it like a real career and hustled 40 or more hours a week, they worked their asses off.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Ah the pleasures of time.

I still remember when MLM salespeople referred to their schemes also as a "sharing economy". Seems ideas never go too far...

Don't take me for a harsh person, but when you believe in capitalism, you have to take and accept the fruits your god brings you.

MLM? Is that like the Avon and Tupperware pyramid schemes self employment franchises?

Multi-level marketing. Legal pyramid schemes, basically, because you're (in theory) selling an actual product in an MLM, where pyramid schemes you're pretty much selling memberships.

[GuppyShark]

The 'hoops' need to be about public safety and not government-mandated cartels, or the public will ignore them completely.

Did you just read the first sentence I wrote and respond to it while ignoring the part about how it's about safety and it being internet based doesn't mean it should be exempt? I'm not making any argument based on how the government deals with the taxi industry, I'm making an argument based on what you should be required to do to be a driver.

Yes and no. I (obviously) agree that driver safety standards for Uber style operations need to be the same as the conventional taxi services. However, the public in some areas is presented with an either/or - support a cartel or support Uber. Given the choice between a company exploiting the customer and a company exploiting the worker, the customer chooses the former....

I'm not saying your point is wrong, I am saying there are other considerations that need to be addressed too.

EDIT: For what it's worth, Australia doesn't have this problem and I use taxis all the time.

[biostem]

OK, so I read the article, and the person with the most hours per month drive had 250. Now, I know a guy who does Uber rides in NY to supplement his income, and he claims to be able to make a few hundred dollars in a single night. Perhaps in CA, there are so many people driving for Uber that it drives prices down, or maybe there just isn't the same demand as in NY? Maybe Uber doesn't have a payment scheme setup to account for if you're stuck in traffic for extended periods of time? I mean, I feel bad for these people, but there's no reason they couldn't just get a regular job, if being an Uber driver isn't working out for them.

The article doesn't seem to include exact figures, so it's hard to say if they're being screwed over by the company, or due to some other factors...

[Flagg]

OK, so I read the article, and the person with the most hours per month drive had 250. Now, I know a guy who does Uber rides in NY to supplement his income, and he claims to be able to make a few hundred dollars in a single night. Perhaps in CA, there are so many people driving for Uber that it drives prices down, or maybe there just isn't the same demand as in NY? Maybe Uber doesn't have a payment scheme setup to account for if you're stuck in traffic for extended periods of time? I mean, I feel bad for these people, but there's no reason they couldn't just get a regular job, if being an Uber driver isn't working out for them.

The article doesn't seem to include exact figures, so it's hard to say if they're being screwed over by the company, or due to some other factors...

Basic fact: More people in California's cities possess a vehicle than in NY, especially in NYC. This is because NYC is less spread out and has far more public transit than in most CA cities. That's why a Serial Killer Express service like Uber is in less demand.

[Flagg]

The 'hoops' need to be about public safety and not government-mandated cartels, or the public will ignore them completely.

Did you just read the first sentence I wrote and respond to it while ignoring the part about how it's about safety and it being internet based doesn't mean it should be exempt? I'm not making any argument based on how the government deals with the taxi industry, I'm making an argument based on what you should be required to do to be a driver.

Yes and no. I (obviously) agree that driver safety standards for Uber style operations need to be the same as the conventional taxi services. However, the public in some areas is presented with an either/or - support a cartel or support Uber. Given the choice between a company exploiting the customer and a company exploiting the worker, the customer chooses the former....

I'm not saying your point is wrong, I am saying there are other considerations that need to be addressed too.

EDIT: For what it's worth, Australia doesn't have this problem and I use taxis all the time.

Well the argument for a "cartel" system for a taxi service would be that fewer companies means both less competition and fewer companies for regulators to monitor. So you have less worry about taxi services cutting costs by hiring shit drivers and worse, maintenance that effects the safety of vehicles. Requiring less competition is a step above the monopolies for public utilities. Though in areas with little to no public transit the argument for a cartel system is far less compelling, IMO.

One thing I will say is that there is a trade off in my area. The cab companies are required to have a service for the disabled that drives them to and from medical appointments.

[K. A. Pital]

Yeah, like those or another infamous example, Herbalife. Which got called on its pyramid scheme a few years back.

[ray245]

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi?

Uber probably works for people that are retired and have no pressing need for a living wage. People who might enjoy earning a few more bucks because they are too bored at home. People using Uber to make a living income? That's generally a bad idea unless you happen to be living in an area where Uber is facing direct competition with a rival sharing-firm for drivers.

[Flagg]

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi?

Uber probably works for people that are retired and have no pressing need for a living wage. People who might enjoy earning a few more bucks because they are too bored at home. People using Uber to make a living income? That's generally a bad idea unless you happen to be living in an area where Uber is facing direct competition with a rival sharing-firm for drivers.

I think Uber drivers set their own fares or they can be negotiated. I'd never use it because I don't want to be raped, killed, and eaten.

As for the drivers, the ads are seemingly aimed at millennials who already have a job to drive as a, direct quote from the ad "side hustle" (which I find funny as all hell since a "hustler" is old slang for a usually homosexual male prostitute and is the title of a porn magazine (assuming people still buy those) ) not as a full time occupation. I don't know that they have ever promoted themselves as a full time occupation, at least officially.

[Vendetta]

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi?

The initial deal, once they dropped the first idea of being basically luxury taxi service using up unused time for rental limos and such, was that it's easy to get an Uber. You use a phone app to summon a car, it appears, and they were relatively cheap.

Of course they're cheap because they dodge all the taxi regulations because they're technically not the drivers' employer they just mediate a contract directly between driver and customer and because the driver's take is the square root of fuck all.

Then all the taxi companies got apps as well so they're basically just as convenient and have higher professional standards for drivers and the company isn't run by the slimiest pack of turds this side of the Trump whitehouse.

[JLTucker]

Ray, Uber's arrive faster than taxis in the area I live. And the taxi drivers barely speak English and I don't want to deal with that bullshit.

[Jub]

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi?

Uber probably works for people that are retired and have no pressing need for a living wage. People who might enjoy earning a few more bucks because they are too bored at home. People using Uber to make a living income? That's generally a bad idea unless you happen to be living in an area where Uber is facing direct competition with a rival sharing-firm for drivers.

From what I understand it's cheaper and easier/just as easy to get a car. Given that is it any wonder people would go for that option?

[Flagg]

Ray, Uber's arrive faster than taxis in the area I live. And the taxi drivers barely speak English and I don't want to deal with that bullshit.

Meh, the taxi drivers here are English language challenged, yet since you can write down an address and GPS does the rest, it's never been a big deal. Well, except when the 100% correct address is entered and the expensive GPS used by the taxi company gives directions to fucking Mars.

Patience is a virtue. Plus you have a much lower chance of being raped, killed, and eaten. I just hope the "killed" part comes first should that ever happen to me. Eaten, raped, and then killed would suuuuck.

[Flagg]

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi?

Uber probably works for people that are retired and have no pressing need for a living wage. People who might enjoy earning a few more bucks because they are too bored at home. People using Uber to make a living income? That's generally a bad idea unless you happen to be living in an area where Uber is facing direct competition with a rival sharing-firm for drivers.

From what I understand it's cheaper and easier/just as easy to get a car. Given that is it any wonder people would go for that option?

Honestly, given that your qualifications to be a "side male prostitute hustler" (last I heard) were a valid Drivers License, access to a car, a smartphone, and a pulse... Since the rape and murder thing (cannibalism unknown) have happened and are documented? I'd rather the increased chances to arrive alive at my destination.

[Simon_Jester]

OK, so I read the article, and the person with the most hours per month drive had 250. Now, I know a guy who does Uber rides in NY to supplement his income, and he claims to be able to make a few hundred dollars in a single night. Perhaps in CA, there are so many people driving for Uber that it drives prices down, or maybe there just isn't the same demand as in NY?

I've heard that in New York City, Mayor Bloomberg went up against Uber some years ago perhaps to deal with this very issue, because New York has prior experience with this problem. This is exactly what happened during the Depression. It is why the medallion system for taxis and its city-based semi-monopolies were founded in the first place!

During the depression, huge numbers of people who had no assets of value except their cars, and who were unable to find work (and quite possibly homeless), took to the streets trying to work as taxi drivers. Consequently, the streets were choked with traffic and taxi fares dropped in accordance with the free market, to the point where no one could possibly make a living at it. Eventually, just to make sure someone was actually benefiting from the situation, and to prevent gridlock in the streets, the city stepped in and artificially limited the supply of taxi drivers.

You can argue that this is exploitation of the customers... but bluntly, the alternative is having thousands of homeless people who have nowhere else to go and nothing to lose "racing to the bottom", wearing out their cars, wearing out themselves driving twelve and fourteen hour days, getting into accidents that their insurance will sooner or later stop covering because it's ordinary personal insurance and not commercial insurance.

And unlike the Depression era, there's a middleman in a position to skim off the savings that otherwise go to the consumer at the expense of the impoverished would-be taxi drivers. Namely, Uber. They can find the most desperate drivers in an area, the ones willing to work not for thirty dollars an hour but for twenty, fifteen, ten, in hopes of making ends meet somehow... While only passing a fraction of those cost savings on to the consumer.

There is no virtue in this, not even the virtue of efficiency. There is only the enrichment of Uber's owners, at the expense of both the welfare of the workers and the welfare of consumers.

Maybe Uber doesn't have a payment scheme setup to account for if you're stuck in traffic for extended periods of time? I mean, I feel bad for these people, but there's no reason they couldn't just get a regular job, if being an Uber driver isn't working out for them.

Oh really? Being homeless can make it harder to get a regular job in a variety of ways (hard to clean up for interviews, among other things). These people are homeless.

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi?

Uber probably works for people that are retired and have no pressing need for a living wage. People who might enjoy earning a few more bucks because they are too bored at home. People using Uber to make a living income? That's generally a bad idea unless you happen to be living in an area where Uber is facing direct competition with a rival sharing-firm for drivers.

Thing is, there's no magical selection process that ensures Uber only hires drivers that don't urgently need the money to live. People who urgently need money to live tend to be more avid in looking for work, and that includes Uber drivers.

And if an Uber driver loses some savings or benefits and suddenly needs MORE money, their predictable next step is to do more Uber driving.

So while we can imagine "wouldn't it be nice if" scenarios where the only people driving for Uber are volunteers picking up a few hundred dollars a month on the side... that's not going to be what really happens. It's a case of the 'pathetic fallacy,' of thinking as though a natural process like evolution or market economics has feelings and will somehow 'naturally' produce the outcome we desire simply because it seems like a nice and orderly outcome to us.

In evolution, this leads to ideas like "well, on a small island with limited resources, the rats will naturally evolve to limit the rate at which they breed, because if all the rats breed quickly a population crash will happen." Thing is, that's not what actually happens. Because there's no way for a gene that says "breed less" to spread through a population and outcompete genes that say "breed more." The opposite will always happen, even while the rat population is crashing,

Intelligent lifeforms can dodge this problem by making a plan to force the desirable outcome. But natural selection won't do it, because natural selection doesn't care. Natural selection says that spending resources on stepchildren is a disastrous mistake unless they're very close relatives. Natural selection says that being a parasitic worm inside someone's eyeball is a great idea if you can get away with it. Natural selection says that dragging around a big heavy mass of conspicuous feathers so that potential mates will think you're a badass for not having been killed and eaten due to the feathers dragging you down is a great idea, and will cause your descendants to get into an arms race to see who can have the biggest mass of useless feathers without QUITE actually getting killed and eaten.

The same applies to market economics. Markets will always optimize for something. But since there are so many intelligent agents in a market, there's no guarantee that the 'something' in question will be 'the well-being of the largest group of people involved.' Especially when the agents who set up a new structure are allowed to break existing rules, created to force good-for-large-groups outcomes, because of how "innovative" their new plan is. From subprime mortgages to Uber, this early always hurts the group at large.

Because as we're seeing here, going from 1930 to 2015 actually didn't change the market dynamics of taxi driving; remove the medallion system and make it easy to become a part-time taxi driver, and you get swarms of desperate, badly underpaid drivers racing to the bottom. All that changed is that we have an innovative way for a large corporation to organize and profit from their desperate efforts.

[biostem]

Oh really? Being homeless can make it harder to get a regular job in a variety of ways (hard to clean up for interviews, among other things). These people are homeless.

Going back to the Uber driver I know, he states that there are requirements on the age and condition of the car that he is allowed to use for Uber. Additionally, there is a driver rating system, so if the person can't clean themselves up to a decent degree, such a driver will receive a poor rating, and is less likely to get jobs. CA has various welfare and support programs, and there's no reason, if these drivers are earning so little, that they couldn't make use of these programs just like anybody else.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Fun Uber facts:

Uber, as a company, is hemorrhaging money. It stays afloat only because investors keep pumping money in under the delusion it'll totally start to be profitable. The only way this could possibly happen is if they can go 100% autonomous fleet.

Drivers are covered by a $1 million insurance policy... while there is a fair in their car. If there is no fair in the car, the policy doesn't cover them. Most personal car insurance policies will not pay out if you are using your vehicle for work purposes. Going to pick up a fair? Work purpose. Not only will they not cover any accidents that take place under such circumstances, they're liable to drop your ass if they find out.

Places where Uber is basically forced to abide by the same rules as taxi cab companies end up not having Uber at all, because Uber takes their ball and goes home. Consequence of being run by a bunch of fucking libertarian Silicone Valley techbros. Basically, whenever they're told to follow the rules they throw a tantrum.

Uber drivers aren't expected to be able to navigate a city to any extent whatsoever without the aid of GPS... This opens up as easy means of skeevy-ass drivers that haven't been convicted of anything yet (because they do run background checks... just not horribly thorough) keeping track of the homes of people they think could be easy pickings.

Uber will drop your ass as a driver if you're not available as much as they think you should be.


Uber is a fucking horrible company all-around. The sooner it dies, the better.

[Flagg]

Oh really? Being homeless can make it harder to get a regular job in a variety of ways (hard to clean up for interviews, among other things). These people are homeless.

Going back to the Uber driver I know, he states that there are requirements on the age and condition of the car that he is allowed to use for Uber. Additionally, there is a driver rating system, so if the person can't clean themselves up to a decent degree, such a driver will receive a poor rating, and is less likely to get jobs. CA has various welfare and support programs, and there's no reason, if these drivers are earning so little, that they couldn't make use of these programs just like anybody else.

What the fuck do you know about welfare programs you privileged, ignorant, little shit?

As a white male do you know what you get in even progressive places like Western Washington State? Food stamps. About $300 a month. That's with zero earnings and a certain amount of expenses you're allowed to claim.

Oh, and you need to be disabled in some way or it's temporary. Then you may get Medicaid. Of course there are still copay's. And if you live in the wrong county like mine you don't get monetary assistance for mental illness. And even with such assistance you can't afford to live in the county 15 miles due south that does offer it.

But there's always Federal assistance like SSD. Of course it's not enough to live on alone if you're disabled without decades in the workforce. Think less than $800 a month. So that's $1100 in income if you count food stamps right? NOPE!

SSD income counts against you when they judge how much food assistance you get! So from $300 to about $70, and every time SSD does a cost of living adjustment, food assistance goes down, and always by more than is offset by the COLA. But you get Medicare and Medicaid so at least your half dozen or more doctors appointments don't cost money.

Good thing I'm crippled!

[Broomstick]

To Americans: What's the main appeal of Uber over traditional taxis? Is it massively cheaper for the rider? Or is it because it's easier to find an uber car than a Taxi

Damn if I know - the fact you have to have a smart phone means Uber is completely useless to me.

I think for some it might, in fact, be that "there's an app for that".

[biostem]

**snip**

On second thought, I won't write that...

[ray245]

I think Uber drivers set their own fares or they can be negotiated. I'd never use it because I don't want to be raped, killed, and eaten.

Uber over here basically allows you pay via credit card automatically at the end of the journey, based on the distance calculated in your phone. I'm not sure if this is the same in US, but some people ( mainly tourist) prefer Uber because they fear taxi drivers might be overcharging them.

As for the drivers, the ads are seemingly aimed at millennials who already have a job to drive as a, direct quote from the ad "side hustle" (which I find funny as all hell since a "hustler" is old slang for a usually homosexual male prostitute and is the title of a porn magazine (assuming people still buy those) ) not as a full time occupation. I don't know that they have ever promoted themselves as a full time occupation, at least officially.

Which makes me wonder why do people even want Uber as a full-time job to begin with? If they desperately want a full-time job as a driver, shouldn't they try and get taxi licenses instead? It's like expecting to make a whole career earning high income from Macdonalds filipping burgers, when in actual fact all you will get is a basic living wage if you are lucky.

The initial deal, once they dropped the first idea of being basically luxury taxi service using up unused time for rental limos and such, was that it's easy to get an Uber. You use a phone app to summon a car, it appears, and they were relatively cheap.

Of course they're cheap because they dodge all the taxi regulations because they're technically not the drivers' employer they just mediate a contract directly between driver and customer and because the driver's take is the square root of fuck all.

Then all the taxi companies got apps as well so they're basically just as convenient and have higher professional standards for drivers and the company isn't run by the slimiest pack of turds this side of the Trump whitehouse.

Doesn't that mean there is a demand for cheaper taxis with slightly less regulation? If the public want higher standards for drivers, Uber would not have make such an inroad into so many markets around the world.

Ray, Uber's arrive faster than taxis in the area I live. And the taxi drivers barely speak English and I don't want to deal with that bullshit.

In that case, then perhaps there is a market for taxis to be able to use an Uber-like app? And that also means Taxi industry in your area isn't that much better than Uber in terms of quality ( since you think Taxi drivers speak worse English than Uber).

Meh, the taxi drivers here are English language challenged, yet since you can write down an address and GPS does the rest, it's never been a big deal. Well, except when the 100% correct address is entered and the expensive GPS used by the taxi company gives directions to fucking Mars.

Patience is a virtue. Plus you have a much lower chance of being raped, killed, and eaten. I just hope the "killed" part comes first should that ever happen to me. Eaten, raped, and then killed would suuuuck.

I don't know, I think being able to communicate easily is important for many customers. Perhaps improving on the language area will reduce Uber's advantages?

Thing is, there's no magical selection process that ensures Uber only hires drivers that don't urgently need the money to live. People who urgently need money to live tend to be more avid in looking for work, and that includes Uber drivers.

And if an Uber driver loses some savings or benefits and suddenly needs MORE money, their predictable next step is to do more Uber driving.

So while we can imagine "wouldn't it be nice if" scenarios where the only people driving for Uber are volunteers picking up a few hundred dollars a month on the side... that's not going to be what really happens. It's a case of the 'pathetic fallacy,' of thinking as though a natural process like evolution or market economics has feelings and will somehow 'naturally' produce the outcome we desire simply because it seems like a nice and orderly outcome to us.

In evolution, this leads to ideas like "well, on a small island with limited resources, the rats will naturally evolve to limit the rate at which they breed, because if all the rats breed quickly a population crash will happen." Thing is, that's not what actually happens. Because there's no way for a gene that says "breed less" to spread through a population and outcompete genes that say "breed more." The opposite will always happen, even while the rat population is crashing,

Intelligent lifeforms can dodge this problem by making a plan to force the desirable outcome. But natural selection won't do it, because natural selection doesn't care. Natural selection says that spending resources on stepchildren is a disastrous mistake unless they're very close relatives. Natural selection says that being a parasitic worm inside someone's eyeball is a great idea if you can get away with it. Natural selection says that dragging around a big heavy mass of conspicuous feathers so that potential mates will think you're a badass for not having been killed and eaten due to the feathers dragging you down is a great idea, and will cause your descendants to get into an arms race to see who can have the biggest mass of useless feathers without QUITE actually getting killed and eaten.

The same applies to market economics. Markets will always optimize for something. But since there are so many intelligent agents in a market, there's no guarantee that the 'something' in question will be 'the well-being of the largest group of people involved.' Especially when the agents who set up a new structure are allowed to break existing rules, created to force good-for-large-groups outcomes, because of how "innovative" their new plan is. From subprime mortgages to Uber, this early always hurts the group at large.

Because as we're seeing here, going from 1930 to 2015 actually didn't change the market dynamics of taxi driving; remove the medallion system and make it easy to become a part-time taxi driver, and you get swarms of desperate, badly underpaid drivers racing to the bottom. All that changed is that we have an innovative way for a large corporation to organize and profit from their desperate efforts.

Except there seems to be many problems with the taxi industries in many countries, like yours for example. Taxi companies in many places felt like a Cartel in many places, where there is almost no difference between which company you are hailing from. From the comments in this thread alone, it seems like there are many people that want an "improved" taxi service in the manner they want.

There is some demand for Taxi companies to have better tech ( phone apps for hailing cabs based on GPS, online transcation and etc), better service ( speak better English etc), cheaper ( not sure by how much, but people are willing to have less regulation for cheaper service).

Ideally, it should be more common for rivals to take on Uber. The market in Singapore is vastly different from the US, but there are rivials that can compete with Uber on some levels ( in part due to the cars being extremely expensive here). Uber can cost more than a Taxi ride, while Grab( another company that have a Uber-like tech, but more geared towards signing up Taxi drivers) compete with Uber for drivers.

This result in Uber drivers here making somewhere close to 50k USD per year over here ( fairly decent considering it is higher than most starting grad pay).

Of course, this might not last in the long run, but I'm enjoying having two venture-capitalist firms throwing money at the public (reduced fare while the companies eat the losses) while ensuring full-time drivers earn fairly reasonable wages.

Damn if I know - the fact you have to have a smart phone means Uber is completely useless to me.

I think for some it might, in fact, be that "there's an app for that".

Then Taxi companies need to improve in that regard. It seems that the younger generation prefers to hail a cab with an app than to hail a cab in the streets.

[Flagg]

Ray, language issues vary and frankly the vast majority of the time I get a driver with a light to medium accent on the maybe half of the occasions when I didn't get a native English speaker.

When it comes to people attempting to Uber for a living, the simple answer is to it is that there is really no limit to human self delusion. I also don't know what Uber tells its drivers. I can say that often what is sent out for consumption by the general public isn't always the same as what is communicated to the "employee".

And really, if someone wants to drive a Taxi for a living but is unable to attain and/or maintain a job doing so, there is almost certainly a damned good reason for it.

[ray245]

Ray, language issues vary and frankly the vast majority of the time I get a driver with a light to medium accent on the maybe half of the occasions when I didn't get a native English speaker.

When it comes to people attempting to Uber for a living, the simple answer is to it is that there is really no limit to human self delusion. I also don't know what Uber tells its drivers. I can say that often what is sent out for consumption by the general public isn't always the same as what is communicated to the "employee".

And really, if someone wants to drive a Taxi for a living but is unable to attain and/or maintain a job doing so, there is almost certainly a damned good reason for it.

Is it really so hard to get a Taxi license in the US? Isn't it one of the easiest job to get for a lot of migrants?

[Flagg]

Ray, language issues vary and frankly the vast majority of the time I get a driver with a light to medium accent on the maybe half of the occasions when I didn't get a native English speaker.

When it comes to people attempting to Uber for a living, the simple answer is to it is that there is really no limit to human self delusion. I also don't know what Uber tells its drivers. I can say that often what is sent out for consumption by the general public isn't always the same as what is communicated to the "employee".

And really, if someone wants to drive a Taxi for a living but is unable to attain and/or maintain a job doing so, there is almost certainly a damned good reason for it.

Is it really so hard to get a Taxi license in the US? Isn't it one of the easiest job to get for a lot of migrants?

Yeah, that was my point. It seems on the face of it that barring criminal convictions, if you really want to drive a Taxi for a living there really isn't anything stopping you.

[Simon_Jester]

Except there seems to be many problems with the taxi industries in many countries, like yours for example. Taxi companies in many places felt like a Cartel in many places, where there is almost no difference between which company you are hailing from. From the comments in this thread alone, it seems like there are many people that want an "improved" taxi service in the manner they want.

Many people want better taxi service. There are ways to accomplish that. There are ways to accomplish that without letting some random bunch of assholes extract all the profit, while leaving everyone else to overpay for a service or be underpaid for their labor. There are ways to accomplish that without letting everyone drown in externality costs.

My point is that the free market will 'solve' problems in accordance with the reasoning of a 'blind idiot god.' It follows its own rules, not rules we want it to follow. The 'efficient' solution created by a market may or may not actually be better than the solution it replaced, depending on specific details. So it is just plain a terrible argument to say "many people want a better solution, so let's open it up to the market and stop worrying about the details."

The market MAY provide a good answer. But you cannot simply trust the market's answer, you have to error-check. You have to make sure it didn't optimize for something stupid like "the system is now optimized to make sure literally all the money ends up sequestered in Travis Kalanick's pants" or "the system is now optimized so that thousands of bleary-eyed homeless people who haven't gotten their cars repoed YET will spend 100 hours a week trying and failing to make a living as Uber drivers; fares paid by customers for taxi service are 25% lower than they would be if the drivers were making a living wage."

This result in Uber drivers here making somewhere close to 50k USD per year over here ( fairly decent considering it is higher than most starting grad pay).

Of course, this might not last in the long run, but I'm enjoying having two venture-capitalist firms throwing money at the public (reduced fare while the companies eat the losses) while ensuring full-time drivers earn fairly reasonable wages.

Suffice to say that this is not what is happening in the US, and the article is specifically about the US.