I call bullshit on the premise that Uber is undermining public transit. A lot of places have had crappy public transit and crappy taxi service long before Uber showed up. A lot of places will continue to have it. Blaming it on Uber because it's there is lazy and unfair.
> But much of the confusion arises because people sincerely don’t understand how narrow the range of opportunities is for ride-sourcing to improve on fixed route transit’s efficiency.
As if I cared about improving abstract "efficiency". I care about being able to get a ride within 5 minutes at any point in the city. Whether or not that improves some abstract metric invented for completely other reasons carries no importance to me.
> We know Uber is unprofitable, which means its prices are unsustainable.
No it actually doesn't mean that. Profitability has other dimensions than consumer prices, such as investments, capital costs, etc.
> Uber’s behavior often looks like an intentional effort to undermine competitors and thus reduce customer choice
I haven't seen any behavior aimed to reduce customer choice. The only people trying to reduce the customer choice are those inventing reasons to ban Uber (and similar service), often at explicit prompting and for direct benefit of incumbent stakeholders.
> no doubting the value of these companies in the lives of fortunate people who can afford to use their services routinely
Oh, those fatcats that can afford to shell out whole $9 for a ride! Who cares about those, they probably each own a park of helicopters anyway.
> and many welcome regulation precisely to plug that gap.
Which regulation, to do what? No mention of it. Why bother? Of course regulation is good and no regulation is bad. Terrible article, full of FUD and calls to "do something", without bothering to outline what and for what purpose.
> But much of the confusion arises because people sincerely don’t understand how narrow the range of opportunities is for ride-sourcing to improve on fixed route transit’s efficiency.
As if I cared about improving abstract "efficiency". I care about being able to get a ride within 5 minutes at any point in the city. Whether or not that improves some abstract metric invented for completely other reasons carries no importance to me.
> We know Uber is unprofitable, which means its prices are unsustainable.
No it actually doesn't mean that. Profitability has other dimensions than consumer prices, such as investments, capital costs, etc.
> Uber’s behavior often looks like an intentional effort to undermine competitors and thus reduce customer choice
I haven't seen any behavior aimed to reduce customer choice. The only people trying to reduce the customer choice are those inventing reasons to ban Uber (and similar service), often at explicit prompting and for direct benefit of incumbent stakeholders.
> no doubting the value of these companies in the lives of fortunate people who can afford to use their services routinely
Oh, those fatcats that can afford to shell out whole $9 for a ride! Who cares about those, they probably each own a park of helicopters anyway.
> and many welcome regulation precisely to plug that gap.
Which regulation, to do what? No mention of it. Why bother? Of course regulation is good and no regulation is bad. Terrible article, full of FUD and calls to "do something", without bothering to outline what and for what purpose.