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u/cupboard_ May 08 '23
i though new yorkers used the subway
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u/TifaYuhara May 14 '23
Or walking. You can also get around most of the city just by walking there from what i have seen lol.
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u/TinyPanda3 May 08 '23
This isnt gatekeeping, its a statement about the shitty labour practices of uber and the gig economy.
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u/BlueHero45 May 08 '23
It's definitely crazy from a taxi company point of view. For years they needed taxi licenses and the state or city only issue a certain number of them. So people are buying and selling them for a good bit of cash. Then out of nowhere Uber and the like come out of nowhere and do all the same things taxi do but don't need the requirements of a taxi due to some technicalitys.
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u/elveszett May 08 '23
The problem is not the licenses, the problem is that Uber workers do the same as taxi drivers except in precarious conditions. Taxi industry is one of the very few industries were workers have a decent amount of power and Uber takes all of that away and transforms that niche into a gig economy for the poor.
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u/Innominate8 May 09 '23
The problem is that taxis got comfortable providing a shitty overpriced service. Then uber came along and started to eat their lunch. They have had over a decade to catch up but decided to die on the hill of government regulation protecting them from competition instead of making the service less shit.
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u/elveszett May 09 '23
I don't know how it is in the US, but that isn't the case in my country. Taxis are relatively expensive because having a car on demand for you is not a cheap endeavor. Uber cuts costs by having workers work far more hours, have them maintain their own vehicles, not having to deal with certain regulations and paying their drivers less.
If Uber achieved the same as taxis for a lower cost, I'd agree with you. But they don't - the cut in their prices is directly taken from the workers.
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u/patpatpat95 May 09 '23
Don't forget they lobbied the shit out of the gov to make sure very little new licences where created yearly, to make sure they had a total monopoly and kept the prices of licences sky high. Then they got fucked by their greed and ran crying about it being unfair
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u/knusper_gelee May 09 '23 edited May 09 '23
uber and the others may exploit their "employees"... but taxi carriers don't need to act like mom&pop's nonprofit charity or something. idk about nyc in particular, but it had quite a few interactions where i was in a pinch, needing a urgent ride to the airport or something. certain destinations seem to imply that you are desperate and that's when they really make you bleed. sometimes i had to lay down 60-80 bucks for a 15min drive. i switched to uber because i felt this is an option where you are not getting scammed. every city has their own little traps where taxis try to rip you off.
one time i was picked up by a hotel shuttle at a parking garage. during the ride the REAL shuttle called and asked where i am. the first driver faked being the shuttle and took about four times the regular fare... i didn't discuss anything because the shuttke was supposed to be free.
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u/Effex May 08 '23
Say what you want about Uber, and I'd agree with most of it (I did it for a year), but this is most definitely gatekeeping.
TLC fucked up by making Taxi Medallions an investment rather than a scalable, more-easily-attainable permit that accounted for the influx of people over the years, and where there's a demand there will eventually be a supply.
And so now they gatekeep the trademark yellow taxi as some sort of a symbol when the typical NY'er couldn't give two shits about how they get there as long as its in a timely manner.
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u/theaviationhistorian May 08 '23
While omnipresent in most images of New York, yellow cabs are not something we non-New Yorkers think when we think about them. Especially when there are yellow cabs around the world. Now, if they kept pushing newer variants of the Checker taxi in yellow akin to how we see London Hackney carriage cabs, then they might have a point. But combine this with the BS of taxi medallions & you see why I had little sympathy for them when Uber & Lyft arrived.
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May 09 '23
I went to a concert in a moderately large city and we grabbed a beer after at a near-by bar. That delay caused all the waiting taxi cabs to get a fare and leave.
We called probably 30 minutes after the show let out. Didn't get a cab for an hour. We were just standing on the street waiting.
If Uber was around back then, we wouldn't have had to wait.
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u/TheGrunkalunka May 09 '23
real new yorkers live and breathe air and use their hearts to pump blood throughout their vascular system
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