Comment 113018

By mdrejhon (registered) - website | Posted July 23, 2015 at 11:24:24 in reply to Comment 113014

That said, I agree with your writing for the most part.

Except for 2 items:

(A) On average, Uber has surprisingly been safer than taxis (surprise). Yes, you hear about that Uber horror story that the media hypes, but statistically, overall average horror-rate is lower than with taxis.

(B) Share economy has always existed for tens of thousands of years. We used to trade furs & share milkable animals & share tools. We used to be small groups in a small town. Big cities made share economy hard again (compared to millions years before skyscrapers). Smartphones makes share economy easy again even in megacities. Share economy is here to stay, it was here for millions of years.

These TWO ITEMS are the only disagreement I have with your post.

More detail.... Even with the few Uber reports that show up, there are more taxi horror stories (involving hospitalizations and deaths) than Uber horror stories (even including the rapes). From an objective study, I am surprised that lightly-hastily-background-checked private drivers are ending up safer on average in many North American cities. This is surprising, considering I thought regulated taxis would have been safer.

Also, sharing economy is much older than modern capitalism (While fun for an entrepreneur, it's important to be a good History Student -- ignore the hipsterization of newly invented phases like "share economy").

While I use Uber, I agree about the somewhat deceptive nature of some of Uber's tactics, given some of the known antics of the CEO, but I still use and like Uber. It's a good service for civilization.

We need to fix third-party hailing services, so they are good citizens in our country. Uber paying HST, cities doing new taxi regulations that support ride-sharing services, etc. I'm willing to take the risk with Uber, please let me. Also I am deaf (since birth) so I dislike taxi phone lines. Even if we ban Uber, I'd like to see Uber-like services pop up. Fix the broken taxi laws, please.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-07-23 11:48:17

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds