What happened? Their was a flourishing of new ride share companies, including a local nonprofit, RideAustin. Yes, at first, these apps were nowhere near the level of Uber/Lyft, but they quickly improved, especially RideAustin. The prices were slightly higher, but it seemed those prices reflected the actual cost of the service without the VC subsidy.
I dread taking a taxi and I'm no friend of the formerly entrenched taxi companies, but this idea that making some sensible regulations that these multibillion dollar VC-subsidized tech companies need to follow is "anti-innovation" is BS.
[1] https://www.curbed.com/2017/6/14/15803138/austin-uber-lyft-t...
[2] https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2017/06/06/uber-lyft...
This (crappy Buzzfeed) article from July seems confirms what locals say... they're all still there: https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/uber-lyft-austin-t...?
If anything (as mentioned in another HN article I saw today about the slowdown in new business formation), these huge, "winner-take-all" tech companies may be a net negative for innovation in the long run.
So much for the will of the consumer, eh?
But, hey, that's what "DISRUPTION!" looks like nowadays, right?
Is an outright ban "anti-innovation"? You can't do sensible regulation once you've banned entrants in favour of the taxis.
Uber is able to continue business while it appeals. As long as the appeal process is continuing (and it may well continue for years to the High Court) Uber can continue business as usual.
Uber can change its processes during the course of the appeal, and if they match what is required, the ban will fail.
This is a high-visibility, high-impact method of regulation that Uber can't ignore. Given Uber's habit of ignoring regulations it doesn't like, it seems entirely appropriate.
One of the largest problems that the UK has had with the EU is that EU-mandated regulations are not implemented by some EU member countries. This is against all the rules of the EU, but there's no enforcement.
In the UK, regulations are implemented and enforced. This is that enforcement in practice. One of the reasons London has flourished as a financial centre is because the regulatory agency doesn't mess around and does its job properly. This gives certainty, stability, and engenders trust in trading partners.
The article is entirely wrong, completely misunderstands what's happening here, and why.
Private companies don't subsidize. Private companies invest.
This isn't the end of some libertarian utopian dream of innovation, but rather uber's continued blatant disregard of local laws.
The goal is to kill the competition and treat their drivers and customers like crap in doing so.
Then again, if the argument is that in a pure libertarian system consumers would drive out bad actors like this, I'm not sure that this line of thinking would hold. The convenience of a cheap ride would seem to be worth the cost of the seemingly small chance that a user might be assaulted if the world worked this way.
Snip: Transportation authority didn't ban because of job security or localization. It didn't renew Uber license because Uber is not following local authority guidelines.
I'm calling you a liar!
Two options: You provide reputable sources to back this assertion of yours. In which case I will profusely, unconditionally and publicly apologize.
Otherwise my assertion that you're a liar stands.
Note that no English tabloid product, nor anything Breitbart counts as a reputable source in this context.
Translation: if you were from Blighty, you'd know that the previous poster was being sarcastic.
Brexit is UK's "Donald Trump": a manifestation of projected socioeconomic angst in a self-defeating manner that doesn't address inequality at the policy level. It's like suggesting California secede: good luck with trade policies, printing a currency, forming a military and so on. It's civilizational "reorg" churn that accomplishes nothing, eg, mob nonsense. If people collectively possessed integrity and moral courage, they would directly call out what they felt was inequity instead of scapegoating this group, that trade arrangement or a startup.
