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this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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What if you, the customer, are a poor person? Is Uber going to subsidize a bus pass for you to charter one of Uber's buses to their job?
From my own experience, if you're poor, you use a regular bus. If you want to get somewhere faster, you pay more and catch a shuttle. If you want comfort, you pay even more and get a taxi. And all modes of transport are always full to the brim. The more the merrier, always.
But…that’s our point. Uber taking over bus routes would ultimately void that choice. Public transportation is a public service. Letting a VC-funded for-profit company weasel their way into that space is never going to not fuck poor people. It’ll fuck everyone, but it’ll make “public transportation” unaffordable. And, really, when you’re poor, “if you want to get somewhere faster” isn’t really an option. That’s…the thing with being poor. You don’t have the extra money to spend to catch a shuttle and you don’t have the luxury of paying for comfort. Not to mention, even in the best case scenario, where busses would keep their existing schedule and routes (though the likelihood of this happening is slim) and we’d just get more busses? It’d clog the system, ultimately slowing bus routes.
So, no. Not “the more the merrier” when it comes to private companies elbowing their way into public service, and especially not when we’re talking about fuckin traffic.
It works just fine elsewhere.
Like where? Kids school lunches? Oh, no…wait…a bunch of literal children have school lunch debt. Well, maybe family visits for prisoners? Oh, no, they’ve now barred people from visiting inmates and a private company now forces them to pay to do a shitty video chat. Okay, well maybe the American healthcare system? Nope. I guess that one’s killing a whole bunch of people and drowning families in debt for simple procedures and charging people $80 for a Tylenol and charging mothers for letting them hold their own fucking child.
I’m sure there’s a great example where a private company is doling out their services at a loss as a public good, right?
Are you high?
Hell yeah, bruv.
But you didn’t answer my question. In what instance has a private, for-profit company gotten involved in a public good, and operated at a loss to keep that public service affordable and accessible to all? You said it’s worked before, I’m genuinely curious.
You see, I'm originally from Latvia. And back there only major bus and train routes are operated by the state. All the smaller and inter city routes are operated by private companies, sometimes at a loss. And sometimes cheaper than tax funded services.
But there's another example - private train companies across the EU. Just check some basic routes like Verona to Venezia or Barcelona to Madrid and you'll see that all the cheaper options are from private companies.
The state-run services are never cheap (even when tax funded), never modern and never reliable. It's just the way public transport works.
That’s…not a very good example.
The EU has the Public Service Obligation law. So it’s an agreement to keep the rail routes that went private under obligation to be a public good, where, yes they do give private companies a monopoly on a certain route, but often the lines and sometimes even cars are owned by the government. But they impose regulations and price caps.
So, again, it’s the state shoveling off the cost of running the day to day operations, while empowering a company to take the reins under pretty strict guidelines because the service is public. They’re given subsidies to operate and it still saves the government money, as well as assuring the lines that aren’t profitable enough for the state to run on their own are still running under government contract with private companies.
So…not the same at all.
There's no monopoly on the route, what are you talking about?
lol because that’s what this conversation is about. Excuse my omission of the word “could,” but the point remains. It’s not a good example. If anything, you’re kinda proving my point. It takes a special case, heavily regulated, in-the-public’s-best-interest situation for the government to dump off a money losing route onto a contractor instead of losing the route entirely—as long as you cap the price and force the private company to operate entirely on your terms, often with your equipment. But Uber doesn’t even operate with their equipment or the government’s. It’s the driver’s. I would assume Uber would provide the busses here, which goes against their business model. So I can’t see them investing in busses, and then operating nice and cheap so everyone can afford to ride.
Two studies showing ride sharing companies contribute to the struggling of public transportation systems in a given city.
But, look. I can understand where our difference in trust levels is coming from. I’m from the US. Where private companies never don’t fuck you over the worst they possibly can. It must be nice to come from a place where you can have faith that some guardrails have been put in place on private greed. But looking at the places Uber (a notoriously shitty company) has chosen to implement these “Uber shuttles,” they seem to be avoiding places where the government has that power (or desire). Uber’s entire existence is a ‘fuck you’ to poor people. “Oh you need a job? Well…you got a car? ‘Cause do we have the job for you. [evil laughter].” Their big “disruption” in transportation was getting drivers to foot the bill on the transportation costs. How…revolutionary.
My point is, where they’re doing this, their entire company history, their business model, all point to the fact that this will not be good for people. It will cost the drivers and trick them into paying for their own job, it will hurt the rider and the public transportation system. There is not a single trusting bone in my body when it comes to a tech company trying to “disrupt” some new facet of our lives.
What are you talking about? Have you ever been to Europe? Do you understand that your studies and wall texts are irrelevant?
You’re really trying to divert this conversation away from the actual topic. Reread what I said, I edited it trying to strike a more conciliatory tone and explain that I see where our difference in opinion is coming from. I really don’t feel like arguing further about this.
No, you're trying to divert. My point was that private public transport works and it works well and there's proof for that. Everything you say is irrelevant to the topic.
lol k
I'm thinking your job would be the one to do that. A lot of companies subsidize transit passes, the problem is usually there aren't enough routes, so employees don't use them.
The hospitals in my nearby city have their own BRT which is open to public use, and joined to the city's ticketing system. It shuttles between them and various key locations, and is of course wholly subsidized for the intended users.
Despite being the only BRT here it pretty much goes everywhere it should, skipping the usual traffic, and as a result gets a lot of use.
If the users were limited to the regular transportation I think they would just all drive - while there are a lot of routes here they're not entirely pleasant to use IMO and almost always get stuck in traffic
Exactly. Mass transit responds to what people say they want (wider roads), whereas hospitals and large companies respond to costs (i.e. cost of more parking vs a shuttle). I'm not saying transit should be privatized, I'm saying private transit filling in the gaps of mass transit is generally a good thing.
Reducing public transportation is not a solution to fight poverty.
Uber is not public transportation.
And that is the problem with this idea.
Why? Most of our businesses are private. The stores you go are private, the taxi you take are private, the cinema, the airlines, hell even electric and water companies are private. What so special about Uber that it has to be publicly owned? We do have public busses, this will be on top of that.
Name an industry where a private corporation competes with a local government monopoly?
Pretty much every industry in a developed country. Every decent country will have private and social healthcare which compete with each other. It will also have a whole range of private and government owned transport options. And oil rich countries like Norway will have both public and private oil companies.
You might have a point with this one. In fact, there are a ton of private companies already successfully running public transport systems. I think most people (myself included) just wouldn't trust a company like Uber for this kind of job. I guess in the meantime we can be happy for (potentially) more bus routes but still weary.
By making something private, IMO you're revoking its status as an inherent right, and restricting access to only those who can afford it.
IMO the primary issue with this specifically venture funded stuff is that it'll undercut the competition for as long as possible, and then hike the prices once the competition has ceased to exist. When other recurring sources of funding are available, as it usually is with public services, this kind of thing is much less of an issue
It is. Just like taxi.
It is privately owned public transportation. Same as taxi. Same as supermarkets and malls being privately owned public places. And some Muslims and parks.
😦
OMG. Museums + autocorrect = Muslims.
no bus company subsidizes passes, local governments do
Local governments... you mean the thing Uber hates and does everything they can to defy?
oh yeah they would hate for local governments to give them money
If that means proper regulations (as it should) I bet they would hate it.
they dont have to follow regulations if they dont take government subsidies?
Those would be different kind of regulations. Not just 'you need functioning brakes' kind, but also 'you must serve this route that hardly anyone uses and and you cannot make any extra money from'. Or 'no extra fees, even where some people would pay them'.