Naive thought since I'm not familiar with the situation, but since Uber/Lyft could simply raise rates it seems to me this is political posturing on their part to see if they can force the city to back down.<p>What am I missing here?
To me the taxis were like an entrenched monopoly. Then competition tried to disrupt the system, but after lawsuits and regulation pushing up costs/prices on ride sharing, taxis will come back to fill the void. Full circle it seems. I can't help but feel this is exactly what the taxi industry wants.
Uber and Lyft pulling out of Minneapolis is a good thing. Why? Because those companies are in California. That means the profits are leaving Minnesota and going to California.<p>Sure, a Taxi company operating in Minneapolis could be California owned and the profits would get funneled back to California too.<p>What would be better is if locally owned Taxi companies created their own ride sharing apps. Or even better, if the drivers themselves were able to create some kind of co-op company that managed the ride sharing application for them.
It's troubling that these business models aren't viable unless you pay the drivers less than $15 an hour. Especially with no benefits. That is very little these days.
There are only 39 licensed cab drivers in the city (as opposed to 1900 drivers 10 years ago). The sudden crash bang will be interesting as ride-sharing has become such a part of city life. I'm not familiar with what wage Uber currently pays their drivers. Leaving every city that demands a minimum wage, can't be their long-term plan... can it?
[dupe]<p>Some more discussion last week when this was news: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39711041">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39711041</a><p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718043">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39718043</a>
Why does Lyft co-operate with Uber here instead of taking this market for themselves? Seems like they should free load off of Uber's willingness to sacrifice business to politically posture.
Seems to me like an opportunity for new entrants into the market. Granted… Uber and Lyft have generally been money losers over all. More folks can/should take public transit, and prices should reflect the actual social cost of these services. There’s no reason ordinary people should be subsidizing billionaire VCs efforts to disrupt the social fabric and exploit the commons by further eroding use of non-car options.