Getting Over Taxis
medium.com
medium.com
(1) When I get off a plane in a strange city my phone doesn't always work, and if it does I probably don't get data. The taxi stand outside an airport is convenient, identifiable, and works reliably no matter the state of my phone.
(2) I don't want a ride from someone in their personal car. I want an easily-recognizable vehicle driven by a person licensed by some sort of local authority. I want a visible number or other identifier on the outside of the vehicle.
(3) Professional detachment. Uber rides often take an overly-friendly tone. I like chatting with drivers, but I often don't want to chat. Maybe I'm on the phone with a client, maybe I have a client traveling with me. I don't want to feel bad or be down-rated if I don't act friendly.
(4) Local knowledge. A professional cabbie will, within a few weeks, develop some serious local knowledge about streets, hotels and restaurants. With Uber drivers it is hit and miss.
When it comes to business travel, especially international travel, cabs still provide value uber cannot match.
Presumably you mean that because there's government, it's arbitrary and likely fraudulent. I'm not sure how that's worse than Alice showing up with a card swiper, or showing up with Bob's card swiper, but... whatever.
> ridesharing services where driver and customer are considered peers.
The cognitive dissonance here makes my head hurt. What exactly is the person "sharing" their car with you?
The "serious knowledge" is the stuff that lets them get you through recent construction to the recently-renamed hotel where Corporate booked you.
My "plan": http://business.telus.com/en/business/bc/business-travel-roa...
If you land at SFO you have an array of transportation services. Taxis are still there. You can take BART. There are shuttles. You can rent a car.
For most people Uber is better than a taxi.
As for airports not optimizing transport for Canadians, airports should do exactly that. Any city wanting to be a business hub should indeed try to accommodate international travelers. And they all do. If canadians have a rough time at a US airport, I think it safe to assume the Chinese, Japanese, Arab or Indian business traveler will have it worse.
Car rental is not an option for many international travelers. Licensing issues mean most will never bother. BART is great, but it isn't for the uninitiated traveler on a dark night. The routing is not intuitive. And it is really loud, not a pleasant experience after a long flight.
Self driving cars will be magical and transformative but we don't really know what will happen. It may end up requiring a human co-driver to take over in case the algorithm misbehaves. So I do hope that self driving cars will come with regulation that mandates the presence of a licensed driver with ability to take over the manual controls.
Update: Here is a small sample of articles about "non-hackable" systems getting hacked...
[1] Nuclear power plants: http://www.dailydot.com/politics/industrial-ethernet-switche.... [2] air-gapped computers: http://www.wired.com/2015/07/researchers-hack-air-gapped-com.... [3] autopilots: http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475081/cybercrime-hack.... reply
Similarly, it's easy to not have door unlocking connected to hackable software.
In general, I find hacking worries unwarranted.
Sure, cars from car manufacturers were hacked because car manufacturers are bad at writing software and are bad at security.
Google is good at software and they are top-notch on security. They have been fighting hacking of their web services from day one, they employ world class cryptographers and security researchers. They are also aware that if their cars were hacked, it would be a very bad PR.
Requiring licensed driver would significantly hamper adoption of self-driving cars not to mention cutting off people who need such service the most (e.g. old people who are no longer fit for driving; disabled people; drunk people etc.)
> Google prototypes have a big, red stop button that,
> I assume, takes precedence over hackable software.
Instead it's probably synonymous with giving the software a "stop now" command. I.e. it would know to safely pull over to the side of the road, or take the next off-ramp in that situation.
So if someone had hacked the driving software that could be overridden.
I do think idibidiart is being overly alarmist. Self-driving cars don't have to be perfect, and there could certainly be malicious hacking incidents, but they're highly likely to outnumber the cases where people die now due to imperfect human drivers.
Nuclear Power Stations are hackable [1]. Even machines without any connection to a network are hackable [2] And autopilots have been hacked [3], too.
When will the masses wake up and realize that "security" is just a concept. Not an infallible reality.
[1] http://www.dailydot.com/politics/industrial-ethernet-switche...
[2] http://www.wired.com/2015/07/researchers-hack-air-gapped-com...
[3] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475081/cybercrime-hack...
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2496667/cyberwarfare/fa...
Not a single airplane accident caused by hacking.
Doesn't that undermine your chicken little attitude to the dangers of car hacking?
If you want to kill someone in a car, buy a gun, wait for him to get in the car and then shoot him.
There are plenty of ways to do serious harm that are easier than becoming a hacking mastermind that can willy-nilly penetrate Google's security.
2 results. Right at the beginning. Nothing more.
The main problem with Uber in Germany was the insurance. Fix that. Try again.
I think there is a market now but that one will be gone fast as soon as we have the AI driving.
[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Führerschein_zur_Fahrgastbeför...
Their main goal of Uber is to replace all their drivers with automated cars.
As a consumer that means a lot of good things but not for those who was depending on it as an income. There is a dishonesty either to other people or to themselves that I simply don't get here.
Personally I'd far rather see the dream of automation meaning people are no longer obliged to work. I believe we'd see massive improvements to quiality of life in so many ways, from the person who no longer has to break their back emptying bins to put food on the table, to the improved service in numerous industries where the people working are doing so out of choice. I also believe we could see massive leaps in art and science as people who previously spent their time working jobs they didn't want can dedicate it to something they're passionate about. How many great novels have been sacrificed in order to put food on the table?
No doubt some people in this world will choose to spend the time they would have been working drinking beer and watching TV. That's fine by me, supporting them is a price id I'd be willing to pay for people having the opportunity to do what they really love.
What I am critiquing is the defence of Uber as if its somehow making it easier for drivers to make money. It's instituting competition between the drivers which is great for consumers.
But it's doing so to pay for getting rid of same drivers. Not just sometimes in the future, but actively right now.
No love for traditional taxis but as little love for companies who only take the best from hiring people as freelancers and the best from treating them as employees.
Yeah, that's why we're in favor of Uber.
2. You're categorically insane if you think taxi drivers will survive the arrival of driverless cars. Until that happens, the author's points may well hold.
I don't care who gets a better deal either I just know that both solutions of upsides and downsides thats it. Coming out in defence for one or the other based on what O'reily does is where it goes wrong.
2) Why the strawman? Where did I ever claim such a thing?
If you're willing to admit that both services are affected by automation, then your point about Uber welcoming automation is a red herring.
Moreover, the article is a rebuttal to an argument that says "Uber = bad, because it treats the drivers unfairly". As such, evidence to the contrary invalidates that argument, even if one doesn't particularly care about driver pay.
- Uber drivers can't hire people to drive for them.
- Uber drivers can't decide which car they want to use.
- Uber drivers can't decide the price they are charging their customers.
- Uber discourages tipping.
- Uber doesn't pay for their healthcare.
Thats not a clear case of anything. Thats the opening of an important debate because it points to some underlying issues with society and technology that needs to be debated much more seriously than simply yelling "Luddite fallacy" and what people otherwise like to brush aside any concern about the speed of technology vs. societies ability to cope with it.
Consider it the royal "we", if it makes you feel better.
I don't mind progress, I use Uber.
But to claim that it's somehow better for the drivers than taxis when the aim is to completely replace drivers is simply missing the problem.
Candle makers had plenty of other industries to go into back then and previously societies had the opportunity to re-educate they new generations.
Problem is that this phase is picking up leaving more and more without any chance of re-educating themselves.
I have nothing against progress, lets just not claim that it's somehow better for the drivers.
For us as consumers sure, but not for the drivers.
If you have to destroy the world and crush employees to increase your net worth, that's just how the game is played.
And, driverless cars, if they do happen, will happen whether uber or lyft were around or not.
So in the mean time, having them around is better for drivers.
The drivers are hired as freelancers but treated like employers.
How is that better for the drivers?
I've been taking a fair number of Uber rides lately, and the fares are both much lower for me, and much higher for them, because Uber gives them a considerably higher cut than they would get working for a taxi company. Owner-operators might be a different matter.
If taxi service is such a vital component of transportation infrastructure, then the solution is to make it public. This would address all her concerns about driver exploitation while also preventing another company from undercutting the established infrastructure.
If you're in favor of private taxi services, it's hard to be against Uber/Lyft.