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This is what happens when things are unregulated. But oh, regulation causes high fees/cost, and so it's ok to ignore! Until of course, when it isn't.

Isn't the point of elahd's story that Uber/Lyft drivers are already regulated (particularly) extensively in NYC, but that the regulations (at least in that instance) are ineffective?

Yeah, exactly. Parent comment is just someone who wants to believe that regulation is inherently good and productive.

I do, up to a point.

My experience with "sharing economy" taxi companies is that they really, truly, do not care about their drivers or their customers. It's a free for all where customers and drivers are basically left to sort things out themselves. IMO, this is where regulation comes in. In a city like New York, taxis are a part of our public infrastructure -- like buses, subways, etc. There should be baseline service guarantees set by transit regulators and adequate funding set aside for enforcement.

Day after day the people at these companies are working tirelessly to produce a system with as close to zero defects as possible. That's the only solution that cares about both riders and drivers in a two-sided market. Every conflict between those two sides can really only have solutions where one side wins and the other side loses.

Compare the number of defects per 100,000 rides in their solution to the one they replaced, and you'll quickly see that they care very much about both riders and drivers, because there isn't any revenue without both sides of the market.

Furthermore, we're all on a hedonic treadmill here. The better these services get, the more intolerable we find the most minor of inconveniences. In the long run, everyone is winning in the free market: riders drivers and TNSs, even as our perception changes to notice new details that can be better.

> The better these services get

The trend seems to go the other way.

Years back small perks such as free bottled water and plugged-in cables to charge your phone while you ride were not that uncommon with drivers striving to get to the 5-star ratings.

Today getting a car that doesn't smell too much and has enough trunk space to transport two luggage bags (not a completely unreasonable expectation in case of an airport pick-up) is close to a miracle.

My pet theory is that early successful drivers quit after running their numbers (that included costs on maintenance, wear and tear, extra tires, insurance that suddenly tripled when the car went way above the typical 12,500 annual miles), the current drivers looking to milk the system for as much as possible before the music stops.

You're pretty naive to think that the regulators or taxi companies care about you or the drivers anymore than Uber does.

> It's a free for all where customers and drivers are basically left to sort things out themselves.

And yet it works _better_ than when things are regulated, and people seem to prefer it.

It sounds like the regulations could be enforced better, but it does not sound _that_ ineffective. Lyft was fined $1000.

No it's not. He stated that he went to the regulator and complained and they dismissed it.

He actually received remedy from his credit card, which is not a regulatory requirement but rather the free market at work.

To be fair the T&LC, the investigators assigned to my case were very easy to work with and eager to help. Ultimately, the decision was up to a T&LC judge.

The process was pretty opaque. From what I gathered, every complainant is assigned an internal investigator/advocate. If the department determines that the complaint has merit, the complaint goes before a regulatory judge who has limited authority to issue fines, revoke licenses, etc.

The system almost worked.

Is there really an effective market in credit cards' willingness to refund? Aren't credit cards preferred mostly because regulation require them to refund the user in a lot of cases?

(Also, what's with that weird US regulation about a purchase having to be "within my home state or within 100 miles of my home" to be eligible for some credit card protections?)

The credit card market is a huge money maker and incredibly competitive. Have you seen the bonuses that US banks offer?

Yes, but I don't think they're competing on refund policy. It sure isn't what's in large print in the ads, and besides, the policy is mostly dictated to them by the credit card network (which isn't so competitive, it's largely a Visa/MC duopoly) and by legislation (which isn't at all competitive).

AmeRican Express certainly is.

What? Of course they are. If I felt like my credit card didn't have my back on the chargeback policy, then I'd be far more likely to go to a competitor. It may not be what's on the ads, but you do realize customer retention is a huge part of competition, not just customer acquisition.

Regulating behavior is completely different from regulating entry on market.

Besides, I fail to see how the GP wasn't victim of fraud. He may have better luck if he went to the police instead of a commercial regulator.

Not really. Let's say Taxi authority requires $20,000 bond from every driver to cover potential fines. Now you have drivers who can't afford to post the bond, you've reduced supply and increased prices.

Most any regulation is going to have some effect on supply, it's why they should always pass a cost/benefit analysis before implementation.

I meant directly regulating the supply. Some regulations are good, others are clearly bad. And telling "therefore shall only exist 2k taxis on this city" is clearly on the bad category.

BALONEY. You'd have insurance companies putting up the bonds for the drivers in exchange for a very reasonable and minor fee. I had to put up a several thousand dollar bond when I became a notary public many years ago in another state (I'm no longer one) and it cost under $50 to have a bond posted by some insurance company.

You were the one who brought up bonds though. No need for that, you can enforce regulations just fine without them. Your TLC driver's license can function as a bond -- if you don't comply with rules, suspend it.

I'd be shocked if you went to NYPD with this and they _didn't_ respond by just redirecting you to the T&LC.

Regulation causes high costs when it artificially constrains a market to a small number of cronies. That's the problem with regulation.

Regulation is great when it's unbiased and not just a way to enrich cronies, and does what it's designed to do. It just seems that it's extremely rare to see such effective regulation in the US. In European countries, it seems to be far more common.

This is happening nite and more and in fact happened to me last night at SFO, except instead of the driver just telling me to cancel, he made up a story about being in an accident. So I took a taxi, waited him out and he finally cancelled.

These services are turning into gypsy cab, where the full time people are as bad as the worst scammy taxi guys, new people don't know what they are doing and every once in a while you have someone who knows their area and isn't trying to scam but they seem to be doing it just for fun.

I'm back in regular taxis more often than not anymore

I wouldn't say the $1000 dollar fine was a waste of time. It seems like a good result (not for you in particular, but for taxi users in general).

Yes, but... they were fined for failure to appear, not for any wrongdoing, so no precedent is set (if that's even a concept in T&LC court).

That's interesting. They must, overall, not be getting many complaints then? Or is $1,000 less than what any lawyer to represent them would've cost them?

> I've been in standoffs with Uber/Lyft drivers where the driver calls or texts me saying they don't want to pick me up for whatever reason and demand that I cancel the hail.

I've had them try this, whenever they do, I tell them they can either come or cancel but if they don't choose, I have a competing app on my phone and I'll just call another ride.

This is so irritating and happens to me often, I just don't have the time to follow up with it like the parent did. This coupled with the workplace politics and mistreatment of women as well as the lack of select or black car service at my client site has led me to just rent a car from Hertz for the week. It's been enjoyable to be honest, the only thing is I can't work while I'm in the car, which isn't really an issue for small trips. It's also a little harder to make calls, but I'll live with it. Maybe I'll give lyft ago but it seems like the same issues are there too.

It's pervasive. I can go on about fraud and sketchy drivers with all of the ride sharing services.

My fiance requested a Gett ride to JFK from midtown Manhattan for the two of us. The driver checked us into the cab while he was still en route to pick us up -- a very circuitous route -- accumulating ~$20 in travel fees. He kept calling to make excuses about why he was delayed. When the driver finally picked us up, he assured us that he'd reach out to Gett to have the additional charges removed.

Two weeks later, no update. We reported the issue to Gett. They not only refused to issue a refund, but they banned my fiance from the service!

She ended up requesting a chargeback for the full fare -- not just the additional charges -- which Visa granted. We don't want to bother with the T&LC again -- neither of us have the time.

That's just ridiculous I won't even bother with that app. Client service should be #1 always.

> I submitted the driver's text messages to the T&LC as evidence and eventually got a phone hearing -- Lyft and the driver were required to appear in person. Lyft failed to appear and got a $1,000 fine. The driver showed up but was found not responsible for lack of evidence. It was a complete waste of time.

Any explanation for the "lack of evidence" piece? Seems like the record of text messages would cover that.

Or is this a dispute as to who exactly is responsible, i.e. the driver or Lyft?

> Any explanation for the "lack of evidence" piece?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pasguqsrziz4uul/TLC%20Decision.pdf...

The hearing officer seemed totally unfamiliar with the mechanics of both of ride sharing and texting. He fundamentally misunderstood the nature of my complaint and the origin/context of the text message.

Sounds like an incompetent regulator is what we should be complaining about and I'd put having an incompetent regulator at being strictly worse than no regulator because our taxes are wasted paying for that regulator. Our time is wasted dealing with it. And we deprive the free market of coming up with a solution.

Fascinating. I just read your PDF in full. My impression/suspicion is that the decision author DOES fundamentally understand texting, ride sharing, and your complaint, but carefully feigned the right misunderstandings (eg insisting that since the driver's text was proxied through Lyft, it had to be assumed that that was "Lyft talking" even though that makes little sense) was able to swing the outcome in a way to protect the driver and put all the blame on Lyft.

It's just intuition so maybe I'm wrong, but it's interesting if true, if the T&LC has a bias towards protecting drivers. I can imagine many ways that might have come about

Wow that's egregious. One thing I'm curious about -- what leverage does the driver have when trying to strongarm you into cancelling? Why do you end up giving in?

> I eventually gave in and canceled the request.

Presumably the inability to request again until they are dropped off or the request cancelled?

Their leverage is that you can't request another ride until either the rider or driver cancels the current request.

I was late to work and wanted to request another Lyft driver -- Uber was surging. After I canceled the hail, Lyft starting surging, as well. I ended up taking the subway to work.