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Comment by piyush_soni | Hacker News Reader

Recently, Indian government led by PM Modi declared their plan to sell only electric cars by 2030 as well [0]. Both are great examples of how technology is trying to fix technology's side effects.

[0] : http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/03/technology/future/india-elec...

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And undoing with two horrible policies:-

1. Creating a taxpayer funded Uber competitor, all to break up a monopoly. Looks like they don't know concept of a regulator. https://qz.com/1037837/indias-uber-ola-cab-wars-could-have-a...

2. Banning self driving cars, because India needs jobs.

While I find the ban on self driving cars absurd (and something I hope they'll take back when self driving cars become more common), I don't find anything wrong with a government created competitor of Uber and Ola. Why not, if it eventually benefits the consumers? Also, regulation doesn't increase government's revenues. I don't think the idea is bad by itself, it all depends on the implementation now.

Seriously? Like they run all the existing services. What we want less government involvement not more.

India has glorious public money burning corporations like Air India, BSNL, DoorDarshan, HMT why not add one more?

Air India is going to be sold off soon. HMT is still alive? Does it just exist as an accounting exercise, because I don't see any HMT products.

Microsoft has monopoly in a market. US/EU response: anti-trust regulations.

Uber/Ola have monopoly in a market. Indian response: burn taxpayer money.

This is how license raj is created. It will not create revenue but burn money like Air India ($8 Billion worth of taxpayer money burned), OFB, SAIL, BSNL. India has a long list of loss making PSUs. This won't be any different. Uber hasn't earned any profit yet, how will Indian government earn any?

100% agreed. This is just stupidity. The word "socialist" in our constitution never ceases to fuck things up.

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