Ride share service/tech darling/social media punching bag Uber got into trouble again during the early stages of the Sydney hostage crisis by jacking up fares to 4x base rate, and Matt Yglesias reminds us that this is a feature of Uber, not a bug and wants to know what the big deal is.
Uber’s stubborn refusal to conform in this regard is, in a way, admirable since it gives us all something to talk and think about. Can they make it work?
One possible solution would be to copy the major consumer-facing industries that do impose variable pricing — hotels and airlines. The way these companies generally manage to get away with it is through a massive lack of transparency. You can’t look up “the price” of a United flight from Newark to Chicago, and then see whether the price at any particular time reflects a surge multiple of the base or not. You need to go online, try to book a flight, and then just see what they want to charge. Hotels operate the same way.
In both cases, the actual price-determining formulae are much more complicated than Uber’s surge multiples. Consumers don’t exactly love these industries, but by making it unclear when prices have spiked, airlines manage to get away without storms of social media outrage over spiking prices.
Many retailers accomplish something similar by making the “official” price ridiculously high, and then offering various discounts. At JC Penny, the question is whether your shirt will be 25 percent off or just 15 percent off, a non-transparent framing of surge pricing that people seem to like better.
So really, Uber’s problem is that their just too transparent in their desire to charge whatever the market will allow. Hell, Yggy loves this idea so much he wants to see it elsewhere.
Popular hatred of demand-responsive pricing is in many ways a huge challenge for transportation policy. That’s because most wonky analysts think the government should be acting more like Uber, while most people seem to want the government to force Uber to stop acting like Uber.
Rather than under-pricing street parking and leading to constant shortages and fights,cities should be charging market rates for scarce space. This would both make it easier to find parking, and generate a big new stream of revenue that could be used to boost incomes (through lower sales taxes) or increase public service levels. Similarly, traffic jams could be made a thing of the past through congestion pricing on roads. Here, again, demand-responsive pricing would not only help address a specific problem, but unleash a gusher of useful revenue.
These are good ideas and well-known in the policy community, but they’re rarely implemented. That’s presumably for the same reason it’s hard, but not necessarily expensive, to get a table at a popular restaurant on the weekend — politicians fear the public backlash.
Alas, if only we consumers were all smart enough to see how awesome Uber’s model is, and how the relentless pursuit of profit is in fact awesome for everybody here on planet Earth Fereginar. Look, the only thing people seem to hate more than Uber is government acting like Uber, and deservedly so. Once government becomes surge pricing and rent seeking all day all of the time, it’s no longer government, it’s tragicomic bureaucracy. The backlash might even be justified when people figure out that having to fork over “congestion pricing” or take the long way home is just another regressive scheme to stick it to those damn poors.
Besides, if Uber’s the best model, won’t the markets decide? Man, this is silly glibertarian nonsense, even for Team Vox. Hell, let’s have surge pricing on everything: water, pork chop sandwiches, thinkpieces, everything.
It’ll be great cause it’s transparent, wheeeeeeeee!
Ruckus
Your concern is noted.
And very much appreciated.
Inconsistent rent gouging is just that. I see it the same way as Ferguson now going after increased traffic citations as a way to pay for it’s shitty service.
The tag line for the century.
We fuck you over and you will like it.
Botsplainer
The glibertarian argument for price gouging during natural disasters is similar.
The error is always the same – they make the mistake of assuming that the utility of a good or service is best set by the price that the well-off in a disaster area can pay. They never see the utility in the provision of the good or service itself.
pete
You show them a reductio ad absurdum … and they just keep going
ranchandsyrup
to be fair, Yggie thought it was cool and good when the Bangladeshi garment factory burned down and killed workers because the market benefitted from the lack of safety for workers. so he’s consistent in his views.
schrodinger's cat
Has MY’s spelling improved since his Atlantic days?
Yatsuno
Is it the fifth minute yet? Or is Matty Y an exception to that because the bullshit falls out right away?
jl
I think this is a case where the ‘interesting’ Yglesias does not know what he is talking about. Though I don’t know enough about how Uber operates to know for sure.
The idea of jacking up prices taxi prices in a disaster or crisis would lead to more efficiency if the increased prices lead to increased supply of transportation to match increased demand. If Uber rakes off most of the increased fares, then I do not see how this would increase Uber transportation supply, since the drivers are not seeing much of the increased revenue per ride.
What the (I think) very confused Yglesias is saying is that stock outs are inefficient in a crisis because people with ready available cash to finance their revised purchase plans lose out. But jacking up prices to distribute a fixed supply is great because the supplier can rake off giant rents and that is more efficient somehow.
I don’t get it. An economist named Jack Hirschliefer was a very much more accomplished and deeper thinking person with glibetarian impulses, and he analyzed the efficiency of flexible pricing during disasters many years ago. Read him, not Yglesias, on the topic.
japa21
I have no problem checking airfares without trying to book a flight. I can even put in different dates to see if there is an increase at certain times.
Same with hotel rates.
Matt must have someone do that stuff for him.
dedc79
I don’t like Yglesias and I don’t like Uber. BUT, I’ve also had the experience of trying to find a city cab in bad weather only to find out there are hardly any out on the road because they’ve done the math on their fares and decided they’re better off staying at home. IF (and this is a big IF), fares had to go that high in order for drivers to be motivated to go pick people up, then I think it makes sense to raise the fares. Uber is just one option, not the only option. Of course, when it comes down to it, if the “good” being provided is to get people out of a neighborhood where a terrorist act is going on, then cars are an awful way to do that.
jl
@ranchandsyrup:
” Yggie thought it was cool and good when the Bangladeshi garment factory burned down and killed workers because the market benefitted from the lack of safety for workers. ”
And pretty ignorant and wrongheaded on history. By his logic, the US should have really lagged in economic growth in its early years, since it was a developing country with very high, extremely high, wages with insolent and self-entitled working class that shocked and frightened the glibertarian and rent-seeking classes of the day.
FDRLincoln
Don’t insult the Ferengi by comparing them to humans.
Quark: I think I figured out why humans don’t like Ferengi …
Benjamin Sisko: Not now, Quark.
Quark: The way I see it, humans used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We’re a constant reminder of a part of your past you’d like to forget.
Benjamin Sisko: Quark, we don’t have time for this.
Quark: You’re overlooking something. Humans used to be a lot worse than Ferengi: slavery, concentration camps, interstellar war. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We’re nothing like you… we’re better.
Keith G
Uber is a private company offering services to a rather specific customer base. They can charge what the hell they want to. If they want to experiment with surge pricing, I think it is good to see small scale experiments like this play out. They aren’t being subsidized anymore than a private delivery company that collects a healthy surcharge on overnight or same day deliveries.
I know that there are certain groups/businesses that folks here like to thump… just because…and Uber does have some problems with their process, but this ain’t one of them.
Shakezula
So do serial killers.
No, tell a lie. All of us don’t think and talk about Uber because in the grand scheme of things, their money grubbing is behind the pale. Serial killers are far more interesting. At any rate, MY is a sad little man.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer: It’s also magical market thinking, which of course any cursory study of economics would dispel quickly, which I guess is why libertarians, when they read economics at all, stick to the heretics or commentaries on heretics, or convince themselves that the all-knowing market is always right even when it is not, so if the price falls below the cost of production the market is telling us that there are too many humans and we should start culling the herd.
In other words, they are acolytes of a vicious, barbaric, and ignorant mystery cult, as one can tell by the shovel-shaped dent in their crania.
different-church-lady
I just want my entire life to stop being like a guessing game that’s impossible to win. Is that so wrong?
Fuck you, Uber. Fuck you, airlines. Fuck you, hotels, insurance companies, wireless providers…
scav
May all their significent others implement the transparent policy of instantly putting out based on the most immediate local top bid, especially in these high holy days of xmas consumerism. There can be bidding wars under the tree along with the stocking-content tranche resale markets.
I also generally wonder what their going rate is for selling out the country as well as their loved ones.
Seanly
Matt Yglesias needs to be the recipient of so much more throat-punching than he likely receives. Throw his BFF Megan McArdle in for some throat-punching too just to make sure they get the message.
In other douchebro news, I am glad that over-rated, over-entitled Manziel looked like one of the worst QB’s ever. Kudos for the Bengals defense for mocking his “show me the money” sign.
OnkelFritze
@ranchandsyrup: And that was when I kicked his page out off my bookmarks and never read him again. Such an asshole.
Belafon
JC Penny tried to end this, and customers rewarded them by staying away. People like to think they are getting a deal.
Another industry that has done something similar is home Air Conditioning. Try finding out how much it will cost to replace your A/C unit without calling one of the companies. What’s even worse is trying to find a part so you can repair one yourself.
different-church-lady
@Botsplainer: Actually, the mistake is more fundamental: as they sit there having their big thoughts in the safety of their own homes, they forget that in a humanitarian crisis market considerations ought to not even factor into the decision making. If Uber is run by Ferengi, then the gibertarians are the Vulcans.
ruemara
I kinda enjoy when liberal icons show the feet of clay. It reminds me to read, but verify. Which tends to not make me officially liberal to some but whatevs.
Another Holocene Human
@jl:
Which of course is not how shit works. In fact, regulated prices often are better at stimulating “market magic” increased supply through the wonders of avoiding transportation regulation during crises, you may have heard terms such as “jitney” (a reference to the standard price) and “gypsy cab” (if I knew a non-ethnic term for this I would use it). Unlike Uber which is just new frontiers of worker-as-contractor (thanks GWB), this is real ridesharing–the volunteer cabby pulls up to bus stops or taxi stands, charges the same fare as a bus, and takes as many fares as will fit to the same location … another version (more scam now) is to solicit fares at intercity bus stations, promise a cut rate fare and take the mark on a wild ride.
During the LA transit strike it didn’t take long for neighbors with cars to start impromptu transit services into employment centers. If Matty Y is really interested in this sort of stuff he could start there.
Whatever Uber is doing actually decreases the likelihood that the majority of people will use impromptu services because the price is not transparent. In actual impromptu services the price is already known and agreed upon.
(Another version of impromptu, unlicensed service, this time gov’t winked upon, are the “slug” lines in California and Virginia, where the “fare” is the access to the HOV-3 lane. These may be very organized, with slugs queuing up for the next car to their destination.)
Even for what Matty thinks he’s talking about, transportation at any price, isn’t even the way rich people buy rare shit, they auction it, because that allows pricing to set its own level, also it feeds egos which is very important. Uber just arbitrarily jacks up prices whether supply is limited or not, which is pretty fucked up if you’re a driver … just imagine … once everyone is aware that Uber gouge-prices in certain circumstances they are going to change their behavior and seek cabs and you will have only a few fares. Pretty stupid.
srv
Uber could have drivers wearing the Urban Outfitters Kent State sweatshirt, sponsor Death Race 2015, club baby seals, and I’d still take them over Lyft. Just to make Peter Thiel cry.
That said, I have a great relationship with my particular SF cab company. No, I’m not socially sharing them with you so you hipsters can ruin them.
monkeyfister
I think the easy answer to the Uber Problem is DON’T FUCKING USE UBER!!!
They’ll die, eventually.
different-church-lady
@ruemara:
I still haven’t found any enjoyment in it, but I have learned to view it as inevitable.
Mary G
Haven’t been able to comment much lately, but just wanted to say I am reading and looking at Twitter and you have been on fire lately, Zandar. Really enjoyed all your recent stuff.
different-church-lady
@monkeyfister: That’s a little bit like saying Justin Beiber will go away if you and I never buy any of his albums.
Another Holocene Human
@japa21: But here’s the thing–intercity bus, rail, and air services do demand pricing with the bucket system, which rewards early booking and then, over time, responds to the rate/volume of demand, which is both rational from the carrier’s point of view (you need a mostly full vehicle to make money) and even from the trip taker because they can modify their behavior in predictable ways.
What you’ll see with walk-up pricing is that walk-up (like refundable) is very rigid, and of course a seat is either available or it is not. Carriers have very little capacity to increase the number of seats on the spot. I mean, think about it, in a rational market do you have excess capacity (equipment, fuel, and personnel) lying around making no money? Duh, no. Instead, you hope to hit that sweet spot of just enough service and jacking up the price on the last few seats in the passenger cabin. You’re going to turn people away.
It would actually be worse, the turning people away, if the government didn’t intervene because travelers find this to be, oh I don’t know, annoying.
Ever tried to jump on the NEC during a snowstorm? Good luck getting a fucking ticket, never mind a seat. I mean where does this excess capacity come from? Er…
Buses should be somewhat more demand responsive than air or rail but realistically bus companies only start using trippers when the overflow is a daily issue. They’re rarely prepared to send out spares in a crisis unless there are a couple of days of lead time. I haven’t been this unlucky myself but I’ve heard horror stories about Greyhound stranding passengers in the Midwest when they overbooked. They could probably hire something (from another company) but then they’d lose money so they just tell the lumpencustomers to sleep in the station overnight. Fuckers.
ranchandsyrup
MY is a human version of TNR. “Even the librul Matt Yglesias agrees……” All he requires is a machine blended cream sauce dinner from the mcsudermans and for karma not to get him beat up after leaving said dinner.
jl
Sorry to disappoint Yglesias, but history strongly suggest that people and businesses do not act like Yglesias think they should act in order to act all ‘efficient’, whatever the heck Ygelisas thinks that word means. He sure does not explain… any competent economic analysist, even one with glibertartian leanings needs to explain what they mean by ‘efficient’, it is not a magic word. Also ‘time horizon’ and ‘short-run’ versus ‘long-run’ needs to be discussed.
Link to summary of history says about economic behavior during adversity and emergencies. The abstract is not behind a paywall, though may need an academic connection to get full text.
Public Choice: Papers on Non-market Decision Making
1967, Volume 3, Issue 1, pp 67-83
The peculiar economics of disaster
Howard Kunreuther
It summarizes some of Jack Hirshliefer’s work on the topic (sorry for misspelling his name above)
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01719137
Also, i think Yglesias does nt have a clue about airline and other common carrier pricing and behavior in emergencies. Yglesias discussion of their pricing misses that they are using volume discounts and price discrimination to maximize revenues given customer’s stable demand schedules over varying time horizons. In an emergency, all the demand curves jump around in confusing and unpredictable ways. What the heck they do with unused capacity during an emergency, who knows? They might, just might, take other considerations into account than maximizing $ profit over the very short run of the emergency. Might be a good idea to get on the ol’ ‘puter and maybe spend a few minutes doing a search. maybe the review article above discusses it. Been a long time since I studied it in grad school. But Yglesias is a high class US media pundit, dammit, he don’t need no stinking research.
sharl
Don’t know what’s happening over there now – there are no recent posts – but when Sam Biddle and Nitasha Tiku were at Gawker’s Valleywag, they posted criticisms of Uber quite regularly. And Uber’s management at times does behave evilly to an almost comic-book level. (I can almost imagine them dressed up in Snidely Whiplash costumes twirling their mustaches.)
But Uber has a lot of market opportunity because of bad and unreliable taxi service in many cities, as libertarian types will gladly (and often, correctly) point out. I think I read that Uber was having trouble getting into the Portland OR market because the taxi system is actually running pretty well there; sadly that is often not the case in other U.S. cities.
Having said that, another option would be to, yanno, fix inadequate taxi rules and regulations, and enforce those better rules. But INVISIBLE HAND OF THE FREE MARKET will solve all, and save the day. And libertarian types will go to the mat for Uber, as Zandar notes, e.g., this Twitter exchange between LA Times’ economics blogger Michael Hiltzik (in response to a recent post of his) and some (usually) relatively thoughtful libertarianish types (e.g., lawyer Popehat, Bernard King).
Another Holocene Human
@dedc79:
In the US during a terrorist incident requiring evacuation they are SUPPOSED TO send buses–school buses, city buses–they’re supposed to figure that out before the emergency happens. But yeah.
Also, if I drive a cab and the weather is frightful and I’m a true independent contractor who can choose when I work, it might take a really really high price to entice me to brave really shitty weather not just because of income loss but because of the risk of collision. After all, if you have a time-meter system just taking longer to get places will be compensated for. (A zone system, though, forget about it.)
It’s funny, though, I used to live in the Northeast and take cabs generally when the weather was the absolute worst and never had any trouble getting a cab. So I’m wondering where this anecdata is coming from. Hurricane land? Fuck it, I’d evacuate even if they threatened to fire me.
burnspbesq
Mockery is not the same thing as a response, doofus.
srv
@monkeyfister: There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G:
Bullshit. Like the gypsy cab, they skate on existing structures to “skim the cream”, driving down profits for the legitimate, regulated providers and making sure that transportation won’t fucking be there when people need them, which betrays the purpose of regulating the market to begin with.
They are also taking off the books subsidies in the way that they treat their workers. They force their workers to purchase the vehicles and don’t treat them as workers. When most of the economy has to follow NLRA and they don’t, there’s a rent right there. Plus the rest of society has to pay their independent contractor’s bills. Why should I subsidize Uber? If rich jerks want a car service, pay full price, assholes.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Christ, there’s a lot of misrepresentation of Yglesias in this thread.
@Botsplainer:
No. He is in no way assuming that the utility of a good is set by the price. In fact, that’s the exact opposite of his argument. The utility of the spot doesn’t change with the price. The price is simply set to ensure that the good goes to whoever gains the greatest utility from it. Now, there are some problems with this in that “utility” becomes hard to define in an environment where different people have different capacities to pay. However, keeping prices artificially low does little to help people with low resources but a high utility obtain something, because it’s snapped up by people who get less utility but more wealth from it first.
@ranchandsyrup:
This is not just a misrepresentation, but a loathsome one. The funny thing is that Yglesias’ comment wasn’t morally objectionable; it so banal and obvious that it was boring. Rich countries can afford more worker protections than poor ones can. A place like Bangladesh has such poor labor productivity (a fact that is in no way a moral reflection on the workers; they just have a lot less education and the country has a lot less infrastructure and physical capital) that if it installed American level worker safety regulations, the goods would cost more to produce than they can be sold for and thus, rather than working unsafe jobs, Bangladeshis would be working no jobs. You may not like that observation but that doesn’t prevent it from being true.
@jl:
Except that this isn’t the way it works. The drivers get the extra money from surge pricing and it really does make a difference in the number of drivers that will work. That misunderstanding makes your next two paragraphs irrelevant to this discussion.
@japa21:
Yglesias never said that you couldn’t. He wasn’t talking about the price differential between different travel days not being transparent; the argument was about the price to fly on the same flight on the same day varying depending upon when and how you purchased it. That can make a huge difference in how much you pay to fly or stay in a hotel and it is very hard to figure out.
@different-church-lady:
It’s not wrong at all and guess what? Yglesias agrees with you. Unlike hotels and airlines, Uber states right up front when you are paying surge pricing. Before they will send out your request for a ride you have to click in the box that says that you are okay with paying surge pricing.
Liberty60
I have an idea.
Since we the taxpayers provide the valuable service of property protection and contract enforcement, lets have market pricing of those services.
For entities that really are vulnerable to vandalism and shoplifting, we jack up their property taxes to whatever the market will bear.
When Bank of America needs a lien against a nonpaying homeowner, we ask- “how much is it worth to ya?”
acallidryas
So, during, say rush hour and the work day, the congested metropolitan region in which I live could 1)start charging more for parking, 2) introduce tolls or “congestion pricing” on the roads, and 3)charge a lot more for buses and subway. And this will stop congestion, because I guess we won’t be able to afford going on joy rides like we usually do.
Does he not understand that traffic jams don’t happen because we all want to be on the road at 7:30am on a Monday morning but because we have to? And the market has already dictated that houses closer to the place where all the jobs are costs a hell of a lot more and we can’t afford it?
This reminds me of a libertarian economics teacher I had in college down in Florida who told us that if stores would charge more for water when a hurricane hit then everyone would be able to get water because it would naturally be rationed through. My arguments that since people needed water, they’d probably just pay more to get a lot of water, and he still wouldn’t have gotten some when he went to the store late in the day fell on deaf ears because the Free Market is magic.
Another Holocene Human
@different-church-lady:
Stress and lack of sleep cause the metabolic disregulation that leads to obesity. And they wonder why Americans are fat….
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@japa21:
I had the same thought — Matt must not buy his own airline tickets since he seems to be totally unaware that they are priced based on date and time. If I need to send someone from LA to San Francisco for the day, I can see exactly when the “surge” time is because Southwest has different prices for different departure times.
But I guess that transparency doesn’t fit Matty’s preconceptions, so he didn’t bother to actually go onto an airline website and see how this stuff works in real life.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
I have another comment in moderation where I said this, but you are wrong. The price Uber is charging is perfectly transparent. If surge pricing is in effect, the app tells you and you have to affirmatively agree to it before you can get a ride.
gvg
Some online sellers say price so good we won’t tell you till it’s in your cart. I find that annoying and time wasting and don’t buy. I did test it a few times, because there are plenty of opportunities to not complete the sale but found those deals to be unimpressive anyway. My life keeps getting busier and I don’t have time for silly games. Tell me the price or I will find another seller quickly.
As for JCPenny, their prices are usually low enough that I will buy without another discount but a bit of an occasional nice surprise is nice. If their prices went over what I know the price should be, that would be goodby which I am sure they know. I don’t see them as like Uber and disaster pricing at all.
dedc79
@Another Holocene Human: Our good ole nation’s capital. I recall on some occasions coming into Union Station on Amtrak in bad weather, to find that a significant snow-surcharge was in place ($10 or $20, something like that) for city cabs and there were still not nearly enough cabs there to get people home (and the Metro wasn’t even working so there were no alternatives). Incidentally, they switched from a godawful zone system to a meter system a few years ago, and they now take credit cards. Both were major improvements. But Uber is still eating significantly into their business.
geg6
@Shakezula:
This. All of it.
jc
I have first-hand experience with Uber.
They are a parasite – predator company. That’s their business model. It’s what they do. It’s who they are. They refuse to operate under the existing regulatory regime. They are unaccountable in all the ways that are advantageous to them (unregulated, opaque, buying politicians), and they aim to keep it that way.
Let the passenger beware: when you take a ride in an Uber vehicle, you’ve given up your legal rights if anything goes wrong. Uber profits from your ignorance.
MomSense
@Mary G:
Nice to see you, MaryG. Hope you are healing well and enjoying being home.
PurpleGirl
Just after Sept. 11th, NYC was carefully watching the HOV lanes on bridges to make sure there was a driver and at least one other person in a car. (They watch anyway but it just seemed to be a closer inspection and they stopped cars before letting them on the bridge.) Several times I was able to get a car ride into Manhattan with someone who wanted to use the HOV lane. They would stop at my bus stop on Queens Blvd and call over to me (and others). A couple of friends scolded me for doing so but how else could I get to work in my normal time when security theater was adding a half-hour or more to my commute.
geg6
@OnkelFritze:
I did it before that even, when he was screaming with his hair on fire at the idea that people who use sharp objects and dangerous chemicals near our faces, eyes and ears had no need to be trained or licensed before doing so.
jl
Some simple supply-demand curve type theory on why many profit-maximizing businesses would prefer short run non-price rationing than price increases during temporary shortages, due to emergencies, among other things.
Abstract should be free, but unless academic connection, full text might be behind paywall.
WHY DO FIRMS CONTRIVE SHORTAGES? THE ECONOMICS OF INTENTIONAL MISPRICING
David D. Haddock andFred S. Mcchesney
Economic Inquiry
Volume 32, Issue 4, pages 562–581, October 1994
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1465-7295.1994.tb01351.x/abstract
Another Holocene Human
Uber appeals because we are talking about people who don’t like waiting. That might mean being alone with your thoughts or talking to some prole on the street which … ew.
Instead of providing better funding for public transit and better infrastructure for cabs (it’s amazing how many cities fail to provide decent cab stands or drop-off points), they’re all about apps that tell them when to walk out and catch the bus or show them where the nearest cab is.
Freed from the shackles of a social interaction (trying to catch a cab can be frustrating–ask me about that one time in a Chicago rain storm when my friends blew their top, good times), they worship Uber and Nextbus as their new gods. Tell me, great cab app, what do you need and I will provide it.
You know, it’s funny, if you go to a European city:
*cabs are easy to get and inexpensive, and in nice enough shape that you don’t notice what shape they’re in
*buses and trams run more frequently
*if the bus stop sign says the bus is coming at 16:37 it’s coming at 16:37 and not a minute before
*POP means you can hop transit without speaking the language, assuming you can work a vending machine and can count
*middle of night transit stops are high traffic and safe
*decent infrastructure means no guessing games about where the transit stop is
The really important bits are “frequent” and “on time”. That means spending more money and engaging in less fantasizing about what transit costs. In the US it’s popular to squeeze all the time out of transit schedules to save some bucks so the bus is infrequent and late. Rail schedules tend to be limited. Some agencies actually will pay for a cab for you if you end up working late and miss the train. We’re very biased towards spending ungodly amounts on capital projects and nothing on operations or maintenance.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@jl:
That doesn’t really have much to do with this specific situation, in which supply is not fixed even in the short run, and even if you want to define “short run” as “right now.”
@jl:
I’m not sure what evidence you have for this since he didn’t talk about airline and common carrier pricing or behavior in an emergency. He talked about them under ordinary circumstances.
John
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Do they tell you *how much* surge pricing will be, or just that surge pricing is in effect?
Mike J
@PurpleGirl:
People were mad at you for carpooling?
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human:
I know Uber drivers. They are not compelled to take that job. The ones I know seem really happy to be earning extra income and have not (to a person) expressed concern over their treatment. They seem to like the office in this city.
I am not carrying water for Uber. In some cities, like mine, public transport is a mess and general cab service is an over-priced monopoly-like service. You dislike Uber? I hated being charged $13 for three mile in a fucking smelly cab.
If Uber helps lead to rethinking on urban transportation, then they are doing the work of the angels….even if they not angelic themselves.
jl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): We are having communication problems again. You made the same point I did about Yglesias’ discussion of common carrier pricing. So, I don’t understand the point of your comment.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Again, as I said in the post stuck in moderation, this has nothing to do with what Yglesias said. His argument wasn’t that there’s a lack of transparency in how prices vary for flights you would be taking on different days or at different times. It’s that prices for the same flight on the same day can vary wildly depending upon when you purchase the ticket and that this variable pricing isn’t transparent.
Another Holocene Human
@dedc79: I don’t understand the zone hate because it meant I knew what I was going to pay. Cabs in DC are not cheap, bottom line. Never experienced the snow surcharge but knowing what I know about that area, it seems like snow brings out the worst in DC/MD/VA drivers and there is indeed significant risk of collision*. Metro runs later now, thankfully. There were always late night Metrobuses but many won’t take them.
*-there was a 100+ car pileup once on I-95 in NoVA that led to a multi-hour highway shutdown during icy/light snow conditions
If rapid transit shuts down because of weather in a major city there will NEVER be enough cabs because the streets can’t accommodate the traffic. That was the whole point of rapid transit. It’s a capacity issue. Even if you surge the # of cabs they get stuck in so much traffic that transit times surge meaning that the cab frequency at the corner does not improve. Even Robert Moses couldn’t fix that.
ETA: you’re right about the credit card thing, that was an own-goal
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@John:
They give you the exact multiple of their normal prices that they are charging at that time.
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human:
I guess Carnac the Magnificent has spoken.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human:
ETA: which is kind of what you said in the next ‘graph. Always read the entire comment before responding, DCL, always read the whole comment…
geg6
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I would never use Uber, so I can only repeat what I have read, but apparently Uber is not at all transparent about this. There have been numerous stories the last few weeks that discuss people using the app, being quoted a price and then being gouged for a price much, much higher than what was quoted. And I won’t use Uber because they are no different than Walmart, in that we taxpayers are subsidizing the glibertarian assholes who own it. Fuck that noise. Why would I give them more of my hard earned money? And that doesn’t even get into the whole rape and robbery situations that are being reported as having happened with Uber drivers who aren’t vetted, apparently.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
If MY was only discussing the behavior of carriers under ordinary circumstances, why did he defend the actions that Uber took in Sydney during an emergency? It only takes half a brain to realize that the economics of an ordinary situation are different than those of an emergency. It’s not like those people in Sydney planned ahead for a hostage situation to occur.
To me, this is always one of the biggest failings of libertarianism: since they don’t believe in a collective good, they honestly don’t understand why it’s bad to rake in a profit based on an emergency. Money is more important than people, always.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@jl: I can’t see how we made the same point at all. You said Yglesias needs to read about the economics of disaster situations; I said that you are wrong because the specific case he is talking about doesn’t operate under the usual conditions of disaster economics, namely that supply is fixed in the short term. You said that Yglesias doesn’t understand how airlines and common carriers price things in an emergency environment; I said that your argument is entirely irrelevant to Yglesias’ piece since he never talked about that.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Jesus christ. You not only didn’t read the article, you didn’t even bother to read the excerpts Zander quoted in the original post. He was contrasting the way Uber works in all situations with the way that carriers such as airlines work under ordinary circumstances.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Keith G:
So the next time a hurricane hits the Houston area, you’re fine with Uber charging surge pricing to transport people who don’t have cars out of town?
dedc79
@Another Holocene Human: I certainly agree with you about how DC has some systemic issues that make transportation a nightmare. Among them is the city’s and its residents’ inability to cope with snow (physically, emotionally, you name it…).
I feel like the city could benefit from some kind of comprehensive analysis of the city’s traffic lights and stop signs. The city was not designed to handle the traffic it has and it shows, but I feel like there should be a way to enable cars to get through more than one traffic light without hitting a red light.
I didn’t mind the zone system so much as a resident, but whenever someone visited me they seemed invariably to have gotten ripped off by it. When I first moved to the city, I had a cab driver or two unnecessarily cross over the zone line to bump up their fare, but once I started asserting myself it was no longer an issue. My biggest problem with the zone system was the way the borders were drawn up as a gift to people who lived/worked on the Hill, but screwed everybody else.
Alex S.
Uber is ominously powerful. They bought David Plouffe, they are a multi-billion dollar company. I wouldn’t be surprised if Yglesias is in on it, too. But then Yglesias, the glibertarian, probably supports this practice because raising prices in times of need is ‘good’ economics. According to neo-classical economics, it’s welfare enhancing to increase the prices of goods with low demand elasticity. In other words, the goods that you really need should be expensive because then only those who ‘really’ desire that good will get it. So food should basically be an expensive good, and price gouging increases the general welfare!
Botsplainer
Here’s another tip for Glibertarians – disaster demand is inelastic. Disaster consumers have needs for shelter, repair tools, repair materials, medical services and transportation that they cannot simply defer.
That isn’t the same thing as an advance-planned mass event like a Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby or a Presidential Inauguration- events where surge prices can bring greater resources to bear for people who are voluntarily spending disposable cash.
In fact, surge pricing during a disaster can be harmful – it distorts local supply, causes inbound traffic problems, and frankly, divests disaster areas of wealth that would be better used in local restoration than in lining the pockets of distant rentiers.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yes, but we’re dealing with buyers who are human beings. All economics is human beings. Look, if you’re desperate to bid up what you want RIGHT NOW there’s always the market above the common carrier. But Uber is competing in common carrier space. And disrupting customer expectations about this space either damages the market or leads to regulatory intervention (as in the cities where Uber was forced to agree not to engage in surge pricing).
One of the big issues in transportation is the fact that demand waxes and wanes. This is expensive and annoying. Uber is a model to solve this problem. However, we’re seeing that few people are particularly pleased with this “solution”.
Transpo markets since the late 19th century have been regulated, deregulated, and reregulated over and over. Why? Because for some complicated reasons, deregulation often leads to market failure, meaning that the good or service is not available to anyone at any time (unless you go above common carrier market, ie I hire you mr owner-operator livery dude to take me on this journey at this time and pay $100+ cash over the table). And it also gets reregulated because regulation works. It creates a more robust market, assuming regulation isn’t captured in a way to protect a moribund monopoly, or sabotaged because ideology. Moribund probably would describe most big city in the US’s taxi boards and medallion schema so they kind of deserve this big poke in the eye. However, all of the other wage, employment, safety, etc regulation that Uber is evading are a big problem. It only takes a few “preventable tragedies” before they will get reregulated and then some.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@geg6:
I haven’t seen any such stories. What I have seen are stories from people, often ones who were drunk and trying to get a cab at bar close, who clicked on the notification of what they were paying and then complained that it was too much.
I’d never use Uber, either, and have a lot of problems with how they operate. But surge pricing simply isn’t one of the things they do that I object to.
jl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Yglesias leading example is the Uber pricing strategy during a temporary emergency, which did not make sense to me if Uber was taking most of the increase in surge fares. Yglesias also conflates efficiency during unexpected surges due to temporary emergencies (when substitution, and search, may be very expensive) with efficiency in a situation where intertemporal substitution, search and weighting and plan revision are usually very cheap,
I was addressing that part of his argument. Did you read the tweet at the top of Ygesias’ post in the link?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Dude, the headline of the article is “Uber’s Sydney fiasco: the problem with surge pricing is everyone hates it.”
If he thought he was discussing ordinary surge pricing rather than pricing in an emergency, he probably should have left Sydney out of it since THAT WAS AN EMERGENCY SITUATION.
He’s comparing apples to oranges, and you’re getting pissed off at those of us pointing out that apples and oranges are not, in fact, the same fruit.
PurpleGirl
@Mike J: Well, for getting into the car of a stranger, who just be an axe murderer or rapist.
My feeling was s/he wants to use the HOV lane, wants to get to work in a reasonable amount of time (as do I), And it’s daylight; I’ll take the chance. A licensed cabbi could also be an axe murderer…
steve
@acallidryas:
It is supposed to leverage what little elasticity of demand there is….convince people to ride-share or take public transportation or work remotely. I don’t know though that there is much slack to exploit really.and it could essentially ruin poor people if implemented poorly…can’t work because it is too expensive to actually get to work to make it worthwhile.
Singapore has had congestion pricing for years but I don’t know the results of that experiment.
On the broader topic: everything scarce has to be rationed somehow and the market is just one possible rationing system. It certainly isn’t the one I prefer in a lot of situations. We might not want to rely on it in situations where willingness to pay is conflated with ability to pay and the goods in question are life-supporting: in other words, letting supply and demand reach equilibrium in disaster scenarios, healthcare, and so forth.
Also instead of focusing on flex-rate parking, could we maybe make more-walkable cities and improve public transportation? MY seems to be assuming car-based cities but why polish a turd when you can replace it?
lol
@japa21:
Yeah, you can check the cost of a flight. You still have zero insight into why a flight costs a certain amount. Is it because it’s almost full? Is it because it’s direct? Time of day? Day of week? How many days out you’re booking? Who can fucking tell?
Ditto for hotels, trains, etc. There’s no transparency into what makes something more or less expensive.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s very true and I have no sympathy for them. It isn’t news that people don’t think that they should pay more for something just because it’s in high demand. Sorry, but if you want a ride at the exact same time that a whole lot of other people do, you will pay extra for it. You can pay by having to wait a long time to get it or you can pay by forking over a lot of money for it, but either way you will pay. As I said above, I have a lot of problems with Uber and it’s business model but if a city has both Uber and a regulated taxi industry, you at least have the ability to choose whether you want to pay more time or pay more money.
Grumpy Code Monkey
Based on everything I’ve read, Uber is being run the way startups were run in the dot-communist days; make waves, get headlines, hype the fuck out of yourself, then sell before the whole house of cards comes crashing down.
The trick is in the timing. Let’s hope they fuck that up, too.
The reason airlines won’t quote you an exact price until you book a flight is that they don’t know what the exact price of the ticket will be until the day of the flight; they just don’t have 100% control over all costs. Fuel is the obvious variable (what’s a gallon of jet fuel going to cost in 3 months), but think about things like, say, large-scale weather delays. Equipment winds up in the wrong place, gate agents and ground crews work overtime, which has to be paid for somehow. Obviously airlines try to account for these variables as much as possible when setting ticket prices, but with competition so fierce and margins so thin, they can’t afford to set a fixed minimum price that’s high enough to absorb all those shocks, lest they be undercut by the guys at the next ticket counter; so they keep ticket prices as low as they can as long as they can, until they have to make up some shortfall. It ain’t all supply and demand, which is where I think most glibertarian arguments fall short.
Of course, the people buying tickets the day of the flight aren’t paying the true cost, either; they’re making up the difference for people who booked early and got better prices.
I doubt any of this applies to Uber’s pricing, though. They just sound like assholes.
Chuckles
@burnspbesq: Yeah, this post and thread are incredibly thin, even by BJ’s highly-variable standards. I get it, you (Zandar, et al) don’t like Uber (neither do I) and you think MY is a Slate-pitchy glibertarian (I stopped reading him 5 years ago, but have no real dislike for him), so his ideas don’t deserve to be analyzed. Would you say the same about Atrios? He’s been saying the same sorts of things about parking and tolls for years.
In shortages, when your choices are between price-gouging and people who desperately need a ride/parking spot not being able to find one, there isn’t any really satisfactory answer for the vast majority of us who fall between Ayn Rand and Karl Marx; acting like a fixed-price status quo is self-evidently satisfactory is really just refusing to engage.
OK, I take the “incredibly thin” part back about the comments; there are lots of good ones on both sides later in the thread. The ones at the top that just “ditto” the substance-free mockery of MY, not so much.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: You sound like my wife talking about her ex working at Walmart. Sure, they’re an exploitative parasite corporation that destroys American manufacturing and makes taxpayers pay their “employees” bills, but they gave her ex a job with shitty but usable bennies so add EXCLUDED MIDDLE FALLACY goldurn it they aren’t that bad, hell they’re providing a service!
Shit sucks, that is why people become Uber drivers. Shit sucks and people become loggers, strippers, prostitutes, berry pickers, and Merry Maids. Should we praise Massey Energy because them Appalachian folk need a jerb?
Can we please separate the “goods” from a job from the evil that the employer does? Because if the parasite employers were driven from the market it’s not as if in most cases a less parasitic employer couldn’t come in and replace that market share and, IDK, hire those people.
Also, remember that labor force participation is related to total household income so if someone in the household can support everyone with one job that means 2 adults and one teen in a household won’t have 7 jobs between them. AND THAT IS A GOOD THING.
We get so stuck in our sorry circumstances that we lose the ability to see that things do not have to be this way and we do not need to kiss job creator ass. Corporations can be de-chartered, and the genius of capitalism is that if you dismantle a bad actor somebody else will take their place.
The exception are businesses that are not profitable unless: monopoly, or not profitable at all. If the service is needed by society then you created a regulated monopoly or you run it out of gov’t or provide gov’t subsidy. In the US you have agricultural subsidy, road infrastructure subsidy, public transit subsidy, air travel subsidy, these are markets that just don’t function as competitive commodity markets without ‘help’. Oh, postal service, too. The package for profit space relies on the gov’t-mandated carrier to provide last mile for thousands if not millions of addresses.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): As long as they are following state laws re crisis gouging (and emergency decrees on evac routes). I do not care what they do. They to not have to be a “better” corporate citizen than anyone else.
Remember the last big evac we had from Houston? This is a headline about a certain “well regulated” public carrier.
Zandar
Whether or not Uber is a good model for ride share services is debatable.
Whether or not Uber is a good model for government is glibertarian nonsense of the most glibertarian, nonsensical order and makes me *frumple*.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@jl:
And this assumption is where your analysis goes wrong. Drivers get 80% of the fare and the company gets 20% of it, whether it’s the regular fare or the surge price. You are analyzing a different case than the one Yglesias is talking about.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6:
It’s not just Uber, watch out for Super Shuttle too.
Oh, and they exploit their drivers and make them buy their vans so some days they lose money too.
And there are no tips for most Super Shuttle fares because they specialize in business travel. It is super exploitative.
Marc
To people like Matt, there is no such thing as a broader social good. If the “surge pricing” makes it impossible for poor people to get from A to B – is that a problem? If the surge pricing is simply a windfall, with no extra supply (e.g. only the cabs in an affected area can be used, and no one can vector cabs from elsewhere quickly enough to matter) – is that a problem? If businesses can manipulate supply to create artificial shortages (and hike rates) – is that a problem? Do they get to decide under what circumstances they get to “surge” on – so that people don’t realize that they’re going to get soaked for a cab ride if they go out clubbing until they open the door? If users end up getting the short end of the stick – for example, finding out that they are financially ruined if someone gets hurt, or they are losing money once wear & tear on their vehicle is accounted for – is that a problem?
Imperfect information, fraud, and conspiracy are real things, whether libertarians recognize them or not. And not all of us want to be spending every goddamn waking moment monitoring everything to avoid getting hit with mystery “free market!” surcharges on ordinary daily activities (e.g. it cost me 10 bucks to take a cab home from a bar last week; now, thanks to free market secret sauce, I get to spend 50 bucks because it’s drizzling!)
CONGRATULATIONS!
Uber does it: bad.
Cap n’ trade does it: good.
Make up your minds, people.
(HINT: rent seeking is wrong even when for a cause you believe in)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
No, you fucking nitwit, you don’t understand at all. Yes, he is talking about Uber’s pricing during an emergency or any other time of high demand. However, his look at airlines and hotels has nothing to do with emergencies; they do this sort of price manipulation at all times. And the comment of mine that you responded to said that he was talking about airlines’ and common carriers’ pricing policies during non-emergencies, just like Yglesias is talking about. So you pointing out that he is discussing Uber’s surge pricing during an emergency is both absolutely true and also a pointless objection to anything either Yglesias or I said, since that was the premise both of us were operating under.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
There’s a certain logic to what Uber is doing (not from consumer POV, of course).
Transportation demand ebbs and flows. But you have to buy cars once (of course, they don’t buy the cars–win!) so you have too little capacity when people are lining up eager to buy and too much during the dull times. Yet those lease payments need to be made once a month regardless.
By engaging in surge pricing the transport company “rationalizes” their capacity and evens out the income.
The critical part is that after raking in surge profits you can then charge less during off peak times because you’re paying the bills.
Now you are undercutting the monopoly/regulated carrier which must charge the same amount all the time and therefore must charge slightly more during times when many of the vehicles are idle to make up the difference.
So you start sopping up market share, while the regulated carrier starts pissing their collective pants because they have monthly overhead too.
The problem is that the riders thought they had some sort of relationship with the firm which was conditioned by regulated pricing which, wow, remarkably similar everywhere, set at a fixed rate so that the monopoly provider can make a modest profit. They don’t realize that by jumping on the cheaper fares they are agreeing to surge pricing when they are suddenly in a pickle.
Oops, now I am stuck downtown without transportation since I was relying on Uber and they want to charge me 4x the amount but I have monthly overhead too and didn’t budget this shit, now what?
Few people understand this, or, think they will be immune. In the meantime, they may have damaged the competition financially and achieved a permanent minority market share by the time the elected officials get involved because residents and the competitor lobby (basically their drivers, who will lose their livelihood) are screaming about it.
Major Major Major Major
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I thought we were pro-carbon tax here.
Wait, I got flamed for that, never mind.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Marc:
This mostly proves that you only read him when someone like Zandar selectively quotes him.
geg6
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Well, that wasn’t one of the many articles I read about the opaque Uber pricing. There have literally been dozens of them and, no, I’m not looking them all up just to satisfy your urges. And you dispute the robberies and rapes that have been reported, too, I’m guessing? Because that’s just he said/she said, right?
/sarcasm
Chuckles
@Zandar:
I think everyone would gladly agree with this statement that doesn’t reflect MY’s argument:
Not sure everyone would agree that his actual argument is glibertarian or nonsensical, though:
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Airplane spot (walkup) pricing is completely different from weeks-out bucket pricing, and you know this.
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human: Okay dude, just how many Uber drivers have you spoken with?
I know five.
Small sample, I know.
My best friend is one. He is a 50 yr. old manager of a high end retail store. His Uber $$ is his vacation $$. His car is a 2014 Fusion. He drives weekend nights.
Yep….that’s just like an oppressed Walmart employee.
BTW our city is coming up with regs that will include Uber in a broader transport management system. which I am sure will lead eventually to higher base rates and change both the supply and demand and maybe even return things back to stasis
Oh good….back to $13 for a three mile trip. Thank fucking god….but at least you will be happy.
Zandar
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Yes, how dare I quote the guy verbatim and then say “Hey, I disagree with him on this point.”
I am history’s greatest monster.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@geg6: Okay. You make a claim and are unwilling to in any way substantiate it. This, too, is your usual way of operating.
And you dispute the robberies and rapes that have been reported, too, I’m guessing? Because that’s just he said/she said, right?
I don’t dispute that; in fact, I have no knowledge of such cases so I have no idea what I think about it. Apparently, though, you missed the part where I said that I have a lot of objections to how Uber operates and am defending only the element of pricing by the level of demand.
SatanicPanic
no cities should be making parking more scarce. And yeah, let’s not make roads only available to the wealthy, that’s lame. Traffic congestion is about the only thing they have to suffer anymore.
geg6
@Another Holocene Human:
Exactly.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
Not only do I know that, this knowledge was the foundation of my comment. So I have no idea what you are trying to say.
Another Holocene Human
@dedc79:
Do they still have suicide lanes that change direction by time of day? Because that was fun.
DC was laid out with a lot of traffic in mind but I don’t think they really anticipated the modern car commute which is epic. WMATA was designed by a committee of complete morons so there’s that as well.
They had to revamp bus service a few years back because they were using buses as feeders into transit and actually wouldn’t run important crosstown routes when Metro was running, that used to just kill me, but, because the Metro subway was designed by a committee of morons that was turning into a logistical problem.
See, if you think of transportation as a bunch of water pipes (terrible metaphor, nevertheless road engineers are taught to think this way) it only stands to reason that as all the pipes combine in the main trunk that the main trunk should be — wider. Right?
But our Congressional betters saw a great way to save money by making all the tunnels the same size, meaning that the main stops are overcapacity and even unsafe. (Time for london-style subway gates.)
And, yeah, the federal area gets what they want, though the rest may burn.
Woodrowfan
Reason #infinity why Libertarians should not be taken seriously.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@SatanicPanic:
Good thing Yglesias isn’t advocating that. If anything, increasing the price should make it less scarce.
geg6
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Um, no. I read him for years and I totally agree with Marc’s characterization of him. He’s a male version of McMeghan. Too stupid and selfish to live, IMHO. But, for some reason, he’s the dudebro hero. Oh wait. That’s exactly why he’s the dudebro hero.
Another Holocene Human
@Botsplainer:
Like a glibertarian would see the harm in that. The philosophy of a parasite. Feed and move on.
Marc
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
No, it means that I don’t buy his assumptions. As I noted above (and you didn’t respond), there are very specific reasons, related to fraud and imperfect information, where the idealized assumptions of free market fanatics break down. Matt lazily waves away practical problems with his theories – in fact, he’s one of the laziest writers on the left side that I can think of. (I may disagree with someone like Ezra, but the kid does his homework.) I also really dislike it when someone doesn’t confront the real objections to their pet theory, instead addressing only cartoon versions.
Now, I think that it’s totally fine to have higher cab fares under certain circumstances, set in advance: higher fares late at night, during rush hour, whatever. I don’t think that it’s OK to be able to soak people on the fly based on secret algorithms. In fact, the way that I have to scramble to get a reasonable air fare (because of the ridiculous jumps in price from day to day) is one of many things that I *hate* about air travel – and expanding that crap to places where we don’t have to deal with it now sounds to me like an awful idea.
geg6
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
So sorry that I have to work and can’t spend all day finding links to stories that were posted, aired or printed in major media in order to please you. Do you know how to use the Google?
SatanicPanic
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I messed up typing there. I should have said, No, cities should be making parking more scarce. Also, smaller freeways. Especially in California. We’re going to have to do it eventually.
Another Holocene Human
@steve: Are you talking about daily congestion pricing?
That’s very different from surge pricing. It is daily and decisions–both personal and business–can be made around it. It is expected and planned for.
It’s also done–this is important–to put a ceiling ON SUPPLY/DEMAND because the streets can only take so many vehicles!
Why would you want a ceiling on emergency evacuations? Unless emergencies are there to get rid of the “surplus population”.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Keith G:
Uber is regulated in very few states. What makes you think that they will follow state laws that they’re not actually subject to?
OnkelFritze
@geg6: He’s a typical glibertarian. A few interesting points of view plus a bunch of stuff that’s just insane. For me, the one about Bangladesh was the ton of bricks that broke the camels back.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Marc:
I have no clue whatsoever why you would think that either Yglesias or I would disagree with this statement at all. In fact, his whole article is contrasting Uber to situations in which exactly the problems you mention are manifest. Normally I would say that you would really need to read more of him to understand what he’s saying but in this case the fact that you don’t understand what he’s saying is evident just from this particular piece.
schrodinger's cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Uber had to suspend its operations in Delhi because of a rape allegation, link here
Another Holocene Human
@lol: There are some imponderables in bucket pricing but it’s actually not that hard to figure out if you are pricing flights or train rides or hotels frequently. Certain events, holidays, travel patterns, times of day, time out from travel. Since you can’t always predict what other people will do, yeah, there’s some guesswork involved. Especially when corporate makes a decision to add flights or cancel them, or rotate equipment.
There’s a website that helps you find the lowest price for Amtrak travel, I think it’s called Amsnag. There are probably similar things out there for air travel. Intercity buses these days often use a very simple first-come, first-served bucket pricing model.
chopper
I’m am unlicensed barber who’s an uber driver on the side! Worship me, Iglesias!
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Not if the ride is regulated. Which is what many political entities the world over have chosen to do.
Or you may have to wait a long time anyway because travel times have blown up so it’s not like paying more actually enhanced the service.
Though I suppose getting a ride that others cannot access or afford is a “service” of a sort.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
You’re trying to have it both ways, just like MY is. Ordinary spot or surge pricing has jack shit to do with pricing during an emergency or a disaster.
When someone brings up emergency pricing, you say you were talking about ordinary surge pricing. When someone brings up ordinary surge pricing, you claim you were talking about emergency pricing. Stop dodging the question. Is MY discussing emergency pricing, or has he lazily dragged in a half-finished article about surge pricing and tried to cram it into a discussion of emergency pricing, which is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT discussion?
Another Holocene Human
Uber is trying to straddle the car service space and the common carrier taxi space. That’s where a lot of the trouble is coming in. (Aside from treating their “independent franchisers” like shit.)
Luxe car services for the rich like the gen aviation market have always been a “if you need to ask you can’t afford it” and save money by buying/hiring full time kind of affair. Stupid rich people can go this route and nobody from the middle class on down is going to give a crusted fig. But to move the masses you’re going to need a better plan.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@geg6: I’m not the one that made the claim; you were. I have read a number of articles about this and haven’t seen any like the ones you are claiming to have read. And, in fact, googling “Uber price gouging” doesn’t look to call any such examples up on its first two pages except for an extremely vague
Frankly, that’s not much to go on.
schrodinger's cat
I find the idea of getting into strange people’s cars unnerving. Who do I complain to if my Uber driver turns out to be shady?
srv
Everyone rants about how libertarianism doesn’t work because it’s not used anywhere.
Here, we have a great experiment, millions of satisfied customers, tens of thousands of new jobs and just a bunch of nattering nabobs worried over who is going to get left behind in a surge.
People get left behind every day – if you win the lotto or are American, you get flown to the west for Ebola treatment. It’s not libertarianism’s fault it can’t solve every problem – even ones your big government can’t do either.
I Stand With Elon.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
You will still pay extra for it; it just means that your only option for paying extra is time rather than money. At least here in the Twin Cities, the wait time for a cab is much longer, often on the order of an hour and a half, if you call one at bar close on a Friday or Saturday night.
Robert Paehlke
When everything goes for whatever price anyone is willing to pay at any given second, who is it who is going to pick up the bodies of those that are short on cash or credit at that moment? And who is going to pay for that service?
John H
@acallidryas: late to the show here, but I think the surge pricing for parking assumes there are alternative modes of transportation. I.E. Should I take the train or my car to baseball game. Since ‘gameday’ parking is crazy expensive… train wins. MY has a long standing hope/fetish with public transit, and his arguments for such are often couched in trying to make public transit a better choice for individuals. I lived in DC for three years. Would have preferred to take the train to work, however DC congestion prices transit, not driving. Hence public option was twice the price (assuming sunk cost of owning a car)
Another Holocene Human
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I’m confused by your comment. I can go all over the internet right now and get airline price quotes, up to several months out (depends on carrier how many months/weeks out).
They hedge fuel and buy with contracts so minute fluctuations don’t affect them. They have to run fairly regular routes because of the postman problem, that is equipment and personnel need to get back to where they started or at least where they’re needed.
The price fluctuations for non-refundable fares have to do with relative demand, that’s partially guesswork on their part and partially responding to your behavior, and they don’t always guess right (and lose money as a result, or overbook and get Congress breathing down their necks).
You can buy refundable fares at most air carriers if not all of them, it will be quite a bit higher than the non-refundable fare, and about the same as a walkup same day fare–if a seat is available. Some businesses only purchase refundable fares. Bucket fares are often lower though the high buckets may go higher. It has to do with pricing risk in.
Major disruptions to the travel market can devastate airlines.
Marc
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
The attittude that you’re taking is obnoxious, and if you’re looking to persuade as opposed to pissing people off you’re doing it wrong. Matt makes a strong claim. When it’s pointed out that this leads to ridiculous results, he retreats to a weaker version – and then pretends that it was totally unreasonable of you to take what he said at face value. He was just being provocative! So, let’s look at his actual text:
“The endless cycle of backlashes provoked by Uber’s efforts to apply variable pricing to a consumer good help us understand these puzzling economic questions — people really hate it and it hurts your brand. People would rather see inefficient allocations of scarce goods, lower overall supply, less total employment and job creation, and perennial shortages than let prices float up and down according to demand.”
Notice what he did? He *assumes* that the surge pricing is the solution to “inefficient allocation of scarce goods”, etc. Notice what he doesn’t do in this piece: entertain, at all, the idea that maybe people have *rational* reasons not to like getting gouged at random by secret pricing? That there is value to not having to monitor prices for something all of the time to avoid getting ripped off, e.g. that there is a cost to me if I have to deal with variable and opaque pricing?
That’s what I mean about his assumptions: theory tells him that a thing is optimal, therefore it is, and the problem is that those carbon-based lifeforms seem stubbornly resistant to it.
SatanicPanic
@John H: @John H: congestion pricing the metro is stupid. add another line if it’s getting too crowded. Sheesh.
MomSense
I guess what bothers me about all of this is that we create our government and regulations to make sure that there are rules for businesses to guarantee a minimum level of safety, accountability, recourse, etc. They are set up to protect the customers, employees, and the business owners.
We keep undermining the very idea of self governance in order to ensure basic fairness and protections to try and get some product or service for just a little bit less. Is getting something a bit cheaper really going to get us that far ahead? If we keep undermining the value of the labor that people do or the products that people make it will eventually harm everyone. We wonder why so many of us earn crap wages selling shit products that aren’t even made in the country anymore.
Another Holocene Human
@Chuckles:
False dichotomy. The either/or doesn’t exist during these crises, it’s more like both/and. For the reasons Botsplainer laid out, the gouging causes lots of problems and doesn’t solve any problems except filling a really unscrupulous person’s wallet.
It’s called history. It’s how you avoid repeating your mistakes. Why not learn from it?
Keith G
In a time in our society where there are so many real, painful issues, I am trying to suss out where the energy is coming from that gives this issue any juice at all. It’s not like Uber, or it’s brethren, can bring about the downfall of western mixed market economies.
I think part of it is that some folks just like typing “glibertarian”. It must make them feel so “in” – just like all other cool kid watch words of the past.
Uber will probably be long gone before we arrest and try an American for torturing brown people; or stop killing random brown people with drones (say, is killing that way worse than torture?).
dedc79
@Another Holocene Human:
They do still have suicide lanes. They’ve got traffic circles where you’ve got to pass through about five lights to get through them (I thought the whole purpose of traffic circles was to move traffic efficiently while avoiding traffic lights)
Other things that kill me about WMATA/DC transportation:
1) Because they didn’t pay for a third track to run through each station, whenever there’s any train/track malfunction they need to single-track causing extensive delays.
2) Some bus lines (16th street in particular) are operating at over 100% capacity during rush hour, but the city can’t/won’t invest in more buses for those lines.
3) The prohibitions on left turns on some major roads, combined with non-sensical one-way traffic patterns, make it nearly impossible to navigate through certain parts of the city.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Do you understand the difference between Uber and an airline? Here’s a hint: one drives cars; the other flies airplanes. I’d think that it’s a fairly simple concept to grasp.
Now, if you can manage that, do you understand that Yglesias was discussing emergency/surge pricing by the company that drives cars and was discussing normal pricing strategies by the companies that fly airplanes?
The next step to comprehension is to understand that I was pointing out this distinction to someone who claimed that he was talking about the pricing strategy that an airline was using during emergency situation. He didn’t; he only talked about pricing in an emergency situation with regards to Uber, not airlines.
I’ve been quite consistent in how I talk about emergency pricing versus normal pricing by demand. The trick is in realizing that I was talking about different companies in each case. I would have thought that saying:
would have made that perfectly clear.
If that doesn’t get it through to you, then fuck it. If you’re that determined to misunderstand what I’m saying then I guess you’ll just have to remain ignorant.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: Bullshit:
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/NTSB-faults-agency-in-deadly-bus-fire-1799741.php
well-regulated my ass. NTSB faulted NMCSA for failing to audit carriers frequently enough
your Tx GOP delegation at work. are you proud?
geg6
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
There was at least one article in Salon (if not more, I’m thinking), one at Josh Marshall’s place, one in the NYT and one I read in the Pgh. Post-Gazette. I also saw several segments on local news shows about it, since there has been quite a lot of controversy about Uber here in Pittsburgh. And that’s just off the top of my, granted, post-menopausal memory.
geg6
@schrodinger’s cat:
Not Uber, according to everything I’ve read. They don’t give a shit and won’t take any responsibility.
Another Holocene Human
@Marc: Again, there are the libertarians who ignore all this in favor of “track the cab with the app! new vehicle not so smelly!” and then there are those who have thought about it deeply and have decided that Scrooge and Malthus were right and the culling of the unworthy should commence forthwith.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Marc:
Again, this is not at all what Yglesias said. In fact, you are agreeing with him without seeming to realize it. He is objecting to being gouged by secret pricing. Uber’s surge pricing isn’t secret; you have to affirmatively agree to it before getting a ride where it will be charged.
And that’s the problem I keep having: a lot of the people objecting to Yglesias’ article don’t seem to have read it because you’re not the only one who attacks him and then say something that indicates that you actually agree with him.
Oh, and having Mnemosyne jump in didn’t help my politeness level; I get kind of grouchy when someone who lies about what I’ve said in order to call me an apologist for rapists decides to misrepresent what I’ve said on other subjects.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: I like carbon tax. Flame away~~~~
because I know how much it costs to operate a personal vehicle, versus running more public transit with those carbon tax proceeds
yeah, reeeeeal hard choice
SatanicPanic
@Keith G: It’s pushback against the way certain people want the whole economy run. I’m sure brown people won’t be any better off when Uber and whoever else comes along and disrupts everything.
Marc
@Keith G:
Because, after a while, the sheer hassle of all of these lovely “free market” solutions gets to be too much. Under the old system I hail a cab, I pay a price. Under the new one something that’s illegal in many places and circumstances, and morally frowned upon (price gouging) is being touted as a positive good. These arrangements are taking away the livelihood of a big class of people and they’re raising a stink about it. Don’t they have that right?
You have rare but real cases of people getting in a ton of trouble – there was a good article about airbnb in the Times recently, which pointed out that some of the renters didn’t know that they were facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines for breaking rules about short term rentals. And there is the generalized anxiety about personal safety (and some very public cases, as in India, of horrible crimes related to unregulated public transit.) Uber, Lyft, Airbnb are trying end runs around a web of laws and regulations; why shouldn’t we be discussing it?
Keith G
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): @Mnemosyne (iPhone):
My bestie is an Uber driver in one of these terrible southern cities – the cities that are so unregulated…….
He had to pass a drug and criminal background check and have his vehicle inspected at a designated inspection center. There are places where he can not operate, like the city’s two airports. He is adverse to fines and court costs so he plans to comply.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Again: you and MY are conflating two different situations. There was no reason for him to discuss ordinary surge pricing and emergency pricing in the same article except to try and muddle the difference between the two and justify price-gouging during emergencies.
The only person who doesn’t seem to realize that his purpose is to justify emergency price-gouging by claiming it’s no different than ordinary surge pricing is you.
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human:
Proud?
You are hilarious
Another Holocene Human
@Chuckles:
It’s not just libertarians who are complaining about cities underpricing street parking. This is a bigger issue in transportation and city planning.
What IS clear is that wherever the libertarians have won the argument with city leaders, the public as a whole has quickly lost because demand-priced meters, as opposed to conventional models, piss off residents VERY quickly and usually lead to back-scrambling that results in an even MORE distorted situation than that which obtained prior.
Only in a very few circumstances have they gotten app/demand parking spots actually working. When it works I have to admit it’s not a bad thing, but I can see why most cities would just prefer to build a fucking parking garage and be done with it. If they’re smart, a parking garage at the end of the rapid transit line because seriously, we don’t need an extra 40000 vehicles in and out daily.
London did congestion pricing instead of parking gewgaws and it worked very well. If Manhattan would toll the last bridge it would work wonders there but the idiot residents around the untolled bridge apparently enjoy huffing long chain particulate fumes, NOx and SOx compounds sooo much…
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@geg6: A quick look at what a Salon search returns finds only this:
That’s not very strong or convincing, either. Beyond that, I’d have to start reading a bunch of articles without knowing whether or not they even address the specific thing you’ve claimed. That’s one of the reasons why the burden of supporting a claim lands on the person who makes it; presumably, that’s the person who already knows where to look to find the information. Digging through dozens of articles in the hopes of finding the information just isn’t going to happen.
Edit: I should also point out that even if your claim is true it doesn’t really change my underlying point. As I’ve said a couple of times, I’m not really trying to defend Uber, per se. For other reasons, the company can rot in hell as far as I’m concerned. I’m defending the use of transparent demand based pricing. If Uber is misrepresenting the fares that people will pay during surge pricing, the problem is the misrepresentation, not the surge pricing.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: No, I don’t know any Uber drivers personally but I do know the transportation business.
Your anecdata refutes itself, apparently Uber is a great “oppo” for someone who already has a decent job and wanted a nice car anyway and could afford it. If you have a shitty old car, the pizza delivery places are promising $13 hr and up, sounds like a better deal all around, though it depends on whether the owners are stealing your tips.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G:
This does not sound outrageous for cab fares. I’m trying to figure out why this is so outrageous. It’s high for a jitney I guess.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@schrodinger’s cat: The god of your choice, because nobody else will hear you screaming.
The number one thing I’ve been told before visiting every foreign country I’ve ever been to is “don’t get in an unlicensed cab/jitney/donkey cart/whatever, as it’s a good way to get robbed or killed.” And in most of those nations that has been good and legitimate advice.
And we think that legitimizing unlicensed and unregulated public transport in this nation is a good idea because why?
srv
FREE MARKET RESPONDS!:
Government would have left you at the curb.
schrodinger's cat
WP eated my comment, so I am trying again. Uber had to suspend its New Delhi operations because of a rape allegation.
Botsplainer
@srv:
Uber has an absurd valuation of 18.2 Billion and no real brick and mortar business presence beyond HQ and some server space. Contrast that with Delta Airlines at 45 Billion, with a fleet of planes, worldwide facilities, market share and thousands of employees
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic:
Well, you see
there is this thing
when you concentrate lots of people
cars take up space
both parked and moving around
it’s the moving around that’s the problem, because you can make high rise car parking (or underground)
at some point you have to make a choice between city or cars
the goods of the city end up outweighing the goods of the cars
you build mass transit, you keep the cars in the spread out peripheral areas
or you sprawl out like Houston … good night and good luck
sharl
@chopper: That’s the spirit, good Sir! Just remember that the correct phrasing matters in any explanations you may have to make after, um, unpleasant incidents. ‘Kidnapping’ sounds so much more harsh than ‘inefficient routing’, so use the latter. And be sure to repeatedly yell real loudly into your recording device STOP BEATING ME!, while you are removing an unsuitable client from your car; it may help in any subsequent legal actions.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Then I misunderstood you, what exactly are you trying to say here? What is “all situations”?
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
lol, good one
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: I didn’t have time to edit, but I missed a comma that would have made that easier to read. Cities should be making parking scarcer. I was taking issue with MY saying scarce parking is a problem.
Another Holocene Human
@geg6:
Yglesias on transportation issues talks about a lot of stuff that millennial city dwellers are highly interested in, with the whole spin of “technology!” “markets!” promising that this time, things will be better.
The yout’ don’t all agree with Yglesias on the solutions but they do agree with his analysis of the problems much of the time. Thus he’s a sort of Andy Sullivan figure.
Outside of transportation I’m not sure who reads him.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Sigh. I really ought to give up, but:
I’ve never denied that his purpose was defending surge pricing in an emergency. The contrast he was drawing never had anything to do with when demand based pricing was implemented. It has to do with its transparency, not its timing.
What I was objecting to was when people tried to argue that Yglesias was an idiot who clearly didn’t buy his own airline tickets based upon a complete misunderstanding of what he’d said about the way they’re priced. When I pointed this out to you, rather than addressing what I’d said, you changed your argument into one about how Yglesias had wrongly described how airlines price during an emergency, or something like that; your transition wasn’t very clear. Then you went on to say that I’m conflating emergency pricing and ordinary surge pricing, or, again, something like that; your argument was becoming harder to untangle at this point.
So, could you please state your objection clearly and stop shifting it around? Arguing with you is like wrestling jello.
catclub
tell me where Yglesias is wrong on reserving too much public space for free (or too cheap) parking by car owners.
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
Uber has “special credit deals” for people who don’t have the kind of car Uber needs.
Another Holocene Human
@SatanicPanic: I am really sorry, did not see your correction until after my post timed out :(
Another Holocene Human
@Kay: That sounds like something that will end well.
Keith G
@Marc:
In that case, too much of a hassle will lead to failure and Uber will go away.
Again, I see this as an interesting experiment
One way or another these types of small-footprint service providers are the way many interactions and needs will be processed. You may not like it, but its gonna happen. Societies do tend to change.
I just got a letter telling me my rent is going up substantially. I cannot change it.
Maybe I had better wheels, I could drive for Uber.
SatanicPanic
@Another Holocene Human: that’s cool, I dashed off my first comment and then thought, oops, that could be read the opposite of what I intended
Another Holocene Human
Imagine if the cheat-everyone pizza mogul was offering “special credit deals” to the delivery drivers.
Trollolololooooo! Trollololoooo!
I bet delivering pizzas SUCKS now with credit cards, even when the frat rats pay tip the owner skims more of it than during the cash days.
I used to work at a family owned joint in the olden days and we blackballed bad tippers, but with online ordering only corporate can do that now … think about that when you’re supporting reich wing assholios like Papa John Schnatter and Opus Dei Dominos.
sharl
@chopper: Also, if you need to take a hammer upside the head of a difficult client, make sure you’re in a Stand Your Ground state, preferably one where the legal code specifically permits use of blunt trauma implements in SYG situations. In such circumstances, be sure to remind the client that her difficult attitude voided the terms of the safety surcharge.
schrodinger's cat
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I am not getting into an unlicensed cab, period.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human: Whether it’s an emergency or not, Uber transparently tells customers when it is using surge pricing. (geg6 has said that they don’t but I haven’t seen anything substantial to indicate that this is correct.)
In the course of ordinary business, airlines change prices for the same flight without ever telling you what the “normal” price of that flight would be and whether you are paying for higher demand or lower.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G:
Sure, breaking everything could be an “interesting experiment” for some people not including the transit dependent cab customers, disabled cab customers, fixed income cab customers, drivers, businesses who rely on customers or employees using cabs, businesses who are paying employees’ cab fares, and, you know, the economy at large.
As Rick Perry might say, Oops.
JDM
@ranchandsyrup: to be fair, Yggie thought it was cool and good when the Bangladeshi garment factory burned down and killed workers because the market benefitted from the lack of safety for workers. so he’s consistent in his views.
Enough with the snark. If those factory workers hadn’t wanted to work in an unsafe factory, they would’ve been born German or Swedish.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@schrodinger’s cat: And neither am I…so Uber will have to do without my pitiful monies. I’m sure that such masters of the Universe, Galtian supermen that they are, will not just survive but prosper without any customers.
Major Major Major Major
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): After you click the button to summon the Uber, it tells you if surge pricing is in effect, what multiplier it’s at, what the mandatory minimum is, and makes you accept before it actually alerts the driver.
Kind of a dick move to do that *after* you’ve already decided you want/need one, but they most certainly tell you.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Jeeeezus, airlines do NOT do this, they change the buckets over a period of days and weeks when the customer has not committed.
Also, you can ALWAYS buy fares at the refundable rate, sure it costs more but it’s very consistent. That is why many businesses ONLY purchase refundable fares. (Plus, they are refundable.) JEEZUS.
If you take an airline roundtrip you pay IN ADVANCE.
If you take a cab round trip, you pay spot pricing both times.
Do you see the difference?
Yes, there are specialized circumstances where you might spot price your return air trip or pre-arrange round trip cab rides (usually intercity or airport rides) but the majority of the time this is not the case.
Kay
@Another Holocene Human:
I don’t know why it’s so hard. Don’t treat your employees like shit. Well, not “employees”, I guess.
Independent contractors.
The 1099 economy. It’s transformational-disruptive-brilliance!
sharl
@sharl: One cool thing about being an Uber or Lyft driver is not being legally required to accommodate the handicapped. From San Francisco:
Leave that to the regular taxis, I hear you say? Well, sure, but oopsie, they’re being squeezed out of business.
Another Holocene Human
And airlines have to run regular routes just like bus companies or railroads do, for the reasons I gave earlier in this thread. Cabs can surge, the problem is how do you manage that.
In conventional cabbery some drivers get multiple medallions and follow the money. But it’s a pretty imperfect system.
Also, in a true emergency the travel times are going to explode and MOAR CABS won’t necessary get to the taxi stand quicker not to mention MOAR CABS will slow things even more for everyone else, which is why FEMA will commandeer buses.
Another Holocene Human
@sharl: This is just really gross.
Enjoy paying millions more for paratransit services, you glibertarian jeeniuses. If karma is smiling she’ll cut something you need. You can try cutting paratransit but, it’s, like, federally mandated, man.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: You get told, but the point is that you get told after it matters.
That’s why customers are so enraged.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
Once again, you are objecting to something I never argued. Yes, once you have purchased a ticket, the price doesn’t change. But the price you pay depends upon when you make the purchase and the airline provides no guidance on whether they are charging you more or less than they usually do. When you buy the ticket, you have no idea whether or not you are paying surge pricing levels.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Another Holocene Human:
No. Not only did you misread but Major Major Major Major was quite clear. You get charged after you have asked for a car but before the message is sent out. You still have to approve paying surge pricing before you ever get a ride. If you indicate that you don’t want to pay that much, the order is cancelled right then and you can find some other way to travel.
schrodinger's cat
Deregulate everything and attain free market nirvana! Unfortunately, I suspect it will look a lot like Somalia.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Here’s what MY said, as quoted above:
He doesn’t seem to realize that, despite his claim that the changes lack transparency, people actually DO understand how to play the airlines’ game. You change your departure dates or departure time to get a better price. You choose to take a connecting flight rather than a nonstop. If it’s an option, you choose a different regional airport to fly out of. As I understand it, Uber does not offer anything similar. You can’t look at their prices and decide to take a cab an hour later because the price will be lower, and you can’t book weeks or months ahead of time to lock in a specific price. You can do all of those things with hotels and airlines.
And, like I said, my biggest problem with the article is that MY decided to conflate surge pricing with price gouging in an emergency and act as though it’s all the same thing. It is not the same thing. Increasing congestion pricing during a snowstorm will do jack shit to clear the streets of cars during that emergency, which is why it’s stupid for him to use Sydney as a jumping-off point.
schrodinger's cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Why are you being a white knight for Uber and so rude to Mnem and geg6?
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Very good advice in US cities too.
My favorite scam was the old “I’ll give you a cab ride to Union Station” from the DC Greyhound station which is or was 300 ft of sidewalk and one street crossing from the Union Station Metro entrance, but it’s hard to see since you’re in the shadow of a giant wall for the embankment of the … Amtrak trains.
yup, that was a good one
(no, I didn’t bite myself, but I did take a MetroBus the first time before I realized how silly that was)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Forget it. I give up.
Goblue72
Congestion pricing for toll roads and demand pricing for on-street parking spaces is not some glibertarian nonsense. You are just showing your ass, is all.
Such well known libertarian cities as Seattle and San Francisco have adopted demand based pricing models for on-street metered parking. London has congestion pricing. It’s considered a quite progressive transportation model.
On-street parking spaces are a scarce public good. In urban cores, they are in high demand – in part because in non-metered locations we give them away for free, while off-street structured parking is often charged at a higher hourly rate.
Lack of demand based pricing (i.e. status quo) leads to over-consumption of a scarce public good, while reducing parking stall turnover (which is bad for local businesses, as customers can’t find parking)
Demand based models are a means to solve for this problem.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: Defund and defang government. Complain that it failed. Rinse, repeat.
You are carrying water for your GOP voting brethren. Stop that.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: Yeah, it always pisses me off.
The reason I always sound so sympathetic to Uber is because transit in SF is truly horribly broken, and it’s not like the presence of Uber/Lyft is the force preventing us from road improvements, MUNI improvements, BART expansions, better ferry service, taxi company reform, parking availability, density issues… Symptom, not disease.
But what all that means is it’s faster for me to walk when getting from point A to most of the points B I want to go to within the city than it is to take transit or drive, and you can’t get a taxi to save your life. So sometimes I end up plopping down the cost of a cocktail with Uber. Taking MUNI is basically paying $2.25 to keep me dry, and I have umbrellas that do the same for free and get me there just as fast.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I just wonder what happens if every employer does this, uses the independent contractor model.
I’d just be a little wary of cheering it on if one is an actual “employee” with legal rights. Those go away I don’t think we’ll be getting them back.
J R in WV
@Zandar:
No Zandar, Darth Cheney is history’s greatest monster, you aren’t even in the running!
;-)
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@schrodinger’s cat:
1) I’m not being a white knight for Uber. As I have said several times in this thread, I have many objections to their business practices and wouldn’t use them. They are, on a number of axes, dishonest and sleazy. What I am defending is the idea of transparent surge pricing and Uber happens to be the example of that in one of its few business practices I don’t object to. I don’t get to debate with the examples I want; I get to debate with the examples I have.
2) This is far from the first time that either geg6 or, especially, Mnemosyne, have been dishonest about things that I have written. On several occasions, it has led the latter to say that I am an apologist for rapists and support misogyny. Frankly, once that happens, I tend not to be very polite at further misrepresentations. Mnemosyne can go fuck herself.
Another Holocene Human
@Goblue72: Changing parking zoning laws and going to parking apps a la SF are two different things. Parking demand apps have had a checkered to say the least.
Toll roads also have a checkered past and present.
I’m a big fan of congestion pricing and tolls but it’s how you implement them that is the big controversy here and elsewhere. It matters because human beings are not machines and not digital virtual creations either.
schrodinger's cat
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Fair enough. BTW how is the progress on your book coming along?
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human: Again you seem to comment as if I have control over or even care about the utterances of the GOP governance of my state. I vote, contribute, and volunteer, and live with the current reality and wait for the next time at bat.
Breaking everything? My, how droll. Or naïve
Nothing is going to break. It will follow the rather familiar triad of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Again, Uber-type exploration is part of the natural social evolutionary process. In my best world, ideas built by the likes of Uber will be coopted in the public space and highly efficient and well-regulated services will be provided to more folks. There will be growing pains, but it is up to liberal activists, among others, to fight to see that such problems are mitigated.
I wish my city was frozen is amber as it was about a decade ago. The changes are immense and might well price me out of a very favorable living situation (“broken” w/o Uber?). I am concerned and I am realistic.
BTW we have a very wonderful public transport service for disabled citizens. Uber will not change that.
Jamey
Is that spoiled twat still pretending to be an economist? Hell, Megan McMeganagan has more training in the science than Matty.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@schrodinger’s cat: Meh. I’ve hardly gotten any work on it done in the last week. I’m fighting depression a lot these days and it’s cutting into my productivity. It may also have something to do with why I’m so grumpy.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: I rather like the smart meters in SF. Makes it real easy to park by CalTrain on weekends when there isn’t a Giants game. Hasn’t fixed the financial district, but they’re not the sort of folks it’s easy to price out anyway. Which, clearly, is representative of a flaw. I don’t commute though, I’m lucky.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: It seems like the wealthy control transit and zoning in SF and beware if you’re not one of them. Like when BART got slapped with an environmental justice complaint, I think the only one that had actually been filed since Title VI was implemented in the 1960s, they wanted to blow millions on an airport people mover there was little demand for (but the important people wanted it, plus construction unions were on board) while cutting overburdened already ground (ie bus) transportation.
BART sucks and Muni is stuck in the 19th century. But at least you can walk places. A lot of people in a lot of cities can’t safely or practicably walk anywhere important.
lol
@Another Holocene Human:
Now, do you think that pricing model is *more* or *less* transparent than Uber’s pricing model?
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: I think it’s a great idea when they work.
Other places have tried them and failed because of basically political reasons but transportation is very political, you can’t wave that away.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
I will post the link to the Supreme Court cheerleader story to this thread after I get home from work tonight. We will let everyone decide for themselves who’s lying about what you said in that thread. Happy?
Since you appear not to have noticed, I did not address you directly for a year and a half after that specific thread because I was so pissed off about what you were saying about the victim being a liar. But I guess I only did that to maintain my supposed lie about you, right?
I will post the link tonight and you will never have to worry about me addressing you directly again, because I will add you to my pie filter.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Holocene Human: It’s all about the landowners. Nobody wants anything built on/near/under their holdings, and they have the money to for instance astroturf grassroots resistance “for the environment”, as well as shit on any proposed construction/improvements by appealing to the vanity of the people who merely own the condos because more throughput/density will “lower their property values” and (oh lord) “make it harder to park.”
Plus you can’t get Marin to agree to any sort of transit that *isn’t* for the disabled because it means “those people” will be able to live and move around there, and most of the peninsula has declared itself “full”.
And so we walk. I have a nice ass as a result, at least.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Yeah, you threatened to do that the last time. When I posted a quote of mine from that thread that directly contradicted your claims, you disappeared. So bring it on; your lies don’t frighten me.
srv
@Botsplainer: You clearly are stuck in the brick-and-mortar days.
Mindshare, baby, mindshare!
Uber will last as long as Facebook.
Another Holocene Human
@Another Holocene Human: Spot pricing is always going to suck and availability is always in question. Uber’s peak pricing can solve that on a daily commute basis but can’t really fix that problem during an emergency.
My issue isn’t really transparency. If Uber behaves in predictable ways then the customer base will adjust to that. Although they actually benefit in the way I outlined above due to initial lack of transparency. After all, most customers don’t know about surge pricing until they’re hit with it. So they can come into a market and grab a significant chunk of market share before “the catch” comes in.
The question as has been posed above is that the ‘gouging’ — not peak time pricing, but emergency gouging — is harmful and fails to solve any collective problems. I posit it may also damage an existing, regulated, functioning market. It acts as a parasite and then destroys the host. I’ve seen failed transportation markets. Availability sucks or is non-existent, prices are high and all over the place.
Any time the different market players are pricing in different ways there’s a lack of transparency even if they offer prices up front.
As many have noted, even though the airline pricing model isn’t all that complicated, infrequent users find it confusing as fuck.
People can exert pressure two ways, refusing to buy or getting government involved. When they are forced to buy they will get government involved.
When you take Uber in and then need to take Uber out because you took Uber in but guess what, SURGE PRICING!! you are now forced (more or less) to buy but you are also pissed off.
Uber doesn’t have a monopoly, they can’t pull a “we don’t have to care, we’re the phone company” routine. Of course they want this power, they have leveraged up to try to destroy the existing market and replace it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Actually, I never went back to check that other thread, so I never saw what you posted. Why not re-post it here before I pie you and then I will post my rebuttal after I get home?
Villago Delenda Est
If it was in doubt before, there is no doubt now.
Yglesias is on the tumbrel list.
Another Holocene Human
@Major Major Major Major: The way the outer communities have limited house building even though they have massive employers is, if anything, more gross than the astroturfed anti-building, anti-heights stuff in SF.
But with Prop 13 and federal incentives to borrow for a house and plow household wealth into property, you make every individual home owner complicit in this distortion scheme.
Zoning laws (see West, Texas) aren’t complete bullshit but they enable a lot of bullshit, let’s put it that way.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
For the curious, here are a couple of things I posted in the thread that Mnemosyne has threatened to reveal:
If Mnemosyne is going to be consistent, she’ll tell you that I called the young woman in question a liar, but that’s not really what I said:
Mnemosyne doesn’t seem to grasp that there is any sort of gray area between believing someone completely and thinking that they are lying. Expressing any sort of uncertainty about a rape victim’s accusations is identical to saying that she made it up. She demonstrates that in this quote, which was in response to my statement directly above:
So, yeah, bring it on. And go fuck yourself while you’re at it.
Edit: It’s also worth noting that Mnemosyne was also factually wrong about the case in question in that quote. The individual never pleaded guilty to sexual assault. He pleaded guilty to simple assault, which is quite a bit different.
ranchandsyrup
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): That wasn’t the observation that Yglesias made, though.
You want me to give him credit for an argument he didn’t make???
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Grumpy?! Uh, no. You’re being a first-rate tool.
If it’s coming up multiple times that people think you’re a misogynist, and it has, maybe the problem is not all those people who think you’re a misogynist.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G:
And you know this because you know five disabled citizens who ride paratransit on the regular? Be honest now.
And you are very much arguing for “creative destruction”, that there is some sort of benefit to breaking things and then reregulating, while denying that you are arguing for breaking things. You sound very confused.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@ranchandsyrup: Yes, it was. Here, from the piece in question:
Yglesias may be guilty of convoluted language, but that’s pretty much the argument he made. He couched it in terms of the Bangladeshi people making a choice and he may not have sufficiently explained why they would be immiserating, but the point was about exactly what I said.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: Given that the people who call me a misogynist keep misrepresenting what I said, I disagree. And you are on that list. Try being honest.
Another Holocene Human
Well, Keith G, I’m still bothered by something.
Were those 24 nursing home residents who died in an oxygen-tank fueled fire that started in an improperly-maintained bus’ brakes, trapped in a ramp-less vehicle despite requesting the ramp, were they the victims of too much government, too little government, or your liberal activists who are going to fix what the creative disrupters, such as the fly-by-night carrier involved (it’s like Uber for analog-heads!), just falling asleep on the job, but it’s not YOUR fault, because you voted the right way … um, did I miss anything?
Major Major Major Major
are Balloon Juice meetups fun? I’m imagining fistfights after a few pints.
Another Holocene Human
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): This is what you call “banal” and “obvious” upthread?!
There is so much to unpack here I don’t even know where to start.
You are aware that there were massive protests in Bangladesh, right? Like, we can’t have an honest discussion about this without talking about systems of government as well as corruption, right?
ranchandsyrup
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I get that your excerpt is the end all for you, but there’s more to it. You swallow that framing and I don’t.
jeebus.
lol
@Major Major Major Major:
The truly problematic people have never shown up at the ones I’ve been to.
Keith G
@Keith G: Since Kay is here, I want to further flesh out what I am getting at by using an area she writes about (I hope I communicate this correctly)
If I may quote myself:
I believe in public education, I was a school teacher and if I had ever been on a trajectory where children were a part of my life, I would have wanted them to go to traditional public schools.
Yet, there was much about the theory and practice of public school pedagogy that went adrift (and landed in a ditch) during the last third of the previous century. By and large, the charter school movement has been a dodge and a grift. But, not all manifestations of the charter school ideal have been a bust. And now increasingly, practices that had seemed much more within the whelm of charter schools are being used in public school settings*** – often with the overlay of public school accountability.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis
This is still a work in progress. There are hits and misses, but it seems to be the process of synthesis is underway with the result being an improved process in many places Of course, there is still so much work to be done.
***This is what I noticed during my last years in education.
Uber is a reaction to several things such as changes in tech, changes in the “urban scape”, and changes in consumer taste (among others). Uber will no more break public transport than charter schools have broken public ed. In the end, ideas growing from the “Uber experience” may lead us to better ideas about what urban transportation should be like.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): You’ve been really insulting, you debate as if there are points to be scored rather than insights to be gained, and you attempt (badly, I might add) to negate the influence of cultural factors to those people who have been on the receiving end of those cultural factors, aka “mansplaining”. Then you mischaracterize a difference of opinion as “dishonesty”.
Have a nice, tall, cold glass of go fuck yourself.
srv
@Another Holocene Human: It depends, they probably all voted Republican.
@ranchandsyrup: What’s the Hodor code for Ombudsman?
And what did Amanda Marcotte say about the Rolling Stones story, and why hasn’t her ex-BF John commented on it? Oh, the Duke days, that was epic.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: Go read the quotes from the thread Mnemosyne keeps talking about. She engages in straight up lies about what I said. And you have done pretty much the same thing. Like her, you consistently refuse to acknowledge that expressing skepticism about what someone says is not the same thing as saying that that person is lying. Many of your accusations of “mansplaining” towards what I said have rested on the assertion that there is no difference. Those are lies.
Your opinion seems to be that any disagreement with you represents misogyny. So I’ll hand that glass right back to you.
chopper
@Suzanne:
right, and bringing up ‘mansplaining’ in a thread about uber isn’t about point scoring at all.
ranchandsyrup
@srv: It’s JMN ad hominem day, apparently. Get well soon, JMN.
PST
I use Uber daily and have discussed surge pricing with several drivers. They say it increases supply quickly to the affected area here in Chicago, usually by drawing cars from other parts of town. Uber charges drivers a percentage of the fare, so surge pricing is a powerful motivator. They say it works so well they often have a difficult time estimating whether the surge price will last long enough to make it worthwhile to respond. I hate paying extra and I’ll delay my trip to avoid it if I can. But it’s much better than not being able to find a cab when you really need one.
Another Holocene Human
@Keith G: You sound like an apologist for that “invented spelling” crap that my brother and thousands of other schoolkids went through. It sucked, reversion was quick, but not before a whole bolus of children were deprived of the education their older and younger peers enjoyed.
When we already know that some action is going to be stupid, there is no excuse for going through with it and causing people to suffer. If you think your cab service sucked that much why not lobby for change? You think that is for other people to do, of course, that much is obvious.
LongHairedWeirdo
Hm. Market based solutions *with proper supports* are actually a good idea.
Obvious example: Imagine Well Designed City, where downtown parking is very hard to come by, and parking per day is limited to $5, because “poor people have to work there! They can’t afford $20 or more a day for just parking!”
Well: if you had public transportation (and you do, it’s a Well Designed City) you can add some extra buses and park and ride areas, and let the price go up Poor people don’t *need* to park, they *can* take the bus, and yeah, it *sucks* – but if you add enough buses, they can do it. The market will supply more parking for $20 a day than it will for $5 a day. And the extra $15 a day for a parking spot can help offset the cost of the extra buses. Maybe you can even run some free shuttles!
Now, I don’t give a FFAARD about Uber, so I can’t discuss whether “surge pricing” is perfectly okay, or a tool of the devil. But I will grant that market based fixes are usually best. The problem with most such proposals are… well.
Krugman and Weis point out in their textbook that if you want good housing, you don’t set a cap on housing prices – you subsidize the poor so they can afford housing. That way the market supplies enough good quality housing. Libertarians say “don’t set a cap on housing prices. And subsidize the rich so they can spend a lot of money on housing. Let the moochers die to decrease the surplus population. Now excuse me while I make a suspiciously large plum pudding and don’t ask what I’m going to do with this stake of holly.”
Another Holocene Human
@srv: nursing homes = medicaid, mixture of backgrounds in there
Marcotte did comment, it was okay. Her articles have improved although she still has a lot of weaknesses.
Another Holocene Human
@LongHairedWeirdo: If you build a rapid transit system instead of just piling the poorest of the poor onto underfunded buses you might have something superior to driving–no traffic lights, no stuck in traffic, glide through ice/snow, walk to station (exercise!), and you can get work done or goof off during your commute instead of, ya know, having to drive.
There are these odd creatures who say they enjoy their morning hell commute. More power to them. Personally I don’t care to drive when I am not being paid to do so. Because driving a car in traffic sucks.
If you look at how citizens in areas with good public transit defend their public transit (pitchforks and torches all but singing La Marseillaise) it seems like I’m not the only one who thinks self-driving commutes are a mug’s game.
chopper
@Keith G:
Maybe not, but just like the charter school movement it’ll try its damnedest. and all in the name of glibertarian rich guy assholes trying to fuck up the world for the rest of us in the name of unlicensed profits.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
Gee, Mnemosyne vanished again. What a coincidence.
Keith G
@Another Holocene Human:
You got that from what I typed?
You seem to be not interested in inquiry, but in an attack mode instead.
I’ll leave you to it.
Well, you are in “attack mode
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): She has a job. It’s business hours. FFS.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: She’s had more than a week to respond to the first time I posted that. She hasn’t been working that whole time. For something that she’s the one that threatened to post she seems distinctly unwilling to actually discuss it.
Keith G
@chopper:
The public education system that I had trained to work in had atrophied with either institutional lethargy or other forms of bureaucratic self satisfaction. Unfortunately, in many locales, public ed needed strident opposition to slap it back into a more realistic self-evaluation. I think/hope that in the long run, public ed will be better because the of the challenges to it by those promoting charter schools.
sharl
@Keith G:
I am very much looking forward to Kay responding to you; the topic of public-vs-private education is a major thing with her.
But for an example of how things can go really, really bad, both during the public-to-private school conversion process, and in the result, here is a long read (and well researched, AFAICT) on the sad story of Desert Trails Elementary in the poor community of Adelanto, CA.
Those big pots of taxpayer money collected for schools are just too tempting for $chool Reform grifters backed by right-wing privatization ideologues, and it seems unlikely that poor and stressed communities will stand a chance in opposing them. The tactics used in Adelanto were sleazy and horrible… and ultimately successful, unfortunately.
ETA: just saw your reply to Chopper at #234. I hope your optimism is ultimately borne out, but it will take vigilance and oversight by affected parties, and government representatives ensuring an honest process. That certainly didn’t happen in Adelanto.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): FFS. It’s the busiest time of the year. Is it possible that maybe she has more important shit to do than get into a pissing match with you? That’s not “dishonesty”, BTW.
You know, if you don’t want to be considered a misogynist, you could try not being an aggressive d-bag to women who post here. This is a blog, dude. The stakes could not be lower.
chopper
@Keith G:
Just like school privatization, uber-style taxi privatization is a huge grift. And it thrives on regular folk being all ‘well, the system could use some improvement so why not try this crazy shit?’
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: “Taxi privatization”??
You can’t privatize what’s already private.
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
Given how heavily regulated taxi services are, you sure as shit can.
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: That’s not what privatization means.
At any rate, a lot of those regulations are regulatory capture and rent-seeking by a handful of individuals who control the medallions. I’m not losing any sleep over trust-busting.
Keith G
@sharl: I know that there are charter school horror stories – just like there are public ed horror stories.
I would never offer an en mas defense of the charter schools. I was just noting that they were, in part, fueled by aggravation at the way some public school systems had seemed to become less about educating all of their students and more about sustaining the bureaucracy.
Now, ironically, charter schools sometimes became a cure that was at least as bad as the disease.
Still, I can see getting to a point where we see that the charter school movement provided important energy in changing public ed for the better.
Mandalay
@Suzanne:
I am shamelessly stealing that, but I think that you are a too eager to pull the “misogynist” card here. His beef is that she deliberately lies about what he posts, and I have suffered exactly that same experience from her, as have others. Are we all misogynists?
Trolling is one thing, but deliberately and maliciously lying about what others post here is beneath contempt. And it’s bad for BJ – it drives people away.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: Given the way that you throw out accusations you’re not exactly in a good position to be complaining that other people are douchebags.
Keith G
@sharl:
I think a lot depends on the local public system. Here an my city, a one time big, top-heavy system has become a lot more neighborhood-centric. Their 0-8th grade campuses are no longer cookie cutter entities. Pro-activity and out-reach are sacraments. They have worked to coopt some of the important selling points of charter schools and have also worked to evolve the strengths intrinsic to good public schools.
Competition can really work.
Tyro
I quite simply could not give a flying fuck about what model Uber uses to set their prices. Taxis exist, and so do black car services. Uber out-and-out tells you, “Uber will charge 4x the normal rate.” That is the point at which you close the app and seek another method of getting to where you want to go.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Mandalay: I’d take it a step further. Mnemosyne recently threatened to post quotes of mine from an old thread to show that I’m a misogynist. When I went ahead and did it myself, she disappeared. She did the same thing today. Then Suzanne complains that I haven’t given her time to respond to a post that only does what Mnemosyne herself had threatened to do more than a week ago. Sorry, but the person who threatens to post something doesn’t get a pass for not responding promptly when someone else posts the same thing just because it’s a busy time of year. If it’s that busy, don’t make the threat in the first place.
Suzanne
@Mandalay: I have seen JMN repeatedly, in multiple threads over a long time period, put forth positions that I think are shitty for women. I think he’s been especially aggressive since the last time he got called out on it, and he’s been really insulting as a result. I don’t know about his issue with Mnem, as I also have other things in life that pull me away from posting or reading threads, but I have seen him be much more insulting than she ever was to him. I don’t think disagreement = misogyny, but I think that aggressive behavior toward the women who point out that you may have a problem with women is probably evidence of a problem with women.
Villago Delenda Est
@Keith G:
You’re not paying attention in either area.
There must be a fire somewhere that you can go die in. Please look for it.
Thanks.
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
You know what, change ‘taxi privatization’ in my post to ‘taxi deregulation’ and it means the exact same thing, and you know that and everybody else knows that. It’s the same exact fucking point.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: The reason I’m insulting is because you either don’t understand a distinction I have made over and over again or you just ignore it. And whichever one it is, you have used your incorrect impression of what I have said to make accusations. I don’t react aggressively towards women; I react aggressively to people who make dishonest claims about what I have said, and you fall into that category. That you have never bothered to even recognize the ways you mischaracterized my statements makes it worse. You “called me out on it” based upon something that I never said.
chopper
@Mandalay:
As I have noted numerous times, it typically happens after the thread hits a certain number of posts. Usually 150 but sometimes earlier. It’s like rand paul and the 5-minute rule.
Mandalay
@Suzanne: Fair enough, and I disliked his hounding of you the other day over the rape story. But from afar I did not see that as driven by misogyny either, though YMMV, and (with good reason) I’m sure you pay closer attention to his posts than me.
Keith G
@Villago Delenda Est: Cool.
Back with your customary contribution – personal attacks peppered with wishes of early (and often violent) death.
You are most welcome.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): It’s also worth noting that the policies that I support that Suzanne thinks are sufficiently anti-women to start making accusations are:
1) That employers shouldn’t have an unlimited right to fire employees for any outside-the-job behaviors they deem to be embarrassing and that employees should have access to some form of due process before being fired no matter what the accusation is; and
2) That claims of rape victims shouldn’t necessarily be assumed to be true uncritically and that uncorroborated stories are worthy of serious investigation but shouldn’t just be assumed to be true. Not, as she has claimed, that I just assume that such claims are false.
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: Some things actually need deregulated or “disrupted” though. Legalizing brewpubs and homebrewing in the 70’s-80’s brought us a mighty fine craft beer industry at the expense of the coors/anheiser-busch oligopoly. And the taxi industry, at least around here (not claiming to know much outside of the bay area) deserves it right now too. Taxis aren’t a utility, they’re a response to a lack of government transit services or a luxury for people who don’t want to use them. The fact that they’re popular and regulated doesn’t mean they even vaguely resemble a good service or a fair market.
chopper
@Mandalay:
To be fair, in the thread before that she had gone after him about his skepticism which as it turns out was justified. He was at least somewhat justified in calling that out.
Ilya
Matt Yglesias… now there’s a name I haven’t heard in many years.
But seriously, he has absolutely no credentials to his name, and has been milking his Harvard Philosophy bachelors degree for all its worth. If he had graduated from any other school on the planet, nobody would give two shits what this son-of-a-famous-person admit thinks.
chopper
@Major Major Major Major:
The beer industry, including the craft beer industry, is heavily regulated. Like the taxi/car service industry, for good reason. We don’t let random schmucks making beer in their garages sell the stuff at supermarkets for good fucking reason, disruptive iPhone app or no.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): The worst thing I called you was “unsympathetic to women”, while you started calling people idiots and questioning their intellectual capacity. You distorted what everyone said about fact-checking, and accused me and others of not caring about ethics. I have not ignored your “distinction”. I just think it’s meaningless. Once again, a difference of opinion isn’t dishonesty. Then you come in here and act like a complete tool. So whatever. Done with you. Good luck with the book.
Major Major Major Major
@chopper: Of course we don’t. Because that would be stupid.
I’m not saying any old whoever should be able to drive an UberX around with no insurance or background checks–because that would be stupid. In fact, many municipalities now require both of those. Which is good.
What Uber is doing in a lot of places is illegal. No question. But some of the laws they’re breaking–specifically the ones that protect the big medallion owners at the expense of independent folks–are bad laws! Just because they’re assholes doesn’t mean they don’t have a point.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Suzanne: Again, you think that if something isn’t said explicitly it doesn’t matter. Over and over again you responded to my attempts to explain the distinction between skepticism and thinking that someone is a liar by saying that not just accepting a victim’s claims is supporting rape culture. Just because that’s an implicit accusation doesn’t mean it isn’t an accusation.
And at least you’ve now said explicitly that you think any expression of skepticism equates to calling someone a liar. However, you don’t retract any of my statements that refusing to acknowledge that someone else makes that distinction and making accusations based upon it isn’t lying. It is.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Major Major Major Major: Roughly speaking, this is the way a lot of objections to Yglesias go. People assume that because he thinks some regulations are bad and should be repealed, that must mean that he’s just reflexively opposed to all regulation. Given the number of times he talks about regulations he agrees with or even that should be strengthened, it means that they read him very selectively.
Steve from Antioch
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
This appears to mneosynes modus operandi: sniff out a comment that doesn’t precisely align with her worldview, then grossly distort and misstate said opinion so she can offer a rebuttal to the (imagined) post.
It’s also kind of funny to read someone whine about posters with whom they disagree being “aggressive” since the default post for many hereabouts is inviting others to die in a fire.
Suzanne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I said nothing of the sort. You’re either lying or misrepresenting…something. You’re so wrapped up in minutae I can’t even follow you anymore. I believe that statements of skepticism support a culture of “bitches lie”, and are unsupportive to victims.
And I do believe that your actions have the result of supporting rape culture. That’s not a lie. That’s my opinion. I’m sure you don’t intend this, just like racists don’t think they’re racist and libertarians don’t think they hate poor people. That is not an ad hominem attack, like you throw out…at women.
I think the better response on your part would be to spend some time on Feministing or I Blame The Patriarchy and expand your awareness. You’re proposing to financially profit from this issue, so I think it would behoove you to explore it.
sharl
@Keith G: IIRC, Kay has mentioned that charter school conversion proposals started getting much-needed serious examination once their proponents started moving into wealthier (middle and upper working class) school districts. Before that a lot of these conversion took place in poorer districts.
I hope you are right that something better comes from this all. Without an active participating constituency (mainly parents), school system bureaucracies can become hidebound, sclerotic, and self-protecting, as it sounds like you have experienced personally. I’m just concerned that for these poor districts, the cure could well be worse than the existing disease.
I don’t have any quick-&-easy answers myself. It may be something as simple as finding educated parents in such districts who only need a bit of help – child care, transportation, whatever – in order to enable them to become actively involved in their kids’ schooling. Or even enabling such citizen-parents to start charter schools themselves (a massive undertaking I suspect). In light of the hijinks by Michelle Rhee and others of her ilk, I am just really, really skeptical of much (most?) of the leadership in the school “reform” movement.
My opinions on Uber are obvious from the links I posted earlier. I could well see a role for such ride-sharing vendors – a commenter upthread reported good experiences in Chicago, so there are situations where it can clearly work – but it needs to be introduced carefully. And as I said earlier, I wouldn’t trash the municipal taxi systems – or let them be starved out by unregulated competitors – before first trying to fix whatever ails them.
Linnaeus
@Major Major Major Major:
What’s interesting, though, is that Uber’s enacting a kind of regulatory arbitrage strategy, which means that it’s actually to its benefit (right now) for the regulations to be in place while Uber strengthens its position. Then, should those regulations be weakened or done away with, Uber will already be a fait accompli, and will be in a position to keep out competitors against Uber.
Major Major Major Major
@Linnaeus: That’s an indictment of the fossilization of the urban taxi oligopolies & their regulatory capture much more than an indictment of Uber. They had to know that treating their employees & customers like garbage would eventually leave an opening for a company that only treated their employees like garbage. (Contractors, I know)
Uber’s not great, they’re not even good, but I cannot shed a tear for what’s happening to the taxi companies.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Well, they have to click the box, DUH!
Mnemosyne
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Yes, it’s almost as though I have a job where Balloon-Juice keeps crashing my computer and I can only post from my phone during the day. You know, as I’ve mentioned multiple times before.
Are we posting from the same thread? Because here are a few choice quotes of yours, with an actual link so people can see the entire thread for themselves:
And don’t forget, the guy only pleaded to simple assault, so we have to assume the bitch lied, amirite?
For people who actually bother to read that old thread, notice how many people — not just me — were telling JMN that he was being a victim-blaming asshole who was making all kinds of unwarranted assumptions about the victim and what actually happened. And yet he Just. Couldn’t. Stop.
I’m done with you now. You have zero ability to take advice of any kind, even if it’s when multiple people beg you to stop digging because you’re being an asshole. Into the pie filter you go.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Another Holocene Human:
it’s what he does.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: It is weird to me that his main character in his book is supposedly a victim of child rape when he appears to have so little feeling for real live rape victims. It’s not a plot device. It’s real life.
different-church-lady
@srv (quoting Uber):
If your fuckin’ model worked correctly, then the mere need for more drivers would cause more drivers to come online and pick up passengers from that area.
We’re not stupid, Uber.
Keith G
@different-church-lady: No, actually not the way in theory that such a pricing system would work.
To drastically over simplify, the model assumes that some people who would be driving are pursuing other interests or maybe just enjoying a bit of down time. As the charged price for selling car time increases, more drivers will calculate the opportunity cost differently and may choose to make themselves available to sell their service at that increased price. Without the ability to charge an increased price for driving, extra drivers might choose to stay out of the market and pursue their other interests.
Nutella
A counter example from recent history: After 9/11 the air transportation system in the US was shut down for days, with no way for anyone to know when it would return to normal. Many people were away from home that week and had places to go so the demand for rental cars, even for much longer trips than usual, was exceptionally high.
So what did the rental car companies do in this emergency? They did not quadruple prices. They worked with customers to make it easy to keep their rental cars longer and canceled the usual charges for dropping off in a different city. They did, of course, charge the normal daily rate for the additional time it took me to drive from Colorado to Illinois that was not expected from my original reservation for use of the car in Colorado while I was there on business.
In a national emergency the major rental car companies came through for their customers. I still think highly of Hertz for doing the right thing.
There’s a distinction to be made between normal times of high demand due to rain, snow, parades, football games, etc. where surge pricing may be legitimate and valuable and the kind of widespread emergencies caused by hurricane Sandy or the Sydney hostage taking or 9/11. Price gouging during emergencies is bad citizenship.
Tripod
…and thus ends another episode of “Throwing the Jew Down the Well”.