This guy gets his supposedly objective information about taxicab deregulation from a handful of studies of the taxi deregulation done in the 1960's and 1970's. In particular, he quotes from a paper [1] by Paul Dempsey from 1996 to come to the conclusion that taxi deregulation yields poor results across a variety of metrics.
Well, I actually read the Dempsey paper after reading this blog post, and I have come to the conclusion that the poster is deliberately misrepresenting the contents of that paper. Nearly every negative effect mentioned does not apply to Uber/Lyft.
For example, an increase in rates is mentioned in this blog post as being an effect of deregulation. In the Dempsey paper, this is attributed to new small time cabbies taking fares at cabstands, hotels, etc. These drivers, in an attempt to overcome the increased competition due to deregulation, would raise their rates. Riders had no easy way to compare rates or get an alternate ride. This simply doesn't apply to Uber/Lyft, as you can see the price right away even before the car shows up.
Another example: the paper also mentions increased congestion and pollution due to the increased number of taxis on the road. In the 1960's and 1970's this made sense as taxis would cruise the streets looking for people to pick up or possibly wait with their engines on at taxi stands. Again, modern ridesharing services don't have this problem.
The Dempsey paper also mentions many negative effects from new entrants into the taxi business during deregulation not being radio dispatched due to its high startup cost. But every ridesharing service is "radio dispatched".
I could go on like this, but in general ridesharing services increase the amount of information that consumers have, thus allowing the market to work in a way that it couldn't 50 years ago. This blogger completely ignores that, and just skips to the conclusions.
Well, I actually read the Dempsey paper after reading this blog post, and I have come to the conclusion that the poster is deliberately misrepresenting the contents of that paper. Nearly every negative effect mentioned does not apply to Uber/Lyft.
For example, an increase in rates is mentioned in this blog post as being an effect of deregulation. In the Dempsey paper, this is attributed to new small time cabbies taking fares at cabstands, hotels, etc. These drivers, in an attempt to overcome the increased competition due to deregulation, would raise their rates. Riders had no easy way to compare rates or get an alternate ride. This simply doesn't apply to Uber/Lyft, as you can see the price right away even before the car shows up.
Another example: the paper also mentions increased congestion and pollution due to the increased number of taxis on the road. In the 1960's and 1970's this made sense as taxis would cruise the streets looking for people to pick up or possibly wait with their engines on at taxi stands. Again, modern ridesharing services don't have this problem.
The Dempsey paper also mentions many negative effects from new entrants into the taxi business during deregulation not being radio dispatched due to its high startup cost. But every ridesharing service is "radio dispatched".
I could go on like this, but in general ridesharing services increase the amount of information that consumers have, thus allowing the market to work in a way that it couldn't 50 years ago. This blogger completely ignores that, and just skips to the conclusions.
[1] http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2241306