Comment on Uber's new shuttle service sounds a lot like a bus route

blazera@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  We don’t need to make them Uber chartered bus routes.

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  • MxM111@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Why not? The more the merrier, and you, the customer, have a choice.

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    • ilinamorato@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Until the city decides to get rid of the subsidized bus system because “Uber is a better service and covers the routes anyway” and then they jack the price sky-high.

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      • TheFriar@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Exactly. How people haven’t realized this yet is fuckin unconceivable. Trusting a for-profit company—with a history of the exact problematic behavior we’re worried about—is beyond stupid. They can operate at a loss for a long time. Just to fuck other businesses out of the market so they can charge as much as they want. It’s literally their business model.

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    • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      What if you, the customer, are a poor person? Is Uber going to subsidize a bus pass for you to charter one of Uber’s buses to their job?

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      • MxM111@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Reducing public transportation is not a solution to fight poverty.

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      • blazera@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        no bus company subsidizes passes, local governments do

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      • Aux@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        From my own experience, if you’re poor, you use a regular bus. If you want to get somewhere faster, you pay more and catch a shuttle. If you want comfort, you pay even more and get a taxi. And all modes of transport are always full to the brim. The more the merrier, always.

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      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’m hiring your job would be the one to do that. A lot of companies subsidize transit passes, the problem is usually there aren’t enough routes, so employees don’t use them.

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    • yildolw@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      The private sector takes the profitable popular routes first, which the public system is already serving, meaning the public system would not longer be able to use the fare revenue from the popular routes to subsidize the geographical coverage unpopular ones which are nevertheless needed to get the full network effect

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  • blazera@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    We need whoever is willing to provide them

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• akilou@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  We need more public transportation, not privatized bus routes

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  • blazera@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    do we get more public transportation if we ban uber from this?

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    • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      We need to tax the fuck out of the dIsRupTIve vultures called venture capitalists. The only disruption they cause is offering an existing service with extra little value returned to society and workers until the competition is dead. Then prices are raised and society gets squeezed a second time. It’s fucking disgusting. The raised tax on these fuckers can then be used for public transport, amongst other things.

      So, no, we don’t get public transport from banning Uber doing this. But Uber wouldn’t do this (or exist) if the investors of this shit company would pay their fair share and if Uber had to follow proper labor laws.

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    • akilou@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yes. Allowing Uber to do this justifies a disinvestment in public services. “why should we spend more on bus service when no one rides it anyway? They’re all taking Uber bus”

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      • blazera@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        the horror, too many people taking uber bus

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    • TheFriar@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Look at any of these tech companies’ history. They corner the market by operating at massive losses that VCs can foot for, like, a decade. And then when they drive out other options, they abuse the fuck out of customers. They “disrupt” by obliterating, and that’s when they move for the kill shot: ever expanding profits.

      This is not a good thing. Even in NYC, where the MTA is a massive chunk of money, we have one of the slowest bus systems in the world. That’s through no fault of the busses, mind, this is the cars fault. And, kinda Uber’s fault. The traffic is so bad, even where busses have their own lanes, the traffic slows that shit down like crazy.

      Depending on the govt (Adams would probably jump at this, whoever his successor will be will obviously determine how it’d go), the city sees $$$ and sacrifices the long term well being of the city for their own “successes” in office. And money/budget is always a crunch, no matter the place. So if Uber wanted to “disrupt” NYC by basically taking over busses or getting a contract to use the bus stops and bus lanes, the govt saves money while generating revenue because those VCs are eyeing the long term where they stop having to pay and make the city reliant on their services.

      Trusting vampiric capitalists with any public good is a fuckin stupid thing to do. Look at healthcare. How we have privatized healthcare is beyond me, but look at the state of it. Now, this is more expanding on the conversation than actually replying directly to your question, but it sort of does get at the heart of it. For a time, we would get more transportation. It wouldn’t be public, it’d be private. But it wouldn’t solve the issues. It’d just create new ones.

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      • blazera@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        This is not a good thing. Even in NYC, where the MTA is a massive chunk of money, we have one of the slowest bus systems in the world. That’s through no fault of the busses, mind, this is the cars fault. And, kinda Uber’s fault. The traffic is so bad, even where busses have their own lanes, the traffic slows that shit down like crazy.

        Im with you that cars are the problem, thats why im defending this proposal for more bus service. Also in the same boat of venture capitalist tech companies are all those bike sharing businesses that popped up over the years. I still see them as positive, they’ve become integrated into many european pedestrian friendly cities id like for American cities to imitate.

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  • wolfpack86@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Frankly it doesn’t matter. Japan has several private companies operating rail services. Tokyo has several subway systems.

    We need more appropriately priced, accessible mass transit. I don’t care if it’s public or private.

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• MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Yea I see this as a net positive. They mention concert venues. This is the perfect use case, I remember so many times struggling to get a bus after a big show because they’re packed. This could relieve that. It could increase frequency of pickups on existing routes, it’ll cut down on single passenger Ubers.

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