RIDEGURU
Remember that article from NYT last week about how Uber is to blame for Taxi Driver suicides in NYC. Well here is Forbes rebuttal article:
By now readers are likely aware of where this is headed. The narrative offered up by the Times is that bareknuckled, disruptive, Schumpeterian-style market competition in the form of Uber, Lyft and other private transportation services has wiped out the once prosperous taxi industry in New York. For individual medallion holders who followed the rules in buying a commodity that legalized their work in the City, market forces have viciously erased the livelihood of some. That suicides are the end result of unregulated market activity is supposedly another reminder of the life-ending cruelty that often comes with free markets.
Except that free markets are not the cause of the misery. Though it’s surely true about Uber and other transportation services upending NYC’s taxi industry, and it’s surely true that the latter correlates with plummeting medallion prices, let’s not be foolish and pretend that Uber’s existence is causing the suicides. Assuming the relation between crashing medallion values and Uber is true, the real culprit is government.
Comments
Let's stop playing the blame game. People are dying. This is a tragedy and we need to work on finding a solution instead of pointing fingers.
great insight. People love using Uber as a scapegoat, but in this instance if we are to blame anyone it really is the gov't who imposed regulations on taxi companies but not on Uber.
Yep, Forbes just went there. Boom.
"the real culprit is government"
Govt=Trump right?
Does that mean we can blame Trump for this too?
Forbes are capitalists just as uber is so that kind of verbalism is expected.From the INVESTORS to the USELESS mayor all of them have blood on their hands . No taxi service that is non medallion should be less of a cost to riders. Taxi drivers in third world countries are earning more money than drivers in many states and that is a fact and NYC taxi rates is too cheap to sustain a reasonable living.