from Hacker News

London's Uber Ban Is a Big Brexit Mistake

by flying_whale on 9/24/17, 8:54 PM with 66 comments

  • by hn_throwaway_99 on 9/25/17, 12:57 AM

    This same argument was made when Austin required fingerprinting for drivers and Uber and Lyft left.

    What happened? Their was a flourishing of new ride share companies, including a local nonprofit, RideAustin. Yes, at first, these apps were nowhere near the level of Uber/Lyft, but they quickly improved, especially RideAustin. The prices were slightly higher, but it seemed those prices reflected the actual cost of the service without the VC subsidy.

    I dread taking a taxi and I'm no friend of the formerly entrenched taxi companies, but this idea that making some sensible regulations that these multibillion dollar VC-subsidized tech companies need to follow is "anti-innovation" is BS.

  • by oulu2006 on 9/25/17, 12:52 AM

    This article is stupid, Uber was not caught unawares and has been in repeated violation of several requirements for operating in London.

    This isn't the end of some libertarian utopian dream of innovation, but rather uber's continued blatant disregard of local laws.

  • by zitterbewegung on 9/25/17, 12:44 AM

    So bending over backwards and making companies not follow the law is "stifling technology companies". As others have pointed out Uber could play by the rules if they wanted to.

  • by cosban on 9/25/17, 12:51 AM

    I find it interesting that the article fails to mention the reason behind the bans. Perhaps they expect us to already know that it's due to problems with driver background checks. (correct me if I'm wrong)

    Then again, if the argument is that in a pure libertarian system consumers would drive out bad actors like this, I'm not sure that this line of thinking would hold. The convenience of a cheap ride would seem to be worth the cost of the seemingly small chance that a user might be assaulted if the world worked this way.

  • by Animats on 9/25/17, 1:28 AM

    This is some economist from George Mason University who claims markets are the answer to everything.[1] There's a whole bunch of those guys at George Mason, available to write advertorials on demand.

    [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen

  • by nitinreddy88 on 9/25/17, 1:02 AM

    Totally click bait article.

    Snip: Transportation authority didn't ban because of job security or localization. It didn't renew Uber license because Uber is not following local authority guidelines.

  • by limaoscarjuliet on 9/25/17, 2:31 AM

    100 quid heathrow to the City vs 30 uber. Good or bad, time to pay triple again.

  • by ajdlinux on 9/25/17, 2:02 AM

    TfL and the Greater London Authority being controlled by notable Brexiteers like Sadiq Khan, of course...

  • by burntrelish1273 on 9/25/17, 1:39 AM

    Set Uber aside for the bigger picture:

    Brexit is UK's "Donald Trump": a manifestation of projected socioeconomic angst in a self-defeating manner that doesn't address inequality at the policy level. It's like suggesting California secede: good luck with trade policies, printing a currency, forming a military and so on. It's civilizational "reorg" churn that accomplishes nothing, eg, mob nonsense. If people collectively possessed integrity and moral courage, they would directly call out what they felt was inequity instead of scapegoating this group, that trade arrangement or a startup.