[VIDEOS] Uber vs. the world: App-based car service declares victory in NYC, but faces global roadblocks

Uber, the app-based mode of transport favored by millennials worldwide, is battling politics, bad press and claims its disruption of the car-for-hire business presents a danger on the streets, but a partial victory in New York shows the company is more than willing to fight for its future.

Founded just six years ago in San Francisco and  now valued at more than $40 billion, Uber ended -- or at least pumped the brakes on -- a feud with the Big Apple, where lawmakers and Mayor Bill de Blasio were threatening to cap the number of drivers allowed on city streets. But in a surprise deal announced late Wednesday, the city agreed to table the limits until completion of a four-month study on whether Uber cars are in fact increasing traffic and harming the environment. The partial cave came after Uber put out an ad showing drivers from a broad racial and ethnic spectrum and pushed back aggressively at the political undertones of the plan.

"There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders and no amount of name calling by Mayor de Blasio will change that," Uber spokesman Matt McKenna said in a statement to FoxNews.com. "Eventually, the mayor will have to explain why he's against creating 10,000 jobs and protecting reliable rides in communities outside Manhattan."

"There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders and no amount of name calling by Mayor de Blasio will change that."

- Uber spokesman Matt McKenna

Uber officials say they are unleashing the entrepreneurial drive of thousands, and the company's supporters noted that de Blasio's 2013 mayoral campaign received $250,000 in direct contributions from the taxi industry. But the fight against New York's well-organized taxi lobby could provide a blueprint for skirmishes across the country and around the world. Critics in government and the private sector alike believe the company profits mainly by operating outside the reach of regulation, undercutting taxis, limos and even mass transit, while clogging streets.

Uber has vowed to defend its business model with hard data, which it mined for the New York dust-up.

"Mayor de Blasio said he wanted a 'data driven approach,' when, in reality, his approach has been to hide the data that shows his policies are flat out wrong," Uber's New York General Manager Josh Mohrer said Wednesday, before the deal was struck.

Via: Fox News

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[VIDEO] CBS This Morning Presses De Blasio from Left on Uber, Economy

Liberal New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sat down for a friendly interview on Thursday’s CBS This Morning and the three hosts repeatedly pushed him from the left on a variety of issues ranging from his fight with Uber to his relationship with Pope Francis on climate change and income inequality

.  The majority of the interview focused on de Blasio’s ongoing fight with ride sharing company Uber, and his efforts to regulate it like taxis and CBS’s Charlie Rose complained ”it seems like Uber whenever it's challenged simply gets its way in the end.”

After the New York major whined that Uber was allegedly contributing to congestion and pollution throughout the city which, in his view, demanded the city regulate the company, Norah O’Donnell wondered “why did you cave?” and allow Uber to expand.

Later in the segment, Rose touted de Blasio’s recent meeting with Pope Francis where the two discussed climate change and rather than press his guest on the liberal views the two share the CBS host merely asked de Blasio to “ [t]ell us about” the meeting. 

After de Blasio called Pope Francis the “strongest moral voice in the world” Rose eagerly wondered “what is his impact on climate change?” and gave the New York City mayor another opportunity to tout his liberal views.Rose then pointed out how the pope “raised questions about income inequality...And, in fact, about capitalism per se.” 

Nowhere in the segment did Rose or his CBS co-hosts bother to press de Blasio on his liberal views regarding climate change or “income inequality” and whether not his solutions would damage the economy. Instead, Rose wondered how the mayor could push Hillary Clinton far enough to the left in order to earn his endorsement: 

So what does Hillary Clinton have to do to convince you to support her because that’s been one of the issue you say you’re waiting and seeing?  

De Blasio stressed the need for liberal cities to provide mandatory paid sick leave and an raise their minimum wages which Rose found the perfect time to ask yet another lefty question: “Will there be $15 minimum wage in New York?”

The New York mayor argued that he was “working toward” a $15 minimum wage which prompted Norah O’Donnell to wonder “why not endorse Bernie Sanders?” 

In the past, CBS This Morning has done its best to help tout the liberal agenda of de Blasio. During an appearance on May 20, the three hosts gave him an unchallenged platform as Charlie Rose declared him one of the “leaders of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.” 

Via: CBS This Morning

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Uber Crashes the Democratic Party

It is an axiom of modern American life: Offer a new service that is wildly popular with the public, and sooner or later you will find yourself labeled an enemy of the people.

The latest target is Uber, the app-based ride-sharing service that since its launch in San Francisco just five years ago has expanded to more than 300 cities across the globe. Here in New York, Uber is now locked in combat with the city’s progressive mayor, Bill de Blasio. In a Sunday op-ed for the Daily News, Mr. de Blasio said he aims to freeze Uber’s expansion until his regulators can figure out how best to block any attempts to “skirt vital protections and oversight.”

The mayor’s call to arms comes only days after Hillary Clinton used her big speech on economics to sound a similarly dismal note. Though she didn’t mention Uber by name, the Democratic Party’s leading contender for the 2016 presidential nomination fretted that while the “gig economy” may be “exciting” and “unleashing innovation,” “it is also raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future.”

Hard questions that Mrs. Clinton no doubt intends the government to answer, even if those answers end up making Uber and others like it less exciting and less innovative.

Republican presidential candidates are having fun with all this. Marco Rubio, who last year sided with Uber over regulators in Miami, accused Mrs. Clinton of trying to “regulate 21st-century industries with 20th-century ideas.” Jeb Bush pointedly traveled by Uber for his visit to Thumbtack, a Silicon Valley startup. Meanwhile, Rand Paul says he would like our government to adopt the Uber model—more information and customer ratings—while Ted Cruz says his campaign will be as disruptive of politics-as-usual as Uber is of old business models.

To Uber’s credit, the company is not backing down from the political offensive. In a clever jab at Mrs. Clinton (who has been invoking her status as a new grandmother), the company issued a news release touting how it is helping “aging Americans” get around. It also has launched a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign against Mr. de Blasio’s plan and even courted the Rev. Al Sharpton by making the case that Uber has done a good job bringing car service to previously underserved minority neighborhoods.

However these battles end, the attacks it faces are no accident. They have two chief causes: First, innovative new business models always threaten traditional constituencies, and many of these are Democratic. In New York, for example, Airbnb may be even more disruptive than Uber, because by providing a way for apartment dwellers to make some money by renting out their homes, it is also enabling visitors to make an end run around the high taxes and labor costs (think hotel unions) that help make a hotel room in the Big Apple so pricey.

Via: Wall Street Journal

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Study: Uber is twice as fast as taxi service and half the price

Uber is twice as fast as taxi service and about half the cost of a regular taxi, according to a new study of the company's ride-sharing app conducted in Los Angeles.

The average UberX ride took just under 7 minutes to arrive, versus over 17 minutes for a taxi requested by phone. For the same rides, the average UberX trip cost $6.40, while the cost of using the taxi was $14.63, including tip.

UberX gets people rides through private people driving their own cars, instead of professional drivers.

The study was conducted by the research firm BOTEC Analysis and funded by Uber, the leading ride-sharing company that has seen massive success but also tough opposition from regulators and taxi companies, which have charged that Uber can hurt poor people.

"The evidence in hand strongly suggests that UberX outperforms conventional taxis in serving low-income neighborhoods, at least in Los Angeles," wrote Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University and the chairman of BOTEC, in a blog post Monday.

The study sent pairs of riders out in low-income neighborhoods in Los Angeles and asked them to alternate between hailing private drivers through Uber or taxis for pre-selected routes. The riders, who were hired through a staffing agency and didn't know the study was funded by Uber, collected data relating to arrival times and costs. The study noted that it is not typical to hail taxis on the street in Los Angeles' sprawling neighborhoods.

The study did not test the app versus taxis anywhere other than Los Angeles, nor did it measure other variables of interest in the debate over ride-sharing and other so-called "sharing economy" apps, such as service to disabled people, availability in all neighborhoods, or treatment of different ethnic or racial groups.

Nor did it address the welfare of the people providing the service, which was the question raised by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in a speech on the economy last week. Clinton said the rise of sharing economy companies was "raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like in the future."

• This article has been corrected to reflect that Mark Kleiman is a professor at New York University.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Jeb Bush Hails Uber In San Francisco, Doesn’t Win Driver’s Vote

Eric Risberg—AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, puts on his seat belt getting into an Uber car after speaking at Thumbtack, an online startup in San Francisco.

The Uber driver who picked up Jeb Bush Thursday on a San Francisco street corner doesn’t normally vote and didn’t recognize the Republican frontrunner. But the experience of driving a man who could be President, and talking about it with a reporter, may get him to the polls this year.

He said he will probably pull the lever for Hillary Clinton.

Bush is traveling around San Francisco Thursday using the ride-sharing app, the latest embrace by the Republican of the company, which has fought taxi regulations and has come under fire from some Democrats for the scant benefits it offers its network of independent drivers. The GOP has emerged as the company’s staunchest defender, as the party tries to align itself with the hip, and liberal, Bay Area culture as they appeal for younger voters and top donors.

Munir Algazaly, 35, an immigrant from Yemen who has been driving Ubers for a year and a half, said “I had no idea,” that the 6’4″ passenger riding shotgun was the Republican presidential candidate.

Algazaly drove Bush to Thumbtack, a company that matches independent and small-business professionals with consumers—a startup founded by former aides to President George W. Bush that appeals to the GOP’s free-market sensibilities. Bush tweeted that he gave his driver a five-star rating, the highest possible, after the ride.

Via: Time

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LAX Set to Become Largest US Airport to Allow Ridesharing Services to Do Pickups

It's becoming a common complaint at L.A. International Airport: Where's my Uber? Ridesharing companies are allowed to operate freely around the rest of the city, but they are still banned from picking up passengers at LAX. In fact, since 2013, airport cops have issued about 500 tickets to Uber and Lyft drivers for making illegal pickups.

Travelers will soon be able to call an Uber or Lyft after arriving at LAX under a decision Thursday by Board of Airport Commissioners.

 (Reed Saxon / Associated Press)

That may soon change. Mayor Eric Garcetti has ordered LAX to draft new rules that would allow Uber and Lyft to operate. In a letter sent last fall, Garcetti urged the airport commission to create a "level playing field" for ridesharing companies and taxis.

But that's a lot harder than it sounds. Taxis are subject to a byzantine set of regulations, which have been in place for decades. Airport officials are now considering imposing some of those rules on Uber and Lyft, while eliminating others for taxis. Neither is an easy task.

For their part, the taxi companies have seen their revenue shrink by 25-40 percent since Uber and Lyft launched in L.A. The airport represents their last stronghold, and they are fighting tooth and claw to hold onto it.

"It's not broken," says Rick Taylor, a spokesman for L.A. Yellow Cab. "Don't be messing with something that's not broken."

One of the key taxi regulations at LAX is the rotation system. L.A. allows only 2,300 cabs, from nine companies, to operate within city limits. Each cab is assigned a letter from A to E, and each is allowed to pick up passengers at LAX only on days assigned to their letter — that is, one of every five days.

The taxi companies like this system because it ensures that cabs have a short wait time between fares. Airport fares are lucrative. If all 2,300 drivers were allowed to go to LAX at any time, driver wait times would increase and each driver's income would go down. The system also forces drivers to serve the rest of the city on off days.

Via: LA Weekly

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Uber faces $7m fine and suspension in California over refusal to share business data

Another day, another hurdle. Uber has been fined $7.3 million by a California judge over its refusal to share business data, including ride logs and accident details, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Chief administrative law judge Karen V. Clopton of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) contended that Uber had not complied with state laws designed to keep passengers safe, even after being given a year to do so. She also recommended that the service be suspended until the company falls in line.

Of course, Uber doesn’t agree with the decision. A company spokeswoman said:

We will appeal the decision as Uber has already provided substantial amounts of data to the California Public Utilities Commission, information we have provided elsewhere with no complaints. Going further risks compromising the privacy of individual riders as well as driver-partners.

The proposed fine is chump change for Uber, which has raised nearly $6 billion in funding since its inception. Still, the company will have to take the charge seriously, as being suspended on its home turf would certainly not bode well for the service.

Uber has been struggling to stay out of trouble across the globe. The company’s UberPOP service was suspended in France earlier this month and was named in a sexual harassment case in New Delhi in June.

We’ve contacted Uber for more information and will update this post when we hear back.

➤ Uber should be suspended in California and fined $7.3 million, judge says[The Los Angeles Times]

Via: TNW News

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Why Liberals Hate Uber

Grandmothers may know best, as Hillary Clinton has put it in tweets, but judging by her latest economic speech, they don’t necessarily get or like Uber.

The ride-sharing service is synonymous with the new efficiency and convenience enabled by information technology, and is anathema to regulators and entrenched interests everywhere. Add to the list of its critics the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Hillary Clinton didn’t mention Uber by name but warned about the disruption caused by it and other companies in the so-called sharing economy. Her husband wanted to build a bridge to the 21st century; Hillary worries about the downsides of “advances in technology and expanding global trade.”

Republicans would be foolish not to welcome a contrast with Hillary over some of the hottest companies in the world. The Bush campaign let it be known that Jeb will order an Uber ride in San Francisco during a campaign swing there. If he really wants to stick it to Hillary, he will find someone handy to do minor repair work at his Miami headquarters through TaskRabbit, or borrow a wrench during his next trip to Des Moines through NeighborGoods.

In the liberal imagination, the sharing economy is hurting workers by substituting part-time, contractor work for higher-paying full-time jobs that come with the full panoply of traditional benefits and protections. This line of attack creates the impression that these new firms are sucking workers from stereotypical 9-to-5 jobs so they can be dispossessed by tech-savvy entrepreneurs. But obviously something is drawing workers to this kind of work.

In a study for Uber, Princeton University economist Alan Krueger found “drivers who partner with Uber appear to be attracted to the platform in large part because of the flexibility it offers, the level of compensation and the fact that earnings per hour do not vary much with hours worked, which facilitates part-time and variable hours.”

Uber is really a paragon of choice. Its drivers decide when or if they are going to work, and customers call it up at will. It cuts out the middleman in the form of the shabby, highly regulated taxi cartels more concerned with their own interests than customer satisfaction or convenience.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Hillary Clinton’s Uber Speech Belongs in 1930s America

It is a supreme irony of modern American life that the political movement that terms itself “progressive” is, in the economic realm at least, increasingly passionate about the status quo. Speaking today about the burgeoning “gig economy,” presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton could not help herself but to set modernity firmly within aging ideological tram-lines. Developments such as AirBnB, Zaarly, Uber, DogVacay, and RelayRides, Clinton conceded, are not likely to “go away” any time soon. But they are worrying nonetheless. Indeed, the “sharing economy,” she proposed, is “polarizing” and it is disruptive — guilty of no less than “displacing or downgrading blue-collar jobs.” Technological advances, she concluded, must not “determine our destiny.”

And who should “determine our destiny”? Why, Hillary Clinton of course! 

In the eyes of us free-marketeers, the teams behind the host of new peer-to-peer services are no less than digital liberators. For us, the arrival of a system such as Uber is salutary, not scary: It is an end to waiting in the rain for a state-approved cab; it is the key to a transportation experience a cut above that which is provided by the cartels; it is the source of golden opportunities for those who wish to construct odd or custom-built work schedules or to make money without answering to a boss. That a few ingenious programmers have found a way around the artificial scarcity, state-union collusion, and high barriers to entry that The Man has seen fit to impose is, in our view, an extremely positive development. More of this, please. 

But for Hillary Clinton? It is a death knell. Like Bill DeBlasio before her, Clinton has seen the list of newly available iPhone apps, and she has grasped her own obsolescence.

If he is smart, the eventual Republican nominee will spend 2016 casting Clinton as the spirit animal of a washed-out and intellectually bankrupt generation that belongs nowhere near the levers of power. If they are really smart, the broader party will make this case broadly and perpetually — and long after next year’s election is over. All political movements are guilty of nostalgia, certainly. But few of them refuse to acknowledge their sentimentality in quite the same way as does the wing of the Democratic party to which Clinton is currently attempting to agglutinate herself. From self-described “conservatives,” one expects a Burkean preference for the tried and tested. From “progressives” — and yes, Hillary used the word today – not so much.

Economically, the Clinton-Sanders-Warren-O’Malley project is stuck squarely in 1938. Theirs is a country in which tax rates can be set without reference to global competition; in which the taxi commission and the trade union are the heroes while the entrepreneurs and the dissenters are a royal pain in the ass; in which families can simply not be trusted to determine which services suit their needs and which do not. It’s a country in which our heinously outdated, grossly illiberal, neo-Prussian educational system is to be set more firmly in place — even as it crumbles and falls. It is a country in which the state must determine which firms are Good and which firms are Bad, and reward or punish them according to its whim. It is a country in which Upton Sinclair is an up-and-coming writer, and in which anybody who doubts the efficacy of federal control is in danger of falling headfirst into a rendering vat.

Via: National Review

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Giant Cable Companies Merging Is Bad for You; Only Savior Is an Uber for the Internet

How much do you like your cable and Internet service provider? The answer is likely to fall on the spectrum from “strongly dislike” to “it is the literal spawn of the devil.”

We all generally feel this way and yet we’re not really sure what to do about it. These guys are the Goliaths and we’re a bunch of Davids. And now the Goliaths want to team up.

Earlier this year, we almost had the Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger, which thankfully never made it off the ground. Now with Comcast, the Goliath-est of the cable/internet providers, on the sidelines, we have the making of a new super-Goliath, with Charter Communications attempting to purchase Time Warner Cable for approximately $55 billion and Bright House Networks for $10.4 billion.

This is bad news for you and will only make the cable company you have and hate now more hateable. And the sad thing is, David can actually beat Goliath — we’ve seen it happen. It’s why the solution is an Uber for the Internet.

On a recent Uber trip, the driver missed a couple turns, causing the trip to last a few minutes longer than it should have been. The driver was cool about it and apologetic — not a huge deal. I gave him 5 stars but made a note about the turn mishaps. The next day I was refunded a third of the trip with a quick email saying sorry. They didn’t have to do it, but that small gesture doesn’t phase Uber and makes me a more loyal customer.

Uber cares if you have a bad experience. Uber gives a shit — whereas your cable and Internet company DGAF. Have you ever had a service interruption and your Internet wasn’t working properly for a couple hours, or days? Ever try to call up your Internet service provider and get some sort of rebate? Please. Your Internet provider doesn’t ultimately care if you have shitty service. There’s no incentive for them to win you over. In most areas, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the country, there is no other Internet option. What are you going to do, stop using the Internet? ‘Ha ha you have no say in the matter, so write your congressman or something (by the way, we own them too).’

Via: Mediaite

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