lol because that’s what this conversation is about. Excuse my omission of the word “could,” but the point remains. It’s not a good example. If anything, you’re kinda proving my point. It takes a special case, heavily regulated, in-the-public’s-best-interest situation for the government to dump off a money losing route onto a contractor instead of losing the route entirely—as long as you cap the price and force the private company to operate entirely on your terms, often with your equipment. But Uber doesn’t even operate with their equipment or the government’s. It’s the driver’s. I would assume Uber would provide the busses here, which goes against their business model. So I can’t see them investing in busses, and then operating nice and cheap so everyone can afford to ride.
Twostudies showing ride sharing companies contribute to the struggling of public transportation systems in a given city.
But, look. I can understand where our difference in trust levels is coming from. I’m from the US. Where private companies never don’t fuck you over the worst they possibly can. It must be nice to come from a place where you can have faith that some guardrails have been put in place on private greed. But looking at the places Uber (a notoriously shitty company) has chosen to implement these “Uber shuttles,” they seem to be avoiding places where the government has that power (or desire). Uber’s entire existence is a ‘fuck you’ to poor people. “Oh you need a job? Well…you got a car? ‘Cause do we have the job for you. [evil laughter].” Their big “disruption” in transportation was getting drivers to foot the bill on the transportation costs. How…revolutionary.
My point is, where they’re doing this, their entire company history, their business model, all point to the fact that this will not be good for people. It will cost the drivers and trick them into paying for their own job, it will hurt the rider and the public transportation system. There is not a single trusting bone in my body when it comes to a tech company trying to “disrupt” some new facet of our lives.