UBER SECRET SAUCE

Here's the Secret Sauce that makes UBER successful.

Most reasonably informed people fully realize that UBER is a gigantic scam on a truly historic level. But they don't care. Why? Because it's a cheaper gigantic scam than the previous gigantic scam. You may be familiar with that other one. It's called the taxi industry.

 

I no longer participate in either
Nor I make anyone $ other than my self $ Uncle Sam
For last 10 years

 

Don't misconstrue. I'm not against taxi drivers, just the system that has them enslaved to the owners of the cars they lease. If all taxis were owner operated, there wouldn't have been anything for UBER to disrupt.

 

Love the Suburban, BTW.

 

I've always say the middle man is the real problem

 

That's why Jesus kicked em out of the Temple.

 

7 months now
I've been killing it so far
Its never been easier thanks uber

 

Most of the taxis in the City, here, are owner-operated. This is probably the last major city where the cab business is still mostly in the hands of the owner-operators. The regulators and corrupt D.C. politicians are working hard to change that, aided by the Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism business Trade Groups.

It is about control. It is much easier to control a driver if he depends on someone to provide him with a vehicle. It is much easier to push around drivers and make money on their backs if you have control over them.

Most of the drivers at the suburban cab companies are rental drivers. Those companies historically have mistreated their drivers horribly. This is one reason why their drivers here deserted them in droves when UberX showed up and had some reasonable rates. The cuts to 1979 cab rates have sent a few of them back to their cab companies, on their knees.

The TNCs are exceptions to this. As the private car can not earn money without an application platform, all that the TNC need do is cut off access.

A cab is much more difficult. If my company cuts off access to its call assignment system, I can run the street and Uber Taxi, still. If it cuts off my insurance, I can buy it somewhere else. I can go to another cab company. It is difficult to control me.

In the case of a renter, all that the company need do is take his vehicle. The Taxicab Commission recently issued a large number of hack licences, but told all of those drivers that they can not own; they must rent. Rental cabs simply are not available here, anymore. Take away a driver's cab, and he is out of business. Now, if the City wants a driver gone, it need not worry about Due Process to yank his licence. All that it need do is tell the company to snatch his car. If the driver of the snatched car tries to complain through the Taxicab Commission, it backs the vehicle's owner. Ever since A. Williams was Mayor, the fix has been in at the D.C. Courts, so the driver will get nothing there, either.


.......oh, I do apologise for being redundant: I stated "corrupt" D.C. Politicians.

 

Very interesting. I appreciate. It is amazing that a taxi commission would actively seek to keep owner operated vehicles out of their system.

 

They do not do it overtly, but, even to the most Brilliant of Rocket Scientists, it is obvious that they have been trying to eliminate the owner-operators, slowly-but-surely.

It used to be that if you turned in your licence plates because your car had to come off the street for whatever reason, you could get them back. They put an end to that. More than a few drivers came back from a summer in Ghana, Nigeria, Persia, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan to find out that they could not get their H-plates back and go back to work.

Most of the drivers, here, live in the suburbs. As the cabs must have D.C. licence plates, the D.C. Government would issue them, even though the driver had an address in Maryland or Virginia suburbs. Before 1992, the driver who lived in the suburbs had to have a D.C. Driver's Licence in addition to that from his home state. The Feds put a stop to that in 1992 with the one licence per person policy. What happened was that D.C. decided that it would not issue registrations to drivers who did not live in the District of Columbia. D.C. decided that it would do this by attrition. If you had a valid D.C. plate, you could keep it until the registration expired. At that time, D.C. would not renew it. Drivers who lived in the suburbs panicked. The D.C. Government offered several "helpful" suggestions:

1. Put private car plates on it from your home state. D.C. would issue a special licence card to show the police and hack inspectors. D.C. suddenly decided that this was not a good course of action. They were correct. It would create an enforcement nightmare. About one dozen or so cabs took this route before D.C. put a stop to it. Those twelve or so drivers were whittled down to five. Finally, D.C. told those five that they could not operate with their one Maryland and four Virginia plates. D.C. refused to give them H-plates, so they had to pull their cars from the street and rent.

2. Put the name of your cab company on the title and registration. As the cab company, by law, had a D.C. address, it could have a plate issued to it. This was allright for a couple of years, until D.C. passed an age limitation on the vehicles and began a programme to phase out the older vehicles. Now, in order to replace the superannuated vehicles, the driver (the true owner) must get his company to release interest in the vehicle. Some of these companies are balking, outright. Others are insisting that the drivers pay them either a one-time exorbitant fee or sign a contract that entitles the company to payment over a long term. Further, some of these companies are about to be put out of business due to their failure to meet a government imposed quota on accessible vehicles. The quota is based on the number of company-owned vehicles. All of those vehicles that have both company and driver name on the title/registration count as company vehicles. Thus, there are more problems for those drivers. Those drivers appealed to the Taxicab Commission for relief. The Commission's response was that it was not obliged to help drivers who were circumventing the law, even though the method of curcumvention was suggested by the D.C. Government.

3. Finally, the City Council decided that those owners who lived in the suburbs and who had plates could renew them for an extra fee. It did not allow those who had given up their plates to get them back. Most of the drivers who had put their company's name on the registration/title as co-owners did not get the company name off when they had the opportunity. It was too easy to leave it as it was. Now, those who did not take the bother are about to be put out of business. A few drivers did get their company's name off the title/registration once the City Council passed the provision for the extra fee, but most did not bother. Until three years back, the companies would readily agree to get their names from the titles. Now, they are balking.