It’s incredible how many people just start from the assumption that these services must exist and then work backward from that. Obviously you run into serious dissonance when you arrive at the pricing problem, where the solution is quite simple: they shouldn’t exist.

Then you can start thinking about real solutions to urban transit that have existed for more than a century.

The starting assumption is that free and rational adults are choosing to work for the wage and customers are choosing to pay a sufficient price, so it should exist. That's not working backward, or dissonance--it's an acknowledgement of reality.

It's a different unrelated group claiming that it shouldn't exist if it doesn't provide the pay / benefits they think it should.

Are we willing to allow, even to facilitate that as a society?

See heavy drugs, prostitution and violence market as some examples where two consenting adults is not enough to form a legitimate business.

I think if we're to the point that we're comparing Uber to the violence market, we're not having a meaningful discussion any more.

True: it is not the case that we should fundamentally allow any association between two consenting adults. No, this does not justify preventing it in other cases.

I don't buy that. These rides are only as cheap as they are because of VC money and they aren't profitable. Imagine the cost of rides without VC money and more pro-worker regulations? If they aren't profitable now I don't see this ever being profitable without some radical change to the business model (driverless fleet for example).

There are some rides that are subsidized as loss leaders undoubtedly, but that's not the primary case.

The way I see it, it's already proven that riders will accept paying X dollars and drivers will work for X dollars, minus Y% for Uber's cut. Uber's Y% is likely higher than it needs to be, but at the end of the day, it's a SaaS app. Even municipalities have set up local competitors / clones.

These companies are certainly pouring a ton of money into expanding into new geographic areas, other business models, and more. But as long as riders will pay an amount even a little higher than what drivers will accept, it can be profitable.

>The starting assumption is that free and rational adults are choosing to work for the wage

And there are plenty that argue that under capitalism one isn't fully free. There is always the threat of losing the roof over your head.

Of course. It's just not relevant to my or OP's point.

You know the entire purpose of the company that runs this site is to fund businesses that aren’t profitable enough to exist? Only two companies that YC has funded have gone public.

Where is the site guideline which states that I must fellate VCs?

So do you feel that none of the money losing startups deserve to exist either?

People still need transportation.

Sure. But they don't need Uber or Lyft.

You can build a robust bus system, government run and not expected to make a profit, for example. You can have registered cabs. You can have rental bikes (bonus if they are electric assisted). If you can make sure scooters don't litter the walkways, that works as well. If you already have the infrastructure in place, perhaps trams or subways are a good thing.

We could expand busses to be able to travel from city to city. Same thing with trains: Make them run on time and expand. Busses, however, use the most extensive existing infrastructure and would likely be more cost-effective in most areas.

Not all "busses" need to be large, though. In some areas or at some times of day, a 15 passenger van might be enough. We could have bonus points if we changed school bus laws so that we don't have a duplicate bus system that leaves busses unused for much of the day.

In the US, one could take a sliver of the military budget (where there is plenty of waste) to pay for it.

If only there were examples of cities that operate just fine without boatloads of private car based transportation...

Like Manhattan? No one takes taxis/Uber there.

> People still need transportation.

Uber left Denmark after they decided that they have no interest in adhering to the relevant regulations. We still have trains, commuter trains, subways, busses, bikes, scooters, taxis and cars. People still can get to places and fairly conveniently.