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Willie Tomg posted:You'll notice after a minute the final product will develop a visual gradient toward a transparent oily meniscus on the top. this is almost pure caffeine and means you did good. I learned something today. Apparently coffee beans contain oils that will preferentially dissolve caffeine, so by letting them separate you're essentially performing an extraction. I wonder how much caffeine would be left in the bulk solution if you took off the organic layer. Could you decaffeinate your own coffee?
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Aug 1, 2017 01:35
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duz posted:Fun way to solve that broken credit card reader, just walk away. It'll suddenly start working since if they calls the cops, the cop's going not going to side with the cab.
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Aug 1, 2017 02:29
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:They were all pushed by incumbent restaurants. Do you have a source for all of this? Because some of these I can't find in the regs, others you cite continue to have valid interests in mind. Most of the press coverage I'm seeing on this isn't...exactly neutral. Megan McArdle taking a side on something is usually a pretty good indication the other side is correct. I'm willing to buy that some of these regulations may just be obstacles put in place by brick-and-mortar, but a lot of them...aren't. They just aren't. They're the same kind of regulations you'd apply to a food truck anywhere. axeil posted:But now Uber/Lyft stole all their business so gently caress 'em. I'll never be stranded on U Street at 4 AM unable to hail down a cab to go home without the credit card reader being "broken" and being forced to bribe the guy $40 for what should've been a $15 ride again! Uber/Lyft, especially Uber, are infinitely worse than taxis. The benefits you experience personally are ephemeral, or at a massive cost to others. See the unicorns thread for details. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:00 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 02:53
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Discendo Vox posted:Megan McArdle taking a side on something is usually a pretty good indication the other side is correct.
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Aug 1, 2017 02:57
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I don't know about you, but the $5 UberPOOLs around Las Vegas are pretty fuckin' sweet. Part of the Vegas experience is having human desperation all around you and by taking an UberPOOL, you can get that experience in spades, especially when a fellow passenger starts talking to you
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Aug 1, 2017 03:21
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How hosed is Wayfair? Anyone know?
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Aug 1, 2017 13:34
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Discendo Vox posted:Uber/Lyft, especially Uber, are infinitely worse than taxis. The benefits you experience personally are ephemeral, or at a massive cost to others. See the unicorns thread for details. I'm no great Uber booster but many many taxi services were monopolies of their own and absolutely abysmal. Whatever else you feel about capitalism, competition is generally good for the consumer and that is absolutely the case here.
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Aug 1, 2017 13:39
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I'm in DC and there were basically no useable car services in the suburbs until Lyft and Uber competed with the corrupt monopolies here. I think you are overstating your case, Vox.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:12
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Check the tech bubble thread for fun details on how Uber is an awful, awful company, and its drivers are mostly desperate people basically trading their car's value for money to keep the lights on, and treated horribly by the company.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:36
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I read both of these threads. I still think the case is much more complicated in entrenched monopolistic markets than simply "infinitely worse" and "the benefits to you are ephemeral." (Paraphrasing Vox bc I'm on the phone) I'm happy to leave discussion in those threads though.
WrenP-Complete fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 14:45
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WrenP-Complete posted:I read both of these threads. I still think the case is much more complicated in entrenched monopolistic markets than simply "the benefits to you are ephemeral." (Paraphrasing Vox bc I'm on the phone) I'm happy to leave discussion in those threads though. Apparently the benefit of being able to get a car if you're black or disabled is ephemeral. Huh.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:48
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uber is good for consumers, but (mostly) terrible for its drivers. The old taxi company monopolies were (mostly) good for their drivers, but terrible for consumers. Theres probably a healthy middleground somewhere in-between those two scenarios that doesn't screw anyone too badly that we might find in the future, with a bit of luck.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:53
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call to action posted:Apparently the benefit of being able to get a car if you're black or disabled is ephemeral. Huh. Uber doesn't have a good track record with the disabled, though actually giving service to minorities is a plus. The problem is more going between two extremes; an underbuilt monopoly that refuses to expand to meet demand, and a dubious, exploitative jitney system.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:54
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Most taxis were good for the taxi company owners. I have met a couple Uber drivers who vastly prefer working for Uber and Lyft.
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Aug 1, 2017 14:54
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Inescapable Duck posted:Check the tech bubble thread for fun details on how Uber is an awful, awful company, and its drivers are mostly desperate people basically trading their car's value for money to keep the lights on, and treated horribly by the company. And the cabbies are worse Uber/Lyft would not exist if cab companies were not the worst corps in the world
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Aug 1, 2017 14:56
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Uber/Lyft would not exist if cab companies were not the worst corps in the world This is ludicrous nonsense on like 7 different levels.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:21
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The only time I need a taxi/Uber is when I go to the airport, because gently caress paying for airport parking. A taxi costs like $60 and a Uber costs like $15. I know which one I'm going to pick 10/10 times. Insert Sonic_no_ethical_consumption_under_late_stage_capitalism.jpg here.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:27
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There's a great series of wonky articles by a former Dept. of Transportation executive on how Uber is not profitable, has no route to profitability, and is just borne aloft by venture capital. So enjoy it while it lasts. (Long story short: most of the cost of operating a cab company is vehicles, fuel, and wages, and there's little or no economy of scale when you have 30,000 cabs instead of 30.)
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Aug 1, 2017 15:40
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Just do a search on NYTimes for 'taxi medallion' to see how terrible the situation was. The drivers were getting shafted ('Mr. Arce, 55, offered his daily math: He drove 12 hours and earned $85. The taxi union folded years ago. He has no health insurance, no paid days off. “I can’t even pay the rent on my lousy studio.”'), rich jerks hoarded medallions (worth at one point $1.2 mil each) in an extreme example of rent-seeking and then launched lawsuits when the value fell. (Some ridiculous quotes in that article, BTW.) (This guy ended up being arrested for stealing $5 mil from the city.) One could go on and on, it was a system designed to profit the owners of the medallions and nobody else.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:40
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If you have to take a taxi to get to your local airport you have an absolutely failed local transport system.
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Aug 1, 2017 15:56
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Baronjutter posted:If you have to take a taxi to get to your local airport you have an absolutely failed local transport system. Welcome to anywhere in America outside of the 10 major cities.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:00
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Baronjutter posted:If you have to take a taxi to get to your local airport you have an absolutely failed local transport system. In most of the USA, that is by design.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:00
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Halloween Jack posted:(Long story short: most of the cost of operating a cab company is vehicles, fuel, and wages, and there's little or no economy of scale when you have 30,000 cabs instead of 30.)
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Aug 1, 2017 16:02
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Uber is a hilarious model because it is a huge wealth redistribution scheme. They take money from Venture Capitalists and use it to subsidized the wages of drivers and the transportation of individuals.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:03
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WrenP-Complete posted:I read both of these threads. I still think the case is much more complicated in entrenched monopolistic markets than simply "infinitely worse" and "the benefits to you are ephemeral." (Paraphrasing Vox bc I'm on the phone) I'm happy to leave discussion in those threads though. Discendo Vox has a ton of dumb opinions. I remember in one thread he claimed that academic publishing companies need to charge high fees to labs and universities because it is expensive for them to host .PDFs on a website and have volunteers do all their work for them.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:08
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Discendo Vox posted:
Nah. Taxis are scum and I'm glad they're getting driven to extinction. I read the unicorn thread and the  about the poor little scam artist taxis is pathetic. I'm pretty sure everyone talking about how taxis are ubiquitous and awesome all either live in NYC or have never seen a taxi in their life. DC was a loving hellhole for getting around by anything other than Metro until around 2011 when Uber showed up and the taxis finally had to start doing things like "taking people where they want to go" and "not scamming people all the time"Uber/Lyft aren't great but taxis are so much worse and I despise them. They dug their own graves by being absolute shitheads and placing bribes to the city council and loving over riders above actually delivering the service they promised. axeil fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 16:15
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If Uber died off and a more "ethical" service came along that paid its drivers a fair wage and obeyed regulations and rides now cost $25 instead of $15, I'd be totally fine with that.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:18
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Halloween Jack posted:(Long story short: most of the cost of operating a cab company is vehicles, fuel, and wages, and there's little or no economy of scale when you have 30,000 cabs instead of 30.) Er, but Uber doesn't own or pay for vehicles or fuel, and their wages are minimal. Uber has 0 cabs. Uber has no route to profitability because their entire "business model" is providing large subsidies to customer fares to try to keep mindshare, and a bunch of advertising, which costs them billions a year in losses. If they were to stop doing all those subsidies though and also raise driver pay to an appropriate amount, people would have very little reason to keep using Uber specifically. Cicero posted:I think you'll see some impressive economies of scale/cost reductions once we have self-driving electric taxis; at a minimum you'll get no more driver wages and greatly reduced fuel costs relative to now. That's obviously still a number of years out though. Uh, Uber becoming a company that has self-driving electric taxis means Uber now has to pay for all the charging costs, all the cost of acquiring cars, and all the ongoing maintenance/cleaning/general repairs incurred. Doing that thus raises their costs massively compared to now, where the drivers are fulyl responsible for buying, owning, and maintaining the vehicles. Mozi posted:Just do a search on NYTimes for 'taxi medallion' to see how terrible the situation was. The drivers were getting shafted ('Mr. Arce, 55, offered his daily math: He drove 12 hours and earned $85. The taxi union folded years ago. He has no health insurance, no paid days off. “I can’t even pay the rent on my lousy studio.”'), rich jerks hoarded medallions (worth at one point $1.2 mil each) in an extreme example of rent-seeking and then launched lawsuits when the value fell. (Some ridiculous quotes in that article, BTW.) (This guy ended up being arrested for stealing $5 mil from the city.) One could go on and on, it was a system designed to profit the owners of the medallions and nobody else. New York City medallions are only for cabs that pick up random people hailing them on the street. To operate a service where you just picked up people who called or otherwise contacted you (like say, what an Uber driver does), you instead needed a far cheaper commercial driver registration. Additionally the million dollar medallions were for certain special categories like unlimited transfer and allowed to be held by a company and used by multiple different drivers.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:19
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axeil posted:Nah. Taxis are scum and I'm glad they're getting driven to extinction. I read the unicorn thread and the 
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Aug 1, 2017 16:19
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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WampaLord posted:If Uber died off and a more "ethical" service came along that paid its drivers a fair wage and obeyed regulations and rides now cost $25 instead of $15, I'd be totally fine with that. Assuming they actually take people where they want to go and don't scam people then i'm onboard too. Seriously, people defending cabs itt have no loving clue how bad taxis can get and how even an admittedly lovely, evil company is more preferable to them.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:22
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fishmech posted:Uh, Uber becoming a company that has self-driving electric taxis means Uber now has to pay for all the charging costs, all the cost of acquiring cars, and all the ongoing maintenance/cleaning/general repairs incurred. Doing that thus raises their costs massively compared to now, where the drivers are fulyl responsible for buying, owning, and maintaining the vehicles.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:24
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call to action posted:I don't know about you, but the $5 UberPOOLs around Las Vegas are pretty fuckin' sweet. Part of the Vegas experience is having human desperation all around you and by taking an UberPOOL, you can get that experience in spades, especially when a fellow passenger starts talking to you I want to hear more about this. As for food trucks: The bar to entry for small businesses should be easier not harder. Small Businesses are one of the few ways left to actually grow the middle class. You take them away you got nothing but large corporations controlling everything. There has been a designated and planned shift in us law and policies of both parties and cities to destroy small businesses in america and replace them with large faceless corporations. And many leftists have played into this hand and foot.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:31
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Baronjutter posted:If you have to take a taxi to get to your local airport you have an absolutely failed local transport system. Luggage is terrible on buses though and even in the best train systems you sometimes have to do some ridiculous transfers to get to the airports. For example I live in Saint Paul and to get to the airport it's a 15 minute drive or a 60 minute train ride. And I can expense the cost of either so that's not a big deal. Chicago is really good at least, as is SFO if you're trying to get into downtown SF. hobbesmaster fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 16:38
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Cicero posted:Sure, but it also means they capture all the revenue from fares. Looking at the system as a whole, costs are reduced. Now whether it'll be cheaper to the consumer than right now, where VCs are subsidizing things, I dunno. Actual costs then will be cheaper than actual costs now though. Do you really not understand why it might be a huge problem to actually make up the costs of buying brand new massively expensive highest-tech cars with taxi fares? And once again no! The actual costs Uber has then would have to be more exepnsive than they have now. Because Uber's actual costs now do not include "purchasing and maintaining a fleet of tens of thousands of cars". They do not pay for any of their drivers' cars right now except through the minimal wages. There are currently 150,000 active Uber drivers in the US or so. We can assume most of those also represent individual cars, but let's say Uber aims to just buy 90,000 cars to replace them. Let's also assume they get reasonably inexpensive electric cars from a few years from now, which are also self-driving, a fair price for that might be the $35,000 of the current (non-self-driving) base model Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3. How much do you need to pay just to buy 90,000 of those? $3.15 billion dollars. That's not including all the ongoing charging or maintenance costs for vehicles being used by the random general public. Even if we go bare minimum, and just assume that the near-future self driving electric car can be sold for the same price as the cheapest base model car of today (Nissan Versa S at $12,855) - that's still $1.15 billion dollars just to have a fleet near suitable for replacing their current service.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:42
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fishmech posted:Do you really not understand why it might be a huge problem to actually make up the costs of buying brand new massively expensive highest-tech cars with taxi fares? And once again no! The actual costs Uber has then would have to be more exepnsive than they have now. Because Uber's actual costs now do not include "purchasing and maintaining a fleet of tens of thousands of cars". They do not pay for any of their drivers' cars right now except through the minimal wages. quote:There are currently 150,000 active Uber drivers in the US or so. We can assume most of those also represent individual cars, but let's say Uber aims to just buy 90,000 cars to replace them. Let's also assume they get reasonably inexpensive electric cars from a few years from now, which are also self-driving, a fair price for that might be the $35,000 of the current (non-self-driving) base model Chevy Bolt and Tesla Model 3. Cicero fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Aug 1, 2017 |
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Aug 1, 2017 16:49
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Inescapable Duck posted:In most of the USA, that is by design. In Seattle, the taxi lobby (STITA) made drat sure that the light rail only got you most of the way to the terminal. Seriously, it drops off like a half mile from the loving airport it's ludicrous.
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Aug 1, 2017 16:52
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Cicero posted:Did you miss the part where I said "Looking at the system as a whole, costs are reduced." Yes, obviously Uber itself would have higher costs than now, but this would be offset by capturing more of (well, all of) the fare. My point is that, if you had, say, a vertically integrated taxi company in 2017 vs in the future where self-driving electric taxis exists, costs would definitely be lower in the latter time. No, looking at the system as a whole, costs are not reduced. Capturing all of a low fare does not make up for billions of dollars in investment required to reach that point, especially since by definition a self-driving electric car fleet is much more expensive than existing, non-self-driving, gasoline cars already in use, which can be had in usable condition for sometimes as little as a few thousand dollars. The whole point, dear, is that it's actually massively, massively expensive to run a national level, let alone international like Uber tries to do. No one can really afford to spend billions of dollars setting up and running a self-driving car fleet just to make it up $10 at a time from taxi fares.
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Aug 1, 2017 17:06
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The fuel savings alone would pay for the vehicles, especially if gas is above $3/gal. Electric vehicles are dramatically cheaper to operate.
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Aug 1, 2017 17:08
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call to action posted:The fuel savings alone would pay for the vehicles, especially if gas is above $3/gal. Electric vehicles are dramatically cheaper to operate. I don't think you're actually going to "save on fuel" when you currently pay 0 dollars for fuel and you have to buy billions of dollars of cars to try save said fuel costs. Uber pays $0 for gas, they would now be paying greater than $0 for electricity. This is like trying to save money on boat maintenance by buying a yacht reputed to have low maintenance when you currently have no boats.
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Aug 1, 2017 17:12
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Baronjutter posted:If you have to take a taxi to get to your local airport you have an absolutely failed local transport system. LOL Enjoy getting your suitcases robbed on the bus while heading to the airport on your trip to france and missing the flight meaning you lose out not only on the thousands of dollars of stuff in your suitcases but also the thousands of dollars you spent on booking hotels/flights/etc... Lol some of you guys are nuts. Taking public mass transportation to a loving airport....
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Aug 1, 2017 17:13
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