Posts by BenWilson
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Uber's comeback.
TLDR: We're not stopping.
Longer version. We've rebranded from being a passenger service to "Ride Sharing".
Man, I wish we did actually have ride sharing in NZ. I'd use it. But unfortunately, when someone books an Uber ride with me, I have to wait until they get in the car, and I accept the ride, before I even know where we're going. So, um, yeah. I'm "sharing" the cost of that 3am ride out to Beachlands from the Sky Tower? Because it's on my way to my home in West Auckland?
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Good info in there as to what letting a private third party do your police vetting leaves out.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Katita,
It left me pondering when is regulation a good thing and when should convenience trump all?
Very tough question. Obviously, I wouldn't be an Uber driver at all if I thought that disrupting existing businesses is a terrible thing. But yes, there's still got to be a boundary at which the externalization of costs ends. I put that at the boundary of road safety, personally. Cars can and do kill a lot of people in NZ.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Russell Brown,
license owners haven’t even needed to drive, just sit back and be rent-takers
Indeed. That's not the feeling I've had from my own license holder. He worked extremely hard to get a great many drivers on the road for his cut, talking all of them into compliance, training them on the app, setting up the very well patronized Facebook page on which we share tips and tricks (and moans). The other ones sound similarly diligent. One of them set up a training course to induct the drivers. They're mostly drivers themselves. All of them are dismayed by these changes, which literally destroyed their business model. It's very ungrateful of Uber to people who were very strong and loyal partners, helping them build compliant driver numbers, literally facilitating Uber's expansion into the NZ market. They earned their rent, IMHO.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Alfie,
you’d have to say that any traditional taxi business will be rooted.
Obviously they're very worried. But they do still dominate the market. Uber hoovering up the little rides, and possibly competing strongly on the suburbs-to-city rides doesn't stop taxi drivers having significant advantages. Only they can sit on a taxi stand, or cruise for hire. They can haggle with the customer. They can take cash, EFTPOS, etc. They never have to worry about their rating. They've got inertia on their side, anyone who can't be bothered to even investigate Uber, or who just feels like jumping in a cab because it's there.
And BTW, I commend you for going public with this.
Thanks. It's obviously a risk for me, one that I felt I was in a better position to take than the many people who rely on Uber as their primary income source.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Alfie,
OK, I'll amend my statement to simply "it's not a compliance cost". It's buying the goodwill of a business, and an asset (the car) too. I don't count buying my car as a compliance cost. To set up a transport service, all you need is a Transport Service License. Then you'd have to advertise, have a call center, radios, find staff, take out insurance, etc. All those costs associated with running a business. But a business that literally doesn't need all that because it's organized in the extremely efficient way that Uber is should certainly be able to outcompete the older way. It's not like there's never been an opportunity for the existing massive taxi groups to write their own app, and lower their own costs to entry to new drivers. Something a bit better than the purportedly awful one that they did write.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Alfie,
I’m sure Uber has some good drivers, but when they can offer to make people instant taxi drivers for just $25 with few safety checks and no compliance to the existing law, something smells bad.
I have to reiterate, that until Thursday, most Uber drivers (outside of Christchurch) were very compliant to the law.*
The taxi drivers I know all paid between $20k and $50k to buy into their business. That’s quite an investment which takes years to pay off. If the government allows Uber to operate illegally, it’s the equivalent of sticking a big bureaucratic finger in the faces of thousands of registered NZ taxi drivers. Their investment in their business just went down the tube.
On this one, I have to say I’m not so sure. That $20-50k was not compliance costs, it was pure profit to the taxi empire they were buying into. Uber having broken that up is not something I personally lament. I’m sorry for any driver who did it recently, of course, because it was a bad investment.
*ETA: Also, most Uber drivers in Auckland and Wellington are still compliant to the law. This could change rapidly.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Erin,
Re Uber Assist – do you know if there are any plans for Uber to become part of the Total Mobility scheme?
I'm not aware, I'm sorry. It would be awesome.
I am a wheelchair user myself who would consider using Uber but given I can get 50% off using taxi companies, it doesn’t really seem worth my while.
I can imagine. When the service was first announced, I did not expect high demand for it. So far, I'm still to give a ride to an actually disabled person. The service, however, doesn't require you to be disabled. It's entirely opt-in, and could be used by anyone who anticipates having higher needs. This could just be a mum with a couple of kids and some shopping, who is worried a driver might be unsympathetic to the difficulties associated.
Or, which may have happened to me last night (I'm not sure, it only occurred to me afterward), a rider who had the ride called for her by her mother. I thought it was probably a mistake and told her how to disable the option in the app if so. But on reflection I couldn't be sure that the mother hadn't specifically chosen uberASSIST. The rider could have been much younger than she looked, could have been a minor. The business of calling me in remotely like that does involve a non-vanilla pickup, and perhaps the worry is that a normal Uber driver would possibly have cancelled the trip off.
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Alfie,
Why not?
Above my pay grade, that one. Question for NZTA? Or the Minister? Or a lawyer?
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Speaker: Confessions of an Uber driver, in reply to Alfie,
The NZTA has just announced that it will prosecute individuals who do not hold a P licence.
This has been their position all along, of course. As it should be.