London cabbies are going to indulge in some Parisian type disruption over a competitor. The key quote for me is this one:
“Transport for London not enforcing the Private Hire Vehicles Act is dangerous for Londoners,” Steve McNamara, LTDA’s general secretary, told the BBC.
So… Uber’s drivers using a smartphone app to work out the cost of the ride is a danger to Londoners is it? Well, no, of course not. What we have here is good old-fashioned resistance to competition. It has nothing to do with safety. Argue if you must that it will impact on competition – and that the competition is unfair due to one group being tied up by regulation and another not and I would agree, but the elf’n’safety argument is risible.
Uber are competing in the marketplace with a product that does not impact on the Private Hire Vehicles Act, it seems. Well, good for them.
“Uber, funded by Google, Goldman Sachs and others, has a stated aim of challenging legislation that is not compatible with its business model,” said Mr McNamara.
I’m all for that. Bring it on. I wish more people would do just that.
“This is not some philanthropic friendly society, it’s an American monster that has no qualms about breaching any and all laws in the pursuit of profit, most of which will never see a penny of tax paid in the UK.”
Ah, yes, that old chestnut. Well, the less tax the UK government gets, the less it has to piss up the wall restricting our liberties and funding vile fake charities – so, frankly, that’s a win, win, then. And if it pisses off the hidebound protectionists, well, that’s all the better. In the meantime, the cabbies will take their spite out on the ordinary Londoner trying to go about his business.
Dear cabbies:
Look up the phrase “disruptive technology” sometime. It’s a fact of life and it is *not* limited solely to the IT sector. There was a time when learning a chunk of London’s road network by rote and committing it all to memory had some value, but that time is past. There is little point in learning The Knowledge any longer when anyone can spend 50 quid on a computer that can learn it for you wholesale.
Laws have a nasty habit of not keeping up with technology. This wasn’t a problem 100 years ago, when the rate of change was much slower, but it _is_ a problem now. It will only get worse in future as hidebound government ministries and departments aren’t designed for flexibility and large-scale change management.
Regards,
Me.