<story><title>L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-04/los-angeles-suspends-uber-jump-scooters-bikes-data-privacy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tyxodiwktis</author><text>The core issue is that ridership data is a key piece the cities need to craft a tax on ride-sharing, and to tailor the tax to help their financially challenged public transit entities. Uber knows that if they give up scooter use data the city will immediately request it for ride sharing as well. The privacy question conveniently aligns with Uber’s position, but I doubt that this is Uber’s core concern vs avoiding every major city banging on the rideshare piñata to fund the gigantic debt service payments and generous benefit programs for their underutilized public transit systems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stefan_</author><text>You are talking about the city that has half its space dedicated to free street parking and a bunch of highways cutting through it as if it&amp;#x27;s some sort of modern mobility policy paragon just trying to correctly price out externalities.&lt;p&gt;No, whatever Ubers goal in &lt;i&gt;not doing this&lt;/i&gt;, I&amp;#x27;m sure the motivations of local L.A. politicians are forever more twisted. These people wouldn&amp;#x27;t know public transport if a bus ran them over. Which is unlikely to happen, given their average speed of 9 mph.</text></comment>
<story><title>L.A. temporarily suspends Uber’s permit to rent out electric scooters and bikes</title><url>https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-04/los-angeles-suspends-uber-jump-scooters-bikes-data-privacy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>tyxodiwktis</author><text>The core issue is that ridership data is a key piece the cities need to craft a tax on ride-sharing, and to tailor the tax to help their financially challenged public transit entities. Uber knows that if they give up scooter use data the city will immediately request it for ride sharing as well. The privacy question conveniently aligns with Uber’s position, but I doubt that this is Uber’s core concern vs avoiding every major city banging on the rideshare piñata to fund the gigantic debt service payments and generous benefit programs for their underutilized public transit systems.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>spenrose</author><text>You have the dynamic correct but the values backwards. Cities are defined by their physical and social density and their long-term investments in physical capital. Uber lacks a sustainable business model. Transportation within a city features many &amp;quot;natural&amp;quot; monopolies (i.e. train tracks), and the promise of an emergent overarching monopoly: providing one-App entry into multi-modal transportation. If Uber can capture those monopoly rents it has a chance to survive as a permanent parasite. If it doesn&amp;#x27;t, it&amp;#x27;s doomed.</text></comment>