<story><title>Seattle becomes first in U.S. to protect gig workers from sudden &apos;deactivation&apos;</title><url>https://kuow.org/stories/seattle-becomes-first-in-u-s-to-protect-gig-workers-from-sudden-deactivation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>galkk</author><text>There is very thin line, alas. And it goes to same old &amp;quot;were you really happy to use taxi before uber&amp;quot;. In 2 countries where I did live and in many where I used just them, I wasn&amp;#x27;t happy.&lt;p&gt;Taxis were as unreliable and untrusworthy and they could be - unpredictable prices, you never know if it will actually come even if company accepted your request, shady city navigation when pay by meter etc.&lt;p&gt;So I&amp;#x27;m all for company like Uber to be able to cut such bad actors very fast to be able to provide good service for customers. But that ability seems like quickly and universally degrades to &amp;quot;we own you and your schedule&amp;quot; attitude by ubers of the world</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>anyfoo</author><text>Probably everyone who has used a Taxi in Germany in the past can tell you how professional, knowledgeable, and safe Taxis were there, and that came through very strong regulations.&lt;p&gt;Getting a taxi concession was no joke. You literally had to study on the layout of the city. And given that those are European cities, there is no grid system. You also had to know about safety and take first aid courses.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, taxis require special inspection on top of the rigid inspections necessary for cars in Germany (you wouldn’t want to endanger people with a rust bucket on the autobahn). So yes, they were exceptionally safe.&lt;p&gt;Taxis are mostly Mercedes in Germany, as traditionally Mercedes had the most experience with taxis, and the proper programs in place for taxi use. When I see a Mercedes E wagon on a freeway, I still think &amp;quot;taxi&amp;quot; (like some think police car when they see a Crown Victoria).&lt;p&gt;Source: There was a time where I took a taxi almost every day in Germany, and a close family member owns a German taxi concession for many decades now.&lt;p&gt;Lyft+Uber are an absolute joke in comparison.&lt;p&gt;(I talk mostly in the past tense, because I haven’t lived in Germany for long now. I don’t know whether the gig economy damaged the enormous quality of taxis over there.)</text></comment>
<story><title>Seattle becomes first in U.S. to protect gig workers from sudden &apos;deactivation&apos;</title><url>https://kuow.org/stories/seattle-becomes-first-in-u-s-to-protect-gig-workers-from-sudden-deactivation</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>galkk</author><text>There is very thin line, alas. And it goes to same old &amp;quot;were you really happy to use taxi before uber&amp;quot;. In 2 countries where I did live and in many where I used just them, I wasn&amp;#x27;t happy.&lt;p&gt;Taxis were as unreliable and untrusworthy and they could be - unpredictable prices, you never know if it will actually come even if company accepted your request, shady city navigation when pay by meter etc.&lt;p&gt;So I&amp;#x27;m all for company like Uber to be able to cut such bad actors very fast to be able to provide good service for customers. But that ability seems like quickly and universally degrades to &amp;quot;we own you and your schedule&amp;quot; attitude by ubers of the world</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>edgyquant</author><text>Yes because Uber didn’t have to actually compete with taxis.  They offered a nicer service at a cheap cost and both of these things were an illusion.  The price was subsidized and the drivers weren’t required (at the time) to meet any of the regulations that apply to drivers or third party passengers (for good reasons.)&lt;p&gt;So they replaced one crappy service with another that has a better UX.  All other benefits seem to have vanished when forced to actually make money and we’ve seen a ton of rationale for the existing regulations in the process.  Similar to Airbnb</text></comment>