Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

[think365]

The new "Transportation Network Companies" will go mainstream in California in September (next month) pending Public Utility Commission (PUC) approval. The groundwork has been paved for this via social networking combined with information technology and serial entrepreneur ingenuity. This could very well disrupt a number of (inefficient) industries (e.g., outrageously expensive college textbooks, hotel industry, taxi/limo companies, tour-guide industry, "last-mile" transport industry, and so on) and create thousands of new jobs while conserving/reallocating inefficient use of resources.

From the article below:

"The information tech revolution swept through many industries but barely touched transportation. This is just the leading edge of things we're going to be seeing in the future." (Dan Sperling, Ph.D., founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis; "Blue Planet Prize" laureate - July 2013 - the environmental Nobel Prize)

"Sharing economy" moves mainstream
By Dana Hull

dhull@mercurynews.com
Posted: 08/07/2013

What's often known as the "sharing economy" -- represented by startups like Airbnb, Sidecar and TaskRabbit that match buyers with goods and services ranging from rooms to rides to running errands -- has long operated on the margins of legitimacy.

But there are growing signs that the sharing economy is going mainstream -- creating thousands of jobs and a business model that promotes environmental sustainability through more efficient use of resources. In the process, this emerging economy is disrupting traditional businesses such as hotels and taxi companies, and forcing governments to rethink decades-old rules on taxation, labor and safety.




Phillip Zakhour, 49, of San Francisco drives for both TaskRabbit and SideCar. (John Green/Staff) (JOHN GREEN)

Last week, state regulators with the California Public Utilities Commission proposed groundbreaking new safety regulations that would grant state licenses for smartphone-enabled ridesharing companies like Lyft, Sidecar and Uber. Passionate users of the sharing economy companies have formed their own advocacy group, and several mayors are working to make their cities more "shareable."

"It's a groundbreaking new economic paradigm," said Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University's Stern School of Business who studies digital economies. "This isn't just a recession-era phenomenon. It's a technology-driven change."

PEERS, a nonprofit advocacy group for the sharing economy, launched last week. Founded by service users, academics, entrepreneurs and several leading sharing economy startups, PEERS hopes to forge a unified voice for what many have come to regard as a movement.

Sundararajan noted that several of the nation's most prominent mayors, including San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Chicago's Rahm Emanuel and New York's Michael Bloomberg, backed a resolution at the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in June "to support making cities more shareable" through car and bike sharing, ridesharing, home-swapping and tool-lending.

"Sharing economy companies have proved to be engines of innovation and job creation, driving economic development in the hearts of American cities, where joblessness is still most pervasive," the resolution said.

A growing number of people make a living from renting out spare rooms on Airbnb, performing errands and odd jobs as a TaskRabbit or ferrying people across the city as a driver for Lyft or Sidecar. Mobile phones and social media have fueled the phenomenon, helping build a culture of trust around the transactions.

While many of the startups sprang up in the Bay Area, the sharing movement has quickly gone global. An Australian company called Zookal allows college students to rent out textbooks, while Vayable hooks travelers up with local hosts who give customized, personalized tours of cities from Barcelona to Shanghai.

The companies, which typically make money by charging transaction fees, have faced a thicket of regulatory, tax and labor issues in the markets where they operate. Advocates say the livelihood of micro-entrepreneurs is at stake, while established industries -- from hotels to taxi companies -- have argued that the newcomers are sidestepping taxation, safety regulations and labor rules.

With the market still in its infancy, government agencies are just beginning to grapple with what it all means. The ridesharing companies are the first to come under the regulatory umbrella, but will likely be far from the last. Yet many experts see the mainstreaming of the sharing economy as inevitable because of the economic efficiencies it will create.

"There will be more companies -- this is just the beginning," said Dan Sperling, founding director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis. "The information tech revolution swept through many industries but barely touched transportation. This is just the leading edge of things we're going to be seeing in the future."

Last fall, state regulators with the state Public Utilities Commission slapped startups Lyft, Sidecar and Uber with $20,000 fines each after accusing them of operating as passenger carriers without commercial insurance to cover injuries, property damage and workers' compensation claims. But PUC President Michael Peevey last week issued a proposal that would create a new regulatory category called "Transportation Network Company."

The proposed regulations, which are likely to be approved in September, would require drivers to undergo a criminal-background check and require companies to provide driver training, adopt a zero-tolerance policy on drugs and alcohol and to carry insurance. While various cities have made accommodations to the sharing economy, the PUC regulations would represent the first statewide rules for ridesharing companies.

Companies like Sidecar, which has thousands of drivers in the Bay Area, applauded the move, saying the regulatory clarity is a "critical milestone" that will make ridesharing better and safer.

"There's a growing recognition that the sharing economy is the wave of the future," said Sunil Paul, Sidecar's founder and CEO. "We now have a set of rules that are about us, and the kind of innovation we are creating."

[c1ue]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

You mean like this?

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/201...r-trespassing/

Airport officials have been making citizen’s arrests and issuing citations to ride-share drivers who pick up or drop off passengers at San Francisco International Airport.

Eleven drivers have been arrested on suspicion of unlawful trespassing, a misdemeanor, since the airport began making citizen’s arrests July 10, said airport spokesman Doug Yakel.

The airport has long maintained that several ride-share services, including UberX, Lyft, Sidecar and InstantCab, do not have the authority to operate at SFO. (Limos and taxis hailed through the Uber app are still allowed, Yakel said, because the vehicles have the proper transportation permits with the state.)

Or this:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/26/ub...s-angeles-ban/

Two of three major ride-sharing companies plan to continue operations in Los Angeles in defiance of the city department of transportation, citing state regulations they believe take precedence.

The Los Angeles transportation department ordered the companies to immediately halt operations within the city limits, handing local taxi drivers a major victory over their chief competitors.

Taxi cab administrator Thomas Drischler sent cease-and-desist letters to Lyft, Sidecar and Uber on Monday, informing company executives and their drivers that operating cars-for-hire without a permit was a criminal offense.

[lektrode]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

or even like this....

[c1ue]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

Or this:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the...terly-trashed/

The facts: Last month “EJ” wrote a long blog post about how a renter spent an entire week carefully robbing and trashing her home. Walls were cut through to get to locked valuables, including her grandmother’s jewelry.

They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother’s jewelry I had hidden inside. They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals… my entire life. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied – using the printer/copier I kindly left out for my guests’ use. They rifled through all my drawers, wore my shoes and clothes, and left my clothing crumpled up in a pile of wet, mildewing towels on the closet floor. They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online. Despite the heat wave, they used my fireplace and multiple Duraflame logs to reduce mounds of stuff (my stuff??) to ash – including, I believe, the missing set of guest sheets I left carefully folded for their comfort. Yet they were stupid and careless enough to leave the flue closed; dirty gray ash now covered every surface inside.

and

The kitchen was a disaster – the sink piled high with filthy dishes, pots and pans burnt out and ruined. Comet Cleanser was dumped everywhere; the kitchen counters, wood furniture, my gorgeous new bed frame, my desk, my printer… all were doused in powdered bleach. The death-like smell emanating from the bathroom was frightening (and still is) and the bathroom sink was caked with a crusty yellow substance. Various pairs of my gloves were strewn about – leather, dishwashing and otherwise – I imagine in a weak attempt to cover up fingerprints. Whoever these people were, they were living large and having one hell of a time for an entire week inside my home, unwatched, unchecked, free to do whatever destruction they wished. And damn, did they do a lot of it.

The creepiest part of this is that the renter was sending cheerful emails during the week’s rampage:

All the while, Dj Pattrson was sending me friendly emails, thanking me for being such a great host, for respecting his/her privacy…. telling me how much he/she was enjoying my beautiful apartment bathed in sunlight, how much he/she particularly loved the “little loft area” upstairs… with an “lol” closing one sentence, just for good measure. It makes me sick to my stomach to think now of these emails.

EJ also explains how Airbnb’s policies of not letting people know who they’re renting to until the last moment makes a situation like this more likely to happen. She explains (convincingly) how Craigslist is actually safer because they warn people of the risks. Airbnb, in effect, is vouching for the renter.

Yet now I ask myself this: for what, exactly, did I pay a service fee to Airbnb.com? What did I get in exchange for my 20-something dollars? What was the advantage of using this service over Craigslist, which is free? Ironically Airbnb.com’s site states “the promise of our site is that it is entirely transparent” when in reality, it is not. And therein lies the fundamental, though not immediately apparent, difference: on Craigslist, I am warned loudly and repeatedly that use of the site is at my own risk. I am encouraged to take certain precautions, and I have the ability to do so by gaining quick access to the email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information of the person(s) I am communicating with, all of which can be researched and at least somewhat verified by means of basic internet searches. Alternatively, Airbnb.com tightly controls the communication between host and traveler, disallowing the exchange of personal contact information until the point in which a reservation is already confirmed and paid for. By hindering my ability to research the person who will rent my home, there is an implication that Airbnb.com has already done the research for me, and has eliminated the investigative work that Craigslist requires. In effect, the friendly, community-based site with its Golden Rules creates a reasonable expectation that some basic screening of its users has occurred, and speaks little to the risks involved, primarily within the very small print of the lengthy Terms of Service. Thus by the time this reservation was confirmed and I was given Dj’s email address and phone number, I was on a plane heading East, and he/she was armed with my welcoming instructions on where to pick up the keys to my apartment.

[c1ue]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

Or this:

http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the...terly-trashed/

The facts: Last month “EJ” wrote a long blog post about how a renter spent an entire week carefully robbing and trashing her home. Walls were cut through to get to locked valuables, including her grandmother’s jewelry.

They smashed a hole through a locked closet door, and found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother’s jewelry I had hidden inside. They took my camera, my iPod, an old laptop, and my external backup drive filled with photos, journals… my entire life. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied – using the printer/copier I kindly left out for my guests’ use. They rifled through all my drawers, wore my shoes and clothes, and left my clothing crumpled up in a pile of wet, mildewing towels on the closet floor. They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online. Despite the heat wave, they used my fireplace and multiple Duraflame logs to reduce mounds of stuff (my stuff??) to ash – including, I believe, the missing set of guest sheets I left carefully folded for their comfort. Yet they were stupid and careless enough to leave the flue closed; dirty gray ash now covered every surface inside.

and

The kitchen was a disaster – the sink piled high with filthy dishes, pots and pans burnt out and ruined. Comet Cleanser was dumped everywhere; the kitchen counters, wood furniture, my gorgeous new bed frame, my desk, my printer… all were doused in powdered bleach. The death-like smell emanating from the bathroom was frightening (and still is) and the bathroom sink was caked with a crusty yellow substance. Various pairs of my gloves were strewn about – leather, dishwashing and otherwise – I imagine in a weak attempt to cover up fingerprints. Whoever these people were, they were living large and having one hell of a time for an entire week inside my home, unwatched, unchecked, free to do whatever destruction they wished. And damn, did they do a lot of it.

The creepiest part of this is that the renter was sending cheerful emails during the week’s rampage:

All the while, Dj Pattrson was sending me friendly emails, thanking me for being such a great host, for respecting his/her privacy…. telling me how much he/she was enjoying my beautiful apartment bathed in sunlight, how much he/she particularly loved the “little loft area” upstairs… with an “lol” closing one sentence, just for good measure. It makes me sick to my stomach to think now of these emails.

EJ also explains how Airbnb’s policies of not letting people know who they’re renting to until the last moment makes a situation like this more likely to happen. She explains (convincingly) how Craigslist is actually safer because they warn people of the risks. Airbnb, in effect, is vouching for the renter.

Yet now I ask myself this: for what, exactly, did I pay a service fee to Airbnb.com? What did I get in exchange for my 20-something dollars? What was the advantage of using this service over Craigslist, which is free? Ironically Airbnb.com’s site states “the promise of our site is that it is entirely transparent” when in reality, it is not. And therein lies the fundamental, though not immediately apparent, difference: on Craigslist, I am warned loudly and repeatedly that use of the site is at my own risk. I am encouraged to take certain precautions, and I have the ability to do so by gaining quick access to the email addresses, phone numbers, and other identifying information of the person(s) I am communicating with, all of which can be researched and at least somewhat verified by means of basic internet searches. Alternatively, Airbnb.com tightly controls the communication between host and traveler, disallowing the exchange of personal contact information until the point in which a reservation is already confirmed and paid for. By hindering my ability to research the person who will rent my home, there is an implication that Airbnb.com has already done the research for me, and has eliminated the investigative work that Craigslist requires. In effect, the friendly, community-based site with its Golden Rules creates a reasonable expectation that some basic screening of its users has occurred, and speaks little to the risks involved, primarily within the very small print of the lengthy Terms of Service. Thus by the time this reservation was confirmed and I was given Dj’s email address and phone number, I was on a plane heading East, and he/she was armed with my welcoming instructions on where to pick up the keys to my apartment.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

Quite frankly, when I hear terms like "asset light" and "sharing economy," I think poverty. There's plenty asset light lifestyles and sharing economies in the third world. And they work fine without iPhones. It's not technology driving this. It's the downslide of the middle class.

[lektrode]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

Quite frankly, when I hear terms like "asset light" and "sharing economy," I think poverty. There's plenty asset light lifestyles and sharing economies in the third world. And they work fine without iPhones. It's not technology driving this. It's the downslide of the middle class.

+1
altho i'd phrase it slightly differently...
but still tho, it's an interesting concept, one has to admit?

but mr c1ue's example above of how the details dovetail with the devil is most appropriate - never mind what happens when these sorts of developments challenge the status quo (as my example above demonstrates rather nicely, eh dc?)

[think365]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

You mean like this?

http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/201...r-trespassing/



Or this:

http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/26/ub...s-angeles-ban/

Your point?

The "ride-share" issue has quickly accelerated to the forefront in the San Francisco Bay Area primarily due to the impending strike by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) employees. Overnight, thousands of people with jobs in San Francisco were suddenly confronted with a 4 hour + commute which normally took less than 1 hour before the stike. The bus system, CalTrain and ferry systems became instantly over-loaded and unworkable. The most workable/efficient solution became self-selected and organized overnight. And the majority of the relief came from "Ride Sharing" (not stodgy, over-priced taxis or limos). Local radio and television stations, government agencies, politicians (including Ed Lee, the Mayor of San Francisco), etc., all helped disseminate information on how to connect with ride-sharing opportunities causing it to become, overnight, a big part of the solution. It was actually one of the most efficient, spontaneous responses to a bad situation I have ever witnessed around here; kind of like pulling the over-looked, rookie quarterback off the bench in an emergency and he goes on to win the game. After a performance like that, anyone who is a team player will admit that rookie deserves an opportunity for a second look (even the first string quarterback).

I don't dispute that the fledgling "ride-share" industry is getting a huge, circumstantial leg-up as a result of the BART crisis. But the need came along, and "ride-share" was the solution of choice to fill it and it worked out great for those stranded workers who gave it a try.

The unfortunate result of this natural selection by the public was a backlash/turf-war/tantrum from the local "City Transportation Officials" and the cab companies who support them; doggedly trying to hold on to their turf and power as they spew forth pre-textual "safety", "regulatory", and "licensure (aka fees)" issues as reflected in the articles you posted.

Frankly, this is to be expected any time there is even a hint of a paradigm shift away from a hegemonic/monopolistic system that has ceased to efficiently serve the public interest, to an open-source system that will allow the public to decide what they want and what works best for them.

The article I posted indicated that the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is considering carving out a new category called "Transportation Network Companies" in order to accommodate, regulate, license and legitimize "ride sharing" (all of the things the taxi/limo industry is currently whining about in the posted articles). If that happens next month, then the only thing the nay-sayers will have to complain about is that they now have competition from a potentially better "mouse trap". And who benefits from competition? The consumer. What's wrong with that?

[think365]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

Quite frankly, when I hear terms like "asset light" and "sharing economy," I think poverty. There's plenty asset light lifestyles and sharing economies in the third world. And they work fine without iPhones. It's not technology driving this. It's the downslide of the middle class.

That crossed my mind as well. Sharing the idle utility of assets would certainly put a dent in consumption = decreasing demand = deflation = erosion of standard of living. No different than an office building being rented out at below market prices during evenings and weekends, squeezing out potential new construction (maybe not the best example, but you get the idea).

On the other hand, what do you do when you have a bloated, over-produced economy suffering from an output gap? Does the efficient use of under-utilized assets cause the patient to crash? Potentially, yes.

Is protectionist regulation (forcing inefficient consumption) the answer? In Greece before their crash, moving companies were so over-regulated (protected) that consumers were not allowed to move their own stuff even a few blocks from one apartment to another, without hiring a large truck and 4 movers (minimum) from a "licensed" moving company.

Over-regulating and bureaucratizing simple functions and suppressing competition for the sake of "making work" for selected industries hardly seems in the best interest of the consumer (particularly during periods of declining real wages as we have now). It is a short term slippery slope that never ends well.

[c1ue]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

Your point?

There are a lot of points:

1) Why are taxis regulated?

As you may know, a random person cannot just start offering taxi services. They are controlled. Why is this the case?

The medallion systems arose because without regulation or supply constraints, the result was there were so many taxi drivers that none of them could make a living.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...llion?page=all

THERE ARE 13,237 YELLOW TAXIS IN NEW YORK CITY.

...

In 1932, 16,732 cabs roamed New York City streets, according to taxi historian Graham Hodges’Taxi! A social history of the New York City cab driver.

The competition “was merciless,” according to Hodges, and “Many cabbies turned to petty crime to help make ends meet.”

There were strikes, and there were fare wars.

Ultimately, an alderman named Lew Haas decided to do something about it.

In 1937, he proposed a bill that would limit the number of taxis to 13,595, and make medallions automatically renewable, tradeable assets. It was signed that year by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.

Now, if you want to argue that there aren't enough medallions issued, that is a different issue - the appropriate number for which can be argued depending on your point of view.

2) Regulation, safety, and accountability

In many countries, you can just wave down a random passersby and negotiate a fare right on the spot. Uber and what not are essentially doing the same thing, only they're both charging a fee and removing the negotiation aspect of it.

If ultimately you believe that random passersby should have the right to transact business with random drivers, that's another separate issue. First you'd need to pass a whole passel of laws fixing the gray areas of liability (who's liable for what if an incident, much less an accident, occurs?), insurance (do insurance policies for private drivers cover random passengers?), safety (are private drivers making private transactions exempt from the rules which taxi drivers must operate under?), accountability (how do disputes over fares charged, services rendered, etc get resolved?) etc etc.

These are only the biggest of many issues - some other ones would include things like:

Do you want people meandering the roads seeking to offer up taxi rides to random passengers? This is what happens in those countries without regulation.

What about licensing and registration? Is a private car which does $x in passenger revenue per year a residential/private vehicle any more? Commercial drivers have higher bars to licensing, insurance, and registration than residential.

Taxation? Shouldn't all that privately negotiated money be taxed as income?

Simply because some service pops up which purports to create something new, but in reality is just repackaging existing capabilities, while avoiding all regulatory apparatus, doesn't mean the long or even medium term result is positive.

The "ride-share" issue has quickly accelerated to the forefront in the San Francisco Bay Area primarily due to the impending strike by the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) employees.

Uh, no.

Ride sharing started quite a long time before that. People do talk, after all. Even the app based version started years before the BART strike - and flourished because it exploited yet another loophole: the limo drivers.

A limo driver has a license to pick up passengers, but only on call. This is what differentiates a limo license vs. a taxi medallion. Uber had a great start because there are 400 limos in San Francisco; the app allowed them to eat into the cab drivers turf. There are, however, 1500 cab medallions in San Francisco. Once again, if the number of taxi medallions is too low, that is a perfectly legitimate argument.

However, the use of Uber and similar apps to loophole through existing regulations is to ignore why these regulations arose to start with.

I speak as someone who looked closely into that model and have first hand knowledge of earlier attempts. For example, a company called Cabulous tried to get its equipment installed into all 1500 SF cabs with the idea that this equipment would permit would be passengers to see where the nearest cab was, and to directly call it even if out of line of sight.

Seems like a good idea right?

The problem, according to cab drivers in the pilot program who I talked to, is that the way people call cabs is irresponsible. Many don't care about wasting drivers time, so they'll call all the cab companies simultaneously - 4 or 5 - and take whoever shows up first. Any subsequent cabs will waste their time.

More importantly, calling a cab doesn't solve the cab drivers problem, which is how to maximize the amount of time spent with a paying fare vs. driving unpaid looking for a fare. The reason cabs aren't ubiquitously around is that they'll hang around the areas where experience tells them they are most likely to both pick up fares - which means most cabs tend to congregate in specific high traffic areas. On a similar basis, cab drivers who see too many other cabs in one area will move to another. They also know about high demand times/places - the lines of cabs headed for the baseball stadium as the games end is a perfect example.

If you're in a low traffic area, the cab driver has to drive unpaid to fetch you. Similarly if you're going to a low traffic area, the cab driver is almost certainly going to be driving unpaid back.

Uber and similar services do nothing to solve this dynamic.

Ah, but you then say, centralize all cab dispatch to a single point source. Well, that's where Cabulous is headed. Their price? $400,000 per year. Think that'll raise cab fares?

[think365]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

There are a lot of points:

1) Why are taxis regulated?

As you may know, a random person cannot just start offering taxi services. They are controlled. Why is this the case?

The medallion systems arose because without regulation or supply constraints, the result was there were so many taxi drivers that none of them could make a living.

http://www.capitalnewyork.com/articl...llion?page=all



Now, if you want to argue that there aren't enough medallions issued, that is a different issue - the appropriate number for which can be argued depending on your point of view.

2) Regulation, safety, and accountability

In many countries, you can just wave down a random passersby and negotiate a fare right on the spot. Uber and what not are essentially doing the same thing, only they're both charging a fee and removing the negotiation aspect of it.

If ultimately you believe that random passersby should have the right to transact business with random drivers, that's another separate issue. First you'd need to pass a whole passel of laws fixing the gray areas of liability (who's liable for what if an incident, much less an accident, occurs?), insurance (do insurance policies for private drivers cover random passengers?), safety (are private drivers making private transactions exempt from the rules which taxi drivers must operate under?), accountability (how do disputes over fares charged, services rendered, etc get resolved?) etc etc.

These are only the biggest of many issues - some other ones would include things like:

Do you want people meandering the roads seeking to offer up taxi rides to random passengers? This is what happens in those countries without regulation.

What about licensing and registration? Is a private car which does $x in passenger revenue per year a residential/private vehicle any more? Commercial drivers have higher bars to licensing, insurance, and registration than residential.

Taxation? Shouldn't all that privately negotiated money be taxed as income?

Simply because some service pops up which purports to create something new, but in reality is just repackaging existing capabilities, while avoiding all regulatory apparatus, doesn't mean the long or even medium term result is positive.

You repeat and expand on the same arguments the taxi drivers are making for why ride sharing should be summarily dismissed (licensing, insurance, taxation, etc) while you ignore the fact that the California PUC is offering to address all of those issues and more through a public process which is squarely within their mandate.

My point is that:

1. Ride-sharing worked well in a real time experiment for those consumers who actually used the service.

2. Responsible citizens and their elected officials would like to explore ride-sharing further, but recognize the need to license, regulate and legitimize ride-sharing service first.

3. The California PUC is a statewide regulatory agency, ostensibly with preemptive authority to license and regulate ride-sharing.

4. The California PUC has expressed an interest in ride sharing as potentially being in the public interest and will propose regulatory, licensing and insurance requirements; including public hearings and open forums in accordance with the Brown Act.

I simply suggest that we let the PUC do its job before we pass judgement. It's what the taxpayers pay them for.

[c1ue]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

You repeat and expand on the same arguments the taxi drivers are making for why ride sharing should be summarily dismissed (licensing, insurance, taxation, etc) while you ignore the fact that the California PUC is offering to address all of those issues and more through a public process which is squarely within their mandate.

I don't think so - I've actually looked at what the taxi companies are saying, and they only talk about a couple of the areas above.

I am also fascinated that you think the CPUC is able to set insurance company policies for private drivers doing commercial business, is able to regulate driver licensing, state and federal taxation, legal liability, and so forth.

But anyway, time will tell.

1. Ride-sharing worked well in a real time experiment for those consumers who actually used the service.

Uber worked great for the first few people. Unless the supply of limos and/or private vehicles expands, however, the experience is going to deteriorate quickly. Limos were a great first step because they're already out there and spend a lot of time sitting around waiting for calls.

2. Responsible citizens and their elected officials would like to explore ride-sharing further, but recognize the need to license, regulate and legitimize ride-sharing service first.

And more importantly, multi-million dollar venture back sharing economy startups.

If you actually care about seeing the man behind the curtain, look into the high powered lobbying firm which has been enlisted to fight on the government side. The fight is very little about responsible citizens or elected officials, and very much about money, on both sides.

3. The California PUC is a statewide regulatory agency, ostensibly with preemptive authority to license and regulate ride-sharing.

Correct. The problem is the CPUC has no jurisdiction over a lot of the ancillary issues noted above.

4. The California PUC has expressed an interest in ride sharing as potentially being in the public interest and will propose regulatory, licensing and insurance requirements; including public hearings and open forums in accordance with the Brown Act.

I quite agree.

I'm merely pointing out that ride sharing didn't occur commercially before now not because of a lack of technology. It is the potential for profit which is driving the 'sharing economy', not necessarily any particular interest in the public welfare.

[lektrode]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

.....merely pointing out that ride sharing didn't occur commercially before now not because of a lack of technology. It is the potential for profit which is driving the 'sharing economy', not necessarily any particular interest in the public welfare.

1 point for c1ue on this.
its interesting to note however that this phenom 'popped up' as a result of the BART/transit strike???
and have to hand it to the entreprenurial class to come up with a solution, seemingly overnight.

[c1ue]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

its interesting to note however that this phenom 'popped up' as a result of the BART/transit strike???

No, as I noted, the BART strike is being used to gain PR. Ride sharing as defined by Uber, SideCar, Lyft, etc has been around for quite some time - enough for Uber to have provoked a strike by some of its limo driver suppliers.

You can read about this in the a report to the CPUC:

http://sfcda.org/CPUC/Ridesharing_Ap...y2013-Daus.pdf

Uber started in 2009 and really started making noise when it raised $10 million in 2011. Uber has raised $57M in venture capital thus far.

Sidecar raised $10 million in late 2012, and Lyft has raised over $82 million, with $60 million coming in May this year.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Will Tech Finally Push the "Sharing Economy" Mainstream?

+1
altho i'd phrase it slightly differently...
but still tho, it's an interesting concept, one has to admit?

but mr c1ue's example above of how the details dovetail with the devil is most appropriate - never mind what happens when these sorts of developments challenge the status quo (as my example above demonstrates rather nicely, eh dc?)

I think so. A dear friend of mine who was an aide to Senator Pell (of Pell Grant Fame) called it "managing decline." Although rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic gets the same point across. I think America needs to move beyond managing decline. It is a mind-frame from which no good can come. Accepting defeat brings out the best in no-one. We can do better. But we must recognize what a resurgent America looks like. And I can't see a realistic version of it that looks like a plutonomy.

Some way, some how, we have to do better to stop taxing people three houses for every house they buy, two cars for every car they buy, two educations for every degree they buy, and an extra 30% on every ear of corn or gallon of gas they buy. This money all goes to speculators and rentiers. And capital availability is important. But should FIRE be 33% of our economy? Should it be quickly moving to 50%? How long before the parasite kills the host? It has a roll. My guess is 15% is about the sweet spot. 20% is not so bad. But as it grows, it will kill off all of the other life blood. Government has been pretty consistently at 18% for 70-80 years now. And yet people fear the growth of government. FIRE has more than doubled in size as a percent of the economy in that time in which government has stayed flat. What then is the real threat?

Here's a new proposal. Keep FIRE to the percent of GDP that government is at. So work to shrink its influence to 18%. Then if you want to grow or shrink them, do it simultaneously. But to complain about growing government and ignore growing FIRE is to cry about running out of ice for your G&T in a cabin that's on burning up. There is an egregious taxing, ever growing, bureaucratic monster afoot killing your good time. But it might not be the one you think it is.

Here's a thought for my friends on the right side of the spectrum. If the government was growing as fast as FIRE, I would be right there with you trying to shrink it. But it has a "right size" in my mind. As does FIRE. Only one is growing. And the other is standing pat. I think the Bureau of Economic Analysis understates both the size of government and the size of FIRE. But I think they get the proportion right. Check it out: