New York Uber Uber

by Jack Baruth

Published: October 17th, 2012

Score one more for government control, corruption, and general silliness. New York’s TLC threw down the glove a while ago on the “Uber” application which allows taxi and “black car” drivers to arrange rides over the Internet. This isn’t the first time TLC has acted all crazy and stuff. Wait, wrong TLC. Oh well — the sentence two previous to this one applies even without the link.

You can’t fight City Hall — after all, this is the same commission which magically decided to replace every taxi in New York with Japanese minivans assembled in Mexico that didn’t actually exist at the time of the decision, and nobody said nothing, yo. No surprise, then, that Uber is leaving Gotham like Batman riding that bomb out to the ocean in the last Dark Knight film.

Sorry for spoiling the film for you, if you haven’t seen it. However, it turns out that Batman wasn’t on the plane. He actually checked some code into Wayne Enterprises’ subversion or ClearCase or whatever that fixed the autopilot, and he’s hanging out in Italy with Anne Hathaway. Because he totally had a bunch of time to code while he was busy saving the world. I want to believe that the autopilot was written in GNU C++, by the way. But anyway, he isn’t dead.

Oh, damn. Now I’m really sorry. Also, the chick in the Crying Game was a man. And Kevin Spacey is Keyser Soze. I have to stop doing this. DARTH VADER IS LUKE’S FATHER AND ALSO LEIA IS HIS SISTER SO WHAT WAS THAT WHOLE KISS ABOUT WHEN HE CAME OUT OF THE WEIRD HEALING TANK OOOOH?

Where were we? Yes. Uber. According to The Verge, Uber asked everybody to come in for their checks this month — and hand in your phone while you’re at it, please. This shutdown only applies to Ubertaxi: the “Black Car” service is still up. For now. But probably not for long. Because Uber is the smartphone app the city deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

#BlackCar #Corruption #FrankSerpico #NewYork #Taxi #Uber #WhyNot

Jack Baruth

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5 of 38 comments

Dolorean on Oct 17, 2012

Seems to me this is the free market working as it should. Oh, I know, its this bright and shiny Utopia that perfectly defines working economics. The reality is Greed, as some who work on Wall Street and comment on TTAC have alluded to, being a very fickle mistress who likes things they way they are and can become violently reactionary when it comes to change. These fortunates rig the system so it continues to work for them at the expense of the masses standing in the rain, hoping for a yellow cab to stop and take them uptown.

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- CelticPete on Oct 17, 2012
  
  Haha. I hate to break it to the 99% but working on Wall Street isn't that hot. You should be protesting at Googles or Apple's headquarters. They have been taking the money out of banking for a while now. Banking has been suffering a brain exodus for a while now with the new money crushing regs flowing into it.. Bankers just suck at PR. Your average Doctor makes a crapton more money then the average banker..and often both went to Ivy Leagues.
  
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- Jimmyy on Oct 17, 2012
  
  @CelticPete I am a wall streeter who lives in my townhouse on 77th near madison 2 weeks out of the month ... the rest of my time is spent in my Wellesley home, or my Newport Beach, CA home. Back to NYC. Most wall streeters will never ride in a cab or black car. Those things smell and can have bed bugs in them. Trains are out of the question. The wall streeter either drives their private vehicle or has a driver of their private vehicle. I drive my private vehicle, and driving is not that difficult as long as you maximize your time on the west side highway or the FDR. Secondly, I know pleanty of doctors and they make a fraction of my salary. However, I have no respect for any wall streeter while tons of respect for nearly every doctor. If I had a second chance at life, I would become a doctor. I would rather make a much smaller but still substantial income while helping people. That seems like a much easier way to heaven. And, I did not go to an Ivy league. In fact, most wall streeters did not go to an Ivy league, but nearly all wall streeters graduated near the top of their class at a well above average college. I know a few that actually graduated from UM Ann Arbor, and a few from UCLA.
  
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- Golden2husky on Oct 19, 2012
  
  @CelticPete .....Trains are out of the question. The wall streeter either drives their private vehicle or has a driver of their private vehicle..... Not necessarily true. Plenty of Wall street types take the Long Island Rail Road or the Metro North Rail Road. There the ones with the fancy cars in the RR parking lot or they have a "station" car...usually nothing in the middle...and most are on a 4:30 train going home...
  
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Ronnie Schreiber on Oct 18, 2012

"Sorry for spoiling the film for you, if you haven’t seen it" Hmmm. I seem to recall a friend who told me he was Tivo'ing the race when I texted him that the problem with Dario Franchitti winning the Indy 500 was having to watch Ashley Judd hog camera time.

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