From my own experience, if you’re poor, you use a regular bus. If you want to get somewhere faster, you pay more and catch a shuttle. If you want comfort, you pay even more and get a taxi. And all modes of transport are always full to the brim. The more the merrier, always.
But…that’s our point. Uber taking over bus routes would ultimately void that choice. Public transportation is a public service. Letting a VC-funded for-profit company weasel their way into that space is never going to not fuck poor people. It’ll fuck everyone, but it’ll make “public transportation” unaffordable. And, really, when you’re poor, “if you want to get somewhere faster” isn’t really an option. That’s…the thing with being poor. You don’t have the extra money to spend to catch a shuttle and you don’t have the luxury of paying for comfort. Not to mention, even in the best case scenario, where busses would keep their existing schedule and routes (though the likelihood of this happening is slim) and we’d just get more busses? It’d clog the system, ultimately slowing bus routes.
So, no. Not “the more the merrier” when it comes to private companies elbowing their way into public service, and especially not when we’re talking about fuckin traffic.
Like where? Kids school lunches? Oh, no…wait…a bunch of literal children have school lunch debt. Well, maybe family visits for prisoners? Oh, no, they’ve now barred people from visiting inmates and a private company now forces them to pay to do a shitty video chat. Okay, well maybe the American healthcare system? Nope. I guess that one’s killing a whole bunch of people and drowning families in debt for simple procedures and charging people $80 for a Tylenol and charging mothers for letting them hold their own fucking child.
I’m sure there’s a great example where a private company is doling out their services at a loss as a public good, right?
But you didn’t answer my question. In what instance has a private, for-profit company gotten involved in a public good, and operated at a loss to keep that public service affordable and accessible to all? You said it’s worked before, I’m genuinely curious.
You see, I’m originally from Latvia. And back there only major bus and train routes are operated by the state. All the smaller and inter city routes are operated by private companies, sometimes at a loss. And sometimes cheaper than tax funded services.
But there’s another example - private train companies across the EU. Just check some basic routes like Verona to Venezia or Barcelona to Madrid and you’ll see that all the cheaper options are from private companies.
The state-run services are never cheap (even when tax funded), never modern and never reliable. It’s just the way public transport works.
The EU has the Public Service Obligation law. So it’s an agreement to keep the rail routes that went private under obligation to be a public good, where, yes they do give private companies a monopoly on a certain route, but often the lines and sometimes even cars are owned by the government. But they impose regulations and price caps.
So, again, it’s the state shoveling off the cost of running the day to day operations, while empowering a company to take the reins under pretty strict guidelines because the service is public. They’re given subsidies to operate and it still saves the government money, as well as assuring the lines that aren’t profitable enough for the state to run on their own are still running under government contract with private companies.
From my own experience, if you’re poor, you use a regular bus. If you want to get somewhere faster, you pay more and catch a shuttle. If you want comfort, you pay even more and get a taxi. And all modes of transport are always full to the brim. The more the merrier, always.
But…that’s our point. Uber taking over bus routes would ultimately void that choice. Public transportation is a public service. Letting a VC-funded for-profit company weasel their way into that space is never going to not fuck poor people. It’ll fuck everyone, but it’ll make “public transportation” unaffordable. And, really, when you’re poor, “if you want to get somewhere faster” isn’t really an option. That’s…the thing with being poor. You don’t have the extra money to spend to catch a shuttle and you don’t have the luxury of paying for comfort. Not to mention, even in the best case scenario, where busses would keep their existing schedule and routes (though the likelihood of this happening is slim) and we’d just get more busses? It’d clog the system, ultimately slowing bus routes.
So, no. Not “the more the merrier” when it comes to private companies elbowing their way into public service, and especially not when we’re talking about fuckin traffic.
It works just fine elsewhere.
Like where? Kids school lunches? Oh, no…wait…a bunch of literal children have school lunch debt. Well, maybe family visits for prisoners? Oh, no, they’ve now barred people from visiting inmates and a private company now forces them to pay to do a shitty video chat. Okay, well maybe the American healthcare system? Nope. I guess that one’s killing a whole bunch of people and drowning families in debt for simple procedures and charging people $80 for a Tylenol and charging mothers for letting them hold their own fucking child.
I’m sure there’s a great example where a private company is doling out their services at a loss as a public good, right?
Are you high?
Hell yeah, bruv.
But you didn’t answer my question. In what instance has a private, for-profit company gotten involved in a public good, and operated at a loss to keep that public service affordable and accessible to all? You said it’s worked before, I’m genuinely curious.
You see, I’m originally from Latvia. And back there only major bus and train routes are operated by the state. All the smaller and inter city routes are operated by private companies, sometimes at a loss. And sometimes cheaper than tax funded services.
But there’s another example - private train companies across the EU. Just check some basic routes like Verona to Venezia or Barcelona to Madrid and you’ll see that all the cheaper options are from private companies.
The state-run services are never cheap (even when tax funded), never modern and never reliable. It’s just the way public transport works.
That’s…not a very good example.
The EU has the Public Service Obligation law. So it’s an agreement to keep the rail routes that went private under obligation to be a public good, where, yes they do give private companies a monopoly on a certain route, but often the lines and sometimes even cars are owned by the government. But they impose regulations and price caps.
So, again, it’s the state shoveling off the cost of running the day to day operations, while empowering a company to take the reins under pretty strict guidelines because the service is public. They’re given subsidies to operate and it still saves the government money, as well as assuring the lines that aren’t profitable enough for the state to run on their own are still running under government contract with private companies.
So…not the same at all.
There’s no monopoly on the route, what are you talking about?