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Uber/Lyft as one-stop shopping for all modes

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Living Car Free Do you live car free or car light? Do you prefer to use alternative transportation (bicycles, walking, other human-powered or public transportation) for everyday activities whenever possible? Discuss your lifestyle here.

Uber/Lyft as one-stop shopping for all modes

Old 07-05-18, 08:28 AM
  #26  
LanghamP
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Originally Posted by prj71
I'm not against it, but I live in reality and realize it's not a viable option to LCF. I't only viable to a certain geographic region of this country...Where it's warm weather year round and where work is a short commute.

Car Free / Car Lite boom has come and gone...

https://medium.com/@sjpeterson/livin...a-4df3e13a8b75
I live car light. I mean, really car light; it took me two months to go through half a tank of gas while putting on over 600 miles on my commuter bicycle over the same period of time.

Is it doable and pleasant? No. Riding a bicycle requires real sacrifices. I ride to get to and from work and for pleasure but it isn't my major source of transportation, especially when I'm feeling lazy and don't want to go up hills.

Instead, I ride my Gotway MSuper V3S+, an extremely large electric unicycle. It doesn't require much sacrifice and tops out at about 30 mph. You'll pass most urban traffic with it. My moving average is around 26 mph.

I do see electric bicycles and unicycles taking over bicycles; certainly most new bikes sold in Western Europe are electric.

I try to treat my car as, "emergency use only".

I don't like owning nor using a car. I have very often looked into what it would take to be entirely car free; it requires moving away from the United States which is now my plan.
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Old 07-05-18, 08:44 AM
  #27  
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Originally Posted by LanghamP
To the surprise of absolutely no one, gmail is not private (even says so in the end user agreement). I posted google's rebuttal to give both sides a fair shake.

https://www.zdnet.com/google-amp/art...-apps-that-do/

While I do have a gmail account, I treat it as absolutely public information. I strongly urge others to do the same.
What does that have to do with whether your location information is more secure when you're driving a private vehicle than when you're in a ride-sharing vehicle?
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Old 07-05-18, 08:53 AM
  #28  
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Originally Posted by prj71
I'm not against it, but I live in reality and realize it's not a viable option to LCF. I't only viable to a certain geographic region of this country...Where it's warm weather year round and where work is a short commute.

Car Free / Car Lite boom has come and gone...

https://medium.com/@sjpeterson/livin...a-4df3e13a8b75
The automotive sector has a pretty elaborate marketing army, so have you considered that the 'boom' you are talking about was in part orchestrated by that sector to generate exactly the kind of trend data you are now presenting? In other words, they worried that if it would gradually grow, people would begin to see it as sustainable growth, so their best strategy to kill it off was to support it so it would grow fast, and then withdraw support so that it would appear to be a declining trend, and thus dissuade people and more importantly investors and thus businesses from catering to it.

In reality, unfunded LCF has deeper roots and longer staying power than the people who try it out because it is being promoted as a trend before moving on to the next trend. What amazes me is how the economy manages to keep all those trend-followers funded to buy cars or whatever is trending. They must have a massive money-distribution system, maybe even 'too big to fail.'
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Old 07-05-18, 08:54 AM
  #29  
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Originally Posted by tandempower
What does that have to do with whether your location information is more secure when you're driving a private vehicle than when you're in a ride-sharing vehicle?
I mean to say, by holding and using an Android phone, you have no expectations of privacy whatsoever.

It's not so much that I have something to hide, it's just that I don't want you to see what I do.
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Old 07-05-18, 09:00 AM
  #30  
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Originally Posted by LanghamP
I mean to say, by holding and using an Android phone, you have no expectations of privacy whatsoever.

It's not so much that I have something to hide, it's just that I don't want you to see what I do.
You said gmail was public data, but now you're saying anything happening on an Android phone is public info?

I think the problem of privacy is oversimplified. It can be used to your benefit and/or detriment depending on who is using your data for what purpose. E.g. if a bike-sharing app is using location data to plan where to have bikes available so people are generally satisfied with the bike selection wherever they are, that's good; but if they do the opposite in order to cause people to take a ride-share instead, i.e. because it makes more money for them, then it's dubious that they would use information for that (exploitative) purpose.
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Old 07-05-18, 09:14 AM
  #31  
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Originally Posted by tyrion
I don't think Uber and Lyft can do bike sharing effectively. Those scooter companies are attacking from the bottom. Like pirañas eating a whale, they're going to win that fight.
Can anyone operate bike sharing operations "effectively"? To be specific, actually run a city wide bike sharing operation profitably without government subsidies and/or corporate sugar daddy benevolence.

So far the only thing some of the bike/scooter sharing endeavors have been "effective" at is raising venture capital to burn up in money losing operations.
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Old 07-05-18, 09:24 AM
  #32  
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Originally Posted by tandempower
You said gmail was public data, but now you're saying anything happening on an Android phone is public info?
Uber is dangerous, as they hid a massive data breach for months AND paid of the thieves that shook them down. Where did they get that information? That's right; from your phone.

Android is the smartphone operating system built by Google. Android is free to use and modify by all users and developers.

Or sorta free...hmm. Can you think of a cost associated with picking up a free snake in your lawn?

I see easily accessible private information used for nefarious purposes, as massive security breaches by many (most?) major corporations storing your data (not always originating from your phone) costing consumers a pretty penny.
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Old 07-05-18, 10:38 AM
  #33  
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Originally Posted by LanghamP
Uber is dangerous, as they hid a massive data breach for months AND paid of the thieves that shook them down. Where did they get that information? That's right; from your phone.

Android is the smartphone operating system built by Google. Android is free to use and modify by all users and developers.

Or sorta free...hmm. Can you think of a cost associated with picking up a free snake in your lawn?

I see easily accessible private information used for nefarious purposes, as massive security breaches by many (most?) major corporations storing your data (not always originating from your phone) costing consumers a pretty penny.
Again, it really comes down to how people are using the information. Obviously there have been situations in history where even just the public information you give away for free when you go out in public without a disguise gets used against you. The problem is how far are you willing to go to disguise yourself and your data, and will it even work? As Paul McCartney related in the recent Carpool Karaoke featuring him, he tried once to sneak out of his house to avoid fans mobbing him by wearing a trench coat and fake mustache, but it just didn't work. Then, they look out the window and see a crowd outside and realize the problem has only gotten more pronounced through the years. Fortunately, they were nice people with genuine love for McCartney and his music, but I'm sure that still gets overwhelming.

Anyway, the point is that it is possible to go around gathering data about people and feeding into networks to be sold and bought and used for various purposes. The question is whether we're going to have a world like Orwell's 1984 where people are using information to exploit and control others, or will people commit to stewarding data ethically and respect others' privacy and liberty? Probably both, and then the question will be what balance between privacy and enforcement/retaliation to use to police and deter those who abuse information for exploitation.

Either way, I don't think ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles are going to facilitate any more abuse than private passenger vehicles do. In fact, I think one of the reasons people are resisting ride-sharing and autonomous vehicles is precisely because they undermine the traditional form of public id used to survey and control public space, i.e. license tags. As long as you have vehicles registered along with driver's licenses, you can track anyone by tracking their license tag. LCF undermines that surveillance tradition, so people are concerned the same levels of security won't be possible without everyone owning and registering their own car, along with themselves as licensed drivers.
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Old 07-05-18, 10:43 AM
  #34  
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Originally Posted by LanghamP
I live car light. I mean, really car light; it took me two months to go through half a tank of gas while putting on over 600 miles on my commuter bicycle over the same period of time.

Is it doable and pleasant? No. Riding a bicycle requires real sacrifices. I ride to get to and from work and for pleasure but it isn't my major source of transportation, especially when I'm feeling lazy and don't want to go up hills.

Instead, I ride my Gotway MSuper V3S+, an extremely large electric unicycle. It doesn't require much sacrifice and tops out at about 30 mph. You'll pass most urban traffic with it. My moving average is around 26 mph.

I do see electric bicycles and unicycles taking over bicycles; certainly most new bikes sold in Western Europe are electric.

I try to treat my car as, "emergency use only".

I don't like owning nor using a car. I have very often looked into what it would take to be entirely car free; it requires moving away from the United States which is now my plan.
Well since I don't have any plans to move away from the United States...and where I live the weather swings from 30 below zero white out snow conditions to 90 degrees and 100% humidity...I have no plans of going car free or car lite.
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Old 07-05-18, 11:04 AM
  #35  
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Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
Can anyone operate bike sharing operations "effectively"? To be specific, actually run a city wide bike sharing operation profitably without government subsidies and/or corporate sugar daddy benevolence.

So far the only thing some of the bike/scooter sharing endeavors have been "effective" at is raising venture capital to burn up in money losing operations.
If you are profitable due to "corporate sugar daddy benevolence", you are profitable.
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Old 07-05-18, 01:13 PM
  #36  
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Originally Posted by cooker
If you are profitable due to "corporate sugar daddy benevolence", you are profitable.
Not really, unless you consider "profitable" just being able to function/exist as long as the charity handouts/donations keep coming, and hoping the operation doesn't fold up when/if the benefactor tires of it.
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Old 07-05-18, 01:47 PM
  #37  
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Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
Not really, unless you consider "profitable" just being able to function/exist as long as the charity handouts/donations keep coming, and hoping the operation doesn't fold up when/if the benefactor tires of it.
Bike shares are easily profitable because of the low cost of mass-producing the bikes. Personal bikes cost a lot because they are sold through small shops to a relatively elite customer base. That customer base won't change because of bike-sharing, because it's a different market. Share bikes are for getting around when and where you wouldn't want to ride your good, expensive bike. E.g. it's disconcerting to leave a good bike locked at a transit stop so it makes sense to take a share bike if possible. Since these share-bikes can be mass produced for such a low cost, it doesn't take that much to cover their cost. Then, if they are durable, they will outlast their break-even point and be all-profit. The point of them isn't really to make profit, though, but to provide reliable bike options in situations where bringing your own personal bike is not convenient.

If a 'benefactor' would 'tire of' funding a bike share, it could be organized to run on user fees. It's just a question of divvying up the cost of buying the bikes and maintaining them. As long as no one is conspiring to run them out of business with vandalism, etc. it should be possible for users to maintain the system, assuming no one gets involved and drives up costs somehow.
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Old 07-05-18, 03:17 PM
  #38  
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Originally Posted by I-Like-To-Bike
Not really, unless you consider "profitable" just being able to function/exist as long as the charity handouts/donations keep coming, and hoping the operation doesn't fold up when/if the benefactor tires of it.
When a corporation funds a bike share it is not charity.
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Old 07-05-18, 03:42 PM
  #39  
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Originally Posted by LanghamP
The word I like is convincing. When TandemPower lays out his paragraphs he is convincing.
Next time try opening with something like that. It saves a lot of reading
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