I am fascinated by all things related to the ongoing entry in to the Information Age.
A bit more than 100 years ago the street lamps in major cities were powered by gas. Every evening a fleet of trained individuals would pan out across the city igniting the city's gas street lamps. Every morning they would extinguish them. Along came electricity and quickly those jobs were all eliminated. Great safety and cost savings improvement for the city and the inhabitants therein. Terrible for the people who lost their job and had no skills for anything else.
Technological advances always result in disruption of the status quo. Today is no different.
What do you know about how taxi services are regulated in our biggest cities? Nothing? Count me there too.
City managers long ago recognized the need to regulate the number of taxis in a city boundary so as to prevent overcrowding of taxis on the streets. These managers, however, also saw an opportunity to make money regulating that task. Enter the taxi medallion.
A taxi is required to have a taxi medallion to do business within city limits. New York, Chicago, all of the big U.S. cities do this. A finite number are created. As you can imagine when demand outdraws supply the price goes up (ECON 101). Owning your own taxi medallion was the gold standard and a dream realized for generations of middle America. The price could go north of $1 USM. Yes, million, for a taxi medallion so you can drive a cab in city limits. People would save for years and take out a loan the size of, or larger than, most home mortgages.
With the advent of UBER and Lyft the value of these medallions is plummeting. No longer able to compete and dragged down by a massive loan now underwater we are seeing a dramatic rise in suicides among long-time city livery and taxi drivers.
Disruption comes with a cost.
Read more here:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/shadow-uber-s-rise-taxi-driver-suicides-leave-cabbies-shaken-n879281
Interesting Reading.
J.W. Gant
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