{"id":181602,"date":"2016-05-08T18:57:00","date_gmt":"2016-05-08T23:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/05\/08\/they-finally-lost-one\/"},"modified":"2016-05-08T18:57:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T23:57:00","slug":"they-finally-lost-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2016\/05\/08\/they-finally-lost-one\/","title":{"rendered":"They Finally Lost One"},"content":{"rendered":"

The City Council of Austin passed regulations on ride sharing services, and Uber and Lyft spent millions in an attempt to override the vote through a plebiscite, and lost<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Uber and Lyft spent nearly $9 million on a May 7 special election in Austin, Texas. They offered free rides to the polls, and texted users asking for their support. They pulled out all the stops in a political playbook that has worked in almost every other city in the US.<\/span>

<\/span>For once, it wasn\u2019t enough.<\/span>

<\/span>Voters in the Texan capital came out against Proposition 1, upholding ride-hailing regulations that the city council passed in December. The rules are stricter than ones that Uber and Lyft face in other jurisdictions: They require drivers for the services to pass fingerprint-based background checks, to identify their cars with company emblems, and to avoid picking up and dropping off passengers in certain lanes.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That is to say, exactly the same requirements as exist for the taxis.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>Uber, I think decided, they were going to make Austin an example to the nation,\u201d said David Butts, a local political consultant who helped coordinate the campaign against Proposition 1, according to a report in the Austin American-Statesman. \u201cAnd Austin made Uber an example to the nation.\u201d<\/span>

<\/span>Ahead of the vote, both Uber and Lyft had threatened to leave Austin should the proposition fail. Austin mayor Steve Adler invited them to stay despite the election results.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>The nay vote on Proposition 1 is all the more crushing for Uber and Lyft considering the lopsided amount of money they spent in favor of it. The companies invested a combined $8.7 million to support the proposition via their lobbying committee, Ridesharing Works for Austin, an unprecedented sum in Austin local politics. That dwarfed the $132,000 that Proposition 1\u2019s opponents strung together from about 500 individual contributions, according to campaign finance filings.<\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>Uber and Lyft have cultivated the impression that their services are indispensable to cities. But Uber in particular has also spun itself as politically unbeatable. It has the money; it has the policy talent<\/a>; it has the app that makes reaching potential voters as simple as sending a text or push notification to their phones. <\/span>

<\/span>\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span>

<\/span>That\u2019s a potent narrative. With the loss in Austin, it\u2019s starting to come undone.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The myth of inevitability and invincibility is central to Uber’s and Lyft’ssuccess.<\/p>\n

It is what allows them to move into new markets, break the law, cheat their employees, place their customers at risk, and create a multi-billion dollar stock valuation.<\/p>\n

It may not be the beginning of the end for the lawless players in the “sharing economy”, but it might be the end of the beginning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The City Council of Austin passed regulations on ride sharing services, and Uber and Lyft spent millions in an attempt to override the vote through a plebiscite, and lost: Uber and Lyft spent nearly $9 million on a May 7 special election in Austin, Texas. They offered free rides to the polls, and texted users …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,1000,978,985,1035],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-elections","category-politics","category-regulation","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}