Uber forms of governance

A few weeks ago Samuel Hammond posted some interesting thoughts on multi-sided platform (MSP) technologies like Uber and PayPal, and the role they play in providing forms of governance. You can read the whole thing here, but the outline is as follows: Governance—that is, things like rational planning to solve co-ordination problems, the setting of rules and assigning of rights, etc—is done not just by states but by private companies, too. Platform technologies (essentially those which enable interaction between different groups of people) are a good example of this. Amazon and Ebay, for example, are virtual marketplaces which connect disparate buyers and vendors from across the world, whilst PayPal is not only a payments processor but an arbiter of commercial disputes, with procedures to file a complaint and rules on when compensation is entitled.

'Good' governance occurs when the rules set and rights assigned are reasonable to both sides of a transaction, and when the total societal cost of any regulation is kept to a minimum.

State governance schemes are well-intentioned, but can be rather crude and inefficient in their execution. Take taxi-regulation for example: licenses guarantee a certain level of quality and safety for consumers, whilst regulated fares remove the cost and risk of having to haggle for every journey. At the same time, though, these regulations result in high prices, inflated barriers to entry, a lack of competition and little reason for incumbents to innovate or improve their service. Whilst the state tries to efficiently balance the costs regulation imposes on each party it often falls short, both because of the grand Economic Calculation Problem, and things like capture of the regulatory process by special interest groups.

In contrast, Hammond argues, MSP technologies are very good at being governance institutions. For example, Uber has ruffled so many feathers because its popular service is arguably a superior system of taxi regulation, thanks to its use of participant rating systems, safety features, an algorithmic pricing structure and so on. And, by controlling a bottleneck to market access, Uber to some extent acts as a de facto private licensing authority.

These 'market regulators' tend to be good at governance for a couple of reasons. One is that they're free to harness new technology and experiment with different setups, driving down transaction costs. Another is the fact that a rival platform may always come along an offer an alternative service— and, as Hammond notes, "the only way to supplant an incumbent platform is to adjust the governance structure in a way that social costs are better compensated by maximising the bargaining surplus". This ensures that even when a market regulator looks like a natural monopoly, so long as there is the possibility of exit, the cost of regulation will tend towards the social minimum.

Hammond argues that this means that MSP technologies are not just a bit better at governance than state institutions, but that "they potentially meet the economic definition of an ideal 'public interest' regulator". And, just as Uber challenges traditional taxi governance models, we can imagine a future where all property rentals are listed on something like Air BnB, with tenancy acts and local regulation displaced by market-set rules and regulations which efficiently balance the interests of renter and landlord.

Such a situation should perhaps not be understood as 'deregulation', but a shift in the act of governance from the state to the firm, resulting, we assume, in reduced costs to society as a whole.

I particularly liked this post because it complemented some thoughts (and assuaged some fears) I'd had about the state harnessing new technology and commercial consumer insights to better perform its functions. In November I wrote a rather gloomy piece on 'algorithmic regulation' and the government's use of things like 'big data' and behaviour prediction to create more efficient, streamlined, and reflexive regulation, which, like the google search algorithm, would be constantly reviewed and updated according to insights generated into 'what works'.

Such algorithmic regulation, I thought, could make government regulation more efficient, less irrational and less intrusive—but it could also open the doors to forms of dystopic technocracy. Once governments have the ability to create, access, and utilise vast swathes of information on their citizens, they're likely to want to expand their scope of operations. Perhaps they'll be tempted to 'connect the dots' between different types of lifestyles and tax income, health outcomes and the like. The opportunities for Nudge-on-crack policies could be everywhere. In addition, behind the seemingly apolitical goal of 'rule by algorithm' it's easy to smuggle in hidden political assumptions, and use questionable or untrue assumptions to dictate what our government supercomputers do. Nonetheless I felt I was being an unwarranted techno-pessimist, so I filed it away my wonderings before resurrecting them recently on my tumblr.

However, Hammond's post sketches out an alternative governance system I'm much more of a fan of. Instead of harnessing private sector insights and using them to aid an intrusive and bloated state, he imagines a situation where government effectively outsources certain functions to private bodies (Uber as a private licensing authority, etc). And, because these bodies have to respond to market pressures, if they do a bad job or overstep the mark parties can vote with their feet. These alternative governance systems are less likely to cater to special interests, and don't require the state to handle so many terabytes of personal data. We still have algorithmic regulation, but done more on the terms of the parties affected instead of the state.

To me, neither of these two futures of regulation seem implausible. But I certainly know which one I'd prefer.

Uber: helping drivers, helping customers

The first comprehensive analysis of Uber 'partners' (i.e. drivers) has come out, written by Dr. Jonathan Hall, head of policy research at Uber, and Prof. Alan Krueger, of Princeton, and formerly Barack Obama's top economist. The results in short: Uber provides flexible employment at higher per-hour wages than traditional taxi driving, while building up reputational capital that traditional taxi systems cannot offer. It does not undermine traditional employment more general, or enhance inequality, but we all know how cheap the fares can be, and how useful the service is (this previously led me to believe that its stratospheric valuation might be justified).

This paper provides the first comprehensive analysis of Uber’s driver-partners, based on both survey data and anonymized, aggregated administrative data. Uber has grown at an exponential rate over the last few years, and drivers who partner with Uber appear to be attracted to the platform in large part because of the flexibility it offers, the level of compensation, and the fact that earnings per hour do not vary much with hours worked, which facilitates part-time and variable hours. Uber’s driver-partners are more similar in terms of their age and education to the general workforce than to taxi drivers and chauffeurs.

Uber may serve as a bridge for many seeking other employment opportunities, and it may attract well-qualified individuals because, with Uber’s star rating system, driver-partners’ reputations are explicitly shared with potential customers. Most of Uber’s driver-partners had full- or part-time employment prior to joining Uber, and many continued in those positions after starting to drive with the Uber platform, which makes the flexibility to set their own hours all the more valuable. Uber’s driver-partners also often cited the desire to smooth fluctuations in their income as a reason for partnering with Uber.

As we see above, Uber drivers really like their jobs, and that's probably why so many of them are still there a year later. I actually feel quite sympathetic towards existing taxi drivers both in the UK and US. They were forced by existing rules to invest heavily in getting their privileged spot in the market place, and Uber is effectively circumventing this process altogether.

This suggests we should compensate taxi drivers so that in the future people are not so worried that tech changes will force transformational rule changes that will ruin them. But this progress promises improvements on practically every margin of taxi driving; I can imagine a future where no traditional taxi driving exists—indeed with self-driving cars I can imagine a future where only an Uber-style rental-taxi system exists. So, compensation aside, it must go on.

Should governments compensate taxis for allowing Uber?

An interesting thought. Governments have, over the years, privileged taxi providers in a number of ways. They've also imposed costs upon them: in the US things like taxi medallions (which can become very valuable in some cities) and in London by insisting on a couple of years as an apprentice doing things like The Knowledge and so on. Now governments are allowing companies like Uber (and Lyft, Sidecar and so on) to enter these markets without imposing the same costs upon those companies. This is akin to government taking the property of a citizen, similar to a compulsory purchase order to build a railway through the land. So, should governments be compensating those cab drivers? I think Mike Munger has the discussion and the conclusion correct here.

Yes, that cab license is property, akin to land. But compensation for the removal of a legal privilege it's doubtful should have been granted in the first place is not the same as compensation for the removal of a righteously owned piece of property.

The analogy I would use is that of free trade. It's often said that OK, perhaps a move to free trade is justified. But there's all sorts of people who gain from the current, not free, trade. So, those who will gain from the move should compensate those who lose. Which is an attractive idea: except, except. That except being, well, those who currently gain from not-free trade aren't currently sending cheques to those who suffer from not-free trade. So, why should the reciprocal be enforced?

We consumers are those who would have to compensate the cab drivers, through our taxes. The cab drivers aren't compensating us presently for the benefits to themselves of the restrictive legal privileges. So, the removal shouldn't lead to us having to compensate them.

Err, yes Mr. Naughton, this is entirely the point

John Naughton, over in The Observer, is very worried about, err, capitalists being capitalists. Something of a pity really for someone, let alone a journalist, of his richness in maturity should by now have realised that this is the damn point of it all:

The real lesson of the Uber exposé, though, is that it’s time to discard the rose-tinted spectacles with which we have hitherto viewed these Silicon Valley outfits. For too long, they have been allowed to trade fraudulently on the afterglow of the hippie libertarianism that supposedly infected the early days of the personal computer industry. The billionaire geeks who currently run the giant internet companies may look and talk like a new species of entrepreneur but it would be more prudent to view them as John D Rockefellers in hoodies.

And the economic philosophy that’s embedded in this new digital capitalism is neoliberalism red in tooth and claw, which is why they minimise the number of “ordinary” (ie non-geek) workers on their payrolls, outsource everything they can, despise trade unions, view regulators as barriers to “innovation” and are outraged by the temerity of European institutions that seek to curb their freedoms of action.

Yes, exactly. Companies operate to the benefit of their shareholders. They're also pretty red in tooth and claw when they do so. And if that were all the economy were about then agreed, we consumers might not enjoy the experience all that much. Which is why we do our darndest to make sure that that's not all there is in the economy. The other magic ingredient we look for is competition. This means that we've any number of red in tooth and claw capitalist institutions trying to do the best for their owners and for their owners only. But they can only do this by offering us something that we think is worth it. Their proposition must offer us value: both in the simple sense that no one buys anything at all that they don't think is worth more than they are paying for it and also in the more detailed sense that competition means that the offering must be better than that of those others.

It's competition in the market that tempers that profit lust. Just as it's competition that tempers the inherent inefficiencies and producer capture of formerly monopolistic and non-profit making state services.

On that capitalist side of it this is the very point of the entire system. We want them to be sharp elbowed, nothing but profit seeking, neoliberals. Because only by producing something that we both desire and are willing to pay for can they become those billionaires (geeks or not).

Unfare Competition

It’s not really a huge surprise that Brussels, the home of EU bureaucracy, has recently banned ‘cab app’ service Uber from the city. The Brussels court unashamedly declared the company “unfair market competition” to the town’s two (yes, two...) taxi companies, and drivers face a €100,000 fine if they use the app to pick up customers. This isn’t a one-off, either; Uber’s had a bumpy ride from the start. Across the USA and Canada they’ve endured cease-and-desist letters, impounded cars, sting operations and suspended trading. Taxi drivers in Chicago are suing the city itself over them,  Berlin’s slapped on an injunction, and in France enraged taxi drivers are getting physical.

Uber hit London in Summer 2012. Given the range of ventures on the scene- Black cabs, mini cabs and fleets of Addison Lee, as well as apps like Kabee and Hailo – Uber’s operation should be uncontroversial. Not so. Instead, the Licensed Private Hire Car Association (LPCHA) has called upon TfL to ban cab app services for failing to conform to relevant legislation, citing , uninventively, public safety concerns.

Reading all of this Uber come across as renegade cowboys, tearing through cities kidnapping passengers. Reality is far more boring.

Uber’s critics deem them an unlicensed taxi company (or as per the Chicago lawsuit, an ‘unlawful transportation provider’), who blatantly violate regulations. In actual fact, Uber are a new kind of entity: an app-based, ‘logistical’ intermediary. They use GPS to connect passengers with self-employed (and in the UK, licensed) drivers, and handle payment through a registered card. Their trick is that in only ‘matching up’ independent drivers with riders, they don’t count as a taxi operator.

Additionally, in the UK private hire vehicles can’t ply for trade like registered taxis and must be booked in advance. It seems that a rider requesting a pickup through Uber counts as a booking, allowing a nearby driver to accept a request and be there in minutes. In these ways it does seem that Uber and other like it have thrown away the rulebook, but only because they’ve been ingenious enough to innovate around it. Uber’s model also brings other innovations too, such as price discrimination through ‘surge’ pricing, truly flexible work for drivers, and a highly responsive rating system of both drivers and passengers.

There’s no wonder that incumbent players are worried. But it’s sad, if not surprising, that anti-Uber sentiment comes not from governments angry at rulebreaking but businesses threatened by fresh thinking.

State intervention imposes huge costs and barriers to entry on the taxi industry (think of London cabbie’s ‘The Knowledge’, fixed taxi fares, and America, where taxi medallions have sold for over $1m) - scuppering competition and innovation. Reform of the industry with its often cozy cartels is long overdue.

Companies like Uber show other firms how they can improve their game. In fairness there is an argument for ‘leveling the playing field’; it’s not one actors want to use. When Uber works around (or even flouts) a jurisdiction’s regulation, other players can use Uber’s success as evidence that restrictions are superfluous to providing a good service, and therefore unfair on them.

Instead of demanding more relaxed regulation, however, incumbent actors have decided which side their bread is buttered, and would rather keep the status quo than improve their service. Instead of competing, they cling to the regulatory chains binding them and wail for others to be shackled by them too. They might cry the cry of public safety, but it’s the safety of their market share which they’re really concerned about.

Sadly, vested interests have had far too much success in this area. Where Uber hasn’t been banned completely, lawmakers have often caved in and introduced new restrictions. Frequently, this doesn’t stop protestors. And it isn’t just Uber who has such woes. Companies with similarly innovative models such as AirBnb and Aereo have also faced an uphill struggle of acceptance.

TfL should disregard LPCHA’s demands. It certainly isn’t up to the government to protect old industries and vested interests, but sadly so many other cities clamping down on Uber adds false weight to their claims. It’s beyond obvious that consumers, not regulators, and certainly not business rivals should be the judge of an effective (and safe) service. That said, the fact that cab app services are making so many competitors uncomfortable is a pretty good indicator that they’re doing something right.