Uber could very easily reduce carbon emissions if they bias their payments/ride assignments towards EVs and other efficient vehicles. I'm not sure about the legality of that, but its definitely an interesting idea if they need to pull some PR shenanigans.
>Commercial exploitation of subsidized infrastructure
What makes trucking different than Uber in this scenario? Is driving my own car around not abusing the infrastructure, but hailing an Uber is? Uber doesn't make money if nobody is riding somewhere in the car, so the market forces try and make utilization as efficient as possible.
>Increased collision risk to cyclists and vulnerable road users
Are Uber drivers more likely to hit people than non Uber drivers? If you control for the population utilization of the roads, does this have a measurable affect?
>Abuse of contract law by preventing independent rate setting and concealing negotiable information
You have a point there, but personally I disagree that these should be required by law in the first place.
>Artificially depressed prices fueled by venture capital in order to create a monopoly and capitalize later
Well its doing a pretty bad job if the goal is to create monopolies. For most tech companies, they have a reasonable amount of competitors given the chicken-and-egg situation they need to solve. Prices are artificially depressed, not going to lie, but a lot of prices are artificially depressed to make them usable by the masses, and its all the better for it.
> if they bias their payments/ride assignments towards EVs and other efficient vehicles.
This happens naturally. From a previous calculation I did, I estimate that a hybrid Prius allows a full-time rideshare driver to gross more than $500 each month than a typical ICE sedan. The economics of more efficient vehicles biases drivers to get more efficient vehicles with fewer externalities. This is why Priuses and other hybrid cars are the most common vehicles used by rideshare drivers.
>Commercial exploitation of subsidized infrastructure What makes trucking different than Uber in this scenario? Is driving my own car around not abusing the infrastructure, but hailing an Uber is? Uber doesn't make money if nobody is riding somewhere in the car, so the market forces try and make utilization as efficient as possible.
>Increased collision risk to cyclists and vulnerable road users Are Uber drivers more likely to hit people than non Uber drivers? If you control for the population utilization of the roads, does this have a measurable affect?
>Abuse of contract law by preventing independent rate setting and concealing negotiable information You have a point there, but personally I disagree that these should be required by law in the first place.
>Artificially depressed prices fueled by venture capital in order to create a monopoly and capitalize later Well its doing a pretty bad job if the goal is to create monopolies. For most tech companies, they have a reasonable amount of competitors given the chicken-and-egg situation they need to solve. Prices are artificially depressed, not going to lie, but a lot of prices are artificially depressed to make them usable by the masses, and its all the better for it.