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BB, can you tell me what is the primary problem with smart people?

I often don’t agree with the editor… or a lot of people for that matter, but our editor is an upstanding respectable person who is providing a valuable community service which the white-washed local media refuses to do. Personal attacks on him are likely the result of his effectiveness… and the ineffectiveness of attempts to control or quell his service.

Your book has caused me to LOL several times editor!

EDITOR NOTE–Thanks and thanks again.

This post typifies the problem with the stances you take on many issues – strongly against, but not for the best reasons. Here, it appears you are against Uber because it didn’t send you its insurance information (all available to anyone who can use google), and you friend had a bad experience when he went to the Fiesta Bowl (because he didn’t know how to use the app).

I propose that you cease using the phrase “growthaphobe,” which you often take credit for creating, and start using the phrase prosophobe – for someone who is afraid of progress.

EDITOR NOTE–I don’t think you are a very nice person and I don’t enjoy your tone.
Rather than argue with you, I will ask you to seek your news and commentary at another website more to your liking. I can handle opposing views and even being wrong, but I don’t need to post your rude comments.

I thought the dispatch app accounts for that. If you know your pick-up location and destination then it’s a simple matter for the app to calculate the mileage.

Further, like I said, Uber is capitalism. If there is a high demand and a low supply, the value of the good costs more. I don’t see a problem with this.

As far as your no-so-well-thought-out argument of control of the marketplace, there are competitors – Lyft, traditional taxis, buses, your own car, etc.

Verizon has to compete with AT&T (bigger company, btw), Microsoft used to be king, but Apple took over that spot with the iPhone. And speaking of the iPhone, Google is doing ok with Android, no? Amazon has to compete with everyone.

Boise’s decision has nothing to do preventing a potential monopoly (and you know it).

Uber is capitalism at work. Banning them is the product over-regulation and influence of powerful insurance companies.

My experience nationwide is that Uber is a faster, cleaner, cheaper, better car, better driver. As far as your challenge to Uber to provide proof of insurance, a simple google search reveals: http://blog.uber.com/ridesharinginsurance. C’mon, GUARDIAN, not everything new is bad.

EDITOR NOTE–We talked to a Fiesta Bowl fan who used to agree with you. He and a friend paid $16 for one ride via Uber and the next day the same ride cost them $130!!
They were not notified until the ride ended. Regulating Uber is akin to regulating spam or robo calls. There isn’t really any place to go for redress and Uber will soon control ALL taxis by virtue of the well done app. Think Verizon, Microsoft, iPhone,
Amazon. Not bad companies, but they CONTROL the market place.

Uh, the drivers for Uber pay gas tax and registration fees. And presumably most live in Ada County and pay property taxes of which a share goes to ACHD.

That’s not what the debate is about. It’s about insurance, cars being mechanically safe and drivers being criminally safe. But Uber claims it has a commercial insurance policy and does background checks. They also require the car to be less than 10 years old.

So what’s the problem? I haven’t heard one single report of an Uber customer being inured, let alone being injured and unable to make a claim for damages.

The economic size and number of very similar business models brings the Mayor’s “selective” attention into question in my opinion. It seems he’s taken sides in a turf war. Wonder why he does not wade into the price-fixing of airlines at BOI, or phone companies, or gasoline?

Once the Uber laws are in place nation wide, I suspect they will be able to apply the same concept to online “dating”… which is a very large anonymous middle-agent business nearly identical to Uber.

Bigger Picture: Black markets, gray markets, tax free, etc: As was briefly mentioned in your excellent book editor… A sudden currency exchange would flush out all kinds of dirty deeds.

Great they have insurance, I’ll be able to afford wheel chairs the rest of my life.

Also speaking of technological advancement, the government used to be the one funding a large portion of it before the deeply religious decided for us that being advanced isn’t so important.

First, no one has spoken of this but cab companies are nothing without a good dispatcher. This is where Uber crushes the cab companies. Uber’s killer app is a better way to dispatch. Too bad Ada County Dispatch can’t learn a lesson or two while were at it.

Anyway, the big 4 cellular companies have enjoyed a virtual monopoly for many years. The ability to lock phones to a carrier is anti competitive in the extreme. This is what cab companies do. Cab companies want to lock a fare to one of the officially sanctioned cab companies.

Thankfully, Congress and the FCC stepped in and threatened regulation, only it’s good regulation. Long complicated story short—cell phone companies were going to be forced to unlock cell phones. One of the problems with phone locking, besides the monopolistic practice, was travelers to Canada or overseas couldn’t use their own phone on foreign networks. Ludicrous.

Though off topic, I think it’s relevant. Cab companies want you locked into their carriers.

Recent evolution on cell phone locking/unlocking:

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/11/new-fcc-chairman-tells-wireless-carriers-to-unlock-cell-phones/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/07/congress-passes-cell-phone-unlocking-bill-finally/