Capitalists don't innovate. They gut public services and then claim they invented the idea...
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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if I had a nickle every time a techbro invented a bus or a train, I'd probably be able to afford a fucking bigmac
And they 'invent' it in a way that would make a 19th century engineer want to bust their heads against a wall. Because their train replacements are ironically less efficient than a late 19th century railway locomotive.
And then when people complain because its an inherently worse service, they resort to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "just start your own company even though you have no capital" type bullshit.
Cheff kiss
Chef Kiss.
WOAH! This is an AMAZING idea! WHY hasn't Anyone THOUGHT of this Before? It's INCREDIBLE!
-People who Vote AGAINST Public Transportation and will COMPLAIN about how Expensive this is!
No it's privatized, so somebody at the top is getting rich. See that's the important part for these assholes. They just don't want the government spending that money when they could be spending it on more airplanes to drop into the fucking ocean.
I like the spice...cheff kiss
Public transit can be privatized and run for profits. Good example is Japan metro and train networks. Bad ones are bus routes in latinamerica.
Germany's partial privatization of public transit, led to major issues like underinvestment, frequent delays, and high costs for passengers, underfunding, and profit-driven management.
profit-driven management.
This alone explains pretty much every other problem
The trolley system in early 20th century US cities died due to issues related to privatization. It's been done; doesn't work.
Well, it's more like the model was unsustainable. The trolley system was originally built by neighborhood builders as a neighborhood amenity to attract buyers. When the neighborhood was all sold up, the builder would hand the system over to the city, who would then fund the maintenance of the system via ? which was fine and dandy for a while because rail infra doesn't need half the maintenance asphalt does, but once you had enough of these lines aging out and piling up maintenance issues all at once and the city having done almost no planning to fund said maintenance, the cities would reliably just say "fuck it, let people drive" rather than try pulling teeth via passing a tax or something. From here in 2025, I'm ready to send a terminator back in time at them over it, but I can see how they arrived there in the context of their time.
who would then fund the maintenance of the system via ?
Via property tax. The same way local roads are maintained
Right. Well, IIRC property tax is collected by the county and then sliced up and divvied out to different municipalities, which, also IIRC, then goes into the municipal general fund. If the city is stupid and doesn't plan maintenance, and instead treats the rail as a free good, then when it comes time to keep up on it, it's easier to just shrug and replace it with a business service.
What's more is that you also had GM going around and basically taking the EEE approach to municipal transit by offering ridiculously cheap bus services to replace trams, only to end them a short while later. So, it's not all on the cities, though one wishes they'd had the foresight to understand that private companies never do stuff out of the goodness of their hearts.
The problem is that if the profitable routes are private, who will run the unprofitable ones? This is effectively siphoning money away from the profitable public transit routes placing more of a burden on transit agencies.
That being said, even if it's 50% cheaper than a normal uber I doubt anyone will use it.
If there's already public transport on the route, why would anyone chose a presumably more expensive Uber-bus?
The fragmentation of railway companies is horrible to deal with. Tokyo is a mix between JR and Keisei and you need to buy a separate ticket for each.
At least they run really well.
There are actually more operators than just JR and Keisei, but transferring between any of them is usually very quick and painless if you have any of the major transportation network cards in Japan, or associated NFC app. Only tourists actually buy tickets at the machines.
However, it does tend to cost more than sticking to one operator.
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Is this not just a bus but worse?
Well you don't have to ride with the poors and you pay direct instead of taxes for maximum inefficiency of money for value.
It's a shared taxi/marshrutka/dollar van/jitney ... Too many names but common across the world especially where the government is incapable of organizing proper public transport.
Just repackaged for techbros.
especially where the government is incapable of organizing proper public transport
So, perfect for the USA then?
Exactly this. Interestingly, while in "those" places the government is incapable of organizing public transit, in US, the government chooses not to. It's like learned helplessness at the society level.
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Busses are going to get privatized....that's this administrations goal, privatize everything.
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Here's one more for "trains is to transportation what crabs are to evolution '
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You guys don't get it. It is like public transportation but with the following "features":
- No poors.
- Owner can exclude anyone they don't like
- No job security/unionization for the staff
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wait wait wait hear me out, what if we had something bigger than a car and it still had a single driver but multiple passengers???
Like a library but for travelling?
public library transport! we might be onto sth here
And more expensive too!
Next step: reinvent the train, but call it uber on steel or uber on rails
You just know it’s going to be individual rail cars so we can have traffic jams on rails!
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Ah yes, private sector innovation
In reality, it is first mile and last mile.
If you're in a wheelchair or you oare therwise are ADA eligible, they will give you a ride to/from a public transit stop.
The onus is on the transportation system to be ADA accessible beyond the dropoff.
There are also employment partners who will pay for this leg.
We are 10 years from UberRail
In the UK uber started advertising that you can buy your train tickets via the uber app. Like WTF, no thanks I’ll just use Train Line.
How much of a cut do they take?
Train Line or Uber?
Either way I’m not sure to be honest.
Adam Something has a done a whole bunch of videos ridiculing tech bro reinventions of bus and train, great stuff.
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Lemme guess, next they'll try connecting multiple carriages to carry more people per vehicle then work with local governments to build dedicated right of way...etc etc...
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If there is something anyone under 30 should have learned in today's world, is that capitalism will ALWAYS enshittify even the best idea. Always.
And anyone over 30 should have learned it before they were 30.
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