The Story of The New York City Yellow Cabs | NYC Revealed 

Didnt expect to shed a tear watching random New York video on RU-vid

Most of the loans were not predatory. The city is the major culprit, as Rep Torrez said. They sold medallions for in excess of $1million for the exclusive right to street hail, and then turned around and allowed Uber to expand their fleet to 80,000 in a year, thereby destroying the medallion value. Driver-owners are collateral damage in this scheme by Bloomberg, Yassky, and Joshi.

the fault is solely with the city for allowing the medallion to reach such exorbitant prices in the first place. they didn't regulate it. proper care of such a system would have seen more medallions introduced some years, to bring the price down, less others to bring it back up, etc. instead they just said "ok have at it." and allowed what is basically just a permit, to become a speculative asset. But then also turned around and allowed ride sharing companies to just have carte blanche. they didn't bring them under the medallion umbrella, or make a new one, they screwed cab drivers.

I don't understand how someone who had 400k or 700k $ 40 years ago wouldn't just buy a home with that and get any job afterwards...

Great Documentary.... .

But you'll never make a million from driving a cab, so the price was grossly overevaluated. The value is more accurate today.

It's awesome to watch this documentary, I have a lot more appreciation for the sitcom Taxi, which I didn't have before.

Sería ideal que estuviera en español también , saludos desde México

I was happy when the medallion crashed. Before Uber most cab drivers didn't care they would point to the meter and then expect a tip even when they took the longer rout to pad the bill. If you said you needed a ride into Brooklyn they would take off and you'd be shit out of luck. Even in 2004-2007 was rare to see a cab in central Brooklyn. It actually made no sense that 2008-2010 the vale of everything dropped in real estate and other small businesses yet medallion prices only went up cause they were storing the unused ones. The value of a taxi business is how much profit they can make. But tolls were up, gas was up, insurance up etc. Less profit meant not worth anything close to 900k for a taxi. Since 2019 its actually been very hard to get a TLC plate for uber.

12:54 she has the audacity to claim that adopting a driverless transport system won't reduce the labour force.... She states that workers will transition to roles that support the new driverless system. I'm not against driverless transport - I think they will be particularly good for replacing shuttle buses, repeating routes such as back and forth between hotels and beaches, airport terminals and car parks, tourist routes like up and down the Vegas strip, hop-on hop-off routes in cities and national parks etc etc. BUT it's disingenuous of her to draw parallels with previous innovations such as horses to cars or subways or coaches to trains, as these previous developments required a similar labour force and the work was, by and large, accessible to the same workers without significant upskilling. Of course driverless cars and buses will reduce the labour force - it's in the bloody name!!

It’s crazy how people switched so fast and today are left with nothing

Well that sure took a turn halfway through. Poor guys. 😢

Governments should establish silverlining before giving licenses or allowing a disruptive company to operate in their area.

Look, I feel for the Medalian owners, and I in no way approve of what Uber and Lyft do to squeeze out the competition in a area, but the limited credentialing is what caused this to be a expensive issue in the first place. Part of the American dream is that if you can do something better and/or cheaper than someone else and make money at it you are rewarded for it. Outside of a driver's licence, some extra training and let's say maintaining standards ( maintance, certified fair trackers, car look ) the only thing the government really needs to regulate is that the total imposed expenses on the drivers do not exceed more than 7% of profit. Let anyone who can meet the baseline play and hopefully thrive. The car killed the horse and buggy, and the robo taxi will probably kill the taxi driver, that's how things go. Part of what keeps medical costs high is credentialing also, a state will only hand out so many licenses from what I remember, insted of making an artaficialy limited supply, anyone who can go to school and mesure up to the standards should get to play.

Electric vehicles are not environmentally friendly. The amount of materials and minerals mined from Africa by child slave labor and the organized crime and violence in those areas due to the low wage paid for this labor. There's no profit in electric vehicles either

And the autonomous tech guy is an Indian origin American..😂

NYC is Robert…. Why would you make someone pay half a million dollars just to start making a living.

First to comment..... am happy to meet you ....guess what I just had my 1st 7 subscribe 🎉.

When you purchase a Medallion you take on risk. Why? Because you are now a business owner. No one is responsible for paying your wages...except YOU. These are business owners that don't understand that they're entrepreneurs. It sucks when competition comes in (ie. uber and lyft), but that's one of the risks. At least the city allows this to be an occupation. They don't have to allow it at all. Take some responsibility and make some changes.

Wish I could say I felt bad… capitalism took its course. Adapt and overcome or go extinct.

The problem is immigrants go back where you come from😂

Sad story but they were not complaining when the price went from $400k to $1M.