Rantz: When will cowardly Uber, Lyft finally go to war with Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan

In order to make Seattle more affordable, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced another tax that makes the city more unaffordable — this time against rideshares Uber and Lyft. These companies are bringing the pain on themselves. Frankly, they deserve it at this point.

Seattle’s plan to triple the rideshare tax on Uber, Lyft

No reasonable Seattleite can justify yet another tax on those of us who live and work in the city as a way to make the area more affordable. Yet, Durkan plows ahead with a greedy, idiotic plan because she sees a spineless company with deep pockets with these rideshare companies (despite their poor financials as they try to innovate the market), while doing dirty work for taxi unions.

Durkan, who doesn’t understand how rideshare businesses work, claims the companies will absorb the costs — they’re big companies, they can do that sort of thing, she ridiculously believes. They won’t, of course. The cost will be passed along to the consumer, just like the other tax Seattle imposed on them. Uber just posted a $5.2 billion loss, its largest ever, and Lyft lost $644 million. But Durkan pretends the millions of dollars she’s bilking from the company is ultimately inconsequential.

You’d think Uber and Lyft would fight back. But they barely do anything publicly. Instead, they work behind the scenes to help create “organic” uprisings from drivers. Wow, a couple press releases and a press conference or two. Yeah, sure, that’ll move the needle. They spend hundreds of millions on advertising their services, but virtually none highlighting policies that will cripple their services and hurt drivers and customers? Uber even came up with a weak compromise, suggesting downtown tolling themselves to try and halt congestion pricing from Durkan. I use Uber – I was an endorser – but now wonder what the hell is wrong with them.

It’s baffling why Uber and Lyft refuse a meaningful proactive fight when they know they’re hated by this Mayor and Council, blamed for traffic like Amazon is vilified over housing prices. Seattle is a city that pretends to support tech companies, yet all they see when looking at innovative and culture-shifting companies are opportunities to loot them of as much money as possible, funneling it into inefficient, unsuccessful programs.

Why Seattle taxis are still surviving despite Uber and Lyft

Amazon fought back hard during the job-killing head tax and they ended up winning because they actually showed real-world consequences of the council and mayor’s action. They halted a project. People saw the impact immediately, inspiring a truly organic uprising. And even after winning, Amazon sends a message by moving employees to Bellevue. They won’t just take a beating from Seattle. But Uber and Lyft seem OK sitting back and pushing useless compromises that still make little sense.

I’m not going to blame Durkan for her greed. She may be inept at running the city and addressing problems; too busy sending useless press release attacks against President Trump (on issues she doesn’t even really care about). But Durkan is ruthless enough to take advantage of two rideshare companies with no backbone. She knows they won’t fight back so they’re truly the ones responsible for all of this. And not only do Uber and Lyft let down their shareholders, they let down their drivers and customers.

Or maybe they’ll wake up and actually go to the mattresses before it’s too late.

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