Welcome to the tech policy podcast. I'm Evan Schwarger. On today's show, subsidizing Uber,

while most of the conversations we've had about ride sharing on this program have to do with restrictions and bans and all sorts of regulatory problems,

we're actually talking about the other side of the spectrum today. Far from just

allowing Uber to operate or trying to ban it, some local governments are beginning to actually

subsidize it. What's going on? Joining me to discuss this is Jared Meyer, research fellow at the

Manhattan Institute and author of Uber Positive, Why Americans Love the Sharing Economy. Jared,

welcome back to the show.

Hey, thanks for having me, Evan. It's kind of been a while. I think our listeners might be going

through withdrawal. Well, we've kind of talked about everything that we could about Uber, except

for now subsidizing it. Don't say everything. You'd be out of a job. So, Jared, how do we go

from talking about outright bans and all sorts of other problems like that to Uber getting government gifts?

Well, I think governments have realized Uber and the sharing economy on a whole isn't going away.

And if government can't ban something or heavily regulated, they'll instead just decide to subsidize it because they just can't leave

things as they are. They don't realize that things are working. Uber continues to develop,

ride sharing as a whole continues to develop, but they cannot resist just getting their fingers

in ride sharing and trying to screw it up. Well, all right, maybe that's one reason. Maybe it's

that they go, their natural progression is try to ban it, then try to regulate it, all right. Maybe that's one reason. Maybe it's that they go, their natural

progression is try to ban it, then try to regulate it, then F it, let's subsidize it. But there's got

to be something else going on, right? Yeah. So the stated justification, and I don't think there's any

ulterior motives here, at least on the side of government, is to expand public transportation.

And if you look at this, I thought this was going to come about a year and a half ago when

Uber started releasing all these reports about how its service complements public transit.

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