San Francisco and L.A. sue Uber
mercurynews.comI am not a lawyer, and have absolutely no meaningful opinion on the merits of this lawsuit. However, Uber has absolutely not helped their case by having executives act like frat bros.
As much as we'd like to think that the law and public opinion are separate, in reality, I think that if Uber had tried to be a better 'public citizen' they probably wouldn't be facing so much backlash.
That essay by Paul Graham about 'mean people' is looking downright prophetic right about now.
Yeah. Let's see how it plays out :-)
I remember how the music industry teamed up with politicians, and used police and courts to go after Napster and KaZaA. The founders of those companies were considered thugs by the establishment back then - thieves even.
Later, one of the Napster guys made money on Facebook and the KaZaA duo made money on Skype. Now they are all considered superhero entrepreneurs.
Napster and KaZaA didn't make much money but the next generation downloading and streaming apps such as iTunes, Spotify etc. did and personally I haven't bought a CD for years.
Maybe Uber will go down in lawsuits and prohibitions, maybe not, but the taxi industry has already been disrupted and if Uber doesn't defeat the taxis, other companies will. People have been shown much more comfortable and cheaper ways of getting a ride.
Just like I don't want to bother paying $20 going to the mall to buy 11 crappy songs on a disc in order to get that one song that I want to listen to, taxi riders don't want to bother with the expensive taxi tsars of their hometown.
Personally, I don't care if Uber or another nicer or more legal alternative wins. As long as the taxi companies lose.
"Personally, I don't care if Uber or another nicer or more legal alternative wins. As long as the taxi companies lose."
Agreed. In my home town taxis break every rule that you can imagine in the name of their precious business. I've seen them ignoring priorities, bicycles, pedestrians, speed limits, I've seen taxis using walkways and bike lanes to avoid red lights. Indicating the direction is out of fashion since long.
My last taxis ride to the airport was with 180 km/h on a street with 100 km/h limit while the driver was flipping through a folder on his dashboard in order to organize - whatever - with his company. Not to speak about the noise of taxis dashing through the town at 3 in the morning.
Yes, I don't like what I read about uber, but alternatives for taxis are overdue.
Damn, but given all that, how does everyone else drive? Is it the taxis being especially reckless, or is there a car culture of recklessness because the police aren't around enforcing traffic rules? In most asian countries, at least, if the taxis are reckless, everyone else is also.
;o) Taxis are worst. Everyone else has much more respect, although, everything that is done by taxi drivers can also be seen from others, but rarely.
Police does not have sufficient personnel to catch them all. But I think, because with their drivers license taxi drivers would lose their job, the police looks away much more (this is a pure guess). Taxi drivers are also well connected and have their police info system. That is a fact,as you hear it, when you use a taxi. There is constant exchange about traffic control over radio.
Do the uber guys have a taxi driver background and are used to being reckless? :o)
I am not all that keen on punishing the taxi companies, I am more keen of obtaining sane regulation of industries such that we quit locking out competitors or innovation.
Far too much commerce resides behind the walled garden of regulation, the worst being alcohol and tobacco; regardless how you feel about those the protection afforded by regulation and government enforcers is frightening.
Heck, if you want to see real silly, go read the horror stories in some states about enforcement on hair salons; as in if your not connected they will fine you to oblivion for any infraction they can find.
One really can only get an idea of what "taxi tsars" are for if he or she gets a ride in an unlicensed cab somewhere like, say, Russia in 1999.
I did it and the driver once asked me for more money on arrival. I refused. He said, "Oh, OK. So this is your home? I'll meet you with my friends here tomorrow then, when you'll be heading to work."
I bet India today is not that much different. I bet Costa-Rica (not sure if Uber operates there) is even worse. Every time I'm booking a licensed (and slightly more expensive) cab to the airport, I'm super happy that I know what to expect.
So thanks to Spotify and iTunes obeying the rules they made money and the founders of the companies that didn't succeeded in a completely different market?
More or less. But would iTunes, Spotify, Netflix etc. have have had a ready market without Napster, KazaA, Pirate Bay and other file sharing sites making people used to getting music and movies online?
And more importantly, would old media have felt the same pressure to license their content to these new services w/o the spectre of file sharing?
To all those who think that this is a witch hunt against Uber, here's a glaring example of Uber compromising safety of their passengers. Had they taken timely action...
https://twitter.com/nps2113/status/542063133809192960
The lady was on TV saying that she had complained about the creepy driver to Uber, a few days before he committed the dastardly act. They gave an assurance but failed to act, which resulted in something much worse. Granted that the bigger culprit is the police here who let go off the individual despite his previous run-ins with the law. But Uber has absolutely failed the trust here. Just goes out to show that they care about $$ above everything else.
Response from Uber: https://twitter.com/nps2113/status/542352404478713857
News coverage: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-buck-stops-here/woman-c...
(Credit goes to a comment down below for first mentioning this)
What makes us think that they didn't check on him? It would be harsh of Uber to suspend/terminate a driver from one complaint, and what kind of check could they have done to detect that he would attack passengers in this way in the future?
In any case, I think it's important to consider how this would play out in a pre-Uber world. If someone took a taxi ride and got attacked by the driver prior to Uber, there was very little evidence pointing to that driver. Passengers would need to remember their identification details or number plate after an event that tends to leave people quite mentally shaken. Not a good outcome; I think there's a good chance they would still be searching for the driver if this hadn't been facilitated by Uber.
If you are a company touting yourself as the 'safer' alternative to traditional taxis, you should take such complaints very seriously. A background check on the driver would have shown his previous convictions. They claim to do background checks [1], but in reality they skip it [2], atleast that's what happened in Delhi.
They are providing a false sense of security to the passengers.
[1] https://www.uber.com/safety
[2] http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-we-did-not-run-backgrou...
It would be harsh of Uber to suspend/terminate a driver from one complaint,
Umm, depends on the nature of the complaint, don't it?
If you ran a restaurant, say, and you received a complaint about one of the male waiters "constantly staring" at a female customer in a way that she found sufficiently disturbing to write you an email about afterwards[1] -- at the very least you'd investigate. And if the investigation ended up sustaining the claims the customer was making, of course you'd fire the waiter on the spot. And there's be nothing in the least bit "harsh" about it.
But what's damning for Uber, of course, not only did they not investigate; they failed to meaningfully acknowledge her request. And this isn't a matter of poor training among their customer service reps; those poor folks are diligently acting on the priorities they've been given. And those priorities, of course, come from the top.
Also: back in the "pre-Uber" world, not only would the drivers at least have to go through a (meaningful) background check, but in many cities they'd have to risk losing their permits, which generally are worth something on the order of a driver's pension (or several years worth of pay in any case). In fact even being able to get a loan to buy one of these permits is a kind of a test for basic personal stability.
But in the brave, new Uber world? All you need is a phone.
[1] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation...
glaring example of Uber compromising safety of their passengers. Had they taken timely action...
The suspect in question was implicated in 2 other rape cases and on bail for multiple other criminal charges. At what point is the Indian government responsible for this guy being at large?
Also, what was reported to Uber was allegations of "staring" and just generally making the passenger feel uncomfortable. While thats definitely not cool and not the experience anyone wants to have with Uber, thats hardly enough to fire someone.
I don't think that them "acting" would've stopped anything. At the end of the day those drivers are contractors and I never judge Uber on what a driver says to me or how they act.
Uber has a duty to provide and ensure safety. I personally think they live up to that in the US.
> Also, what was reported to Uber was allegations of "staring" and just generally making the passenger feel uncomfortable. While thats definitely not cool and not the experience anyone wants to have with Uber, thats hardly enough to fire someone.
Drivers that make passengers who are women uncomfortable due to harassment should absolutely 100% be fired. Sexual harassment is not tolerable for employees of a company, whether its to fellow employees and/or customers.
> At what point is the Indian government responsible for this guy being at large?
Indian government is totally at fault. And so is Uber for lying about background checks and not taking the complaints seriously. This is not an isolated incident that shows their cavalier response. A follow-up from Uber on the complaint would have absolutely won my trust in the company.
> thats hardly enough to fire someone
Maybe run a background check based on a complaint, that would have given sufficient grounds to take action.
Uber is an amazing customer experience (same with Lyft, etc) but I am really worried about the precedent being set here.
Every step of Uber's success has been associated with some sort of law breaking. In each new market they ignore the established taxi/limo laws, and in some they ignore more serious laws (background checks, etc). The individual offenses are small and generally non-serious (unlicensed taxi driving, illegal fees) but when you zoom out you see that this is a company systematically encouraging thousands of small crimes every day. When you realize that the behavior comes from the top, you can aggregate the wrongdoing into something pretty serious.
At first this was kind of 'cute'. We were all rooting for the little startup who said no to an old system and tried to create something better. Uber is now a huge company. They have secured over $2B in funding and probably intending to IPO with a market cap over $50B. Yet they have not slowed down with the law breaking and general disregard for "the rules".
How can this be OK? When will we force them to be mature and obey the laws. I have to obey the law in my every day life. More importantly, I would be terrified if other companies with similar market caps (airlines, rental car companies, media companies) started ignoring the law left and right. If money and investors can make you above the law then there is no protection for the rest of us.
I really want Uber as a service to exist, as I said. They provide a great convenience for me. However I don't think it's acceptable that they get to ignore the established rules. The laws are there for a reason. If they are bad laws, then we can work to change them. No amount of VC funding should make you immune to their reach.
The generally accepted way of changing or challenging a law you believe to be wrong and that provides more rent to it's beneficiaries than it costs to defend it, is to break it, repeatedly.
(With apologies to those who fight against things far more onerous than taxi medallions)
"How can this be OK?"
There is no moral duty to obey unjust laws.
Forget a moral duty; how about the fact that inconsistent enforcement of laws is essentially handing market share to Uber for no good reason?
There needs not be a good reason for a bad law not to be enforced.
Look, if it's a "bad law," it should be enforced against no one, not enforced against some companies but not others capriciously.
Sure.
Say there's a bad law, for instance a law requiring that every toddler must be taken to a police station before the age of 3 to have one eye gouged out with a red hot steel bar.
Suddenly, the government decide to apply this law capriciously, and starts exempting left-handed boys from the eye gouging.
Would you complain that it's unfair that left-handed boys don't have their eyes gouged out? Would you say that two eyed people grow up to have an unfair advantage in the work place by being able to be more productive and earn more? Would that "fairness" be your concern? Would you feel better if the government reverted its policy and decided to apply the policy uniformly and resumed gouging the eyes of left-handed boy toddlers:
No! You would just want to make sure no one gets their eyes gouged out! Well there you go, focus your concern on the victims of the law, not on the lucky ones who manage to escape it.
That seems like a pretty poor example when no one would argue that it's morally wrong to require that some professions require licenses to operate (would you support an Uber for medical care as well?).
What happens when Uber decides it does not respect a more serious law, one that you believe should be upheld. Who will stop them then?
I think your point is that some amount of unconditional respect for the law is desirable, because it works as an enforcement mechanism. Is that right? Even if it is desirable, it does not mean that there is a duty to obey unjust laws. After all, saving children from starvation is desirable, yet most people consider they have no duty to do so.
Besides, I think that societies overwhelmingly err far on the side of too much respect for the law. Most people are content to form their opinions based on the status quo, which can make for some terrifying dystopian results.
Who will stop you from using them, you mean? Obviously, the answer is that you will.
> If they are bad laws, then we can work to change them.
Uber and its competitors are, more than anyone else in decades as far as I can tell, working to change them.
This is such a great comment! I really wanted to say this, but didn't know how to put it into words.
> Every step of Uber's success has been associated with some sort of law breaking.
How do we verify law as well-written and protecting interests of constituents first and foremost?
If we assume breaking it was necessary to improve customer experience -- and there are some good indicators for that -- we should ask ourselves, does the law protect the entrenched service provider (here, taxis) more than the consumers?
Should that be the case, it's failure of the law, and perhaps also law making process.
> How can this be OK?
It's a terrible stretch, but still: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" - Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
The basic idea of what you are saying is correct, but I think there are some important details we are missing.
Look at how Uber is breaking the laws. They are doing it with the financial backing of enormously powerful people. So while now they are just breaking old crusty taxi laws, it scares me to think that a well-funded company could take this model and break some laws that actually protect me. What if what happened to the taxi drivers happens to an industry that I work in? I will have no moral leg to stand on if I don't oppose Uber's tactics now.
I agree with you for the most part, but I want to comment on the last phrase you use: "If they are bad laws, then we can work to change them. No amount of VC funding should make you immune to their reach." I need to direct you to what happened to Aereo, whose business was destroyed by a Supreme Court ruling [0]. The legal system is one area where innovation is slow, and progress is reliant on inefficient mechanics like politics, bureaucracy, precedent, prosecutorial discretion, judicial opinion, and others. This is by design. Compare for a moment a courtroom of the 1950s and 2014, versus a computer of the 1950s and 2014. Our ability to update our regulatory mechanisms has not kept pace with our ability to create new ideas that need regulation.
My biggest gripe is perhaps not even the inefficiency of the system, but its natural tendency towards systematic support of entrenched players, see the kind of regulatory capture performed by Comcast, or the article about the Chase Whistleblower from a few weeks back. You say that no amount of VC money should make an individual institution immune to the law, but this sort of immunity is conferred all the time by anyone with deep enough pockets, through mechanisms like lobbyists, regulatory capture and the various campaign finance loopholes exploited by Super-PACs. See any of Lawrence Lessig's writings of the past few years for more discussion. I'm reminded of an article that showed up on Hacker News about the downsides of an economy with a lot of entrenched players (permit me to suggest the "cartel" nomenclature) taking advantage of their favorable position in overly-bureaucratic systems: http://intellectual-detox.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-econom...
I do agree that Uber's shady business practices are not laudable, and there are certain important regulatory functions that can only be performed by unbiased parties interested in the public good, of which the legal system/government ought to be the exemplary case. But I think your suggestion that we can simply work to change bad laws is perhaps dependent on a system that currently cannot consistently keep up with the pace of change, not just because of inefficiency but because of perverse incentives (here is where I could begin to talk about the influence of corporate money in politics). I suspect we will have to wait at least another half-generation before a critical mass of individuals with both a true understanding of the exponential pace of progress and well-credentialed clout can begin to make serious reforms and updates in that area.
Until then, "move fast and break things" may, terrifyingly, be our best option.
Nothing in your post is wrong, and I agree that my phrasing did not properly illustrate both sides of the picture.
The people holding Uber back are also empowered by wealth and influence. I'd prefer that our country not work this way. It's very unfortunate. I'm worried that encouraging companies like Uber may seem to upset this system but it really enforces it. It further sidelines the average person, and the 'nice' rich people get to battle the 'evil' rich people.
So I instead have the idealist view that we can all vote our way out of this mess. That we can eventually put candidates in place that will create sensible laws around technology and markets. And that these laws will benefit the consumer.
The reality is that it's f*ed on both sides. I can avoid using Uber and the entrenched taxi cab lobby will win. I can use Uber and validate a startup that has systematically broken the law. I can use neither and never get where I am going on time.
So instead I'll just sit here and spout my thoughts on HN. Makes me feel a little better in the meantime.
> I have to obey the law in my every day life.
So you never drive over the speed limit? Jaywalk? Smoke pot? When will we force you to be mature and obey the law? Many millions of small crimes are committed every day by practically every person in the world. The reason nobody cares is because there's often no negative consequences to those "crimes".
If I coordinated thousands of those small crimes every day as my business model, then we'd be comparing apples to apples.
Additionally, there ARE negative consequences to what Uber does. They are just not negative to you or me. Taxi drivers are being hurt by the reduced number of customers and the de-valuing of their medallions. I don't like the taxi system at all, but I do feel bad for all of the drivers who tried to play fair and buy in and are now being muscled out by VC money.
Taxis have a reduced number of customers because they have poor service and now they have competition. Taxis illegally refuse fares, skip safety inspections, take circuitous routes to rip their customers off, and on and on. They only seem to care about "the rules" when it comes to shutting down a competitor that's offering a superior service.
The taxis in DC are night and day compared to before and after Uber. They wouldn't even accept credit cards because it was "too hard" to implement. Somehow about 6 months after Uber came to town, it suddenly became possible to do something most other major cities had managed years ago. Even still, credit card readers are often mysteriously "broken". By the "rules" the cab is not supposed to operate if the credit card reader isn't working, but since that rule isn't related to shutting down Uber, I guess it doesn't matter.
So the coin has two sides. I'd prefer if all parties had to follow the laws. I think taxis should be penalized for those offenses and Uber should be penalized for its offenses.
It's not just taxi drivers and owners of taxi cab services who are hurt, since underinsured gypsy cabs are now congesting public roads and if you get into an accident you have to deal with their lackluster insurance policies.
Uber is an unlicensed livery service with a smartphone app; I don't know why everyone is pretending they're providing such an innovative and new service. If Uber is allowed to operate in blatant disregard of the law, the law should be changed so their competitors are afforded the same privilege. Alternatively, Uber should be made to comply to the laws their competitors have to.
This article doesn't even get into it, but beyond background checks, their not having medallions is a huge, unfair advantage; their labor practices are exploitative and probably illegal; and their insurance policies are not adequate.
Uber created a marketplace and provided both buyers and sellers with a tool to participate in that market with minimal friction, mainly by taking advantage of GPS radios in people's devices. I, for one, consider this to be rather innovative and clever.
(Note that you can minimize anything with word choice. "Google is just a web spider that looks at links," or "Clojure is just a lisp that runs on the JVM," etc.)
How is this 'market place' any different from the old school calling-a-taxi company and they radio in "Hey, there is a customer on the corner of 3rd and Broadway" and then the taxi goes there to pick you up?
It's incremental. Not innovation.
Regardless of how innovative they are, they're breaking the law.
> I don't know why everyone is pretending they're providing such an innovative and new service.
I'm not pretending, I'm reporting empirical observations. Uber provides a service that is really nice, and significantly changed the way I transport myself around town. It is empirically an innovative and new service.
It's an iteration on the call-a-cab model, where you use your smartphone instead of getting on the horn and it takes advantage of your GPS. An incremental improvement that, frankly, some other livery service could easily do without breaking the law (I understand that more of them are offering these kinds of apps now).
> An incremental improvement that, frankly, some other livery service could easily do without breaking the law (I understand that more of them are offering these kinds of apps now).
Yes, there are more of them offering these kinds of apps now, after Uber and its competitors entered the market. That's pretty decent evidence that the laws regulating competition in taxi markets stifle innovation.
You think no one would have thought of the idea of "livery service... but with an app" if there weren't a company just flouting laws about licensing? I think that's unlikely.
"These companies can be innovative in the way they deliver services without ignoring the laws that protect the public."
Actually pretty solid advice for Silicon Valley.
Does anyone honestly believe that the innovation and disruption caused by Uber and its competitors would have happened without ignoring laws that supposedly protect the public?
By "disruption", you mean skipping the insurance, background checks, and licensing to carry passengers?
This isn't innovation. It's gypsy cabs with an iPhone app.
"Licensing to carry passengers" is definitely something I want to see disrupted. There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
It certainly doesn't provide any assurance of quality (as indicated by the horrible drivers and customer service one gets from Taxi Drivers on the Peninsula).
I think it's entirely reasonable to require Insurance, Background Checks, Car Safety Checkups (from a third party), Drivers Valid License - Basically anything that is in place to protect consumer safety, instead of there to protect incumbents market ownership.
For example - in London, acquisition of "The Knowledge" is not there to protect consumers, it's there to reduce the amount of competition. I would absolutely not require "The Knowledge" prior to anyone becoming a Lyft/Uber driver.
And, as one who has taken thousands of taxi-rides, I can tell you that Uber/Lyft are not just innovation, they are mind-blowing revolutionary disruptive innovation to this industry. They are a much bigger deal for cab rides, than the iPhone was for the smart phone.
> There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
The value is in that the license can be taken away if the owner does not comply with the appropriate requisites for the activity. The relationship between a taxi driver and their passenger extends way beyond the mere act of driving, so the driver's license is not enough.
> There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
> I think it's entirely reasonable to require Insurance, Background Checks, Car Safety Checkups (from a third party), Drivers Valid License - Basically anything that is in place to protect consumer safety
You contradict yourself.
> I would absolutely not require "The Knowledge" prior to anyone becoming a Lyft/Uber driver.
The Knowledge is not for delivery; it's for picking people up on the street (which is many times preferable to ordering Uber on your phone). I don't want my taxi driver to spend 2 minutes blocking the road while he enters the destination into the navigation app, nor doing it while s/he's driving.
Lots of places have a "License to Carry Passengers", and the purpose of that license is to prevent new drivers. It's not to protect passengers. I'm fine with requirements that protect passengers. I'm not fine with requirements whose sole purpose is to prevent new drivers.
Regarding the knowledge (yes, I know it's for black cab hails) - if you think that's useful, and are willing to pay the increased rates that result from the higher level of service (and as one who has taken London Cabs, I can attest it's a wonderful service, just not one I would be willing to pay for), then you should be free to pay for that service, in the same way that others should be free to provide and advertise it.
But don't make it a requirement to run a service like Uber/Lyft.
It's not useful/a service; it's a way of ensuring order on the road. You can't (legally and safely) use mobile phones while driving; and when taxis stop on the side of the road, they should resume driving ASAP, not wait until they finish typing the destination.
Regarding "app" services, I agree, it's not necessary as they can map the path in advance, but they can't replace the existing "taxi" service (i.e. hailing taxi) that way (and I feel it's reasonable for cities to protect that service to a certain extent).
> they are mind-blowing revolutionary disruptive innovation to this industry.
Why, because you can order and pay through an app? And they can offer lower prices as they're skirting the rules?
The major reasons why Uber/Lyft changed my life when ordering taxis:
o Single Contact point - I don't have to power dial a bunch of different services, or try and find out who is currently picking up in my region.
o Always, Always, Always a driver available. There were so many times when I just could never get a pickup on the peninsula. With Uber/Lyft, no matter how busy it is, or what concerts are playing, I can always get a ride. 100% of the time. (And yes, I know surge pricing makes those rides pricey, but I would much rather pay 3x or 4x and have a ride in 5 minutes than spend an hour to 90 minutes waiting for a cab. )
o When the driver/dispatch claims they are on the way - they always show up. Not only do they always show up, they show up reasonably on time. And, better yet, I can see if they are moving in my direction. That real-time car location technology is a major innovation.
o The feedback mechanism means I haven't been picked up by one psycho, or in one half-broken down vehicle yet. I'm not claiming they haven't existed on Uber/Lyft, I'm certain they have. But, those types of drives will be downvoted so quickly they'll cease to be a driver very quickly. With Taxis, I had a ton of drivers on the peninsula I dreaded being picked up by. One of them was frequently undergoing some weird psychotic episodes which had him shouting out to voices. Another was just an asshole. I frequently got into old cars with non-working windows, and often doors that would not open from the inside.
o No screwing around having to "pay through an app" - you don't pay - you just book your ride and get out at your destination. Particularly when you have a bunch of bags and stuff - that's awesome.
These are just a few of the reasons why Uber/Lyft changed everything. I can't believe anybody who frequently took taxis on the Peninsula would claim otherwise. Price is about #7 or #8 on the list.
Yes, absolutely.
> "Licensing to carry passengers" is definitely something I want to see disrupted. There is no value to me, or others, from having the the driver "licensed to carry passengers."
So you're cool with just getting in any old stranger's car? Really?
First, they are an Uber driver, so presumably they have at least filled in a form or applied. I know my Lyft drivers frequently have applied to be Uber drivers but haven't been approved, so there is clearly some type of process.
But, more importantly - how familiar are you with Taxi Drivers on the Peninsula. Many of them are very new to the valley, many of them have just started driving, and quite a few of them are scary, psychotic, or just plain mean. I have yet to have that experience with Uber/Lyft, and when I do, I expect my, and others feedback, to correct that situation immediately rather than have to deal with it for any prolonged period of time.
Also - think of the hundreds (thousands?) of people a day for the last 10 years who carpool over the bay bridge. In that situation, you truly are getting into an absolutely random strangers car. People don't seem to have any issues with that - and there is ZERO background check, tracking, or awareness of those people.
The world is not as scary as people seem to think it is - In terms of risks, the most dangerous thing is likely not your driver, but the fact that you are in a car in the first place. They kill 30,000+ people a year.
> First, they are an Uber driver, so presumably they have at least filled in a form or applied. I know my Lyft drivers frequently have applied to be Uber drivers but haven't been approved, so there is clearly some type of process.
There are background checks, but they are a joke.
Mind-blowing? Really?
If taken to their limit(including sharing of trips), the economics would work so well that we could be talking about something that could replace the personal car in many many cases.
That would be revolutionary.
Yes - mind blowing. Perhaps because I've taken thousands of taxi rides, that even a hundred Uber/Lyft rides later, I still can't comprehend how wonderful it is to just push a button and see a car pull up. I wasted so much of my life waiting for taxis, many of whom never showed up, many of whom showed up 30 minutes late, and sometimes were never available - that Uber/Lyft just continue to blow my mind. Easily the most exciting use of my iPhone.
I trust ratings by the general public a lot more than I trust some authority that I've never heard of deciding some person is fit for driving a cab. Corruption is a thing that happens with authority figures and while you can bribe the general public, it's not like the person bribing the public won't recognize their own benefit to just being a better driver.
There is much more incentive to not suck when you have daily ratings as opposed to whatever the limit is for taxi cab drivers.
Are you being serious? Have you ever looked at Yelp reviews?
Yes..? Yelp has some great reviews. I'm looking at pictures of dishes from my local restaurants and the scenery around them right now from a reviewer.
Which appointed agency would you rather have tell you what food is good/bad? The local health boards?! Don't make me laugh, I worked in a sit down restaurant for years and every single inspection was a quick walk through followed by a free meal we'd give the inspector and a high rating.
This wasn't one store. This is every single store I worked at in multiple restaurants across three different cities and two different health departments.
I don't agree with Yelp reviewers' taste in restaurants, but they host reviews of lots of other services too, and their reviews of the service has been somewhere between "not correlated" and "inversely correlated" with the actual service I've had.
No, by disruption he probably means becoming a multi-billion dollar business, not to an anti-regulatory stance. Could Uber have succeeded if they had tried to follow all of the regulations like Hailo did?
And by innovation, he probably doesn't refer to the slur that you did by calling their workforce "gypsies" but to the resource locality problem solved by an app.
FWIW, "gypsy cab" is a general term for illegal cabs.
I would argue that the use of the word gypsy is actually a slur against Romani people. I'm a little confused by your comment as you seem to be implying that a gypsy is a bad thing and it's thus offensive to the drivers to be called gypsies.
I hope I'm misinterpreting because that's like getting mad at Alice for calling Bob a n*, not for using a racist slur, but because it compares Bob to a black person.
When someone uses a slur in a negative connotation like pico did it is usually considered offensive. I really don't get how lhnz calling out the ugliness of that comment is bad on him.
I agree, it is offensive. It wasn't clear to me that lhnz was calling out the ugliness of pico's comment. The way his comment was worded sounded different to me. Like he was saying "how dare you insult someone by calling them a gypsy", not "gypsy is an insensitive slur". I'm having a hard time articulating that properly. My comment was meant to ask clarification, not as an accusation.
Uber's innovation was in removing a hails requirement for a mutual line-of-sight between the passenger and a cab. This increases the number of cabs accessible to a user. It also allows cabs to move towards users, which is analogous to providing an index to speed up a locality of reference problem in a computer [0].
It is an innovation that works on purely economic grounds.
He was insinuating that Uber's innovation was cheap workers and then slurring these as "gypsies". It's easier to point out somebody's smear than it is to describe their misunderstandings related to innovation and domain knowledge, so my attack was on his method not his content.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locality_of_reference
Edit: You can't honestly downvote me based on a discussion from first principles of why something was innovative or can you? Sigh.
As a response to your original post, I would argue that the term gypsy is widely considered derogatory, and that I was not saying "how dare you call somebody a gypsy". I was saying that I felt that he was purposefully using it as a derogatory smear. I think it's fair to assume that he was using it as a smear and I think it's interesting that you wish to defend him by accusing me of the same thing that I accused him of.
You're perverting my intention which was to point out that he was normalising a smear as a negative externality to defending his anti-Uber beliefs and that this isn't okay.
Sorry, that was absolutely not my intention (and I didn't downvote you). I was trying to figure out your intention because your phrasing confused me. As I said, I hoped I was misinterpreting your sentence, and I was. Your intent is now clear and thank you for clarifying.
The term gypsy is widely considered derogatory, but it is also widely used and accepted as normal by people unaware of that.[1] I don't think it's fair to assume pico was using it as a smear, but in the ignorant casual sense that people refer to illegal cabs as gypsy cabs, or say they got "gypped". Still insensitive, but I don't think he was trying to use a slur.
I'm not trying to defend his usage. You're right, it's not okay. But I think there is a distinction to be made in educating someone as to the history of a word vs. assuming they used it intentionally.
[1] In Conan O'Brian's documentary, there's a scene where an attendee of his show says to him something like "we got jew'd", to which Conan says "you know I'm part Jewish, and my producer over there is Jewish?". And the guy says "sorry...we got gypped" and then everyone carries on like it's normal. Meanwhile I was like "wait, that doesn't bother you in the exact same way?".
> Uber's innovation was in removing a hails requirement for a mutual line-of-sight between the passenger and a cab. This increases the number of cabs accessible to a user. It also allows cabs to move towards users, which is analogous to providing an index to speed up a locality of reference problem in a computer [0].
That's not Uber's innovation, since livery cars are not allowed to accept hailed fares in most places anyway. The only difference is an app instead of traditional voice.
I don't understand your point about gypsies; "gypsy cab" is a pretty widely understood term for an illegal, unlicensed cab. At least, Uber seems to think so: http://blog.uber.com/2013/08/18/stay-safe-avoid-gypsy-cabs/
So in other countries you can only use Uber to pay and not to hail? Are you sure this isn't just a weird exception.
I didn't know that "gypsy cabs" was a legitimate term of description to use to describe unlicensed cabs. I think it still sounds offensive, but I guess that would mean that he wasn't the instigator.
What I mean is in most US cities (I don't pretend to know about anywhere else), there is a large class of livery services that, unlike cabs, cannot accept fares hailed from the street, but will come pick you up and give you a ride if you call them. Uber is basically an extension of that concept, except, instead of you calling a person on the phone, you use a smartphone app.
Yes, gypsy cabs, jitneys and share taxis were innovative and disruptive.
I'm confused at how people driving other people around in cars is innovation. I think we've had that for a while now.
Taxis in the SF bay area have always been a joke. The few times I've called them they often say they have no drivers in the area, or they claim they will send the driver but he never shows up, or they send one and it takes an hour. Hailing one in the street like NYC has never worked for me. There is no penalty to a driver if he picks someone up on the street before he gets to you, so they usually don't get to you. In Uber their rating would drop and eventually they would get fired. Not to mention Uber lets you order the cab without a call detecting your location, watch the car come to you on the map, communicate with the driver the entire time, and handles all the payment. So the innovation over taxis is enormous.
I'm appalled that Uber had to go over the route of breaking laws to essentially have the same kind of service that we got here in Brazil with "taxi apps". They've been around before Uber started I think and have some critical mass now, around 2 years after they started.
It's basically Uber but for cabs, I think that's why I've never been over-the-top thrilled by the Uber concept, it's something that already happened and didn't have to break any laws to get the same convenience while not fucking with the cab drivers (who are people too).
taxi apps in brazil are also under scrutiny. almost all taxi cooperatives think they are unfair and are trying to fight them.
In Manhattan there are taxis everywhere. Sometimes I'm lucky and get the first cab I see, otherwise I may have to wait a few minutes. If you're clever about where you try to hail from, you won't have to wait long.
you clearly live in a privileged location most cities don't have cabs roaming all over the place and you would have to walk numerous blocks through unsafe areas to get a cab on a major through fair.
It's innovation because Uber is significantly better at driving other people around in cars.
What exactly is the innovation in question? It's impossible to even table this question as you phrased it. "The innovation and disruption caused by Uber" could easily in part be trivial and legal, and in part be non-trivial and more complex to think about (politically, legally, and socially).
If you mean "innovation" - using an app to cal a cab - absolutely.
If you mean "disruption" - lowering the prices of a cab by bypassing regulation - not really.
>If you mean "disruption" - lowering the prices of a cab by bypassing regulation - not really.
they bypassed the regulation artificially limiting supply - medallions. Such limit of supply has nothing to do with public interests/safety/etc... and in many cases actually goes against the public interest.
Uber doesn't replace taxis as a service - if my phone is dead, I can only use a taxi, not Uber. To keep the price sustainable, cities limit the supply of taxis. In exchange taxis need to obey some rules (e.g. can't reject people).
It possible that the regulations are too strict, and I don't support medallions, but I don't support Uber breaking a number of other regulations - e.g. surge pricing, insurance, drivers that actually know the city (in e.g. London).
What I don't understand is that in my locale (Atlanta, GA) the licensed regulated taxis are absolutely awful and attempt to rip you off in every way possible. They take for ever to show if you call, if they even do. They never will take a credit card without a huge fight, and often if you hail one late at night they will demand $xx in cash up front or just drive off. The drivers are rude, cars horribly maintained, you have to watch the route they are taking like a hawk or they will take the long way or even literally drive in circles to run the meter up. (Had that happen, pointed it out, got in to an argument over fare until I threatened to call police.) The entire experience is awful.
My worst Uber experience is better than my best cab experience. I don't know anyone who's tried Uber here who would go back to using cabs except as a last resort. I don't understand why people would prefer a random almost untraceable taxi (Unless you memorize or document the license # of every driver, assuming it's even legit) over a known GPS tracked Uber. Perhaps things are different in other cities.
> drivers that actually know the city (in e.g. London)
Does any other city have such a strict knowledge test as London? Certainly it's not common.
With that in mind, if you support the Knowledge requirement in London: do you think that other cities should have their own Knowledge? Or that London is a special case? Or do you think the Knowledge itself is too strict, but something like it is good? Or...?
Yes, I think that every city should have it. For some cities, e.g. New York, it would obviously be easier to pass. I think that if a cab picks me up on the street, the driver should know where I'm going, and the best way to get there - without typing it into the mobile phone, and constantly pressing the buttons while s/he's driving. Eventually it's going to be replaced with apps, but there are quite a few more pieces missing (e.g. real-time traffic information, frequent updates of road works, and (probably most important of all) perfect voice input/search/commands).
> To keep the price sustainable, cities limit the supply of taxis.
Would you mind elaborating on the idea of sustainable pricing?
I ask because it sounds not too far away from, for example, "With the goal of artificially inflating the price of transportation, for the benefit cartel members, we will constrain the supply". See OPEC. This type of collusion is typically considered to be anti-competitive, and not in the best interest of society overall, or of the market counterparties. Silicon Valley's "No Hire List" conspiracy is another example of cartel action to manipulate market price for the cartel's benefit - in that case, illegal.
Why should the government support a specific type of private business (taxi companies) in this way? Competition is a good thing - we ought to encourage taxis and other transportation companies to compete with each other and offer the lowest price. I don't in general want my government to prop up businesses that cannot survive on their own (moral hazard, among other reasons), especially if society can solve the same problems with businesses that thrive naturally. To make this claim, there needs to be an objective way to define what a "sustainable price" is. Can such a thing be defined? (except as follows)
The fair market price is the sustainable price. Anything else is unsustainable and will only persist as long as artificial constraints are applied, such as arbitrary limitations on supply. This is not healthy, and harms the market and the consumer (deadweight loss). A functioning market balances supply and demand naturally through the negotiation of price.
Do other forms of transportation such as long-haul trucking or air travel require limitations on the number of trucks or planes in order for their markets to function effectively? It seems as though they don't. We expect airlines and trucking companies to compete with each other in order to offer the lowest price, and these days consumers select airlines largely on price. Why is regulation to artificially constrain supply necessary for taxis but not trucks or airlines?
It seems to me that such regulation is in fact not necessary, and not in the best interest of society; but is rather regulation that has resulted from "regulatory capture", and protects certain vested interests, at the expense of other transportation companies like Uber and Lyft, as well as the general consumer.
Surge pricing is a good thing, and if regulations prohibit it, then that's another example of undesirable regulatory intervention in a market. Surge pricing is another concept that's effectively standard and well-accepted in air travel: if you travel when it's busy, the fare will cost more. I discussed surge pricing in a previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8720969 The consumer protection issue of fixing taxi fares so that people don't get taken advantage of by unethical cabbies does not apply to Uber.
I am not sure about the insurance issue, but I agree that Uber ought to be required to provide whatever insurance is conventionally required by vehicles in that category. Perhaps that's taxis when comparing to UberX, and private towncars when comparing to Uber.
I see public transport as a public service, like an utility, and I think it should be regulated.
The problem with markets is that they optimize only on profit/price. However, there are things that I (and I believe the population at large) value that cannot be optimized using simple market dynamics with no regulation. For example, I expect there to be taxis on the road, even if the demand is very low. Another is, as I mentioned previously and you agree, insurance. Yet another is cooperation - it is beneficial for a city to mandate that there is only one app/protocol for hailing taxis, whereas for private companies it makes sense to each create its own walled garden and prevent new competition from entering.
Of course, all of the above could be created by carefully-constructed regulation (or appropriate economic incentives), but simply limiting the supply of taxis along with a small number of rules is the easiest way to do it. Ideally, we'll get better regulation; while Uber will probably make us reach that goal faster, I hope the end result is not like Uber.
I'm divided on surge pricing, but I definitely see no reason for surge pricing on "predictable" events, such as Friday night. Even for "unpredictable" events, such as rain or even a hockey game, I think it would be better if people would be able to hail taxis on the street, or on a first-come-first-serve basis. On the other hand, I realize that surge pricing can increase supply, but the very existence of surge pricing can also lead to market manipulation - suppliers waiting until surge pricing is in effect, so that they get a higher fare. In effect, (if I understand correctly) since surge pricing is not momentary (when it starts, it doesn't end until sometime later), Uber is creating a free market distortion itself.
Cabs are not public transport. They're private. I'm paying the cab driver directly to take me from point A to point B. It's not a city bus or a subway.
Your argument about a unified protocol is weird. It's not like there's a central place I can call to get a cab. There are many cab companies with different numbers. There is very little difference to me between having to look up a cab number and using an app to call a cab. And how is it even beneficial to have one app/protocol for hailing a cab? Beneficial to who? I would rather choose the service I prefer over time based on my experience with them and my preferences. The city doesn't need to dictate that for me.
For the record, I strongly dislike Uber's business practices. I think there should be regulation for stuff like background checks of drivers, insurance, etc. Just as the food industry has regulations for health and safety.
But the taxi business overall has no reason to be regulated in terms of limiting cabs on the road or how they're accessed, just as there is no regulation on how many restaurants there can be in town, when they're open or whether you can make a reservation or not.
> I'm divided on surge pricing, but I definitely see no reason for surge pricing on "predictable" events, such as Friday night. Even for "unpredictable" events, such as rain or even a hockey game, I think it would be better if people would be able to hail taxis on the street, or on a first-come-first-serve basis. On the other hand, I realize that surge pricing can increase supply, but the very existence of surge pricing can also lead to market manipulation - suppliers waiting until surge pricing is in effect, so that they get a higher fare. In effect, (if I understand correctly) since surge pricing is not momentary (when it starts, it doesn't end until sometime later), Uber is creating a free market distortion itself.
My biggest concern with surge pricing is the apparent lack of transparency. According to my friends who use Uber, the app will give the estimated cost that doesn't account for (at least not fully) the surge pricing--to the extent of an estimate $15 fare actually being over $90.
If people know before they make the request/get in the car, there are still issues of what they thought was a viable option for getting home suddenly turns out not to be, but without surge pricing to boost supply, it may well not be anyway in such situations, so, like you, I'm divided.
> However, there are things that I (and I believe the population at large) value that cannot be optimized using simple market dynamics with no regulation. For example, I expect there to be taxis on the road, even if the demand is very low.
Can you explain why these things that the population values at large would not be profitable? Obviously that can be true for public goods, but individual or small group point-to-point ground transportation (taxis) is not a public good. The fact that you expect things that are extremely inefficient is not a very good reason.
Just because it's fulfilled by private companies does not mean it isn't a public good. I believe that transport, especially inter-city transport (which has many more externalities than intra-city transport - e.g. traffic, pollution, mobility) should be managed as a public service. Many cities agree.
Simply said, the fact that I can always get a taxi makes it more viable for me to not own a car. Less cars in a city mean more space and less traffic, both of which are desirable for the entire population of the city, and both of which have significantly more positive payoff than the cost of some minimum amount of taxis on the street at all times. Therefore, in my eyes, it makes sense to enforce such minimum via regulation, even though it is not profitable (and will manifest itself in an increased fare for other, more profitable rides).
Well, one, because not controlling it could presumably lead to big boom-and-bust cycles as prices rise and fall, and for another, every taxi on the road has costs to every driver, as they cause congestion driving around looking for fares and burn up fuel, polluting the air, etc. Of course the same argument's applicable to private cars, but how many of us spend all day driving around in circles?
>Uber doesn't replace taxis as a service - if my phone is dead, I can only use a taxi, not Uber.
well, good luck, as i obviously didn't have enough luck to successfully use taxi when i tried even with a working phone :)
>To keep the price sustainable, cities limit the supply of taxis. In exchange taxis need to obey some rules (e.g. can't reject people).
And Santa Claus is real.
>It possible that the regulations are too strict,
who cares what regulations are if taxi service is that bad and thus the regulations are worthless? What happened with Uber (AirBNB/etc...) is the classical case from Hegelian dialectic - when situation gets that bad, that "badness" is a fertile soil from which a principally new solution emerges which fundamentally changes the situation - in western world such process is called "disruption". Attempts to reverse the situation after that is, like our Borg friends like to say, futile.
Could you explain what is actually innovative about this service?
But the laws aren't there to protect the public, they're there to protect the taxi companies.
That's so patently false it's ridiculous.
The taxi regulations are lengthy and serve multiple purposes. To classify it with a single sentence is just silly.
After all, requiring proper operating equipment and frequent inspections obviously doesn't benefit users... Is that what you're really forwarding? I hope not!
> After all, requiring proper operating equipment and frequent inspections obviously doesn't benefit users... Is that what you're really forwarding?
The specific equipment requirements can certainly be chosen in a way to benefit entrenched businesses by increasing the barrier to entry.
"It's complicated", I think, and not clear cut one way or the other. Certainly one-sentence quips favoring one or the other side don't do the issue justice or hint at a reasonable resolution to the problems.
Yes, exactly, it's complicated.
I was going to say I expect more out of HN commenters, but then I'd be lying. The people here are perhaps "smarter" than many, but their heads are made out of the same fallible gloopy cholesterol that the rest of us are. Cognitive biases are for everyone, and in some ways worse among those who refuse to admit the essential hormonal/emotional nature of our brains.
Like the laws requiring every car to be a recent model, pass safety checks and have credit card readers? That is a huge penalty to legit taxis.
That's true, especially in US, with that insane and completely irrational "golden medallion" law.
However, I have no sympathy left for Uber. They're on their own as far as I'm concerned.
Quoting the article:
"I don't know if this is legally feasible, but my inclination would be to allow Lyft here a long time before Uber," the commissioner of Portland's Bureau of Transportation, told the Times. "Lyft seems like a respectable company, and Uber seems like a bunch of thugs."
It is a bit shocking to hear a public regulator talk like this. A regulator's role should not be to pick and choose winners between two (essentially identical) companies based on personal preference.
It's a quote, quotes are usually lacking some context and this doesn't appear as bad as you make it out.
What if a few missing/implied words were added in that related to earlier parts of the conversation?
> my inclination would be to allow Lyft here a long time before Uber
becomes
> my inclination based on the legal interpretation of how these companies have operated would be to allow Lyft here a long time before Uber
His quote remains an opinion, the only missing context is whether this opinion is based on the legal arguments in the case or a purely personal opinion or external set of information that would show a bias away from the legal arguments.
He even said in the prior sentence "This is about one company thinking it's above the law". Again, implying that Lyft are following the spirit of the law as well as the letter, and Uber are following the letter and not the spirit (and thus working as many loopholes as possible to 'win' in-spite of the wishes of the people of the affected cities that they do so in accordance with the wishes of the people of those cities).
I think this is not shocking at all, it's how it's supposed to be. Shocking is how some companies wish to ignore the codified will of the people of a city (or state, or country) purely to turn a dime. And yes, it's also shocking that some representatives of the people are corrupt as hell and that the written law has enough holes in it to fly a 747 through.
But a representative of people's tax dollars standing up to ask for companies who operate within a city to do so in accordance with the wishes of those who pay the tax dollars is not shocking, it should be the norm
He even said in the prior sentence "This is about one company thinking it's above the law". Again, implying that Lyft are following the spirit of the law as well as the letter, and Uber are following the letter and not the spirit (and thus working as many loopholes...
By definition, the codified will of the people is the letter of the law. The "spirit of the law" is what politicians kind of want to happen, but never actually passed a law for.
Also, the "will of the people" is a nonsensical concept by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...
I don't necessarily agree that the "spirit of the law" is quite so nebulous. If a law is like a computer program, the "spirit of the law" is the program that you are trying to write, and the "letter of the law" is the program that you have written. If you've written a calculator and dividing 2 by 2 produces negative infinity, nobody will argue that this is a bug and not what the programmer intended.
The spirit of the law is the programmer's intention, the design document, the thing the customer wants you...to...build.....
Right, okay, I've changed my mind. That's nebulous.
Arrow's impossibility theorem only applies to rank order voting systems, not democracy in general.
At it's core, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem says that there is no ranked preference a group larger than 2 with at least 3 policy choices.
I don't know what "will of the people" means if not a ranked preference. Maybe you can explain?
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem only applies in cases where ranked preference is the only information in the vote.
The "people", not being an individual or an AI or whatever, has a more complex preference vector than a ranked list. The real world is more complex than that.
So can we now agree that Arrow's Impossibility Theorem doesn't apply to all of democracy, that these things are nuanced and there is a long and deep conversation about this kind of topic that has been going on in the human race for centuries, and that frankly, pointing to technical flaws in established, stable enough systems that were set up by people with a hell of a lot less information about anything than us hundreds of years go is not going to do anything to prevent that system from operating in the way that it does or to convince people who have vested interests in it remaining stable?
Let's say I like party A 10 times more than I like party B. In a preferential voting system, there's no way to precisely express my preferences using the ticket. I'm forced to choose between "1. A" or "1. A, 2. B". Someone else who like part A 2 times more than party B will end up voting identically to me, despite the huge difference between our preferences. Any preferential voting system is necessarily flawed because how limited its input is.
That's basically what Arrow's impossibility theorem says. Due to its limited inputs, a preferential voting system will necessarily fail one of the three fairness criteria.
There are far better voting schemes out there, none of which are affected by Arrow's impossibility theorem.
What does it mean to like party A 10x more than party B? What I'm questioning here is the existence of cardinal preferences, which are necessary for a "will of the people" to be defined. The only way I can make sense of cardinal preferences is to treat them as dollars spent on private goods [1], but I doubt that's what the OP meant.
As it applies to this situation, it's moot - Portland did not express any cardinal preferences.
[1] Non-private goods introduce other incentives that prevent spending from tracking desire.
Let's say I value thing A ten times more than I value things B through K, and I value them all equally whether I get them together or apart because they apply to different spheres of my life. Then I would be indifferent between getting A or getting all of B-K.
Why fo you think cardinal preferences are necessary!?
Arrow's Impossibility Theorem says that ranked preferences are insufficient. One stronger assumption you can make is cardinal preferences, which is what desdiv appealed to.
The point is that invoking an impossibility theorem oftentimes - and also in this case - demonstrates that the formalization one has chosen to work with is not a desirable one.
For example, if a group of people by some social process comes to a consensus then arguably this represents the "will of the people". Thus it makes sense to reason about this concept without requiring the existence of ranked preferences.
So for you, "will of the people" represents a consensus preference? And following this idea, if there is no consensus (i.e., at least one person in Portland wants to ride an Uber), there is no "will of the people"?
The whole point of Arrow is that you need some very strong assumptions (e.g., cardinal preferences) to define a "will of the people". The only real world expression of cardinal preferences is a set of supply&demand curves, however - based on this the "will of the people" says Uber should exist.
You misread, I made the converse claim.
"If there is no 'will of the people', then there is no consensus"? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Groups make decisions all the time, but that doesn't mean those decisions were all endorsed by everyone in the group. Was splitting off from the Catholic Church to form the Anglican Church really the will of the people of England? Because there was a consensus.
If a group of people comes together, discusses, and comes by some process to a unanimous decision ("consensus") then it does usually make a lot of sense to regard the outcome as the "will of these people".
The point I am trying to make through the last n posts is that Arrow's theorem does concerns the impossibility of a certain, narrow-minded formalization. It is therefore incorrect to conclude that 'the "will of the people" is a nonsensical concept by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem', which is what you had claimed.
I have nothing to say about the people and churches of England.
Your claim is that if a unanimous decision has been arrived at, it constitutes the will of the people. No one disputes this - the case where everyone agrees is trivial and uninteresting. It also does not describe the situation with Uber in Portland, Delhi, or anywhere else. I want Uber in Delhi, some politicians don't. Hence there is no consensus.
You either have a coherent definition of "will of the people" that goes beyond consensus, or you don't. If you do, give the definition.
For the moment I am content having pointed out the flaw in your argument.
What is an instance of "democracy in general" that you think Arrow's theorem doesn't apply to? It will apply any time "society" (i.e. more than one person) makes a choice among more than two options.
It won't apply if you can assign cardinal numbers to the options, but I doubt that's what you have in mind.
That's actually exactly what I had in mind. Range voting[0], for example, doesn't suffer from Arrow's impossibility theorem, Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem, nor the Condorcet's paradox.
You know, I had a long comment here pointing out many problems with range voting. Instead, I'd like to observe that it really takes balls to defend range voting as "not suffering from the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem" when it's easy to show that range voting exhibits one of the failures that the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem guarantees in pure-ranking voting systems. Sure, the premises don't hold, but so what? If Gibbard-Satterthwaite did apply to range voting, that would guarantee no other problems than already occur.
Theorem: Hitting your thumb with a steel hammer, instead of hitting the nail, hurts like crazy!
Problem: The pain of a smashed thumb is bad.
Solution: Use an iron hammer. The requirements of the earlier theorem don't apply.
The Gibbard–Satterthwaite theorem and Condorcet's paradox still apply.
You'd be queuing up to praise a financial regulator that cared about the spirit not just letter of the law. Just in this instance the spirit of the law is going against a disruptive tech darling.
its his personal preference on what sort of businesses to allow in his city.
In my opinion, this is actually one of the only points of accountability for a corporation growing unchecked (which has this many varying complaints against them and some think act like thugs)
He's not a feudal lord. It's "his" city, sure, but not in that sense.
Picking winners and losers is the definition of progressive (liberal) government. Welcome to Portland.
This article is slightly more helpful: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-uber-lyf...
It appears the lawsuit is mostly for "false advertising" and (as stated in the LA Times article) the damages are perhaps in the low dozens of millions. The complaint perhaps focuses on the background check system.
I can't find a copy of the actual complaint, but looks like it's "business tort": (via http://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org/online-services/verify?f=cnq ) Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco Case Number: CGC 14 543120 Title: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA VS. UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC A DELAWARE CORPORATION ET AL Cause of Action: BUSINESS TORT
IMO the Mercury News article spins the magnitude of this lawsuit a bit too hard. Yes, Uber will probably pay (once again) for its hubris, but it's mostly gonna be dirt off its shoulders ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7HAYkB-gH0 ).
> Uber's background checks ... have become a worldwide
> issue: The company was banned in New Delhi ... drivers
> there had to produce a certificate of strong character
> signed by police ... a bribe of about $130 would easily
> garner the document
A lady reported on Rapist Driver to Uber earlier. Uber ignored: https://twitter.com/nps2113/status/542063133809192960
Just because the article is not well written, don't uber is not at fault.
There was a pretty good post the other day going around to that effect https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141209160450-9652774-in-def...
It already does in America - using a private contractor. (Which is awful, surprise.)
they just need something to pick on. It's a shame it has come down to this, with all these officials attacking Uber around the same time in an attempt to stifle them
What I'm surprised about is how much press Uber gets these days. I jump on Quora, I've easily seen 10 questions in about a week? Went to a startup event that was hosted by Uber. Have been given Uber discount cards. Likewise, goes for Twitter too. I've seen bad and good press about Uber. And, of course, I'm seeing Uber on HN.
I'm really keen to see if their growth startegy works and if they're able to dominate the industry; or become one of those companies that rises too fast and falls quickly.
Met a young kid recently, claimed he had the idea for Uber too.. Told him, it's all about the execution.
I'd expect the lawsuit against Uber will not be the last. They have really got to keep on top of their legal department to protect stakeholders.
I'm more surprised that people still visit Quora, let alone browse it.
> I'm more surprised that people still visit Quora [...]
Would you care to explain? (I'm genuinely curious)
If you're not signed up and in it doesn't show the content. It's the old expertsexchange style bait and switch trick.
If you're on Chrome just install this extension to disable the login prompt and allow you to view Quora without a login:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-quora-login-...
Emphasis on the word "old". Experts Exchange doesn't do that, and hasn't for quite a while now.
pretty sure expertsExchange required a paying subscription, whereas Quora is free. Plus cookies mean I'm not signing in every page.
(I mean free as in money, I am OK giving Quora ad dollars and building a social profile of myself)
Nope. I've been an EE member since 1999 and have never given them a cent. Some parts of the site are only accessible to Premium Services customers, but it's not all that difficult to earn them -- so no money out the door.
It was hyperbole. I obviously didn't believe that literally zero people browse Quora. I just mean that the site feels essentially dead to me. Ever since Google apparently killed their results, I haven't seen any links to a Quora post. I also don't hear any updates about the company, which used to be a regular occurrence around here a couple of years ago.
I'm subscribed to their email digest. It manages to hook me just about every time with some delightful content. Go figure.
I second that. Every time Quora digest appears in my mailbox it manages to grab my attention for couple of minutes at least.
Thirded. I feel like an idiot for it, but I do click and read the Quora digest links in my email. They've got an excellent recommendation system set up for that (SVD?).
I think Quora is awesome for finding content related to what I do - being startups. Most of the answers I read on there are of high quality, just like HN.
I've had startups PM me for advice, feedback, done Skype chats etc. I always try to help people when I can as I was once in their shoes. People have also helped me out too.
I dig anything related to tech, I enjoy using HN and Quora, and I feel - by only limiting yourself to one service, limits your knowledge. That's why I use both.
The sign in thing with Quora, did really bug me at the start, same goes for the dirty thing Facebook Messenger did - once, you can get over that, you might actually enjoy it.
Back on topic, Uber is everywhere in the news!
A lot of people on HN feel it is their duty to punish companies whose business practices do not line up with their personal ethos.
This manifests itself as off-topic, intellectually dishonest comments whose main purpose is to push an agenda, not to engage in real discussion.
Maybe not all hope has been lost and business ethics is something we do care about.
I think I'd be nervous if I were an Uber investor. There seems to be a lot of negative news about them lately; that's the kind of thing that can feed on itself.
Tell that to Mark Zuckerberg. Negative press is meaningless when you dominate your industry. Uber doesn't quite yet, so it must press forward hard. Any attempt to slow down to appease the media would be foolish.
Ex-FB employee here. Honestly most of my old coworkers now seem to be at Uber and doing the same ultra insane seige mentality shit where you convince yourself that you're company is doing the right thing no matter what and that anyone who thinks otherwise are "haters".
While this may be a great media/PR strategy, its also a pretty good litmus test as to whether you're a respectable human being imo.
Then again, they might be the new Groupon. Consumers are fickle.
Andrew Mason is still a multi-hundred-millionaire, Eric Lefkofsky is still a billionaire, and Groupon is still a billion-dollar company.
> Negative press is meaningless when you dominate your industry
Taxi companies dominate the taxi industry, it seems to me: they're shutting down Uber in more and more places.
As I said, Uber doesn't dominate yet. Which is why they need to spend their time fight the taxis and not the media.
I read it. I think they're a long way from dominating much of anything in some ways, given how easy it is for regulators to shut them down.
I'm not anti-Uber or at least anti-disruption for the taxi industry. Here in Italy the taxi lobby is strong and very, very much against any kind of change or liberalization, and can use pretty nasty tactics themselves when they feel threatened.
No they have really fucked themselves. They need to be getting city councils on their side. They're not. They are getting shut down left, right and centre at the moment. They don't dominate anywhere except maybe SF?
They just opened here in Padova, today:
http://corrieredelveneto.corriere.it/padova/notizie/cronaca/...
They're definitely hurting, but I don't think it's "game over" just yet. But it seems to be a critical moment for them.
The political bandwagon begun. Pretty remarkable turn of events. It seems unlikely the company can go public with this type of legal threat hanging out there to its business. But with private markets as flush as they are, its also not clear there are any losers here that the politcians really care about, either. Sort of fascinating.
Pretty sure if a taxi driver was accused of rape in India, no one would bat an eye.
Screwber. Good to see their dickhead antics coming back to bite them in the form of public backlash.
Go Lyft.
Is it me, or does this feel like a witch hunt? What specific laws did or does Uber break? Does the city really believe that taxi's are more ethical that Uber or Lyft?
The laws they are accused of violating are listed in the article. Did you read it, or were you expecting the actual state statute numbers to be listed? Those are presumably listed in the civil suits.
"The two officials claim that Uber makes misleading statements about the background checks it performs on drivers and falsely charged a $1 "Safe Rides Fee," among other accusations."
Uber here is your chance to stand up to a tyrant. Move that shiny headquarters and your tax domicile to a business friendly jurisdiction, and leave San Francisco to stew in its nest.
I won't mind if they leave town at all.
I hope they move to my town. Do you see a problem with SF taxing Uber, then spending Uber's tax money to protect Uber's competitors by suing Uber?
There is nothing wrong with government following the law in due course. Government has the ability by law to tax and spend money to enforce existing laws. If you don't like that, I suggest you lobby to change the law.
If you flip that around, should paying taxes somehow insulate you from being sued?
Yeah thats how laws work mate.
Buried within the article, the city claims to have alread settled a half a million dollar lawsuit with Lyft. hopefully this news source also covered that lawsuit.
I may have to move up my Uber death watch. I said they wouldn't exist in five years; they may not even last five months at this rate.
Uber is obviously something people want but it is letting its customers become targets for criminals. That's not sustainable.
I wonder if AirBnB's businessmodel can stand up against the same test.
IMO: I don't really care about the media issues on Uber, what I'm concerned is that I do love the service and I don't want to see it close.
I don't know why some people keep calling them "media issues", as if it's the media that started an irrational war against Uber, as opposed to them being Uber issues, due to leadership's attitudes and the seemingly already ingrained crappy company culture.
Sorry, I'm not saying Uber didn't do anything wrong, I mean the media make it a much bigger problem than it is really. This is true for many subjects.