Live data from Hacker News

Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

washingtonpost.com

31–40 of 58 posts

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#31
post #20

> All drivers there are licensed by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), as required by law. Their vehicles must also be licensed with the TLC, and they have to carry commercial insurance. This is going to negatively impact driver supply (making wait times higher, especially in the outer boroughs) and increase the cost of the service vs Uber. > Juno’s drivers will provide better service because they’re happie…

All other things being equal I'll go with the service that gives more to the person doing the actual labour.

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, the exploitation that occurs in this system are the government regulations involved in someone just wanting to be paid to drive me from Point A to Point B.

Can you explain to me how you feel exploited by the government protecting someone from being taken advantage of economically? I would genuinely like to understand this.

Why does the government have a say on who I pay to drive me someplace and where they can drive me?

Edit: And the exploitation I was referring to was of the taxi drivers under the current system, not myself.

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#33
post #9

I cant help but wonder if Juno and others are overestimating how much people care about the treatment of their drivers. I think very many people, myself included, would say that it is important to them that their driver is happy with his relationship with his employer. But at the end of the day does that really translate to a change in purchasing behavior? For me it does not. I use Uber here in Austin because it is s…

This is why government regulation is so important. Most people don't mind others being exploited if its beneficial to them.

[deleted]

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#34
post #31
post #20

> All drivers there are licensed by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC), as required by law. Their vehicles must also be licensed with the TLC, and they have to carry commercial insurance. This is going to negatively impact driver supply (making wait times higher, especially in the outer boroughs) and increase the cost of the service vs Uber. > Juno’s drivers will provide better service because they’re happie…

All other things being equal I'll go with the service that gives more to the person doing the actual labour.

But all things are most certainly not going to be equal, least of all cost and availability.

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#35
post #3

I've never heard of Juno before and it took some serious A-level googling to find their website. Only PR articles (like this one) show up when you search for them and none of them actually link to their site. That's some seriously odd SEO.

I haven't looked at their HTML source in a while, but last time I checked Uber's, it was meta keyword stuffed to an extent that would make a blackhatter proud. Did you try targeted or scoped Google searches? (EDIT: disregard second paragraph, thats A-level googling)

Everyone knows Google ignores the meta keyword, so it's hardly blackhat - at worst Google actually penalizes it (just my speculation), at best it just slows down the page load a tiny tiny bit.

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#36
post #9

I cant help but wonder if Juno and others are overestimating how much people care about the treatment of their drivers. I think very many people, myself included, would say that it is important to them that their driver is happy with his relationship with his employer. But at the end of the day does that really translate to a change in purchasing behavior? For me it does not. I use Uber here in Austin because it is s…

Just to counter your anecdata with my own, I deleted the Uber app because I wasn't happy with their business practices (especially wrt their treatment of drivers).

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why government regulation is so important. Most people don't mind others being exploited if its beneficial to them.

To me, the exploitation that occurs in this system are the government regulations involved in someone just wanting to be paid to drive me from Point A to Point B.

What you are referring to is "liberty of contract". See Lochner v. New York.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochner_v._New_York

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#39
post #7

This will show my age a bit, but am I the only one that had a rush of memories about Juno email seeing this headline? Good old dial up email... I'm probably just weird. At least the general population probably has no such associations with primitive email services.

Ah yes, Juno. Along with NetZero and Freewwweb, I journeyed the path of the "grey"-side with free internet hacks (which just blocked the ads). My parents didn't yet see the value of internet -- nor did they have the extra cash for it.

Free internet and "click this Ad to get paid $0.10" were some really interesting hacks back in the day. Oh, the money you could make with Visual Basic and a dial-up modem....

Re: Juno to soft-launch this month as the anti-Uber service

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain to me how you feel exploited by the government protecting someone from being taken advantage of economically? I would genuinely like to understand this.

Why does the government have a say on who I pay to drive me someplace and where they can drive me? Edit: And the exploitation I was referring to was of the taxi drivers under the current system, not myself.

Awesome, thanks for clarifying that.

Government regulation exists to protect people. Whether that's labor regulations, fire code, zoning ordinances, etc, its to ensure the health and well being of citizens.

Now, you'll argue that always isn't the case, and I'll agree with you. Incentives with taxi regulation went sideways, hence the medallion system. But that doesn't mean regulation is wrong, that means that apathetic, disinterested stakeholders are the problem. Just as we've made the problem by not caring enough to fix it, we can care enough to work towards fixing it. The number of vehicles for transport in a metro can be regulated using an unbiased algorithm. The wages of drivers can be determined by labor regulations. These are not hard technical problems to solve. They're political problems to be solved.

Should we throw out the medallion system? Yes. Should Uber get to stampede all over transport regulations? No. There should be a middle ground.

People say someone should be able to accept a job no matter what the pay is, as long as they're willing. No one is willing when they're an economic captive. It costs a minimum amount of money (dependent on locale) to have shelter, food, and clothing. This is what government regulation is for (see: minimum wage, employee/contractor classification, etc), to ensure that people can support themselves on the work they can obtain. If they can't support themselves on what a job pays, the job pays too little and the business relying on that undermarket labor rate is unsustainable (see: Walmart educating its workers on relying on social benefits, thereby using the government as a subsidy).

Post reply on HN