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Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

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Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#431

Post by rayvd »

luka-birsa wrote: post #357

Love it how Uber is getting Ubered by providing a service they were supposedly providing but it was only a marketing scam to get around Taxi regulation. This is proper "sharing economy" where the other party isn't doing this to make a living out of it. I wonder who will Airbnb the Airbnb and is that at all possible. The end will be the same anyways - both companies are competing for a spot on the customers mobile pho…

It's taxi regulation that's the scam / cartel... and since when is making a living off something morally wrong?

Capitalism is about disruptive innovation...

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#432

Post by dang »

TheOneTrueKyle wrote: post #94

When I was younger and financially unstable, I had a decision to make. Take a crappy restaurant job or live out of my car. I chose to live out of my car. Every time I hear the argument that people in the restaurant industry are getting unfair pay, I ask myself, "I wonder who made that decision to work there in the first place" Stop this bullshit tipping. These people made a choice and then chose to complain about it.…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12393551 and marked it off-topic, because most of it turned into a nasty spat.

All: we ban accounts that repeatedly post the ugly sort of comment seen below, so please don't post those.

Unfortunately the fine subthreads like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12393884 get punished with the rest. I feel like a teacher making everyone stay late after class.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#433

Post by rayvd »

mmanfrin wrote: post #3

Honestly I wish they wouldn't try to compete on price. Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'd rather not feel obligated to tip a driver because the ride is so cheap. Pay them a living wage, let me pay the exact fee, and let me not have to carry goddamn cash like I used to in the era of Taxis. e: Addressing common replies: "This is for people commuting already" -- okay, point taken; my point about Uber/Lyft still stands.…

Don't feel obligated or bad about it. If the job isn't meeting the driver's financial needs, he'll start doing something else.

The market can sort this out for you.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#434

Post by dang »

admax88q wrote: post #308
rubicon33 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it not your choice to have the kids? I'm tired of this cultural excuse of "what about the kids!" If you chose to have kids, either explicitly, or through choice of recklessness, you deserve to own up to your decision. If you can't, or won't, that's what CPS is for. Let's stop giving people excuses just because they brought another person into the world. In fact, lets hold them to an even higher standard for choos…

It may not have been your choice to get fired from the job you had back when you decided you were stable enough to have kids. Jesus you're a prick.

> Jesus you're a prick.

Whoa. You can't comment like that here regardless of how much of a prick someone is, or seems. Please don't do this again.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#435

Post by futureproofd »

losteverything wrote: post #88

Great news. As a PT worker at one of the articles mentioned companies, I know there is considerable demand for rides to and from the retailer. This could be huge if employees shift from dial-taxis or uber to "co-workers" via waze. Other night a pizza server at a shop next door said she was very slow. It's summer and nobody buys pizza. She added it costs her $10 one way cab ride and makes nothing for the day. This is…

I interpreted "pizza server" as a computer that produces pizza and thought about how cool that would be. I guess a pizza server could also be an oven.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#436

Post by dang »

rubicon33 wrote: post #329
admax88q wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may not have been your choice to get fired from the job you had back when you decided you were stable enough to have kids. Jesus you're a prick.

Guess what asshole, if you are so unstable in your existence that simply losing your job would mean you cant take care of your kids, THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE KIDS.

You can't comment like this on HN. We ban accounts that do so. Fortunately you've posted other comments that are fine for HN, so I'll read this thread as the sort of derailing that happens to most of us from time to time.

Comments on HN need to be civil and substantive. Heated rhetoric is neither, and personal attacks are right out. When you're hot under the collar, please cool down before posting.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#437

Post by maxerickson »

icebraining wrote: post #414
maxerickson wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not really a subsidy though, it's just a complication of the payment. It could be a subsidy if it wasn't an established custom to tip, but people know quite well that they are paying the server a tip for the service. I suppose the fact that it enables the restaurant to under-report wages and thus under-pay wage taxes is a bit of a subsidy (but then some of that savings probably shows up for the customer).

It is a subsidy, because the server gets the same, it's the restaurant that pockets the difference. Say the server works 40h/week like a regular full-time worker, so the minimum take-home pay under federal law is $15000. If the server gets $0 in tips, the restaurant must pay the $15000. But if the server gets, say, $5000 in tips, the restaurant can pay only $10000. The server gets the same money, only the restaurant…

Right. In practice, servers get $15000+ in tips. So there usually isn't a subsidy.

It also has a non zero impact on the menu prices (they would go up if tipping wasn't expected)

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#438

Post by aninhumer »

et-al wrote: post #219
andreasvc wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I'm saying is that if one wants to have the overwhelmingly warm service Americans expect in restaurants, we need to keep tipping. Except you do not give any argument for why that is the case, but just hand wavingly claim it. Why exactly wouldn't it work if tips were abolished, all the prices on the menu are raised to match the average income from tips, and salaries raised to make up for tips? I don't see why g…

Because customer service is draining. Because even when you get paid $75k, dealing with assholes still sucks. I'm gonna hand wave some more: most Americans when they think of good service beyond just being quick on delivery. Good service is about having a friendly conversation and building rapport with another person. It's may be weird for those of us with introverted tendencies, but this is Middle America with big s…

>smile through a bad customer's rudeness

Being nice to assholes isn't something I consider necessary for good service. If anything it's bad service for all the other polite customers who have to listen to their bullshit.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#439

Post by dang »

theraper wrote: post #198

Since when did dealing with people equate to more money? You forget that BOH makes the food. I would very much love a restaurant where I communicate directly to the chefs. Cut out the middlemen. Kind of like how autonomous cars will get rid of drivers.

You can't have an account named "the raper" on HN. Even if I'm not parsing it the way you intended, many other people will read it the same way. That breaks the civility rule here.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12393835 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Google Takes on Uber with New Ride-Share Service

#440

Post by dang »

michaelmrose wrote: post #363
Throwaway585250 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yours is showing too, along with an unhealthy dose of smugness. GP literally chose to be homeless instead of licking the boots of the wealthy for table scraps, which is a degree of courage above and beyond what could have been expected of him, but it was still courage. Saying that his ability to do this is privileged, is like claiming a man who saves a baby from a burning house is showing his able privilege: true, te…

I had to resist the urge to break into uncontrollable laughter when you compared living in your car to saving a baby from a burning building. Since this is a throwaway I strongly suspect you are your own cheerleader. Let me see if I can take you down a peg. A man who chooses to live in his own car instead of taking a servile job is presumably still in need of food to sustain him. You are basically glorifying living o…

> I had to resist the urge to break into uncontrollable laughter

Please don't comment like this here, even when another comment seems outrageous. It just makes the thread even worse and breaks HN's civility rule.

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