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Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

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Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#191

Another reminder that emotion trumps (unintentional pun) reasoning on social media. I find it depressing that people don't spend any time verifying stories and separating facts from fiction. I would classify the #deleteuber event as a form of fake news. You know what would be a good personal assistant or bot to build (using ML)? One that detects and informs users about fake news. Apparently the vast majority of peopl…

The problem with fake news is not the fake news itself. Fake articles have existed for a long time.

The real problem is people becoming idiots and sharing stuff they want to believe even though they question whether it's fake or not.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber broke the strike by breaking the strike. This absurd focus on whether surge pricing was a multiplier or disincentive is a complete distraction. The taxi drivers reached out and asked Uber for solidarity. They dispatched drivers to break the strike. They made their bed in the court of public opinion, now they can lie in it.

The sole point I'll argue in this thread is "so did Lyft". If you're boycotting all ridesharing apps in favour of licensed taxis, that's one thing. But deleting Uber and installing Lyft is misguided.

Its true, in many of the points for which Uber is criticized (including this), Lyft is no better. One might even go as far as to say something along the lines of "there is no ethical consumption under capitailism."

But the point of a boycott isn't to purify one's own ethics, but to get the producer of the boycotted product to change their behavior. To this end it is more productive to focus on the market leader, or the most egregious offender, or some other 'tall poppy' of impropriety, than to try to boycott all actors you believe are unethical.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#193

Completely stolen from https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/5r2apd/lyft_sur... This is all a consequence of bad messaging on Uber's part here; they're not in the wrong. Uber's Surge system is all automatic--if demand goes way up, and supply doesn't follow suit, prices will increase in the app. Unfortunately, demand goes way up during catastrophes like terror attacks, so Uber has had a few bad instances where,…

> People who don't know about how Surge works might assume that Uber is deliberately raising prices in these crisis zones to gouge people in peril, which obviously isn't the case. They could collect an extra few cents from normal fares and store it to compensate drivers during peak time, without fluctuating the fare price for customers. It would work like insurance, and have the same effect with surge pricing while n…

So you make riders that intentionally ride during off times subsidize riders that want to go home during peak times. Pretty lame solution if you ask me.

The thing that I like about dynamic pricing is that it forces people to think about what they are doing in a broader context. "maybe it's selfish of me to expect a $3 ride home at 1AM on Jan 1st"

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The strike was nonsense anyway. Why were drivers striking -- punishing the innocent residents and visitors (and protestors/allies!) of New York (a sanctuary city!), in an attempt to punish Donald Trump?

You don't understand protest. Sure, one thing you can do is disrupt the specific people doing something bad. But that's pretty rare. As MLK explains, the point is to create a more general disruption so that everyone has to take notice of an issue they might otherwise ignore: "Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is…

The injustice is the negative peace we have been living in. At some point the Executive sins of the Bush/DNC dynasties has to be rolled back. I mean, it's not like he invaded a country and got people killed. It's fantastic that Trump's small steps have lit a fire, albeit misdirected. Maybe it's just a side effect of the massive unemployment married with the social phenomena.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now blacks are ed because "shallow understanding from people of good will" led to the situation where more blacks kill other blacks in a year than the entire history of lynchings from the Ku Klux Klan. A significant number of AA males grow up in fatherless homes. The entire situation is an atrocity exhibition.

Stop distracting. Blacks don't kill other blacks for being black -- but KKK did and hate groups do. MLK's quote about protest was relevant not for race reasons, but to illustrate that the insistence of order and the vehement resentment of unrest is not a passive stance, but a conscious ideological, statist one.

Blacks literally kill each other in the thousands each year.

The KKK , IIRC, lynched something on the order of a thousand blacks over 80 years.

You don't help their situation by denying that fact.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#196
I deleted Uber because they changed their app in a way I found distasteful. I can either A: Alow Uber to access my location data even when I'm not using the app. B: Type in the physical address whenever I need a ride. Not cool. I chose to delete the app instead.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Peter Thiel is a direct investor in Lyft. And Thiel donated $1M to Trump and was part of his transition party.

People keep saying that and it's just not a good point. I'm sure there's a lot of Republicans involved with every company. Peter Thiel is just yet another one of them. I wouldn't let him investing in Lyft turn you away- everyone including him is learning that Trump is bad for business. If you go off 1 guy's name to avoid a company rather than their actual business practices , no partisan from either side could buy an…

If the argument is delete Uber because the CEO supports Trump because he's a part of Trump's advisory board, then it is a good point. Thiel directly helped Trump win and was a part of the transition board.

If you just want to delete Uber not because of Trump, then it's not a big deal then.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#198
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about "messaging" or "optics". Kalanick is playing a double game, collaborating with the Trump administration on the one hand, while simultaneously trying to be seen as moral. This is too transparent and Kalanick got caught trying to play both sides. If he believes the Muslim ban and other policies of hate are immoral, he should loudly and publicly resign his position on the president's economic advisory g…

If he disagrees with the President, why should he (and why should anyone want him to) stop speaking into the President's ear?

Why would Trump listen to what Kalanick has to say about a policy order that is notionally an urgent response to national security threats from Iranian/Syrian/etc. travelers?

With Steve Bannon speaking into the other ear? Bear in mind his strategist is (apparently) deferred to over even Homeland Security officials and DOD commanders when it comes to these matters.

The fact is Kalanick is not going to influence Trump on this issue, but by remaining on the advisory team he might secure a sweet (life saving) deal for Uber down the road. The cost? Trump gets to use him as token for proof of legitimacy/economic acumen/America First/etc.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#199

Dan Primack summarised this well; Uber failed on messaging: "Uber has done a lot of questionable things over the years, but its actions this past weekend vis-a-vis Trump's immigration ban weren't among them. An actual timeline from Saturday, which may differ from what you saw on social media: • 4:20pm ET: CEO Travis Kalanick sent email to employees. It stopped short of explicitly opposing the ban, but did say: (1) Th…

Uber broke the strike by breaking the strike. This absurd focus on whether surge pricing was a multiplier or disincentive is a complete distraction. The taxi drivers reached out and asked Uber for solidarity. They dispatched drivers to break the strike. They made their bed in the court of public opinion, now they can lie in it.

Uber drivers broke the strike as well as Lyft drivers. 'Scabs' refers to people, not competitors to the parent company of the striking union members.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Virtue signalling

All of the people involved in the protests from top to bottom are just virtue signaling. The CIA went into Syria in 2006 and started funding and training opposition forces leading to the current civil war. The Obama administration is responsible for a quarter million deaths in Syria alone. And that doesn't include the use of cluster bombs, an act considered a war crime in most of the civilized world, on several of th…

>Don't get me wrong, I think the "ban" is pants on head stupid, but the people protesting don't give two shits about Syrians or the citizens of any of the other 6 countries we're bombing.

This in a nutshell is why things will get worse stateside. There will be those who write off the circumstances behind where we find ourselves today as human nature (an absolution of sorts, a moral line item to be paid when the circumstances are brought to their attention, not too dissimilar from the likes of HSBC et al when they pay penance in the form of monetary notes for aiding and abetting criminals as defined by a given state) and join the protest, and there will be those who apply the tools refined during war agaisnt their "own" at such protests.

Either way, only those who come out ahead outside of any virtue signaling will probably be the suppliers of such tools.

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