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The Uber Conflation

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Re: The Uber Conflation

#101

Post by endominus »

mikeash wrote: post #37
tedunangst wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about parking in a spot and not feeding the meter? Or parking in the bus zone, forcing riders to wade out into traffic to board?

Does it matter when it comes to the morality of breaking the law? You might consider the latter action to be morally wrong, but it seems like it would be because of its impact on others, not because it's breaking the law.

There is no inherent morality, positive or negative, in obeying the law; the law is not meant as a moral authority, but a social one. To be consistent in your logic, you would have to argue that helping slaves escape their condition in 1800s America would be morally wrong, as it would be breaking the law.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#102

Post by bsder »

amyjess wrote: post #96
slantview wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted Uber after all of this, but You are wrong. I lived in SF during 2010-2012 and calling taxis was a huge pain. I started using Uber when it was only black cars because they showed up. I would call yellow cab and after an hour they didn't even show up, so I called them again and they said "well, if you didn't see a car after 20 mins, you should have called back." I had another experience in LA in 2014 where I…

> I had another experience in LA in 2014 where I got yelled at by a taxi driver because HIS card reader was broken and my credit card was flat so he couldn't use the old style imprint. > The taxis can suck it. They are unclean, expensive, and have irrational drivers that think they can push around their customers because they know there was no need to improve due to regulation. Unfortunately, these Taxi drivers are n…

> One driver kept a logbook of every passenger's name plus their source address and destination address. He was perfectly pleasant to talk to, but that logbook creeped me out.

I don't know what kind of information Uber/Lyft sends back to their drivers, so this could easily be a mileage record for tax purposes.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#103

Post by st3v3r »

Tycho wrote: post #89
st3v3r wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I'm getting the sense that there's some kind of orchestrated effort to take down Uber." If there is, it's from Uber itself. Everything that has come out are things that Uber has done by itself. No one else's fault but Uber and it's leadership. "The whole "Kalanick must step down" talking point is ridiculous. There was an HR problem he wasn't personally connected to, so now he must be removed despite being an incredi…

>He is completely, 100% responsible for the culture of his company. The term "culture" is not compatible with the idea of assigning 100% responsibility to one person. In fact it's practically the antithesis. > No one who uses the phrase "SJWs" should be taken seriously. Why? > Because there's no way they actually happened. They hired an actor to defame Kalanick. And no one had ever experienced sexual harassment and h…

Nothing negative that has come out of Uber has been faked. You have absolutely no evidence to say otherwise. And of course a video of the CEO of Uber berating one of his drivers was always going to see the light of day.

"The term "culture" is not compatible with the idea of assigning 100% responsibility to one person. In fact it's practically the antithesis."

Again, the buck stops there. EVERYTHING at Uber is Kalanick's responsibility. EVERYTHING. Otherwise he does not deserve the title of founder, and all the money that's come with it.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#104

Post by st3v3r »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #86
st3v3r wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what that is. Basically, if you're rich enough to where the fine doesn't matter, you don't have to follow the law.

It's not about being rich at all. Someone barely making ends meet running their own courier service could do the same thing. It's up to them to figure out if the increase in deliveries per day is worth the cost of the tickets. There are fines that impact big companies and rich people less because of deep pocketbooks. But parking tickets on delivery trucks are not such a fine. They scale linearly with bad-parking acti…

"Someone barely making ends meet running their own courier service could do the same thing."

This statement reeks of ignorance. That's like saying a poor person could easily afford chemo, while ignoring the fact that they won't be able to afford food or shelter at the same time.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#105

Post by FussyZeus »

zeveb wrote: post #84
FussyZeus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's biggest problem is the confrontational way they've expanded their business, often thumbing their nose at regulators the entire time and pissing off a lot of the local communities. Lyft is in the exact same business but you don't see headlines every other day about Lyft going to war with some city or another. I think Uber's about to be a very expensive lesson about Karma and will hopefully show some of these VC…

> Uber's biggest problem is the confrontational way they've expanded their business, often thumbing their nose at regulators the entire time and pissing off a lot of the local communities. I think regulators' attitude is just as controversial: 'you must do this because we say so ,' not 'you must do this because it's a good idea .'

I don't see why it's suddenly up for debate whether companies need to abide the letter of the law. Origin of the law is irrelevant, if you disagree with a law you can campaign to have it changed. Corporations should not be allowed to violate the law to execute their business model.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#106

Post by FussyZeus »

Kalium wrote: post #87
FussyZeus wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber's biggest problem is the confrontational way they've expanded their business, often thumbing their nose at regulators the entire time and pissing off a lot of the local communities. Lyft is in the exact same business but you don't see headlines every other day about Lyft going to war with some city or another. I think Uber's about to be a very expensive lesson about Karma and will hopefully show some of these VC…

After the conciliatory approach of Night School in San Francisco got them attacked and shut down by the taxi industry, Uber's approach became inevitable. Lyft consistently operates in cities that Uber has already opened up. It's one thing to suggest that maybe a nicer, kinder, friendlier approach could have been used. It's another to have an environment where such an approach can succeed in isolation.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. You can have the best damn idea in the world, if you're an arrogant ass about it, no one is going to listen to you.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#107

Post by galdosdi »

Zak wrote: post #70
brudgers wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe at the expense of consumers, but not necessarily to the detriment of citizens.

Anecdote, not data, but my experiences using Uber have been universally better than using taxis and the same is true for everyone I know who has moderate recent experience with both in the US. There may still be arguments to make that it's detrimental, or at least not beneficial for other reasons, or there may be data that contradicts my anecdote (if so, please link it), but I'm glad Uber exists and probably opposed…

A lot of people say the same thing you do -- their diverse anecdotes agree that regular cabs are obviously (better, worse) than uber/lyft/etc.

The trouble is, they don't agree which way it goes.

I think the resolution to this conondrum is, it varies based on city/region. Some areas had traditional taxis that are worse than ridesharing, and some better.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#108

Post by galdosdi »

Apes wrote: post #100
comicjk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other people on the road benefitted, at least in some places. A major reason for taxi regulation in NYC was to reduce road congestion - they calculated that adding more taxis would increase the average travel time. Now Uber has upended this. I think that pricing congestion directly would be better, but in the absence of that, this is an example of Uber hurting some citizens who are not taxi companies.

The road congestion theory is a backwards rational -- someone was trying to come with reason for why medallions should still exist and came up with it. There's no way that anyone in 1937 had congestion in mind when they were creating the taxi medallions; to call it a "major" reason for why tax medallions were created is completely absurd. To cite road congestion as being part of the "spirit" of why taxi medallions we…

> There's no way that anyone in 1937 had congestion in mind when they were creating the taxi medallions

What on earth makes you assert this? The intense and (to modern eyes) borderline insane levels of traffic congestion in NYC at the dawn of the automobile age are very well documented. There are pictures and videos you can easily find, that make today's horrible congestion look bearable and civilized. A lot of traffic rules and devices have their dawn in the same era.

Re: The Uber Conflation

#109

Post by galdosdi »

aaroninsf wrote: post #99
civilian wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference? Please elaborate. As I see it, there are only a few citizens who benefitted-- those involved in the ownership of taxi companies & medallions.

Untrained Uber and Lyft drivers are all but required to violate the law and endanger others, in pursuit of "customer service." Pull over RIGHT HERE. Flip a U-turn RIGHT HERE. Customer must not walk FIVE FEET. Customer can open door RIGHT HERE. Ad nausuem. I bike commute in San Francisco and on a typical day I dodge literally dozens of illegally double-parked ride share cars occupying marked bike lanes. I have been ne…

Agree 100% that the experience is similar in NYC. Non-yellow cabbies in NYC seem much less experienced (I mean on average, of course) with urban traffic -- when I'm cycling, I am much warier of the black uber cars than of the yellow cabs -- the yellow cabs are aggressive too, but are very experienced and their aggressiveness is thus very practiced and predictable, easy to deal with and not really usually a danger as long as you know the drill

And when I'm on the other side and need to take a cab, I much prefer to take a yellow cab, because they get there faster. Even with GPS, a dense urban environment is filled with little foibles and tricks that only experience can handle

Re: The Uber Conflation

#110

Post by Kalium »

FussyZeus wrote: post #106
Kalium wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the conciliatory approach of Night School in San Francisco got them attacked and shut down by the taxi industry, Uber's approach became inevitable. Lyft consistently operates in cities that Uber has already opened up. It's one thing to suggest that maybe a nicer, kinder, friendlier approach could have been used. It's another to have an environment where such an approach can succeed in isolation.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. You can have the best damn idea in the world, if you're an arrogant ass about it, no one is going to listen to you.

I understand why you think that way. Nobody likes an asshole! Nobody wants to work with an asshole! Just play nice, and people with work with you!

Night School believed as you do. They figured they would be most successful by playing ball, cooperating with regulators, and not pissing people off. For their pains, they were shut down by the very people they bent over backwards to play nice with. They caught no flies with honey. Uber, on the other hand...

This is a long-winded way of saying that it's possible that one might consider adapting to the scenario.

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