101–110 of 228 posts
From the code name of these projects from Uber: Heaven(God View) / Hell, you can pretty much tell this company thinks it's playing god. This is terrifying and must be stopped!
How does anyone, when asked to build such a program, not raise an objection, or say something? The ethical compromise made on behalf of all involved is startling, if this is true.
Even on mundane decisions unrelated to ethics, I've seen engineers object to things and get overruled. If you continue digging in your heels, the leadership will simply fire you or move you to another team and get someone else to do it.
If you did have strong ethical objections, it's likely you just left the company. Why stay at something where no one else shares your ethics? So the moral vacuum is somewhat self-reinforcing.
Besides all that, it's a lot easier to sit in a place of judgment when you weren't involved than, say, in a position where you needed the job to put food on the table for your family.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not a fine line: signing up for a Lyft account requires explicitly agreeing to a ToS, which is a legally-binding contract.
Are you sure you've fully read and understood every ToS for every product you've ever signed up for, and also never violated any clause? I know that this is a different situation, because you could make the argument that if you're a business, you'd better fully read and understand every clause of every ToS. But it was difficult to integrate that mentality when we, as consumers, don't treat ToS's as legally binding. A…
It's very likely that you might just go along with something in the moment, unless you've thought about it in advance and are able to recognize it.
When I was in grad school I knew a student who was almost completely amoral - not that has was evil, but it seemed like right and wrong never even entered into his decision process. For example, he decided that it might be profitable to write splog-creation software. He even brought in different outputs and did user testing in the lab, asking fellow students if they preferred output A or B, which had more believable testimonials, and if they were suffering from acne, which would they be more likely to buy from, etc.
It seemed scummy to me, but it took a long time for me to put my finger on exactly why. Wasn't it just another kind of advertising? It helped sell the acne medicine, which was a benefit to those that bought and sold it, right?
Your answers might be different, which is why it's good to think these things through for yourself. For me, what I came to was that the Google search engine is good, and it provides a lot of value by making it possible to find what you're actually looking for. The splogs where siphoning off some of that value, and giving it to that student.
They provided value to the student, but they made the internet worse for everyone else because it would be harder to find what actually worked well or was organically best. Basically a tragedy of the commons, and the result was a net negative - he destroyed a lot more value than he was able to capture, even though it was only a papercut from each person. It's much better to create more value than you capture, so the world is a better place for having you in it.
I think that kind of approach might be applicable here. Is Uber competing in a way that is beneficial to their customers, and therefore net positive? If they compete by trying to hobble or destroy Lyft that kind of sucks, but if they win by having a better product or a better approach to business, that seems more fair and results in a better outcome, a better world. Run faster, don't kick the other racer's ankles.
So, no one was really able to answer my question last thread. In fact, I mostly got snarky condescending replies. I've stopped caring about such things though, so hopefully good-faith questions are still welcome: What's wrong with Uber tracking Lyft drivers? What is wrong with using a competitor's API to get real-time tactical information about them? Not only did it not harm Lyft drivers, but it actually aided them:…
It's probably an unauthorized use of the API; Lyft's API is not public, and requires a separate agreement to use. https://developer.lyft.com/docs/lyft-developer-platform-term... One section I'd draw particular attention to reads, "You Will Not: a. use the Platform or Service in any manner that is competitive to Lyft or the Service, including in connection with any application, website or other product or service that…
So, no one was really able to answer my question last thread. In fact, I mostly got snarky condescending replies. I've stopped caring about such things though, so hopefully good-faith questions are still welcome: What's wrong with Uber tracking Lyft drivers? What is wrong with using a competitor's API to get real-time tactical information about them? Not only did it not harm Lyft drivers, but it actually aided them:…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure you've fully read and understood every ToS for every product you've ever signed up for, and also never violated any clause? I know that this is a different situation, because you could make the argument that if you're a business, you'd better fully read and understand every clause of every ToS. But it was difficult to integrate that mentality when we, as consumers, don't treat ToS's as legally binding. A…
I think it's a good exercise to do that kind of self-examination, to honestly evaluate situations which are morally ambiguous to various degrees, figure out where you stand and why, and plan what you would do when such a situation presents itself. It's very likely that you might just go along with something in the moment, unless you've thought about it in advance and are able to recognize it. When I was in grad schoo…
That sounds like a good rule of thumb for trying to apply to questions of business morality. "Are we trying to run faster than them? Or are we trying to kick them in the ankles?"
I mean, lots of people are young and just starting out and haven't had the time to think a lot of things through. Or they are busy developing expertise in things other than law and morality, but still need some kind of guiding principle. I think this is a good, simple rubric.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s not a fine line: signing up for a Lyft account requires explicitly agreeing to a ToS, which is a legally-binding contract.
Are you sure you've fully read and understood every ToS for every product you've ever signed up for, and also never violated any clause? I know that this is a different situation, because you could make the argument that if you're a business, you'd better fully read and understand every clause of every ToS. But it was difficult to integrate that mentality when we, as consumers, don't treat ToS's as legally binding. A…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, what terms do you see as enforceable on a private API? If I set up a server to respond to only the people I choose, what restrictions can I make on it in your perfect world?
If you set up a server to respond to only people you choose, it's on you to make sure it's only people you choose that use it. Then you can make any restrictions you want and invalidate access for anyone who goes against your rules
The lengths people will go to justify Uber is amazing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My opinion: This is not about the drivers. They were engaging in activity intended to be actively hostile to a competitor. That is why this is wrong. It is one thing to build a competitive business. It is another to try to actively undermine the competition, and not because your service is simply better. I get rather tired of a world in which "Well, technically, it didn't break any existing rules, so it should be oka…
Hey, good reply. Thanks! I think this convinced me. My issue was that I see myself as a pretty moral person, but if I were working for a startup and was tasked with "Implement a way to know how many Lyft drivers are out on the road," I could see myself doing something very similar to what Uber did, and also feeling mildly clever about it. Isn't that what we call out-of-the-box thinking? It seems like there's a fine l…
Tech people live in a bubble. Because our skills are in high demand and there's a pretty strong natural aptitude barrier limiting the number of new competitors, our experiences competing in the tech bubble can be very misleading.
It's a dog-eat-dog world out there. If you are lazy about competing, or trying to "go easy" on someone, you are going to get eaten. This is a hard-coded biological response to scarcity, and it's not going to go away, so we best get used to it and stop being everyone else's doormat.
Successful companies are usually fairly ruthless; they're just good at keeping it quiet. Not only does what I know about Uber's program not surprise me (and I haven't read in-depth on it yet, so this is my disclaimer if there's something more repugnant than signing in to Lyft buried under the covers), but it's downright conventional.
Refusal to compete is suicide. Naively believing that the world will reward you if you play nice-nice and opt out of decisive, competitive action is the best way to find yourself/your company on a platter at someone else's table.
This ethos from some of the other commenters that you shouldn't do something because it might make your competitors unhappy is absurd. Show a little sporting spirit. If a competitor is making intelligence available, you absolutely should take advantage of it.
I've found the guiding star to be "Is this really immoral, or have we just been socialized to believe it's impolite or in bad taste?" One should realize that a lot of this socialization is provided by people who simply don't want you to become a strong competitor, and have indoctrinated this imaginary, soft, cushiony world into everyone's brains so that it's easier for them to come in and take what they want, and their constant empty blathering draws attention away from their dirty deeds. There's no need to allow ourselves to be victimized like that.
Specifically, it's ridiculous to claim that using an API in a way that isn't intended is "morally bankrupt". That's like saying it's morally bankrupt for Walmart employees to go to Target looking for places where they can get an advantage. Far from morally bankrupt, that's a fundamental component of capitalism; how are you supposed to compete if you can't see what your competitor is doing?
Patronizing competing services in a non-disruptive way is normal. Some may be familiar with "secret shoppers", people that companies pay to go to their stores on a random day and report back on the experience. These secret shoppers are also deployed to competing stores. How and/or why is this any different?
Private and undocumented APIs have been exploited by developers for decades. My understanding is that Uber was not even doing that, but rather just accessing the normal API in a non-disruptive way to learn some useful information about their competition.
There is something weird about the tactics of Uber execs. I don't think it's all an ethics failure. A lot of the lying and cheating they do seems like an objectively poor risk/reward proposition and I think many companies would not even get to the ethics question because they would stop when realizing the ideas are stupid when you add up the negatives. Stealing Google's autonomous auto IP could be a crime that actual…
I'm sure the criminal complaint coming from some US Attorney will reveal that somebody was cashing out in private markets. This is no different than a boiler room.