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Waze Carpool

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Re: Waze Carpool

#231
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've contacted all of theses services independently and had positive customer support experiences: Google Wifi, Fi, Google Store (phones), and Drive. Time frame is last couple of years.

I would've refrained from sharing if you hadn't mention project Fi. Me calling in to get my Nexus 5x fixed was such a piss poor experience that I would never consider them for mobile service again.

That's crazy, because I had the exact opposite experience. Everytime I've called Project Fi support, I've gotten great help, and they replaced my 5x with a refurbished one for free very quickly when it got stuck in a reboot loop.

Re: Waze Carpool

#232
post #60

Is anything like this available currently in Boston?

You might want to give http://www.thetripbuddyapp.com/ a try! They are in the Boston area

I'm having trouble finding the Android version, I found [0] but it's unreleased and last updated in 2015.

[0] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tawheedrah...

Re: Waze Carpool

#234
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook's done enough of that class segregation for us already I'm convinced the Bay Area itself has done enough of that segregation. Isn't that the entire reason people move there? Every time I ask why someone moved to SV, they say it's because that's where all of the tech talent is. Why is your startup headquartered in SV? Because that's where all the tech talent is. The only reason SV exists is because it's self…

I'm not sure why anyone would need to feel guilty or worry about that fact though. People do that everywhere. Toronto is famous for it's diversity and multiculturalism but the entire city is finely divided into various ethnic, cultural, and work enclaves (little korea, little ethiopia, 2x little italys, etc). And it works great for the most part, there's little ethnic or political tension, at least within the city pr…

I believe the issue that deserves some scrutiny is hinges on on what you say is "...a natural phenomenon."

SV and the bay are magnets for individuals who possess a high concentration of capital, both social and economic. Those forms of wealth allow those individuals to shape the environment and self-select in ways that other groups of individuals don't have access to. I believe this in turn leads to a level of social isolation not experienced by others who are unable to be inside their beautiful apartment on the 4th floor, one uber ride and three keyswipes and two neighborhoods away from the other individuals who can't afford those things. That level of isolation in my opinion can easily lead to a lack of awareness of the lives of other individuals.

The people in little Korea, little Ethiopia etc. may self select based on language and culture but I'd say they're all share a lot more exposure to a similar set of problems than the lion's share of residents in SV. I think what's good about this is that is has the potential to more quickly lead to a larger sense of solidarity with all individuals.

Re: Waze Carpool

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd be destroying a culture of independence in the US punishing car drivers so much, and I don't think it would be nearly worth it. Is it really independence if you can't cover the costs you impose? Sounds an awful lot like the "oppression" felt by angsty teenagers without jobs when they're told they have to empty a dishwasher. > I greatly appreciate being able to just go where I want without having to be beholde…

It's fine for things to be subsidized and taxes collected so that a way of life is more attainable, that's how societies work. In all likelihood I'm subsidizing the people around here who use NJ transit in place of driving - I hardly have my car on for more than 10 minutes a day and it's around 30mpg. It's just part of a larger give-and-take that we all participate in, I pay for trains I don't use today and they pay…

It's not okay to subsidize things in general, and especially things with massive negative externalities (like cars), when the person using that subsidy can easily afford it. And let's face it, the middle class can easily afford $8/gallon. Nobody wants to pay that, but they can afford it. As a proof that people can afford it, we have dozens of first world counties with strong middle classes that correctly price their road taxes. They do just fine.

I've never understood the idea that we should just cross subsidize every single thing we can. It's absurd. Prices affect decisions, and when artificially low prices induce people to collectively make decisions that are bad for society, we should stop fucking subsidizing it.

Imagine how much better our government would be if we took all of the taxes we take in, and stopped spending it all on things that are bad for society on behalf of people that can afford it or don't need it, and started spending it all on things that are good for society on behalf of people that need it but can't afford it.

Re: Waze Carpool

#236

The reason why I would not consider Google to legitimately compete with Uber/Lyft at scale in this arena is because it's not part of their nature to staff customer support at the level required to run operationally-intensive businesses. The rate in which something goes wrong in the real world (esp where money in exchanged) is much higher than in a pure software world, and Google is going to try to take the FAQ/chatbo…

Such statements (about customer support) are completely subjective though I'm not sure you can just fling that out there as a global truth. Project Fi, while perhaps an outlier, bucks your point.

Re: Waze Carpool

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. The pure software world exists from Google's perspective, they provide zero support and then it's just a matter of individual choice if you want to use the service or not. Google can go a long way into making this significantly safer than random pick-up: you can select female only drivers or riders, only riders from…

Waze has some sort of social integration. I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually you could scope things to some extended network. I’d be happy giving a fellow student or employee of my company a lift, but probably less likely to give random members of the public.

Completely agree with this; not only are you more likely to share a common origin or destination, but it also becomes an opportunity to meet someone new within your network.

Re: Waze Carpool

#239
post #146
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The same thing that happens in the non-Waze case: you kick them out, call the police, get mugged etc. It's not so simple. Normally people, at least in cities, rarely hitchhike or take up hitchhikers. The goal here is to make it acceptable, and naturally greatly increase the frequency this is happening. This can be reasonably taken as an endorsement by Google to the driver/passenger, because it is -- they want this…

Read up on DC slug lines. We are talking 10,000's of people doing this daily with very minor government support for the last 15+ years. Mostly awareness and signage. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slugging

I was reading an article about 10 years ago about this ride-sharing in the DC metro area. We discussed how a smartphone app could make all this much easier and smoother. We didn't follow up on it back then...

It wasn't (and won't likely to be) the only big missed opportunity in my life.

Re: Waze Carpool

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> once you provide a service, you absolutely are on the hook— both ethically and in the mind of the average consumer— for providing some level of service when it goes wrong. The moral and legal liability has precise limits. No software application or payment service could be ever expected to prevent any and all criminal activity in relation to it's use. Google is on the hook, but to a more much limited extent than yo…

>Google is absolutely not responsible for the rapes and muggings perpetrated by users of Adwords or Waze. If you or a family member used Waze Carpool, and got raped or murdered, are you going to sit there quietly and say "oh well, not Google's fault"? As a engineer providing a software solution, it's great to sit in an office desk and say "there are precise legal limits", it's exact, precise, formal, and correct. Lik…

Could ask the same question to an auto engineer who's relative dies in a car crash. Should he quit his job, should we ban cars?

While auto safety is important, cars save much more lives than they take - and the economic opportunities they enable drastically change the median quality of life in societies where they are used.

In the same way, carsharing is not an enabler of crime, it's much safer than hitchhiking and would be a drastic improvement in the lives of people who are economically dependent of hitchhiking.

A good example is the Highway of Tears murders - in the last 40 years 20 to 40 women disappeared or were found dead hitchhiking the same stretch of highway in Canada. They were typically underprivileged and of aboriginal origins, and lacking other forms of transportation. The vast majority of cases remained unsolved.

Should something like internet carsharing had been in use by a victim, the police would have had acces to a vast trove of forensic data, including their last match to a known Waze user, identified by credit card, phone fingerprint and cell tower and GPS location history, as well as the victims own location trail up to the point where her phone is taken away/shut down. While a determined high tech killer could operate with these constraints, it's orders of magnitude more difficult. A determined killer is by definition unstoppable by any service or company.

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