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Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

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Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#541

Post by colejohnson66 »

jquery wrote: post #200
sneak wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t that democracy working as intended? If the law is there and they can’t operate within it, shutting down is the legal thing to do.

That’s the rule of law working as intended. I don’t remember voting to shut Uber down, despite my representatives trying to do so again and again over the years because Uber exposed their corruption and incompetence.

When you vote for a politician in America, you aren’t voting for a set of “policies” despite what everyone would have you believe. You’re voting for someone to do decision making in your place.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#542

Post by jmchuster »

kingnothing wrote: post #367
kirykl wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous that it takes a legal battle for Uber to offer these customer and driver friendly features

I used to work at Uber. I'll focus on one particular point: allowing drivers to see where riders are going before they accept the trip. Uber, at least when I worked there, was heavily against this functionality as it allows drivers to discriminate against riders who are going to poor neighborhoods or from cities to suburbs where they may have difficulty in getting another rider. That feature is bad for the overall ec…

At some point, every time I called an Uber to take me home after being out late, the driver would first call me, ask me where I was going, I'd say somewhere far away, and then they'd immediately cancel the ride. So I stopped picking up the phone when someone called right after I called an Uber, and then maybe only half would cancel if I didn't pick up.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#543

Post by teachrdan »

exolymph wrote: post #345
teachrdan wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would likely coerce poor Americans into selling their kidneys to the wealthy so that they could pay off their student debt. Is coercing the poor to sell their organs to the rich a net benefit for society? For anyone who thinks this is hyperbole, ProPublica has done excellent work investigating how lenders use the court system to imprison Americans who can't pay back their debts: https://www.google.com/search?q=pro…

"Coerce" in the sense that poor people would notice a way to make money and go after it?

Coerce in that someone will now have the "choice" of selling an organ or going to jail.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#544

Post by Someone »

newacct583 wrote: post #527
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A world where everyone is a "contractor" is one where everyone is subject to the tragedy of the commons. (e.g. "You can't get a ride in a poor neighborhood") Well no, it's just the opposite. When everyone is a "contractor" you can get a ride in a poor neighborhood, you just have to pay the market rate for getting a ride there. When you try to legislate it, then you get avoidance. The driver gets assigned and then s…

So... most of what you wrote is just standard-issue libertarianism and I know how those arguments go. But this part intrigued me: > And if you don't like that rides cost more in poor neighborhoods then the government could subsidize it explicitly OK, how does that work? How do you write such a law such that it can't be exploited? Are there any examples of this kind of regulation you can point to from other markets or…

Not the original poster, but the answer I can think of is the mail service. In many countries it guarantees the cost of sending a letter from A to B is the same, independent of distance between A and B or the popularity of A as a source and B as a destination of letters.

That often even stays the case when the mail service gets privatized.

I’ve never heard of such services to originally be privatized, though, or of the service to be privatized to multiple providers (say with one company serving the large cities and another the countryside, or one doing half the country, and another doing the other half)

Also: are you sure this is libertarianism? I would think subsidies can’t exist in a libertarian world because the government doesn’t exist there.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#545

Post by modeless »

raducu wrote: post #508
kingnothing wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of rideshare, I imagine the driver contract agreement has that stipulation in it. You'll agree to pick up a passenger taking a trip to an unknown destination with up to N hours of travel time. If you don't like the terms of the contract, you don't have to work for that company.

How is that different from a regular taxi driver? Where's the "sharing" in the "ride share" if the driver is forced to take any ride?

Regular taxi drivers are often contractors. At least, they were in the past, I'm not sure how this new stuff is affecting regular taxi companies.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#546

Post by catsarebetter »

nwallin wrote: post #380
justinzollars wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Margins are already negative. How can they possibly afford to?

I don't know. Financials aside, I don't even know what this is supposed to look like from an organizational perspective. IMHO the biggest problem Lyft and Uber are facing is not an increase in cost, it's a reduction in flexibility. You can't afford to pay extra people to sit there on the clock if there's no demand. (plenty of drivers turn the app on in their house and go about their regular day, maybe only getting 1-…

I guess another thing is that a lot of uber drivers could get fired b/c of just cost and the ones that stay on full-time are going to get thrashed around with little choice in what rides they want to pick.

Yeah, this is a huge mess, it kind of makes sense why they choose to fight in legal battles in the past, it's just easier than figuring this out from a product perspective.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#547

Post by julienb_sea »

newacct583 wrote: post #527
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A world where everyone is a "contractor" is one where everyone is subject to the tragedy of the commons. (e.g. "You can't get a ride in a poor neighborhood") Well no, it's just the opposite. When everyone is a "contractor" you can get a ride in a poor neighborhood, you just have to pay the market rate for getting a ride there. When you try to legislate it, then you get avoidance. The driver gets assigned and then s…

So... most of what you wrote is just standard-issue libertarianism and I know how those arguments go. But this part intrigued me: > And if you don't like that rides cost more in poor neighborhoods then the government could subsidize it explicitly OK, how does that work? How do you write such a law such that it can't be exploited? Are there any examples of this kind of regulation you can point to from other markets or…

Typically lower income folks can received reduced fare or free public transportation cards. Municipalities around the world are opening up to the idea of explicitly subsidizing ubers or replacing mass transit with uber in some cases: https://prospect.org/infrastructure/cities-turn-uber-instead...

This is a relatively new model, although makes a lot of sense (lower cost and more flexibility to operate uber pools vs empty buses late at night). It is not a stretch to assume you could get income based "discount cards" for uber usage.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#548

Post by ardy42 »

SilasX wrote: post #313
nilsbunger wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is about pushing voters to approve Prop 22 in november. If Lyft follows suit, it will definitely put a spotlight on the issue!

Hadn't heard of that and had to look it up. To save anyone else the time, apparently Prop 22 is a one that (as best I understand) would reverse AB 5 specifically for app-based driving apps, which seems really narrow and preferential, even by the standards of CA propositions. Here's the Ballotpedia: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...

> apparently Prop 22 is a one that (as best I understand) would reverse AB 5 specifically for app-based driving apps, which seems really narrow and preferential, even by the standards of CA propositions.

And no surprise, it was written and pushed by Uber and other app-based gig work companies, and they're going to spend a lot of money to promote it. From your link:

> On August 30, 2019, three companies—DoorDash, Lyft, and Uber—each placed $30 million into campaign accounts to fund a ballot initiative campaign should the legislature pass AB 5 without compromising with the companies.... The companies Instacart (Maplebear, Inc.) and Postmates also joined the campaign, each contributing $10 million. Together, the five businesses had provided more than $110 million in support of the ballot initiative.

To put that amount in perspective, it's 40% of the amount the Biden campaign plans to spend nationally on ads in Septemter: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/05/us/politics/biden-ads.htm....

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#549

Post by jjcon »

Barrin92 wrote: post #415
rrrazdan wrote: post #375

Well this just sucks. As a frequent SF visitor, Uber/Lyft used to be my primary way of moving around. I don't drive. I also don't see who benefits from this. You had a well functioning service for the users that will be disrupted. You had a flexible way to earn for drivers that will be disrupted. I chat with drivers a lot (to practise my English) and lots of drivers really like chatting too ( A lot of them were recen…

> also don't see who benefits from this. Long term society by establishing that Uber doesn't get to write the law and dodge their responsibility as an employer. It's about time they get knocked down a notch after their campaign against DeBlasio.

I agree with you but I also think that they should have waited.

Right now is a terrible time to wipe out the gig economy. So many people are turning to it and it is creating value. Economic/employment changes like this one are best suited when the market is strong because people job mobility is higher etc.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#550

Post by WrongThinkerNo5 »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #532
rubatuga wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is horrible for customers, the worst part is when drivers don't want to pick you up.

We're just regressing back to black people not being able to get a taxi.

Why would "black" taxi drivers not pick up "black" passengers? What is your obsession with color coding people? It's unhealthy and racist.
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