Trends: Uber vs. Lyft

Thanks for asking.

I basically refer to your comments in which you quite vehemently defend the companies extremely shady tactics. As for mob behavior, which apparently disturbs you so much. This may, or may not be true. personally, I don't buy it.

Let's look at your original comment to which I replied and let's try to rephrase the points you make.

  1) Stuff about the CEO's personal life.

Misogynistic comments (Boob-er) to a magazine has nothing whatsoever to do with the CEOs private life. The statements where not made at a private function, but to a mass market publication.

  2) CEO wants to automate business processes. Those of us in tech would never consider replacing humans with machines, right?

The point here is not that the CEO wants to automate business processes, but the disdain and disregard that he shows for his employees. Your phrasing of this point is, at best, highly disingenuous.

  3) Trying to compete for workers. (Didn't we hate Apple/Google for agreeing not to do this?)

The point, as you are probably very well aware, is not competing for workers, but the methods used to do that. The tech company violation of anti trust laws, while also unethical, has pretty much nothing to do with Ubers shady tactics in this context.

  5-7) A few Uber drivers are crazy (Uber is helping the cops). Note that if most of these incidents happened in a taxi, the cops would have little info unless the passenger remembered a license #.

Uber helps the cops? I'm sure they do if the cops have a warrant, since, in this case, there's not much choice anyway. for the rest we only have the word of Ubers PR Departments word on this Interestingly that's always the same standard broken record: "We're looking into it, actively support the investigation and we have deactivated the partner from the Uber platform"

The problem is that in my opinion they come over as a bunch of liars in their PR, even in the not very trustworthy field of public relations.

Hiring drivers, whom's background check must have failed, if done seriously, or smearing the victims of those incidents (again, in a partially very misogynist fashion) doesn't help much either.

  8) Standard french advertising in France.

I get it you where never in France. Hiring hookers as driver is not a French standard advertising practice.

  9) Standard PR.

maybe, but again with extremely shady tactics applied (and not very well executed, either)

  10) Exec discusses hiring journalists to do journalism to journalists. You know, digging up stuff about their personal life, kind of like (1) on this list.

Sounds more like a Scientology black ops towards critics, than a standard journalistic tactic. What you glossed over is their abuse of private data if it suits their interest. Which, again in my opinion, is actually worse than the idea to smear a journalist and go after her family.

Put this reply of yours together with your comment history and applying Occam's razor you come over as an Uber shill and not as a person who hates mob mentality and has too much time on his had.

But that's just my opinion.

Uber will lose a few principled customers when, for example, a tech blogger blows something an executive said way out of proportion for their own financial gain. However, the market as a whole simply doesn't care about an executive that vents at a party, or that they engage in anti-competitive behavior, or that the CEO is kind of a jerk.

People care that their ride shows up on time and gets them there safely. For the most part with Uber, that happens. Like it or not, Uber has attained critical mass and is here to stay.

Probably referring to the study in the uk to examine how overtaking distances of passing vehicles is affected by the attire of the cyclist [1].

There's suggestions that making helmets compulsory reduces cyclists, which in turn makes cycling unsafer.

I cycle in London every day (for the past 10 years) and personally don't wear a helmet (though plenty of my friends do). I tried, but found for me it was a mild occasional obstruction to my peripheral vision - something I value highly on the road.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/5334208.stm

I've ridden my bike to and from work in SF nearly every day for the past 4 years and have only once come close to being in an accident with a car.

But every day I see plenty of other cyclists making overly-aggressive moves that put themselves and other people in danger. You may claim that I'm blaming the victim, but from what I've observed many cyclists kind of enjoy a little (in their opinion) justified indignation at the behavior of car drivers. And they'll intentionally put themselves in positions to feel that justified rage.

How many times have you seen a cyclist in the right-hand bike lane try to overtake a car signaling for a right turn while both are approaching an intersection, rather than yielding to the car who will clearly reach the intersection first? And then the cyclist acts surprised and offended when the driver begins to turn into them.

Of course this is a recipe for disaster, and I see it multiple times per week from my position a safe distance back from the turning car, which I can observe and then safely pass on the left.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to be safe on a bike. Just use your head and ride a bit defensively.

Why do I dislike Uber?

1) They readily treat their drivers like second-class citizens (I was one of them at one point in time)

2) They use "Special Promotion" as a euphemism for "this wage cut is coming in 2 months, you better start shifting your spending habits"

3) In aggregate, their public persona is one of douche-baggery