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Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

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Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#101

Post by rasz_pl »

gnu8 wrote: post #29
debacle wrote: post #2

> “Uber does not believe it is appropriate for authorities to seek to punish drivers who are trying to make a living through this service,” Uber said in today’s e-mail. Uber needs to slow down the spin. It might work in metros in the US, but it's not going to work in Seoul.

The heavy spin is necessary to preserve the image that Uber represents the drivers. Uber really just provides technical infrastructure and marketing, and rakes off most of the profit. Almost all of that wealth should be flowing back to the drivers who provide Uber's actual service. The drivers need to unionize and break Uber's back before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars. It shouldn't be too hard for the…

>they all have smartphones

and they all have UBER app installed, same app that spies on everything that happens on the phone, fancy that :)

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#102

Post by PakG1 »

gnu8 wrote: post #29
debacle wrote: post #2

> “Uber does not believe it is appropriate for authorities to seek to punish drivers who are trying to make a living through this service,” Uber said in today’s e-mail. Uber needs to slow down the spin. It might work in metros in the US, but it's not going to work in Seoul.

The heavy spin is necessary to preserve the image that Uber represents the drivers. Uber really just provides technical infrastructure and marketing, and rakes off most of the profit. Almost all of that wealth should be flowing back to the drivers who provide Uber's actual service. The drivers need to unionize and break Uber's back before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars. It shouldn't be too hard for the…

before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars

If Uber (or any other company) wants to replace them with self-driving cars, what stops them? My point here is that if self-driving cars have value in the future, they will be a secular trend that will come to pass whether or not a group of drivers are unionized.

The only option a union might have to prevent this is get political power/influence to get lawmakers to prevent new self-driving services from cropping up. But if we go in that direction, you can see what that situation looks like when you see car dealerships and their battles with Tesla.

If self-driving cars become a big reality, no union will save drivers. I sympathize with people losing income opportunities and jobs, but unions do not seem to be a feasible long-term answer here. They might prevent their specific employer from laying them off to replace them with self-driving cars. But they would not be able to stop the overall technological trend.

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#103

Post by king_jester »

adventured wrote: post #78
67726e wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they unionize and demand higher wages. Higher costs for human drivers will increase the incentive for driver-less cars, right?

No, if all the services are unionized, those same unions will then use every means possible to get new laws passed that say you can't have a driver-less taxi. They won't just go quietly, as they watch robots take over, just like taxi drivers aren't now when confronted with uber.

This is a lot of anti-union FUD. Unions generally now don't seek to ban or outlaw non-union operations in the same field. Remember there are A LOT of unions and behaviors and platforms of various unions range widely.

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#104

Post by forgotpasswd3x »

Shivetya wrote: post #70
gnu8 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heavy spin is necessary to preserve the image that Uber represents the drivers. Uber really just provides technical infrastructure and marketing, and rakes off most of the profit. Almost all of that wealth should be flowing back to the drivers who provide Uber's actual service. The drivers need to unionize and break Uber's back before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars. It shouldn't be too hard for the…

Unionize? What for? They aren't forced to work for Uber. Organize? The very same people, many of whom never did this type of work before, let alone organize, you expect them to step up and try to? As in, before Uber what were they doing, when Uber leaves what do you think they will be doing. Pretty much what they did before Uber, not be a taxi. Unions were a necessary part of life when industrialization first took of…

> Unions were a necessary part of life when industrialization first took off, now they are not. In heavily regulated countries they are abusive of both the public and private entities they have workers within.

All you anti-union people make them out to be the devil. It's ridiculous.

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#106

Post by pgeorgi »

dchest wrote: post #32
matthewmacleod wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop this Randian nonsense. There are perfectly valid reasons to regulate taxi services - such as ensuring that passengers are safe, or that they aren't ripped off. Those requirements are beneficial as a whole. It's perfectly valid to question whether or not the current regime in various places has been effective at achieving these goals. It's also fine to change the way it all works. But dismissing it out of hand li…

How can it be that it's perfectly valid to "question the current regime" and "the way it all works", but not the existence of licenses? Did you just randomly defined bounds of the discussion that we can have, and called everything outside of those bounds dangerously ignorant?

The problem with 'questioning the existence of licenses' is that Uber always plays the same tune, world wide - even if those licenses work very different in different locales.

Not every taxi system works as bad as San Francisco's and in some areas (eg in Germany), when counting by the numbers Uber is the bully: tons of money and international reach vs. regional taxi companies with a handful of cars.

People tend to be quite opposed to 'rent-seeking schemes' on hn. Except when it comes to Uber, which is _the_ example of a rent seeking, as the 20% parasite between customers and drivers while trying to tear down the advantages of the existing system that get in their way (safety regulations, accessibility guarantees).

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#107

Post by applecore »

gnu8 wrote: post #29
debacle wrote: post #2

> “Uber does not believe it is appropriate for authorities to seek to punish drivers who are trying to make a living through this service,” Uber said in today’s e-mail. Uber needs to slow down the spin. It might work in metros in the US, but it's not going to work in Seoul.

The heavy spin is necessary to preserve the image that Uber represents the drivers. Uber really just provides technical infrastructure and marketing, and rakes off most of the profit. Almost all of that wealth should be flowing back to the drivers who provide Uber's actual service. The drivers need to unionize and break Uber's back before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars. It shouldn't be too hard for the…

Drivers already keep 80% of their fares through Uber.

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#108

Post by mylons »

applecore wrote: post #107
gnu8 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The heavy spin is necessary to preserve the image that Uber represents the drivers. Uber really just provides technical infrastructure and marketing, and rakes off most of the profit. Almost all of that wealth should be flowing back to the drivers who provide Uber's actual service. The drivers need to unionize and break Uber's back before Uber replaces them all with self-driving cars. It shouldn't be too hard for the…

Drivers already keep 80% of their fares through Uber.

If you were playing poker at a casino, would you be content if the dealer took 20% of every pot?

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#109

Post by sooheon »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #86
marvin wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This leads to the big philosophical question that has been relevant for some time. If we have the choice, which society is preferrable: (1) Most services automated away, and those who don't have the skills or abilities to earn money are supported by taxing those who do (2) technological progress is actively hindered in order to ensure that everyone has the skills to hold a job that pays enough to live on, or (3) most…

I believe you are grouping "those who don't have the skills or abilities" as one unit. Seems like a very large container to be making decisions about. Let's exclude those who cannot learn enough to function in society. If anybody wants these people to starve, I haven't met them. Suppose you graduate from college with a degree in repairing fax machines. Fax machines are quickly disappearing. Should you: 1) Continue to…

You seem to have intentionally misrepresented options 1 and 3. The society originally described includes in option 1 supporting the fax repair man while he dives into founding a startup, starting a homely little cliffside cafe, busking on the streets or whatever else. It does not mandate that the recipient of the support continue to pursue a dead end against all evidence and logic.

Re: Uber CEO Indicted in South Korea Over Its Taxi Service

#110

Post by king_jester »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #44
efbbbf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I want to drive somebody and make money I don't need no licence. There's absolutely no justification for requiring a licence. What about the client's rights?

Are they being abridged in any way? If I offer you a ride to the airport for ten bucks,should the state prosecute me criminally? Or is that true only if I use the I Internet to do it? What if I post in an online forum? The state can certainly require me to purchase insurance to own a vehicle. Clearly in the public's interest. Perhaps that insurance should cover riders. Great discussion. But this is simply crony capit…

> But this is simply crony capitalism. There may be risk, but there is no crime here. At all.

That is where you are quite wrong. The regulations of taxis goes way back to carriage regulations in the 19th century. The reason for this is clear: to ensure that the vehicle is maintained, the driver doesn't have a history of attacking or abducting passengers, and that pricing is transparent and passengers aren't gouged.

Taxis are not private transportation, period. They are a form of public transportation and function more like a transit utility. To not offer basic regulation of taxis is to leave the public at large in significant danger of being ripped off, maimed, and/or assaulted.

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