21–30 of 150 posts
Modern taxis fail every one of these "tests", so the fact that RMS wouldn't use Uber but would continue to use taxis at all is merely RMS riding a hatred bandwagon in an effort to stay relevant. Fortunately for us, he hasn't said anything remotely new, so we can continue to think of him as the 20th century man he is.
> Uber plans to do away with human cab drivers. > It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed. Okay, so I am extremely liberal and everything, but "let's ban any new technologies that might make somebody lose their job to a robot" is seriously the most ridiculo…
RMS doesn't use credit cards and walks around town wearing a "Don't be tracked. Pay with cash" button. Even if Uber addressed every single point on his list, he still wouldn't use them.
I do respect him for his unwavering commitment to his principles.
Couldn't it also be argued that the GNU limits user freedom by requiring users never use non-free software?
* I'd guess about 10% of the time they don't show up, so I have to bake in extra travel time for that. With uber I can see on my phone that they are actually coming.
* With uber I know payment is all set, Taxi's will often say that their credit card machine is broken.
I imagine these problems could start to get solved with a good open source software suite (with client mobile apps) and an organization to bring this technology to cab companies. Of course, creating something is hard, raising complaints is not. The cognitive dissonance for me is that a creator like RMS would write something like this instead of trying to lead people towards creating a solution.
>It would be easy for a non-plutocratic government to prohibit this, and that's what every country ought to do, unless/until every person gets an adequate basic income so people don't need to be employed.
So what? This is the way of technology: obsolete work becomes automated. Extending RMS' argument to its logical conclusion means reinstating many forms of manual labor (that are now done by machines) in effort to reduce unemployment. Do you want to plow your land with your bare hands? No! Do you want to drive taxis? No!
There's a special point regarding driving taxis: it's one of the most dangerous jobs currently available. Moreover, the taxi industry is infamously exploitative of drivers, such that the competition from Uber/Lyft is actually raising taxi drivers' wages in the interim.[0]
I did not expect the logical conclusion of RMS' argument to be ludditism. I find this surprising.
> Uber is an unregulated near-monopoly, so it can cut rates for drivers arbitrarily.
I think this is an unrealistic long-term view. The rideshare market has low barriers to entry and a high potential for competition, such that I expect to eventually see this market fragmented among many isomorphic companies (Lyft, Uber, SideCar, etc.), perhaps more so on a local than on a global level. I've laid out my thoughts on the issue in an essay.[1]
[0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/12/12/how-lyft-...
Modern taxis fail every one of these "tests", so the fact that RMS wouldn't use Uber but would continue to use taxis at all is merely RMS riding a hatred bandwagon in an effort to stay relevant. Fortunately for us, he hasn't said anything remotely new, so we can continue to think of him as the 20th century man he is.
You can hail a taxi by hand, and pay with cash, and no one will have your information in a database that can be used against you later.
While I don't agree with all of his reasoning here, he is correct that taxis offer you substantially more privacy than Uber, and Uber has been known to abuse the data they collect on passengers in several instances, so it's far more than just a theoretical concern.
https://m.uber.com/ doesn't require the app to be installed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do respect him for his unwavering commitment to his principles.
I see the value in his principles but I feel like it could use a more marketable steward.
Stallman is nuts, but he is an extremely important type of nuts. The world needs more people like him.
Couldn't it also be argued that the GNU limits user freedom by requiring users never use non-free software?
That's why it's ok to run a non-free program on top of Linux or install a non-free driver, etc.