“Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)” • Hacker News Board

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#141

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 6:57 PM UTC

janfoeh wrote: post #66

sshconnection wrote: post #15

I agree that the government shouldn't have pervasive access to the records, but I WANT Uber to track my rides. That's how I can have recourse if a driver takes me for a spin. I WANT my driver to be identified and for them to track who picks me up. He claims that it's troublesome for a female passenger to be identifiable to a driver. How about if you're a female (or male) driver driving in your spare time? Would she n…

> I agree that the government shouldn't have pervasive access to the records, but I WANT Uber to track my rides. That's how I can have recourse if a driver takes me for a spin. Why would that require the passenger to identify themselves? You can have one without the other. Where I live, most taxis are organized in cooperatives. Drivers pay monthly for access to dispatch and are held to certain quality standards beyon…

If one wants to individually have recourse, then the ride needs to be identified. You are right that there can be systemic ways of addressing this issue other than individual recourse.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#142

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 7:04 PM UTC

"It requires passengers to run a nonfree program (an app)."

It looks like with Uber's API, one could potentially issue requests without running any non-free software on your own device. If that's the case, this one is weakened a tiny bit - though certainly I don't think there is currently a FLO client and Uber can rightly (through this lens) be criticized for not providing one.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#143

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 7:14 PM UTC

kuschku wrote: post #103

GabrielF00 wrote: post #6

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.

And where’s the problem with that? There are millions of people who pay with cash instead of credit cards, except for large payments, so why would that be something important enough to mention?

Most of them don't wear a button proclaiming it an important choice. The point of the parent is only really undermined if Uber were able to support anonymous passengers.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#144

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 7:19 PM UTC

netik wrote: post #131

nhaehnle wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS has an extreme stance, but it's actually quite refreshing that he just puts it out there in an easily digestable form. Taxis run "non free" software to process credit cards. And I think RMS cares less about that. No doubt he will be unhappy about the taxi driver's/company's choice to run non-free software; however, regular taxi companies are willing to do business with free software users - Uber refuses to do so.…

I worked for Stallman in the 90's. Given the choice, he will walk miles versus using a credit card. > Taxis can be paid in cash, unlike Uber. Ah, so soon you forget that Taxis must legally record pick up and drop off points for the police department and their drivers can be questioned by LEO.

You're saying there's no difference between reporting (pick up location, drop off location) and reporting (pick up location, drop off location, identity)?

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#145

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 7:58 PM UTC

simoncion wrote: post #110

KyleBrandt wrote: post #25

I find Taxis to be very stressful when traveling for two main reasons: * 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 softw…

> Taxi's will often say that their credit card machine is broken. Then, insist that they break out the manual credit-card processor and carbon paper. If they refuse, offer to have them call the cops. Their payment-processing hardware will probably magically start working.

Even if that eventually gets to your desired outcome, it's dramatically more difficult and uncomfortable than Uber.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#146

Post by dllthomas » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 8:05 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #77

minthd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe uber/lyft could be a monopoly because: 1. The benefits of scale -> lower cost insurance/gas/car/services for drivers. 2. The benefit of having more customers -> less time for driver to get to customer, i.e. more money.Also when shared rides become possible(2-3 or more passenger sharing a car) , more customers you can arrange them to shorter routes(which means more people willing to share) , which also means…

You just cited two competing companies and then said they could become "a monopoly". That's not how monopolies work.

They could become a duopoly, or (more likely) one of them could win over time. A slash often means "or".

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#147

Post by KyleBrandt » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

simoncion wrote: post #110

KyleBrandt wrote: post #25

I find Taxis to be very stressful when traveling for two main reasons: * 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 softw…

> Taxi's will often say that their credit card machine is broken. Then, insist that they break out the manual credit-card processor and carbon paper. If they refuse, offer to have them call the cops. Their payment-processing hardware will probably magically start working.

That sort of confrontation is where some of the stress comes from. Also when that happens I just say I don't have enough cash (which is generally true).

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#148

Post by ewzimm » Tue, Dec 30, 2014, 9:37 PM UTC

cjbprime wrote: post #38

rando3826 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First off, that's not what he said. Secondly, lots of smart people have been talking about the need for basic income when robots take over large portions of the labor force. I'm personally unconvinced that it will create mass unemployment, but I don't call it crazy.

> First off, that's not what he said. Can you elaborate on the divide between his claim and my interpretation, operating under the extremely obvious assumption that the world is not switching to universal basic income tomorrow? I honestly don't see it. For the record, I also advocate strongly for basic income. But I don't think that robots taking jobs leads to particularly poor outcomes. For example! Driving a car 17…

Basic income was included to show that removing jobs is not necessarily bad, but it can have immediate negative effects. This is just an instance of consolidating wealth. It is moving a system which distributes wealth to many taxi drivers into a system which distributes wealth to a few people who run Uber. When there's no system in place to correct this imbalance, it contributes to the wealth gap between rich and poor which is accelerating in many other ways. When we see a massive shift of resources to just a few people, it leaves everyone worse off, even the wealthy ones, because we all have to live in a world in which more people are more disempowered and desperate. He just didn't go into detail because he likes short statements.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#149

Post by xsmasher » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 5:23 AM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #140

xsmasher wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds remarkably like the broken window fallacy. What does your company do with that extra money now? Throw it in a barrel and burn it?

What are Uber and passengers going to do with the extra money? In both cases, we see the loss of specific jobs and (at least) short term pain for the people who were relying on them.

Right; short term pain while the money is redistributed to somewhere it can be of more efficient use. The parent made it sound like the loss of jobs was going to collapse the economy.

Re: “Why you should not use Uber (the car ride brokering company)”

#150

Post by dllthomas » Wed, Dec 31, 2014, 10:36 PM UTC

xsmasher wrote: post #149

dllthomas wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are Uber and passengers going to do with the extra money? In both cases, we see the loss of specific jobs and (at least) short term pain for the people who were relying on them.

Right; short term pain while the money is redistributed to somewhere it can be of more efficient use. The parent made it sound like the loss of jobs was going to collapse the economy.

"Right; short term pain while the money is redistributed to somewhere it can be of more efficient use."

Right. Which isn't to say we shouldn't be considering it. The short term matters - we spend a lot of time there.

"The parent made it sound like the loss of jobs was going to collapse the economy."

Well, there's nothing to say the money is redistributed to labor, and it's hard to run a consumer economy when only a few people have any money to pay for anything. That said, I don't really get that vibe from the parent comment in the first place...