I just want to point out that posting about how wrong Uber is on HN, but then still using them, doesn't help anyone.
If you feel they are in the wrong, do not use Uber until they update their policies and actions.
Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
31–40 of 212 posts
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#32Uber: Pissing off judges worldwide
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#33I can kinda get that companies might want to skip around accessibility issues when they're first getting started. But once you reach a certain point (somewhere well before billion dollar valuations) it's unconscionable to ignore accessibility.
> [Tim] Cook replied [...] that a return on investment (ROI) was not the primary consideration on such issues. “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind,” he said, “I don’t consider the bloody ROI.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2014/03/07/why-tim-...
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#34Company set up to lower prices by avoiding regulatory overhead tries to avoid regulatory overhead - film at 11.
FWIW: It seems really unlikely Uber will be able to play both sides of the coin on this one for much longer.
Just in case anyone thought "courts have never considered things like Uber and the ADA before", they have.
Search for "demand responsive transportation ADA"
The fact that the drivers are or are not employees will not matter.
Also
"49 C.F.R. § 37.171 - Equivalency Requirement for Demand Responsive Service Operated by Private Entities Not Primarily in the Business of Transporting People"
Whoops. Oh well, there goes any argument about not being in the business of transporting people ...
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#35Here is the thing with "sharing" economy - the moment money exchange hands, this is no longer sharing but commercial activity. So you must abide to the regulations. You cannot cherry pick only the rules that suit you.
It's not "sharing". It was never "sharing". It's sharecropping.
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#36I just want to point out that posting about how wrong Uber is on HN, but then still using them, doesn't help anyone. If you feel they are in the wrong, do not use Uber until they update their policies and actions.
That's not true though, hypocritical advocacy can logically be effective. If you convince just 2 other people to make the change you are arguing for, you've exceeded the change that you can personally effect.
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#37Here is the thing with "sharing" economy - the moment money exchange hands, this is no longer sharing but commercial activity. So you must abide to the regulations. You cannot cherry pick only the rules that suit you.
One man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens...
The way I see it is that there is no such thing as "commercial activity". There is voluntary activity of all sorts, and all kind of transactions happen, whether it be through payments, barter or goodwill. If I'm exempt from the ADA when inviting friends over, so should you be when you rent your room on AirBnB, and so should the motel across the street. All exist on a continuum, and the "sharing economy" is now making that continuum more explicit than ever before.
Decreeting that some activity is commercial and subjecting it to government rules merely because it involves money is arbitrary and unfair. Laissez faire, laissez passer.
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#38I don't know what people expected from an organisation set up for the prime purpose of avoiding regulation.
A better service at a cheaper rate.
Which really only work if you're in the majority. Some groups of people rely on the rest of us to subsidise the services they require.
If we allow companies to only service the group of people that are the most profitable, we risk excluding others from purchasing that service altogether. That's the exact same reason why Obama-care (sorry I don't know the correct name for it) disallows the insurance companies from excluding people with pre-existing conditions.
I understand rule and service levels are different around the world, but allowing Uber, AirBNB and other to pretend that all the rules are solely in place to keep competition out is doing society a disservice.
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#39It doesn't matter what the law says, in my opinion. Discrimination is discrimination. You wouldn't stop an African-American from getting into your car, right?
Uber drivers regularly discriminate based on race by discriminating based on location of drop off... hence the high rates of 'cancelled' riders Uber users in SF and NYC see when traveling to certain neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that just happen to have higher percentages of non-white residents. This is why we have laws against drop-off discrimination here in NYC. But Uber being Uber sees them as bureaucratic red tape that shouldn't apply to them. Just like disability access laws. And ethics.
Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us
#40> but Uber claims that because it’s a technology company, not a transportation service, it doesn’t fall under the ADA’s jurisdiction. What the ? Come on ,They don't get to decide what law they should follow. Or maybe they know that all these lawsuits cost them less than having to respect the law, I don't know. All I can say is that Uber displays an unbelievable level of arrogance.
They make an app that allows people to charge for driving services. I wouldn't call that as Uber providing a transportation service, personally.
Remember, just because it "seems obvious" that they are "somehow" a company related to "transportation", doesn't make them a "transportation service" by whatever definition is used by the government for transportation service company regulations (or whatever that law is called).
As much as I think individuals should follow the intention of laws, rather than the 'letter'. We have to be realistic. Either we petition to have the 'letter' of the law changed to encompass what we 'think' the definition should be, or we accept that the definition is a reasonable demarcation of what constitutes and doesn't constitute a transportation company.
And lets not mix emotions into it in some sort of fit of outrage that 'they dare not' pretend like they're not a 'transportation company' when we think it's obvious.
#Edit. Typo.