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Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

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Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#51

Post by UK-AL »

kaolinite wrote: post #27

This really saddens me. I used to love Uber, it was one of my favourite companies. I remember when I first used it - I'd gone down to London and was going to try UberLux out, just for the one trip. I ended up using it about four times that day, even though it was far more expensive than a taxi. It was incredible and worth every penny because unlike taxis, Uber was professional[1]. The driver was polite, you got a bot…

Have you ever considered since there cutting into established markets now, the vast vast majority anti-uber articles are PR pieces from competitors.

You'll be surprised how common this is.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#52

Post by untog »

codingdave wrote: post #31

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.

Not entirely - that's one of the reasons government exists. They can force Uber's hand even if you're still using them.

That said, I do agree with the spirit of what you're saying- wherever I can, I've taken Lyft instead of Uber for at least a year, after the last shady thing Uber did (it's happened so many times I've lost track)

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#54

Post by untog »

UK-AL wrote: post #51
kaolinite wrote: post #27

This really saddens me. I used to love Uber, it was one of my favourite companies. I remember when I first used it - I'd gone down to London and was going to try UberLux out, just for the one trip. I ended up using it about four times that day, even though it was far more expensive than a taxi. It was incredible and worth every penny because unlike taxis, Uber was professional[1]. The driver was polite, you got a bot…

Have you ever considered since there cutting into established markets now, the vast vast majority anti-uber articles are PR pieces from competitors. You'll be surprised how common this is.

Are you suggesting that Uber does not discriminate against disabled people? Because the evidence outlined in the article is quite damning.

Dismissing any criticism as "probably PR by a competitor" is really not that useful.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#55

Post by a3n »

maxerickson wrote: post #36
codingdave wrote: post #31

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.

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.

> you've exceeded the change that you can personally effect.

That's not true though. You're still not effecting the change that would result from you yourself taking action. In your example, you're shy the result of 1/3 of possible change.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#56

Post by fredkbloggs »

Thriptic wrote: post #29
eire1130 wrote: post #11

It's really not that hard to "do the right thing." Yet they have to go out their way to be dicks about it.

It depends on how you define doing the right thing. If you mean telling drivers to be accomodating of passengers with disabilities, then yes I agree. If you mean fielding an entire discrete service of vehicles across the world to service a small, non uniformally distributed number of users without actually employing their drivers; that's a bit harder. I'm not saying that Uber shouldn't deploy such a discrete service,…

ADA compliance is almost never cheap or easy. That was the knock on the law when it was being debated and any business owner will tell you it's still every bit the costly nightmare people said it would be at the time. It's a terrible law and most of it should be repealed (the rest should devolve to the states, which unlike the federal government have the constitutional authority to impose it), but the fact remains that courts have upheld it and it is the law. There's no reason one taxi company should have to follow it and not another.

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#57

Post by jmcdonald-ut »

goatforce5 wrote: post #33

I 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…

Thank you for this quote. I often think that this gets overlooked in our industry, and I'm no exception. A recent Hanselminutes podcast[1] touched on this. It pointed to a great resource[2].

1. http://hanselminutes.com/475/accessibility-a11y-with-opendir...

2. http://a11yproject.com/

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#58

Post by Frondo »

goatforce5 wrote: post #33

I 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…

It's funny how you call it "accessibility issues" when others would (rightly) call it "obeying the law".

Re: Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us

#59

Post by pekk »

ceejayoz wrote: post #17
MrSourz wrote: post #7

I think I understand Uber's stance here. From a business perspective their drivers are all independent contractors. This is an important part of the discussion because if they start telling them what the can and cannot do during their time then they start to look more and more like employees (something they absolutely do not want). An example of this are the popularly discussed drivers that run jewellery or other bus…

Surely I can tell a web developer contractor they can't build insecure/shitty code without turning them into an employee? They tell their drivers all sorts of instructions already - turn down tips, offer water, be courteous, etc.

Don't ask HN, look up the actual difference between an employee and a contractor if you are not sure and are employing contractors.
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