Uber: Disability Laws Don’t Apply to Us • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by maxlybbert » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #168

maxlybbert wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens all the time. And often the parent company is trying to avoid taxes (well, in theory the amount of taxes stays the same, it's just a question of who pays and who keeps the records). In this case, Uber's also trying to avoid learning about and complying with local, state and federal regulations (and, so far, they've been successful). At least as far as federal tax is concerned, the IRS has some advice at ht…

Can anyone submit a letter of determination to the IRS asking them to determine if Uber is operating legally with regards to its independent contractor worker classification?

I doubt it. But anybody can tell the IRS that they believe a person or company isn't paying their full share of taxes. I suspect that the IRS would prioritize complaints from, say, disgruntle corporate accountants, but it should be possible for anybody to report what they believe is tax fraud.

The IRS probably already knows about Uber. They probably haven't audited the company or asked for details, but they must be vaguely aware of how the company operates.

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

#172

Post by toomuchtodo » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #170

toomuchtodo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber deserves to be rightly rich for being pioneers in this space. I have never been more disgusted by an answer on Hacker News. My apologies for that. Uber's "wealth" is merely an artifact of VC money rushing into a space with an unjustifiable valuation predicated on the violation of transportation and disability laws. Uber will be the Web Van of the mobility space. Cool idea, replaced by self-driving vehicles own…

> predicated on the violation of transportation and disability laws. You forgot labor laws. I'm sorry you feel that way. I've attempted to lay out a rationale from as close to first principles as I can reasonably approach for the right relationship startups should have with the law and society and you've ignored it out of disgust. No alternatives given for fixing the problems that legislation engenders for commerce,…

> No alternatives given for fixing the problems that legislation engenders for commerce, just irrational hatred.

Not hatred, disgust. There's a significant difference.

What good is a service attempting to "disrupt" regulation if it lowers the quality of life for the most in need? THAT is not progress.

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

#173

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:32 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #131

stephenr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> companies might want to skip around accessibility issues when they're first getting started So, if it's inconvenient, you get to pretend it doesn't exist because you're a "startup"? That kind of mindset is what's wrong with the startup community. "Disrupt" isn't a synonym for "break any laws you don't like" and "startup" isn't a synonym for "I am above the law!"

> "startup" isn't a synonym for "I am above the law!" It kinda is. Hear me out. Commerce is bound to be political. Offering up a product or service for sale isn't always going to be acceptable to everyone. So we pass laws to tell people what they can and can't do. So far, so good. Except that if this continues, the business landscape changes due to the collective weight of all these laws. Existing organizations that…

Should humans not get similar treatment, being allowed to ignore the law because it is bloated and outdated?

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

#174

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:35 PM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #144

tickit wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Internet's a bit different, it's more of a virtual wild west... at least it used to be. If your service has a real world presence and you cut corners then you're more likely to bother someone - especially if you want to be ubiquitous.

The ADA applies to the Internet.

It does? Last I checked you don't have to make your page screen reader friendly. Some technologies are very inaccessible without modification.

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

#175

Post by Lawtonfogle » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

mason240 wrote: post #110

JohnTHaller wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "sharing". It was never "sharing". It's sharecropping.

You might have a case for calling it "sharecropping" if Uber owned the cars and the drivers were paying Uber for the privilege of using them. They are not though, so it's a gross misapplication of the term.

Drivers pay for the customers they get. The analogy thus fits.

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

#176

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, May 22, 2015, 7:50 PM UTC

gohrt wrote: post #142

maxlybbert wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell, Uber's argument is that its drivers are independent contractors, and if anybody's breaking the law it's the drivers and not Uber (because, frankly, that's always Uber's argument). Taxis are also independent contractors. Not every taxi cab must be wheelchair accessible to comply with the ADA. Therefore it stands to reason that Uber's drivers don't necessarily need to modify their cars to comply w…

Uber is clearly the one provisioning the service to the customer, and is a large company. The drivers are contractors who do work for Uber , not for the customer. The customer pays Uber, Uber pays the driver. Uber is the car service, and must support its disabled customers.

I think that particular argument is pretty weak. Uber notifies the drivers of a pickup opportunity and they have the option of taking it and doing what the customer says for a while.

There's a lot of things that suggest Uber to be an employer, but the rides themselves seem very contractor-y.

Taking a percentage fee for putting driver and customer together leans away from employment, in my view. There are a lot of types of middlemen that are not employers.

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

#177

Post by kedean » Fri, May 22, 2015, 8:02 PM UTC

mrweasel wrote: post #38

marknutter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 exc…

The Affordable Care Act

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

#178

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, May 22, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

Lawtonfogle wrote: post #175

mason240 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might have a case for calling it "sharecropping" if Uber owned the cars and the drivers were paying Uber for the privilege of using them. They are not though, so it's a gross misapplication of the term.

Drivers pay for the customers they get. The analogy thus fits.

...no, I don't think that really fits.

Besides, it wasn't the sharecropping itself that was a problem, it was the abusive lending.

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

#179

Post by URSpider94 » Fri, May 22, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #159

URSpider94 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it happened twice to her in two weeks. The question is, does Uber have training in place on what rights a disabled passenger has? Do they discipline or dismiss drivers who receive disability complaints? It sounds like Uber's response has been that it has no duty to support or enforce the ADA. Uber is forcing taxis out of business. One of the reasons that taxis are regulated is that they are bound by law to transp…

Taxis are regulated primarily because they do business on public streets. If the only way to get a taxi were to call them up, there'd be far less of a reason to regulate them.

Can you explain why that would be?

In any case, in many locales it's almost entirely unheard of to street-hail a taxi. To name two places I've lived, in Boston and Silicon Valley, you always need to call for a taxi, unless you happen to be staying at a hotel in a downtown area.

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

#180

Post by Dylan16807 » Fri, May 22, 2015, 8:32 PM UTC

murbard2 wrote: post #37

venomsnake wrote: post #2

Here 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…

How can there be no such attribute if there is a continuum of that attribute?

Picking thresholds is not unfair. It's the fundamental way that life interacts with the world around it. You physically cannot examine everything that could affect you with infinite precision.

The job of regulation is not to pick a mythical "perfect" result for every possible case, it's to force a good guideline into place. This is partially arbitrary, and that is okay. It doesn't matter if that fine is $200 or $220, the regulation just needs to work.