Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

blog.uber.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 68 posts

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#31

Post by jaynos »

PeterisP wrote: post #8

This does feel a bit weird - short-term rental of petting animals? I'm worried about mishandling, animal cruelty and the whole concept - pets form an attachment with you, doing it as a short-term rental isn't an acceptable way of building a relationship...

> I'm worried about mishandling, animal cruelty...

From the article "You will have a chance to adopt the Kittens! YES, IT’S TRUE! For more information, please chat with the shelter representative that will be assisting with kitten wrangling!"

All kittens come with a shelter representative who will presumably keep an eye on you and the kitten.

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#32

Post by w0utert »

blhack wrote: post #29
PeterisP wrote: post #8

This does feel a bit weird - short-term rental of petting animals? I'm worried about mishandling, animal cruelty and the whole concept - pets form an attachment with you, doing it as a short-term rental isn't an acceptable way of building a relationship...

I used to volunteer at an animal shelter: One of the big things they stressed, at least for the dogs, was how important it was to play with the them. Expose them to people, scratch their ears through the grate on their kennel, pay attention to them, etc. etc. The reasoning being that dogs who are used to humans, and are affectionate towards them, are more likely to get adopted. If this was for dogs, it would be a HUG…

Cats are nothing like dogs though. While it's also important to socialize kittens as soon as possible to make them comfortable around humans, I don't think it's a good idea to haul them around town in a car. Cats don't like to be taken outside their known environment at all, and they don't like to be locked inside a box, or transported in a noisy car.

Just to give some perspective, my own cat loves people, strange or familiar, it doesn't matter at all. Take her to the vet in a car though, and she will go mental, crap and pee in the cat carrier, meow and hiss when she gets let outside of it (never does that otherwise) and be extremely edgy for sometimes 2 days afterwards. I wouldn't go as far as saying this is 'cruel' to the kittens, and it's great that the proceedings are donated to an animal shelter, but I'm pretty sure the kittens will not enjoy it nearly as much as the people who get to cuddle with them.

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#33

Post by swalsh »

PeterisP wrote: post #8

This does feel a bit weird - short-term rental of petting animals? I'm worried about mishandling, animal cruelty and the whole concept - pets form an attachment with you, doing it as a short-term rental isn't an acceptable way of building a relationship...

I had this idea a few years ago. Before my wife and I moved to a place that allowed animals, I used to wish there was a way I could rent a dog while at the beach.

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#34

Post by 650REDHAIR »

gucc1 wrote: post #9

What does this have to do with HN?

Few things

-It's a great PR gimmick for Uber/CheezBurger and it's something others can learn from.

-Uber articles typically end up on HN because of their presence in SF and that a lot of HN users use Uber (all of the 50~ people that I personally know on HN have used Uber) or are otherwise connected to people who work at Uber.

-Ben Huh is awesome. He's a great advisor and him being involved means I'm going to upvote it.

-Kittens on demand = cool.

-Kittens, cupcakes, and raising money for a good cause = Awesome.

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#35

Post by [deleted] »

deletes wrote: post #26
bfe wrote: post #23

BTW I presume Uber implemented this in LOLCODE? HAI CAN HAZ UBERDEPLOY? VISIBLE "O HAI! WILL U HAZ UBERKITTY?" LOL VAR R USERSEZ IM IN YR LOOP GIMMEH USERSEZ IZ USERSEZ LIEK "KITTENS!"? YARLY VISIBLE "KITTYZ IN YR LAP!" UBERDEPLOY KTHX NOWAI VISIBLE "CAN U HAZ KITTYZ?" KTHX KTHX KTHXBYE

I'm so going to learn this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOLCODE

[deleted]

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#37

Post by JohnTHaller »

w0utert wrote: post #32
blhack wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to volunteer at an animal shelter: One of the big things they stressed, at least for the dogs, was how important it was to play with the them. Expose them to people, scratch their ears through the grate on their kennel, pay attention to them, etc. etc. The reasoning being that dogs who are used to humans, and are affectionate towards them, are more likely to get adopted. If this was for dogs, it would be a HUG…

Cats are nothing like dogs though. While it's also important to socialize kittens as soon as possible to make them comfortable around humans, I don't think it's a good idea to haul them around town in a car. Cats don't like to be taken outside their known environment at all, and they don't like to be locked inside a box, or transported in a noisy car. Just to give some perspective, my own cat loves people, strange or…

I think it does depend on the cat, though. I've had several cats that are just fine being in a carrier and like sniffing the air and looking around outside when they're in one (they don't get outside normally get more outside than looking out the window here in NYC).

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#38

Post by mason55 »

prezjordan wrote: post #4

I know it's fun, but I honestly think they're testing the waters with this sort of thing - same goes with the "Call an Ice Cream Truck" campaign from this summer. Uber = On-Demand... anything?

> Uber = On-Demand... anything?

Yes, Uber has said in their interviews (or maybe it was pg talking about them?) that once they have the infrastructure set up to deliver a car anywhere they can branch out into on demand delivery of anything.

Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20

#40

Post by jamesaguilar »

PeterisP wrote: post #8

This does feel a bit weird - short-term rental of petting animals? I'm worried about mishandling, animal cruelty and the whole concept - pets form an attachment with you, doing it as a short-term rental isn't an acceptable way of building a relationship...

Gotta find a problem with every idea, no matter how minute, right? This is hacker news after all.
Post reply on HN