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Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

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Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber broke the strike by breaking the strike. This absurd focus on whether surge pricing was a multiplier or disincentive is a complete distraction. The taxi drivers reached out and asked Uber for solidarity. They dispatched drivers to break the strike. They made their bed in the court of public opinion, now they can lie in it.

Uber is a company, it is not organized in a union. I would never expect them to participate in a strike and effectively order their drivers to stop working. Just like a taxicab company doesn't participate in the strike, but the drivers do. This is like if Coca Cola workers went on strike, and problem blamed Pespi Co of breaking strike by not sending their workers home??

People appear to expect companies to take stances and play politics. It's an important observation and should be exploited for business leveraging. This is how namecheap gained market traction - they took heavy handed anti-godaddy stances during the SOPA debate and it worked hugely in their favor.

The other observation is that if your market position has a lot to do with inertia and habit - as in, if many people are using you mostly because they used you the last time, your position is tenuous.

And lastly, this may be a good example of aggregate forms of capital cost. The idea is that every exchange involves not only financial capital (money) but social and spiritual (what one thinks of themselves) capital. Your competitors can increase this aggregate cost and you can modify it without consciously being aware.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#312

I'm curious about how taxi drivers are viewed in the US or this specific region. In Turkey, they're mostly hated, because they will go to any length to extort money out of the customers. This ranges from picking longer roads if they detect that the customer doesn't know the area well to asking for 500 euros to even pick them up after terrorist attacks. So, Uber was seen as the savior as their drivers wouldn't try to…

In the southwest they're generally someone you'd only hire once or twice around an airport on a vacation. They're around public restrooms for favorability.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#313
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who don't know about how Surge works might assume that Uber is deliberately raising prices in these crisis zones to gouge people in peril, which obviously isn't the case. They could collect an extra few cents from normal fares and store it to compensate drivers during peak time, without fluctuating the fare price for customers. It would work like insurance, and have the same effect with surge pricing while n…

how does that make more drivers come to a specific place/time where demand is outstripping supply?

By paying drivers more. Surge pricing would work only for drivers, and be averaged out for customers so they don't see a change in rates. It would encourage more people to use Uber, that are turned off by surge pricing. But maybe Uber doesn't want to have them as clients during surges, depends on the ability to scale to demand.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#314

Dan Primack summarised this well; Uber failed on messaging: "Uber has done a lot of questionable things over the years, but its actions this past weekend vis-a-vis Trump's immigration ban weren't among them. An actual timeline from Saturday, which may differ from what you saw on social media: • 4:20pm ET: CEO Travis Kalanick sent email to employees. It stopped short of explicitly opposing the ban, but did say: (1) Th…

Uber broke the strike by breaking the strike. This absurd focus on whether surge pricing was a multiplier or disincentive is a complete distraction. The taxi drivers reached out and asked Uber for solidarity. They dispatched drivers to break the strike. They made their bed in the court of public opinion, now they can lie in it.

Good for Uber. During this strike innocent people get inconvenienced and for what? Who were the taxis striking against? Trump? How is that strike going to solve anything?

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>nobody does an ounce of research anymore This is true of the vast majority of activists in any political cause. Most join as social signaling to their community that they are "one of them". Case in point, almost nobody interviewed for occupy Wallstreet could even agree on what the goal of the group was. Particularly in this case, showing support is literally as simple as installing an app that does almost the exact…

We seem to have largely moved passed the concept of nuance, knee jerk reactions and virtual signalling in place of reasoned responses. Its dangerous when all sides don't consider the others viewpoints at all.

It's lonely to consider the other side these days. Dare to consider Trump's side? You're a fascist. Dare to consider the progressive side? You're a communist. It's no wonder nobody does it anymore.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#316
post #56

Another reminder that emotion trumps (unintentional pun) reasoning on social media. I find it depressing that people don't spend any time verifying stories and separating facts from fiction. I would classify the #deleteuber event as a form of fake news. You know what would be a good personal assistant or bot to build (using ML)? One that detects and informs users about fake news. Apparently the vast majority of peopl…

>I find it depressing that people don't spend any time verifying stories and separating facts from fiction. I would classify the #deleteuber event as a form of fake news. The worst part is, this problem will only continue. It's so easy to fake news these days, and lets say a bot was built to vet authenticity...which bot do you trust, the one made by CNN or breitbart? it just feeds back to the original problem, except…

Maybe the thing to do is make a fake news app. Just pump that channel so full with fake news that the only rational option is to seek less news, higher quality.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber broke the strike by breaking the strike. This absurd focus on whether surge pricing was a multiplier or disincentive is a complete distraction. The taxi drivers reached out and asked Uber for solidarity. They dispatched drivers to break the strike. They made their bed in the court of public opinion, now they can lie in it.

Uber is a company, it is not organized in a union. I would never expect them to participate in a strike and effectively order their drivers to stop working. Just like a taxicab company doesn't participate in the strike, but the drivers do. This is like if Coca Cola workers went on strike, and problem blamed Pespi Co of breaking strike by not sending their workers home??

> This is like if Coca Cola workers went on strike, and problem blamed Pespi Co of breaking strike by not sending their workers home??

Well, yes, that's how a general strike works. You expect every worker in the field to follow. This is not a strike to get better conditions within one company, this is a strike toward a governmental action.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People who don't know about how Surge works might assume that Uber is deliberately raising prices in these crisis zones to gouge people in peril, which obviously isn't the case. They could collect an extra few cents from normal fares and store it to compensate drivers during peak time, without fluctuating the fare price for customers. It would work like insurance, and have the same effect with surge pricing while n…

So you make riders that intentionally ride during off times subsidize riders that want to go home during peak times. Pretty lame solution if you ask me. The thing that I like about dynamic pricing is that it forces people to think about what they are doing in a broader context. "maybe it's selfish of me to expect a $3 ride home at 1AM on Jan 1st"

Yes, if your main concern is to protect Uber against surges, you're right. But customers also perceive this as an attempt to extract more money from them when they are in a bad position, such as during a crisis.

Why not take the "insurance policy" style and average out these surges?

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is. This doesn't make scabbing any less vile, however. All it has guaranteed in this instance is that a bunch of hapless Uber drivers are going to be feeling the backlash. Friends don't let friends scab.

>This doesn't make scabbing any less vile This is a political opinion, and the context definitely matters. This wasn't a strike for higher wages, this was a strike to back a political stance. How would you feel if the cabbies went on strike because we allow Muslims to vote? Would you so vehemently blast people that want transportation to continue functioning in the interim in that case as well?

Moreover, because this strike was inherently political, should taxi drivers who actually support the immigration EO (or at least don't feel compelled to protest) be forced to partake in the strike? That sounds like an utterly indefensible position to me.

Re: Lyft surges to the top 10 on App Store following the “DeleteUber” campaign

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A serious question: do people who leave comments like yours, and the even shorter ones that are literally just the words "virtue signalling", really believe that doing so presents a devastating critique which will convince others of the error of their ways and change their minds? Or is it something you do to demonstrate your affiliation with a particular set of beliefs and positions? Does this phrase have empirical c…

Nah, a serious question wouldn't presuppose a particular answer. I think you've made up your mind long before you asked it. But I'll oblige anyway. Virtue signaling in this context means that actions of individuals are directed mostly at people within their political and social group, not outside it. Their main purpose is similar to that of a Facebook "like", to communicate adherence to a shared set of beliefs, not t…

Virtue signaling in this context means that actions of individuals are directed mostly at people within their political and social group, not outside it.

Why is this a bad thing? Are you allowing for the possibility that it's easier to eventually sway outsiders if one first builds momentum with a significant group of like-minded people? Isn't it in fact very common to start by getting like-minded people to agree on a shared platform of ideas and actions, and then move toward convincing outsiders of the correctness of that shared platform?

Indeed, in this political climate, where silent majority is actually in favor of the ban, to be in favor of it in the social circles of coastal elites could be harmful to one's well being.

"Coastal elites" is a term lacking empirical content. However, the majority of Americans who voted did not vote for Donald Trump, and there is no evidence to support your assertion that a majority of Americans in general are in favor of the immigration order; if by "coastal elites" you mean "people of generally socially-liberal political leanings who live in major urban areas", you are in fact contradicting yourself since evidence suggests such people are the majority of Americans. You are hopefully aware that the American electoral system is designed to disproportionately represent minority populations, which is why the popular-vote winner did not get elected President.

When "their" people do the same or worse things, there's no protest or condemnation.

I have yet to see an assertion of "same or worse things" being presented which A) holds up to scrutiny of the "same or worse" assertion and B) was not protested/condemned. For example, many socially-liberal people expressed condemnation of Obama's immigration and foreign policy stances, expressing regret because they hoped he would break from socially-conservative approaches. Do you ignore this fact?

People on the right are prone to this too, but seemingly to a much lesser extent. In particular they don't seem to care much about protests.

If "people on the right" "don't seem to care much about protests", what is the Tea Party and its large rallies? What is the NRA and its mobilization of people? Why are there so many protests at Planned Parenthood locations, to the extent that those locations routinely need to implement strict security policies to ensure safe access to facilities?

Additionally, are all of those groups just "virtue signalling"? Do you equally condemn them, or do you only bring out such comments when a group you disagree with is protesting?

In other words: do you have a coherent position here, or are you simply engaging in the very practices you condemn?

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