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It's not a crime if we do it with an app

pluralistic.net

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Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#381

Post by ta1243 »

wat10000 wrote: post #185
ta1243 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube came to fame because of sharing copyrighted material without permission of the copyright holders. Still does. With Tesla, I've no idea if there are laws preventing direct to customer selling, the "land of the free" has a lot of laws preventing freedom.

Many states have laws preventing direct to customer selling. Tesla works around this by just not selling in those states. If you live in one of those states and want to buy a Tesla, you pick it up in a neighboring state that does allow direct sales. Or these days they may have a better workaround where the car is officially purchased elsewhere but you don’t have to physically travel there. This is totally above-board…

> Many states have laws preventing direct to customer selling

Ahh, land of the free

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#382

Post by uoaei »

gruez wrote: post #323
steveBK123 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly - theres a lot of stuff that if an individual/small business owner did, they'd be personally onerously fined or jailed.. but corporations get a pass. Corporations also have a lot of money to pay good lobbyists & lawyers such that laws are pretty forgiving, loopholes are found & exploited, and finally they are vigorously defended if the government ever does try to crack down. Ubers behavior during its growth p…

>To avoid having to pay any difference to make up the hourly wage to drivers, Uber runs an algorithm which kicks drivers out of the app randomly if demand gets too low, without warning or indication of when they can get back in. It can be minutes or hours. So the drivers remain on the road, driving/idling, waiting to get back into the app. The "work" is still getting done, but it doesn't count against Uber. I get leg…

> expecting uber to continue allowing unlimited amount of drivers to be "online", when they have to pay for them is absurd.

The market they operate is of their own making, there is no "free market" argument to be made here. What's absurd is the mischaracterization of what their constructed market can provide to its participants, particularly when people are apparently randomly banned from participating it as they please.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#383

Post by ryukoposting »

I will continue to shout this at clouds and hope something changes:

As tech industry practicioners, we are some of the only people in the country who have both the desire to affect positive change, AND the agency to do so. Don't work for these companies. If your company does business with these companies, criticize it and encourage your coworkers to do the same.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#384

Post by pbhjpbhj »

brookst wrote: post #238
RobotToaster wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To continue the analogy, if a dog is aggressive and hurts people it gets put down, why not put down the corporation?

Because the ripple effects are much larger. Lay off a few thousand people in most cities and you’re sinking all sorts of businesses that had nothing to do with the crime.

Putting down a corporation doesn't necessarily mean ending a productive operation. Employee or government takeover are options too.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#385

Post by RHSeeger »

gruez wrote: post #347
steveBK123 wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. They could have also kicked people out for full days, rest of shift, or given an indicator of when they may try again. Something that leaves it more clear they are off and don't linger around to try and get back in. Restaurants/retail will reduce staffing due to demand, but they d…

>If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. Most of those drivers were presumably enrolled before that legislation was passed/came into force. Blaming uber for having those drivers seems like a stretch. > They could have also kicked people out for full days, rest of shift, or given an indicator of when they may try again.…

> I don't doubt uber could have done better here, but characterizing poor UI as "circumvent the NYC law to try and ensure Uber drivers get a fair minimum wage" is a stretch.

Honestly, that's _exactly_ what it looks like to me. Law makes it so that they have to pay drivers that are available to drive but aren't actively involved in a fair... so they change the system so that, if they don't have fairs for you you're not considered available to drive. Everything about that reeks of trying to circumvent the law.

Now, I don't know that there _is_ a better solution that works with their business model; but the answer to that isn't "cheat", it's "your business model it's sustainable".

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#387

Post by topaz0 »

mminer237 wrote: post #278
wat10000 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A real world example: wage theft in the US is bigger than all other forms of theft combined. How often do you hear about it? We hear endlessly about shoplifting rings and lax enforcement by lefty prosecutors. When was the last time you saw coverage of workers not being paid what they’re owed? When was the last time somebody went to jail for not paying their workers what they’re owed?

That's not actually true. Wage theft is maybe third: https://truthnotoutrage.com/2023/12/05/retail-theft-dwarfs-w... By all indicia, shoplifting is a much bigger problem. I know this myth and wage theft in general are really popular on social media. I think its lacking of representation in traditional media and prosecution is a mix of how much more clear-cut shoplifting is and just the victims report it more.

This source is garbage. There are only two articles on the site, I see typos in both of them so it has likely not been checked by anybody, and it uses sources like the NRF that have famously been discovered to play fast and loose with these numbers. Do not believe it.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#388

Post by nxobject »

ryandrake wrote: post #17

More like "It's not a crime if a corporation does it." The US treats corporations with kid gloves. They get away with so much, and in those rare cases where a regulatory body does anything , it's often just a strongly worded letter, a warning, a threat to one day send a strongly worded letter, or, in really rare, extreme cases, a company official gets called in to say a few words in front of Congress. Nobody goes to…

My favorite example is PG&E: convicted for 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter after the Camp Fire, the punishment was… a $3.4 million fine, because you can’t incarcerate a corporation.

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/wildfire/pges-mansl...

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#389

Post by AnthonyMouse »

steveBK123 wrote: post #330
gruez wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>To avoid having to pay any difference to make up the hourly wage to drivers, Uber runs an algorithm which kicks drivers out of the app randomly if demand gets too low, without warning or indication of when they can get back in. It can be minutes or hours. So the drivers remain on the road, driving/idling, waiting to get back into the app. The "work" is still getting done, but it doesn't count against Uber. I get leg…

If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers. They could have also kicked people out for full days, rest of shift, or given an indicator of when they may try again. Something that leaves it more clear they are off and don't linger around to try and get back in. Restaurants/retail will reduce staffing due to demand, but they d…

> If Uber has let so many drivers on the app such that they cannot earn a minimum wage, they should stop aggressively enrolling new drivers.

The number of drivers needed at any given time is completely variable. It's obviously a larger number during peak travel periods.

Suppose number of drivers needed off-peak is 100 and the number needed at the peak is 500 and they have 300 drivers. They need to sign up another 200 drivers to satisfy the peak demand, but they already have 200 more than they can use off-peak. What would you have them do? They effectively need a large proportion of the drivers to be working part time specifically during peak hours.

Moreover, there are many people willing to do that. They're not sitting in their cars idling, they're at home doing chores or other contract work and they only get in their car if the app tells them they can get paid. This is not a problem for the people who are satisfied with it, and why are the people who are unsatisfied with it even doing it? If you don't like driving for Uber, don't do it.

Re: It's not a crime if we do it with an app

#390

Post by gruez »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #380
gruez wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debtor's prisons were widely considered to be cruel, which is why they were abolished basically everywhere in the developed world.

Ok? I’m not arguing about debtors prisons? I’m not sure why you’ve focused on it

>I’m not arguing about debtors prisons? I’m not sure why you’ve focused on it

Because that's seemingly what you were asking about? If not clarify what you originally meant rather than beating around the bush then being surprised when people aren't focusing on the things you want.

>>>Like what? Moreover, what does this hold for public policy? Should we bring back debtor's prisons? That would be the obvious solution to long firm fraud.

>>I’m not an expert, but the way you wrote your comment seemed to be discounting this possibility for no discernible reason

>Debtor's prisons were widely considered to be cruel, which is why they were abolished basically everywhere in the developed world.

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