What does this have to do with HN?
Uber is a company from the San Francisco Bay Area, and HN is a site about companies from the San Francisco Bay Area.
Uber is a startup, and HN is a site about startups. FTFY.
Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
41–50 of 68 posts
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#42This is kitten prostitution
Pretty much. I went to one of those places in Tokyo, years ago, where you pay to pet cats and it was a depressing place. There were cats who were into it, but there were cats who clearly didn't want to be there (and some who'd been confined to cages that looked like little human apartments and were pacing constantly inside them).
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#43What 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 i…
It is not just a PR gimmick. Look at this line:
>> No cash required! Donations will be charged directly to your Uber account.
This is big as most everyone who signs up now has an account with Uber. Once Uber has my credit card information, I am less hesitant to use their service in the future. It sounds like a great way to reduce friction to me.
Off-topic: I remember when the only reason I signed up for Living Social was because Amazon.com was giving me $10 in gift certificate. I thought they were idiots for giving me free money. Of course, I don't think twice about having a $90 gift card balance "because it never expires".
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#44I 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.
It was soon after that Google invested $200M+.
I believe that Google's driverless cars have a bigger financial gain by delivering goods rather than people. We all think they're doing the automated taxi thing, but I think that's just to make the general public comfortable with driverless cars being on the roads.
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#45This 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 guarantee you it gets a bunch of shelter cats adopted. Anything that raises awareness of shelter animals gets an A+ in my book.
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#46Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#47This 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.
The welfare of animals isn't really a minute problem. It's ok to want more info on how the cats are selected and treated for what is ultimately a publicity stunt.
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#48In the SF financial district; I could not get a kitten.
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#49Earlier 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…
Might kittens be different from cats in this regard? I don't really have experience with either, but I imagine kittens may be more tolerating of environment changes.
Re: Uber and Cheezburger will deliver you 15 minutes of kitten playtime for $20
#50Has anyone done this yet? Or too early to get the kitty van? I see the "Kittens!" option in Uber but don't see the cat icon.