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Update on AB5

uber.com

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Re: Update on AB5

#81

Post by SnarkAsh »

lacker wrote: post #74

I think the law will be bad for the people it affects, so this is good news for Uber drivers. Uber isn't operating at a profit, so they don't have extra margin to pass on in the form of extra driver pay or employee benefits. If Uber has to shrink their business in California or exit entirely, that won't be good for drivers either. It reminds me of before my software engineering career, when I was working at The Gap.…

They're getting off lightly. Uber demonstrates why we need a corporate death penalty. Serial lawbreaker Travis Kalanick should be in prison for the rest of his life, most of his criminal conspirators on the board should be there with him, and the company should be dissolved and forgotten.

Recall that among their hundreds of other crimes, there are actual conspiracies to conceal criminal activities from law enforcement. This is not "breaking things and moving quick", this is a multibilliondollar international conspiracy that has escaped justice for far too long.

Off with his head.

Re: Update on AB5

#82

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

lacker wrote: post #74

I think the law will be bad for the people it affects, so this is good news for Uber drivers. Uber isn't operating at a profit, so they don't have extra margin to pass on in the form of extra driver pay or employee benefits. If Uber has to shrink their business in California or exit entirely, that won't be good for drivers either. It reminds me of before my software engineering career, when I was working at The Gap.…

I don't think we can be certain that displaced drivers won't find other opportunities. I imagine most of the appeal is the low friction to entering rideshare driving vs. traditional employment (fast food chains, etc). The talking point that people are somehow skilled enough for rideshare driving, yet not other low-skill work, seems to me like a talking point to have discouraged AB5 from happening. I question the factuality of the statement.

Re: Update on AB5

#83

Post by dmitrygr »

ilaksh wrote: post #64
dmitrygr wrote: post #59

So basically their tactic is to eke out a few more years out of their business model as their fight with California over the classification slowly snakes its way through the courts to the California supreme court, and hope that in the meantime they can come up with a better business model? It is actually not a terribly bad idea. They have the money to pay for the slow court battle, and it is strictly cheaper than com…

They already lost in the California Supreme Court.

Dynamex lost (Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court), which caused AB5 to be written. Uber did not yet lose (or even get sued) over this yet IIRC

Re: Update on AB5

#84

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

Uber's former mission statement:

> "Transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere for everyone"

Sounds like transportation is their core business to me.

Re: Update on AB5

#85

Post by freeAgent »

npmaile wrote: post #8

As someone who drives Uber on occasion when I'm a little bored and looking for something to do, I think it's great that I'm not an Uber employee. I can do 10 hours or I can do 0 hours based on nothing but my own whim. I don't have a problem with people organizing to get a better deal for themselves, but I like the way it works now. I've worked for companies that misclassify workers, and Uber isn't it as far as I unde…

I have considered driving for Uber very casually, but a few things keep me from doing it. First, I cannot drive the car I would prefer to drive (a two-seat sports car). Second, I would have to file a bunch of extra paperwork at tax time. Third, Uber doesn't allow drivers any control over the areas they wish to serve (so I could ensure that I'm just making short trips, etc). And, I guess the final nail in the coffin is that I wouldn't have much control at all over my preferred service area (say I wanted to just do a quick trip that ends no more than 5 miles from my house).

Re: Update on AB5

#86

Post by hguant »

dawhizkid wrote: post #31

Uber's defense is that it is licensing lead generation software to drivers, and that it just takes a commission from each trip as payment for use of its software. In many ways, I can see it. I think the issue lies in a lot of Uber's current policies around drivers e.g. very strict rules around cancellations. If Uber was just a lead generation provider then it shouldn't care or intervene if a driver decides they don't…

>Part of me thinks Uber could get away with this if they just relaxed some of their current driver policies (e.g. more limited penalties for cancellations). The issue is whether doing so would drastically deteriorate the quality of the service for riders.

Honestly, just keep the 'we don't show drivers with a less than X star rating' in place, and allow the rider to give the driver a low rating for cancelling. Self correcting problem - drivers that routinely cancel will be pushed out, and the (potential) one bad rating shouldn't hurt routinely good drivers.

Re: Update on AB5

#87

Post by zurtex »

toomim wrote: post #35
zurtex wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: Removed my comment as it conflicted with the guidelines

Do you think the author is fake? Go read his comment history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=npmaile

The question is simply posed but unfortunately is rather difficult to answer because it depends what you mean by fake.

Accounts with a history are very valuable to companies in the business of "creating organic public support".

Also an author can be part of a community bit have a motivation to drive a discussion in a certain direction.

In either case it doesn't mean the post, the author, or the history are "fake" but it can mean there is some level of astroturfing going on.

Anyway I've been informed the guidelines prohibit such insinuations and I can understand why as they are an easy accusation but don't lend towards evidence based or productive discussions so I've removed my comment.

Re: Update on AB5

#88

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

ajkjk wrote: post #17

I feel like it's pretty clear that gig economy jobs don't neatly fit in either of the existing categories of workers: they're not quite employees (you can clearly work or not work whenever you want) or contractors (you clearly have very little negotiating power or information in choosing your work or guaranteeing your wages). Attempts to munge them into one of those categories are just doomed; a new category is neede…

Ridesharing companies, Labor, and the California legislature missed an opportunity to identify a third type of employee. The truth is always somewhere in the middle, and the most objective truth (to me) suggests that rideshare drivers honestly sit somewhere between employees and contractors.

The politics of what has occurred here is probably the pendulum swinging too far, but in the right direction: the classification of 'contractor' just isn't correct to describe these workers, and the legislature did its best to rectify that.

Re: Update on AB5

#89

Post by 627467 »

this is probably going to be labeled as a naive view, but to me it's clear that no one cares about the spirit of the sharing economy (not even corps like uber or airbnb): no one should be dedicating 100% of their "work time" to ubering... nor buying up properties to rent it out as airbnb permanently... I thought it was about unused/wasted time/resources that could be shared (for some profit).

Corps likely airbnb and uber should probably go back to building their platforms to promote occasional resource assignment rather than permanent.

Re: Update on AB5

#90

Post by crakenzak »

SnarkAsh wrote: post #81
lacker wrote: post #74

I think the law will be bad for the people it affects, so this is good news for Uber drivers. Uber isn't operating at a profit, so they don't have extra margin to pass on in the form of extra driver pay or employee benefits. If Uber has to shrink their business in California or exit entirely, that won't be good for drivers either. It reminds me of before my software engineering career, when I was working at The Gap.…

They're getting off lightly. Uber demonstrates why we need a corporate death penalty. Serial lawbreaker Travis Kalanick should be in prison for the rest of his life, most of his criminal conspirators on the board should be there with him, and the company should be dissolved and forgotten. Recall that among their hundreds of other crimes, there are actual conspiracies to conceal criminal activities from law enforcemen…

what did kalanick do that's worthy of life in prison? genuinely curious
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