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Uber is preparing for this by building one of the best robotics divisions in the world, be careful what you wish for Uber drivers, you may just quicken your obs

Uber is preparing for this by building one of the best robotics divisions in the world, be careful what you wish for Uber drivers, you may just quicken your obsolescence

s73v3r 11y ago
Yup. Fuck people who want to be treated fairly. Profits are more important, amirite?
dragonwriter 11y ago
That seems to encourage, rather than discourage, efforts to assure that current drivers get the most while they can.
- closetnerd 11y ago
  Until it becomes an effort that inevitably leads current drivers to becoming luddites so they can keep their jobs.
toomuchtodo 11y ago
And then we just tax Uber and their robotics-generated revenue (note I said revenue, not profit; profit can be gamed). That's what Hacker News doesn't get. You're not entitled to a profit. You're not entitled to "disrupt". And if we change laws so you squeeze technology-heavy companies in order to support people displaced who no longer can find jobs, that's how it goes (does "eminent domain" ring a bell? if intellectual property is "property", what stops taking that?). You can serve bits from anywhere. Physical infrastructure? Good luck profiting off of that from another jurisdiction. EDIT: HN, you make me chuckle. A US court is about to slam the hell out of Uber for violating labor law, and everyone here is up in arms about how their match-driver-to-passenger unicorn couldn't possibly be required to bow to "mere mortal" law.
- onewaystreet 11y ago
  > A US court is about to slam the hell out of Uber for violating labor law The class action suit will be tied up in the courts for another decade. FedEx has been fighting this same fight for years and the vast majority of its drivers remain independent contractors.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Info on the Fedex court case is below; note, the IRS can move quicker, and can extract far harsher penalties (as they should). "FedEx has settled a long-running dispute with FedEx Ground California drivers. The class settlement will create a $228 million fund to resolve claims by over 2,000 FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery pickup and delivery drivers. Some claims date back to 2000 and some extend through 2007. The settlement must still be approved by the Ninth Circuit, but assuming court approval, will end one chapter in a bitter dispute. The settlement comes in the wake of a 2014 Ninth Circuit ruling that FedEx misclassified drivers as independent contractors. FedEx has long maintained that it didn’t misclassify anyone. Yet independent contractor status was a key component of how FedEx does business. In the case of the 2,300 FedEx Ground drivers, for years, FedEx called them—and paid them—as independent contractors." http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/06/16/fedex-settles-driver-mislabeling-case-for-228-million/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/06/16/fedex-sett...
ZoeZoeBee 11y ago
It's interesting how many people are upset by the inevitability of self driving cars and what that means to current "professional drivers". Oh well the future is what it is

Uber is preparing for this by building one of the best robotics divisions in the world, be careful what you wish for Uber drivers, you may just quicken your obsolescence

s73v3r 11y ago

Yup. Fuck people who want to be treated fairly. Profits are more important, amirite?

dragonwriter 11y ago

That seems to encourage, rather than discourage, efforts to assure that current drivers get the most while they can.

closetnerd 11y ago
Until it becomes an effort that inevitably leads current drivers to becoming luddites so they can keep their jobs.

toomuchtodo 11y ago

And then we just tax Uber and their robotics-generated revenue (note I said revenue, not profit; profit can be gamed). That's what Hacker News doesn't get. You're not entitled to a profit. You're not entitled to "disrupt". And if we change laws so you squeeze technology-heavy companies in order to support people displaced who no longer can find jobs, that's how it goes (does "eminent domain" ring a bell? if intellectual property is "property", what stops taking that?). You can serve bits from anywhere. Physical infrastructure? Good luck profiting off of that from another jurisdiction. EDIT: HN, you make me chuckle. A US court is about to slam the hell out of Uber for violating labor law, and everyone here is up in arms about how their match-driver-to-passenger unicorn couldn't possibly be required to bow to "mere mortal" law.

onewaystreet 11y ago
> A US court is about to slam the hell out of Uber for violating labor law The class action suit will be tied up in the courts for another decade. FedEx has been fighting this same fight for years and the vast majority of its drivers remain independent contractors.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Info on the Fedex court case is below; note, the IRS can move quicker, and can extract far harsher penalties (as they should). "FedEx has settled a long-running dispute with FedEx Ground California drivers. The class settlement will create a $228 million fund to resolve claims by over 2,000 FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery pickup and delivery drivers. Some claims date back to 2000 and some extend through 2007. The settlement must still be approved by the Ninth Circuit, but assuming court approval, will end one chapter in a bitter dispute. The settlement comes in the wake of a 2014 Ninth Circuit ruling that FedEx misclassified drivers as independent contractors. FedEx has long maintained that it didn’t misclassify anyone. Yet independent contractor status was a key component of how FedEx does business. In the case of the 2,300 FedEx Ground drivers, for years, FedEx called them—and paid them—as independent contractors." http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/06/16/fedex-settles-driver-mislabeling-case-for-228-million/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/06/16/fedex-sett...

ZoeZoeBee 11y ago

It's interesting how many people are upset by the inevitability of self driving cars and what that means to current "professional drivers". Oh well the future is what it is