5 ms·

I respectfully disagree. Some laws are better broken, like taxi medallion (read: state enforced monopoly) laws. Uber has improved the lives of millions of peopl

I respectfully disagree. Some laws are better broken, like taxi medallion (read: state enforced monopoly) laws. Uber has improved the lives of millions of people by breaking laws. I sold my car and save money thanks to uber.

jacquesm 11y ago
Great for you. But for Uber to wilfully decide to attack certain laws they decided were unjust was a conscious decision and in some places that caused real trouble for drivers and others. Of course if you are aware of all that and you still decide to go through with it then that's ok with me. But there are other laws than just the taxi medallion ones (which are locally quite varied) and those other laws for the most part are better left unbroken. In other words, for every rule there are exceptions, better be aware of when you feel that you are entering that exceptional territory and better be in the possession of very deep pockets in order to deal with the resulting fall-out. For the vast majority of start-ups it would be a very bad decision to go and break laws willy nilly without understanding fully what the consequences could be.
- gizi 11y ago
  It really depends on what you believe about the legitimacy of man-made law. Large segments in the world population do not consider it be legitimate. Even the papacy openly questioned its legitimacy in 1937, quite before Hitler became truly obnoxious. Therefore, the issue is rather about laws that are enforceable. If the law is really enforceable, you may indeed want to refrain from breaking it. Otherwise, it is your own call.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    I've seen a couple of people that tried to put thoughts such as these into practice. Personally I think this is a very dangerous course of action and given how they ended up I feel that my position is backed by some hard to refute evidence. What you believe should be right is of little or no importance if that conflicts with the law of the land. There are vast fortunes to be made for those that manage to successfully challenge the law but most - not all - ordinary businesses are not set up for that purpose.
    - gizi 11y ago
      Uber and airbnb are doing absolutely fine in my impression! ;-)
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    There's a lot of people in U.S. prisons or graveyards who acted on your perspective. Feel free to try. The likely outcome is courts handing down a judgment. After you resist, they send regular cops that you'll probably shoot given Hitler references. The next round will look like the Waco videos on YouTube except you probably have less guns and soldiers. Not to mention cops get extremely, rightly aggressive once you've started killing them. It will be over much more quickly esp given all the military hardware our cops have these days. The above scenario played out many times ranging from tax dodgers to drug dealers to land grabs. My money is on them is you follow that foolish philosophy.
rtpg 11y ago
Uber has also caused massive pain to its drivers by not giving actual employment protections and causing unilateral drops in pricing to make previous jobs untenable. Uber is basically Walmart for taxis. Come in, bankrupt local taxis with subsidised pricing for drivers and riders. Afterwards keep low pricing for riders but squeeze drivers for all they got. As one driver put it, it doesn't matter if a 30% price drop create more customers. Drivers can only drive so many hours in a day, so drivers end up with 30% less money.

jacquesm 11y ago

Great for you. But for Uber to wilfully decide to attack certain laws they decided were unjust was a conscious decision and in some places that caused real trouble for drivers and others. Of course if you are aware of all that and you still decide to go through with it then that's ok with me. But there are other laws than just the taxi medallion ones (which are locally quite varied) and those other laws for the most part are better left unbroken. In other words, for every rule there are exceptions, better be aware of when you feel that you are entering that exceptional territory and better be in the possession of very deep pockets in order to deal with the resulting fall-out. For the vast majority of start-ups it would be a very bad decision to go and break laws willy nilly without understanding fully what the consequences could be.

gizi 11y ago
It really depends on what you believe about the legitimacy of man-made law. Large segments in the world population do not consider it be legitimate. Even the papacy openly questioned its legitimacy in 1937, quite before Hitler became truly obnoxious. Therefore, the issue is rather about laws that are enforceable. If the law is really enforceable, you may indeed want to refrain from breaking it. Otherwise, it is your own call.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  I've seen a couple of people that tried to put thoughts such as these into practice. Personally I think this is a very dangerous course of action and given how they ended up I feel that my position is backed by some hard to refute evidence. What you believe should be right is of little or no importance if that conflicts with the law of the land. There are vast fortunes to be made for those that manage to successfully challenge the law but most - not all - ordinary businesses are not set up for that purpose.
  - gizi 11y ago
    Uber and airbnb are doing absolutely fine in my impression! ;-)
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  There's a lot of people in U.S. prisons or graveyards who acted on your perspective. Feel free to try. The likely outcome is courts handing down a judgment. After you resist, they send regular cops that you'll probably shoot given Hitler references. The next round will look like the Waco videos on YouTube except you probably have less guns and soldiers. Not to mention cops get extremely, rightly aggressive once you've started killing them. It will be over much more quickly esp given all the military hardware our cops have these days. The above scenario played out many times ranging from tax dodgers to drug dealers to land grabs. My money is on them is you follow that foolish philosophy.

rtpg 11y ago

Uber has also caused massive pain to its drivers by not giving actual employment protections and causing unilateral drops in pricing to make previous jobs untenable. Uber is basically Walmart for taxis. Come in, bankrupt local taxis with subsidised pricing for drivers and riders. Afterwards keep low pricing for riders but squeeze drivers for all they got. As one driver put it, it doesn't matter if a 30% price drop create more customers. Drivers can only drive so many hours in a day, so drivers end up with 30% less money.