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People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy. Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable eff
by alejohausner 9y ago
People misunderstand Uber's motives. They are not slimy.
Quite the opposite: they are a public good. The company is the front end for a giant charitable effort by venture capitalists. They are pouring money into uber, to help it drive down the costs of urban transportation, enabling people in cities to have more money available for necessities like rent, diapers, and food.
- emodendroket 9y agoIs this satire or what?
- r00fus 9y agoIt's the same reason for why "investor class" let Amazon run on negative to slim profits for so long (allowing them to compete with others that could not do this). Some (I think it was Gruber) said it's like a subsidy from Wall Street to Amazon customers. I feel that reasoning is short-sighted and dangerous.
- emodendroket 9y agoYeah, but they're not doing that out of a sense of charity; the idea is that eventually they are entrenched enough that they can jack up the prices.
- alejohausner 9y agoOf course capitalists want to make money. Their primary goal is very far from charity. They don't want to improve the common weal (although publicly they say they want to help, and some even convince themselves they mean to help society, to rationalize their selfish motives). I'm a bit disturbed that people took my satire seriously. Are rich people different now? Is that what people think?
- emodendroket 9y agoFrankly you could find lots of posts like this on HN which are entirely earnest.
- alejohausner 9y agoYup, satire. Geez!
- jlev 9y agoIs this a joke? They are pouring money into building a monopoly, so they can raise prices when they eventually control urban and suburban transportation.
- alejohausner 9y agoWhoosh! Yes, I meant it as satire, but I guess I my tone was too serious. There goes my career in comedy. But on a more serious note, the arrogance of uber (and its backers) reminds me of times before the welfare state, before governments created barriers to unbridled capitalism. Those times were hard for the disempowered poor. If you were very rich, you could reclaim virtue by leaving your fortune to some public charity, or the church. Or you could be a patron for the arts, supporting writers and artists (that's why so many old novels are dedicated to rich patrons). Or you could pay to fund a piece of urban infrastructure, like a park or school. That's the tone I was appealing to, but I ruined the joke by explaining it. After the French revolution, then Bismarck's Germany, and finally post-WW1 Europe, the working class gained some power, and introduced some barriers to exploitation by the wealthy classes: barriers like unions, minimum wages, workplace safety regulations, environmental protection, and eventually taxpayer-funded medical care. Since the 1970s, there has been a wave of corporate propaganda against these barriers. They have been called "unnecessary regulation" and "loss of personal freedom". Uber has adopted that attitude too. I think they are reactionaries who want to dismantle structures that help the working class.
- the_gastropod 9y agoVenture capitalists, if looking to be charitable, could be more effective by donating the money to an established, well run charity. Venture capitalists have dumped money into Uber not for charity, but for an expected return on their investment.