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Uber spent more money campaigning to prevent a law requiring background checks on drivers in one city than it would have cost to do background checks for all th

Uber spent more money campaigning to prevent a law requiring background checks on drivers in one city than it would have cost to do background checks for all their drivers in the entire country. These companies can try to claim it's about making things better all they want. It's clearly just about money to them. I learnt that the hard way trying to deal with AirBnB. Tip: companies "doing the right thing" don't charge your credit card then require you to login with Facebook (which I don't have) or upload a video explaining why I want to rent a house.

mcintyre1994 9y ago
I don't understand how Uber can be "just about money" if they spend more money campaigning against laws than it would cost to follow them? Sounds like it's more about not following laws than money?
- stephenr 9y ago
  I believe that falls under "spend money to make money", not to mention precedent. It was more money at the time - I can't imagine they have a particularly stable workforce and background checks for a revolving door workforce will get expensive, not to mention it means they have less potential drivers to make money from.
pliftkl 9y ago
I think that's a slight oversimplification. Uber wasn't fighting doing background checks in Austin, they were fighting doing background checks the way the city of Austin wanted them to. But at a more meta-level, what they were really fighting was a precedent that would create a patchwork of local regulation on Uber that would make it harder for them to scale. But yeah, it is ultimately about the money.
- stephenr 9y ago
  A self-imposed background check is essentially no background check. The differences between Uber's and e.g. Taxi's is laughable, when you read accounts from actual Uber drivers like http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-around-background-checks-1596982249 http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-aro...

mcintyre1994 9y ago

I don't understand how Uber can be "just about money" if they spend more money campaigning against laws than it would cost to follow them? Sounds like it's more about not following laws than money?

stephenr 9y ago
I believe that falls under "spend money to make money", not to mention precedent. It was more money at the time - I can't imagine they have a particularly stable workforce and background checks for a revolving door workforce will get expensive, not to mention it means they have less potential drivers to make money from.

pliftkl 9y ago

I think that's a slight oversimplification. Uber wasn't fighting doing background checks in Austin, they were fighting doing background checks the way the city of Austin wanted them to. But at a more meta-level, what they were really fighting was a precedent that would create a patchwork of local regulation on Uber that would make it harder for them to scale. But yeah, it is ultimately about the money.

stephenr 9y ago
A self-imposed background check is essentially no background check. The differences between Uber's and e.g. Taxi's is laughable, when you read accounts from actual Uber drivers like http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-around-background-checks-1596982249 http://valleywag.gawker.com/uber-driver-heres-how-we-get-aro...