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There's no evidence that the unethical behavior was necessary or even helped. > powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example) DeBlasio is

There's no evidence that the unethical behavior was necessary or even helped. > powerfully entrenched politicians (DeBlasio of NYC as an example) DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents. The people get to write the rules, called laws. Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right?

logicchains 9y ago
>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? You could say people voted with their wallets.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > You could say people voted with their wallets. You could say it, but that's not how democracy or legitimate government and lawmaking works. And in Uber's case, the wallets voting are a few investors who subsidized the customers.
  - Fricken 9y ago
    What makes a government legit? People support it. What makes Uber legit? People support it. Although I guess a government doesn't need the support of the people to maintain legitimacy, it just needs to be able to maintain a monopoly on violence. And if Uber had a monopoly on the taxi industry maybe it wouldn't need the people's support either.
    - 659087 9y ago
      It's not hard to gain support when you're selling dollars bills for half price.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      > What makes a government legit? People support it. > What makes Uber legit? People support it. Really? Uber has the legitimacy of government? Wow.
  - kamaal 9y ago
    For better or worse, thats how it should work. Failure of centrally planned economies all across the globe says something. Markets don't have elections and most politicians/bureaucrats don't exactly have the competency to decide what should be good for everyone. Letting people vote with their wallets has largely worked. Of course no system is perfect, but this is as fair as it gets.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      The centrally planned NHS achieves similar public health outcomes to the US for less than half of the cost. The excellent Cuban health system achieves the same for roughly 1/10th the cost. Which part of "double the price same product" counts largely "worked" and why do you want me to give up my cheaper system for yours?
      - whb07 9y ago
        Well, this isn’t my point of view but the US largely subsidizes the medicine and research for the rest of the world when it comes to health. Just look at the number of medical innovations year coming the rest of the world COMBINED vs the US. Clearly there’s some free riding happening by the rest. Furthermore, don’t ever say “excellent Cuban” anything. There’s a reason why people try to cross shark infested waters on dingy rafts from Cuba to Key West, Florida. People vote with their feet and wallets.
      - megaman22 9y ago
        We can discuss the efficiency of a market-based health care system when such a thing exists. The current system is as artificial and corrupted as the taxi medallion situation. If only I could walk into a health care facility and see the prices posted on the wall for various procedures, or get an estimate upfront, the way I can at any auto garage...
        crdoconnor 9y ago
        No true scotsman...
    - 9y ago
- NotSammyHagar 9y ago
  >>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? >You could say people voted with their wallets. Money should never overwhelm the will of the people. I say this even though I hated the way taxis used to work, with the artificial limitation, and I love a chance to take a much more convenient app based ride, I really despise how they got away with violating at least any standard of reasonable behavior, but also they were apparently violating the law literally - one example being paying the hackers not to hack and not telling anyone.
  - krrrh 9y ago
    Everything you say is true, but the vested rent-seeking interests of the medallion holders that for years caused untold costs to people who needed transportation, and to the economy as a whole, was also despicable. Money was already overwhelming the will of everyone who couldn’t get a cab, who had to buy a car they didn’t want to own, and who had to put up with a higher percentage of drunk drivers. Just because it was that way for decades and few imagined it could be different, it didn’t make it right. It’s like the quote from the Chronicles of Riddick, “sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with another kind of evil”.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      I think Goldman Sachs took an Uber stake around the time it dumped it's medallions. So the identity of the rent seekers at the top hasn't even changed. But you use an app now... so, yay? I think anybody who takes a rent seekers' side over even the most despicable politician doesn't deserve to live in a Democracy.
      - rtx 9y ago
        As a rent seeker, democracy protects me.
        crdoconnor 9y ago
        No, as a rent seeker donations to politicians and think tanks protect you. More democracy puts your rents at risk.
- bildung 9y ago
  > You could say people voted with their wallets. Problem is some wallets are empty and some are full, whereas in a democracy every vote has the same weight.
isoskeles 9y ago
I can understand people arguing for the rule of law. Yes, we have laws, and they should be followed. Breaking them carries the risk of punishment. What I can't understand is the moral grandstanding, e.g. "What gave him the right?" Are taxicab medallions worth it? I never take it seriously when someone starts talking like this about the marriage between taxis and local governments, like it was some holy industry that didn't deserve to be disrupted. Imagine how long it would have taken for local governments to "fix" something like that. Can you explain to me what it would take for a city council to (1) identify a problem (and in a timely manner, instead of twenty years of "if it ain't broke don't fix it"), (2) come up with a solution, and (3) somehow prioritize this ahead of all of the other important things they work on? You are correct, no one handed Travis Kalanick the "right" to change something, but I'm okay with the fact that he took it upon himself.
- msmith10101 9y ago
  What, exactly, has been fixed? What leads you to believe that the supply of Uber driver's will exceed zero once Uber can no longer lose over a billion dollars a quarter in subsidizing trips to pay these drivers more than minimum wage? Uber spun up self driving cars because it realized that it does not have a product or a business model.
  - kamaal 9y ago
    Well again, people will vote with their wallets. Which ever way it goes, its fine and fair.
- geofft 9y ago
  > Are taxicab medallions worth it? I'm in favor of the rule of law. If I was in favor of the rule of law when it did good things and not when it did bad things (and I ready admit that the medallion system is one of the bad things), and wanted outside companies with private capital to ignore the rule of law to fix the bad things... I wouldn't be in favor of the rule of law at all. The ultimate question is who we choose to decide whether things are good or bad. If you support the rule of law in a democracy, you have the democratic process. If you support companies outspending and outmaneuvering local governments, you're entrusting capital with making these decisions, and they probably won't reflect the will of the people. It is, to be clear, an entirely legitimate political perspective to believe that we'll get a better society by letting the holder of the most capital make decisions instead of letting the people each have one vote. But that's a very strong claim that should be made clearly, and those who believe in democracy even when democracy happens to produce occasional bad outcomes are not particularly grandstanding, just believing in democracy.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents The majority of New Yorkers did not appear to support his views in respect of taxis. That is why Uber was able to organise a grassroots opposition. > What gave him the right? The Constitution and culture of civil society that gives the EFF “the right” to organise constituencies of grassroots support.
- forapurpose 9y ago
  > The majority of New Yorkers did not appear to support his views in respect of taxis. Under the law, which is how every modern society is governed, the mayor makes these decisions irrespective of majorities (if they exists) on particular issues; that's on purpose. > EFF The EFF does not violate laws and claims no right to do so. It does claim a right to organize people and speak about issues; Uber has that right too. Uber does not have the right to break laws it doesn't like.
madeofpalk 9y ago
Try looking outside your bubble of the US. In Australia, after the local regulator/government started fining UberX drivers for illegally operating a taxi service (rightfully so IMHO), Uber told the drivers not to worry, continue driving and they’ll pay their fines for them.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Fines are not for breaking laws, but for torts. Violating rules. People do it all the time, and its not unethical? Like paying a fee for filing taxes late. Folks in a bind do that all the time. Getting a parking ticket because you have to be by your spouse while the baby is being born. Renewing your driver's license late because you forgot/got busy.
  - madeofpalk 9y ago
    > Fines are not for breaking laws, but for torts. Again, try looking outside your bubble of the US. This is certainly not the case in countries outside the US.
  - vertex-four 9y ago
    This seems to be the relevant law for New York, as an example, found under 19-506 of the New York City Administrative Code, which was passed by the city legislature, which was given its power by the Constitution of the State of New York: Any person, other than a person holding a driver's license issued pursuant to section 19-505 and a New York state class A, B, C or E license, neither of which is revoked or suspended, who drives or operates for hire a licensed vehicle in the city except a commuter van, shall be guilty of a violation, and upon conviction in the criminal court, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty days, or both such fine and imprisonment. Obviously courts can impose fines - do you honestly think the only thing a court can do is throw someone in jail? Fines are not for torts - penalties are, and there's very strict rules around penalties (they can't be punitive and can only be used to recover costs incurred by failure to perform a contract). You have no idea what you're on about. The process of fining you is literally a court procedure. The city official doesn't have any authority to fine you - they bring a prosecution against you in court, and provide you with the details by which you can either plead guilty in front of that court (possibly via mail or an online form) and take the sentence that the court gives you (which is most likely to be a fine unless the judge has more information), or plead not guilty and make a defense. Anything else would be a violation of due process.
jahans3 9y ago
In London Uber has lost their license to operate, and that decision will come into effect this year. They cite passenger safety concerns, but there's been not-too-subtle protests by Black Cab drivers who simply refuse to change their archaic business model and a very stark lack of actual Uber users concerned about safety. Not only is it far less convenient than Uber, calling a Black Cab means you need to venture onto the street and if you're not in central London you're basically stuffed. There's also the matter of cabbies being many times more expensive than Uber - a £20 Uber would be £50, at least. The Black Cab drivers are being petulant children about it. I'm sorry their livelihoods are under threat but they either need to evolve or die. They literally blocked off a major London road right outside my offices in protest against Uber a few months ago; right off Blackfriars Bridge they parked horizontally in the middle of the road, causing absolute mayhem. Usually I'm fine with people striking, but there was no legitimate grievance here - a better competitor came along and instead of embracing change (and progress) they simply threw their toys out of the pram and demanded the politicians (who are in their union's pocket) simply get rid of their competition. The politicians didn't take much persuading, and just like that we rolled back to Black Cabs (which half of Uber users were priced out of in the first place). Unions are generally a force for good, but this was just a shameless attempt by the Black Cab union to have the competition erased, where previously they operated in what could easily have been described as a monopoly - previously they only faced competition from minicabs and Addison Lee, which largely had an entirely different customer base.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  Does Gett or similar not work very well in London? It seems to work perfectly in Edinburgh, even for rides going most of the way out of the city.
- soVeryTired 9y ago
  They lost their license for not being 'fit and proper'. The regulator also cited corporate responsibility and Uber's use of Greyball. It wasn't just about public safety.
- Nursie 9y ago
  There's always been competition in London though. It's not like your only choice is uber or a black cab. The fact is that Uber came in, heavy handed, and used it's usual "fuck the rules, we're here" attitude towards running its service. It's hardly surprising that it fails to get license renewals when it's not only shown scant regard for the rules and regs, but open contempt about changing so that they fit them.
megaman22 9y ago
You can't really change the world if you're always coloring inside the lines. There is such a thing as creative destruction; when structures get ossified and corrupt, they've got to be burned down and swept away.

logicchains 9y ago

>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? You could say people voted with their wallets.

forapurpose 9y ago
> You could say people voted with their wallets. You could say it, but that's not how democracy or legitimate government and lawmaking works. And in Uber's case, the wallets voting are a few investors who subsidized the customers.
- Fricken 9y ago
  What makes a government legit? People support it. What makes Uber legit? People support it. Although I guess a government doesn't need the support of the people to maintain legitimacy, it just needs to be able to maintain a monopoly on violence. And if Uber had a monopoly on the taxi industry maybe it wouldn't need the people's support either.
  - 659087 9y ago
    It's not hard to gain support when you're selling dollars bills for half price.
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    > What makes a government legit? People support it. > What makes Uber legit? People support it. Really? Uber has the legitimacy of government? Wow.
- kamaal 9y ago
  For better or worse, thats how it should work. Failure of centrally planned economies all across the globe says something. Markets don't have elections and most politicians/bureaucrats don't exactly have the competency to decide what should be good for everyone. Letting people vote with their wallets has largely worked. Of course no system is perfect, but this is as fair as it gets.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    The centrally planned NHS achieves similar public health outcomes to the US for less than half of the cost. The excellent Cuban health system achieves the same for roughly 1/10th the cost. Which part of "double the price same product" counts largely "worked" and why do you want me to give up my cheaper system for yours?
    - whb07 9y ago
      Well, this isn’t my point of view but the US largely subsidizes the medicine and research for the rest of the world when it comes to health. Just look at the number of medical innovations year coming the rest of the world COMBINED vs the US. Clearly there’s some free riding happening by the rest. Furthermore, don’t ever say “excellent Cuban” anything. There’s a reason why people try to cross shark infested waters on dingy rafts from Cuba to Key West, Florida. People vote with their feet and wallets.
    - megaman22 9y ago
      We can discuss the efficiency of a market-based health care system when such a thing exists. The current system is as artificial and corrupted as the taxi medallion situation. If only I could walk into a health care facility and see the prices posted on the wall for various procedures, or get an estimate upfront, the way I can at any auto garage...
      - crdoconnor 9y ago
        No true scotsman...
  - 9y ago
NotSammyHagar 9y ago
>>Who voted for Kalanick? What gave him the right? >You could say people voted with their wallets. Money should never overwhelm the will of the people. I say this even though I hated the way taxis used to work, with the artificial limitation, and I love a chance to take a much more convenient app based ride, I really despise how they got away with violating at least any standard of reasonable behavior, but also they were apparently violating the law literally - one example being paying the hackers not to hack and not telling anyone.
- krrrh 9y ago
  Everything you say is true, but the vested rent-seeking interests of the medallion holders that for years caused untold costs to people who needed transportation, and to the economy as a whole, was also despicable. Money was already overwhelming the will of everyone who couldn’t get a cab, who had to buy a car they didn’t want to own, and who had to put up with a higher percentage of drunk drivers. Just because it was that way for decades and few imagined it could be different, it didn’t make it right. It’s like the quote from the Chronicles of Riddick, “sometimes the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with another kind of evil”.
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    I think Goldman Sachs took an Uber stake around the time it dumped it's medallions. So the identity of the rent seekers at the top hasn't even changed. But you use an app now... so, yay? I think anybody who takes a rent seekers' side over even the most despicable politician doesn't deserve to live in a Democracy.
    - rtx 9y ago
      As a rent seeker, democracy protects me.
      - crdoconnor 9y ago
        No, as a rent seeker donations to politicians and think tanks protect you. More democracy puts your rents at risk.
bildung 9y ago
> You could say people voted with their wallets. Problem is some wallets are empty and some are full, whereas in a democracy every vote has the same weight.

isoskeles 9y ago

I can understand people arguing for the rule of law. Yes, we have laws, and they should be followed. Breaking them carries the risk of punishment. What I can't understand is the moral grandstanding, e.g. "What gave him the right?" Are taxicab medallions worth it? I never take it seriously when someone starts talking like this about the marriage between taxis and local governments, like it was some holy industry that didn't deserve to be disrupted. Imagine how long it would have taken for local governments to "fix" something like that. Can you explain to me what it would take for a city council to (1) identify a problem (and in a timely manner, instead of twenty years of "if it ain't broke don't fix it"), (2) come up with a solution, and (3) somehow prioritize this ahead of all of the other important things they work on? You are correct, no one handed Travis Kalanick the "right" to change something, but I'm okay with the fact that he took it upon himself.

msmith10101 9y ago
What, exactly, has been fixed? What leads you to believe that the supply of Uber driver's will exceed zero once Uber can no longer lose over a billion dollars a quarter in subsidizing trips to pay these drivers more than minimum wage? Uber spun up self driving cars because it realized that it does not have a product or a business model.
- kamaal 9y ago
  Well again, people will vote with their wallets. Which ever way it goes, its fine and fair.
geofft 9y ago
> Are taxicab medallions worth it? I'm in favor of the rule of law. If I was in favor of the rule of law when it did good things and not when it did bad things (and I ready admit that the medallion system is one of the bad things), and wanted outside companies with private capital to ignore the rule of law to fix the bad things... I wouldn't be in favor of the rule of law at all. The ultimate question is who we choose to decide whether things are good or bad. If you support the rule of law in a democracy, you have the democratic process. If you support companies outspending and outmaneuvering local governments, you're entrusting capital with making these decisions, and they probably won't reflect the will of the people. It is, to be clear, an entirely legitimate political perspective to believe that we'll get a better society by letting the holder of the most capital make decisions instead of letting the people each have one vote. But that's a very strong claim that should be made clearly, and those who believe in democracy even when democracy happens to produce occasional bad outcomes are not particularly grandstanding, just believing in democracy.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> DeBlasio is entrenched because he was elected by a majority of his constituents The majority of New Yorkers did not appear to support his views in respect of taxis. That is why Uber was able to organise a grassroots opposition. > What gave him the right? The Constitution and culture of civil society that gives the EFF “the right” to organise constituencies of grassroots support.

forapurpose 9y ago
> The majority of New Yorkers did not appear to support his views in respect of taxis. Under the law, which is how every modern society is governed, the mayor makes these decisions irrespective of majorities (if they exists) on particular issues; that's on purpose. > EFF The EFF does not violate laws and claims no right to do so. It does claim a right to organize people and speak about issues; Uber has that right too. Uber does not have the right to break laws it doesn't like.

madeofpalk 9y ago

Try looking outside your bubble of the US. In Australia, after the local regulator/government started fining UberX drivers for illegally operating a taxi service (rightfully so IMHO), Uber told the drivers not to worry, continue driving and they’ll pay their fines for them.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Fines are not for breaking laws, but for torts. Violating rules. People do it all the time, and its not unethical? Like paying a fee for filing taxes late. Folks in a bind do that all the time. Getting a parking ticket because you have to be by your spouse while the baby is being born. Renewing your driver's license late because you forgot/got busy.
- madeofpalk 9y ago
  > Fines are not for breaking laws, but for torts. Again, try looking outside your bubble of the US. This is certainly not the case in countries outside the US.
- vertex-four 9y ago
  This seems to be the relevant law for New York, as an example, found under 19-506 of the New York City Administrative Code, which was passed by the city legislature, which was given its power by the Constitution of the State of New York: Any person, other than a person holding a driver's license issued pursuant to section 19-505 and a New York state class A, B, C or E license, neither of which is revoked or suspended, who drives or operates for hire a licensed vehicle in the city except a commuter van, shall be guilty of a violation, and upon conviction in the criminal court, shall be punished by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars or imprisonment for a term not exceeding thirty days, or both such fine and imprisonment. Obviously courts can impose fines - do you honestly think the only thing a court can do is throw someone in jail? Fines are not for torts - penalties are, and there's very strict rules around penalties (they can't be punitive and can only be used to recover costs incurred by failure to perform a contract). You have no idea what you're on about. The process of fining you is literally a court procedure. The city official doesn't have any authority to fine you - they bring a prosecution against you in court, and provide you with the details by which you can either plead guilty in front of that court (possibly via mail or an online form) and take the sentence that the court gives you (which is most likely to be a fine unless the judge has more information), or plead not guilty and make a defense. Anything else would be a violation of due process.

jahans3 9y ago

In London Uber has lost their license to operate, and that decision will come into effect this year. They cite passenger safety concerns, but there's been not-too-subtle protests by Black Cab drivers who simply refuse to change their archaic business model and a very stark lack of actual Uber users concerned about safety. Not only is it far less convenient than Uber, calling a Black Cab means you need to venture onto the street and if you're not in central London you're basically stuffed. There's also the matter of cabbies being many times more expensive than Uber - a £20 Uber would be £50, at least. The Black Cab drivers are being petulant children about it. I'm sorry their livelihoods are under threat but they either need to evolve or die. They literally blocked off a major London road right outside my offices in protest against Uber a few months ago; right off Blackfriars Bridge they parked horizontally in the middle of the road, causing absolute mayhem. Usually I'm fine with people striking, but there was no legitimate grievance here - a better competitor came along and instead of embracing change (and progress) they simply threw their toys out of the pram and demanded the politicians (who are in their union's pocket) simply get rid of their competition. The politicians didn't take much persuading, and just like that we rolled back to Black Cabs (which half of Uber users were priced out of in the first place). Unions are generally a force for good, but this was just a shameless attempt by the Black Cab union to have the competition erased, where previously they operated in what could easily have been described as a monopoly - previously they only faced competition from minicabs and Addison Lee, which largely had an entirely different customer base.

vertex-four 9y ago
Does Gett or similar not work very well in London? It seems to work perfectly in Edinburgh, even for rides going most of the way out of the city.
soVeryTired 9y ago
They lost their license for not being 'fit and proper'. The regulator also cited corporate responsibility and Uber's use of Greyball. It wasn't just about public safety.
Nursie 9y ago
There's always been competition in London though. It's not like your only choice is uber or a black cab. The fact is that Uber came in, heavy handed, and used it's usual "fuck the rules, we're here" attitude towards running its service. It's hardly surprising that it fails to get license renewals when it's not only shown scant regard for the rules and regs, but open contempt about changing so that they fit them.

megaman22 9y ago

You can't really change the world if you're always coloring inside the lines. There is such a thing as creative destruction; when structures get ossified and corrupt, they've got to be burned down and swept away.