3 ms·

You are definitely coming off as biased which to me is strange. Maybe Uber isn’t a saint of a company, but thinking that bribery is somehow morally equivalent t

You are definitely coming off as biased which to me is strange. Maybe Uber isn’t a saint of a company, but thinking that bribery is somehow morally equivalent to advertising (whatever the multiple) is very odd.

jkaplowitz 8y ago
I've never had any affiliation with any transportation company or lobby group on any side of the issue, nor have I bought or shorted any relevant stocks. I admitted my dislike of Uber and their peers very explicitly, but I'm only biased in the sense of having considered the issue and formed an opinion. As are we all, if we've thought about it enough. Not sure where bribery entered the conversation. The person I was replying to said that Uber spent $2 million / year on legal expenditures to affect the debate in NY, mostly through advertising. I have no reason to assume that this was any more bribery than PR campaigns and lobbying generally are, and indeed I presume it didn't go beyond that. The mention of the taxi lobby having "bought" de Blasio and the City Council was from the comment I was replying to, which I quoted to marvel at the tone of the conversation which Uber has managed to shape so favorably. And the public support which I said Uber has "bought" is, as I noted, "legitimately real" - they just fed skewed information to the public, which is not a bribe. (They do give lots of loss-leader promotional incentives to make people use and like their service, but we usually categorize that as marketing and not bribery without elements that are absent here.)
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  I'm not in marketing or advertisement, but I seriously wonder if honest grassroots support can be "purchased" through ad spending. For example, I see HSBC's ads incessantly at airports about how they value customer service, but 5+ personal interactions with the bank proved otherwise and no amount of ad spending can get me to suddenly get on message boards and support HSBC. They could spend 10x for all I care and I still wouldnt use their bank...and certainly would never get on message boards to support their product. What ride hailing apps did is make rides available to a giant sector of the population who didn't previously have any reasonable alternative. That makes me (both through my experience, and that of my mother) spend my valuable time on message boards arguing in favor of ride hailing apps. A one line summary of my mom's very limited anecdote: for a frail elderly POC frequenting hospital trips in Manhattan and traveling back to Brooklyn -- there was life before Uber and life after Uber. For excited consumers, it has to do with the product, not ads.
  - jkaplowitz 8y ago
    Sure, that seems like a big win for her. I guess calling car service companies weren't an option, or there was no affordable reliable option nearby? NYC has traditionally used that for the same purpose as Uber, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are underserved areas or racial discrimination by the dispatchers. The biggest example of skewed information in PR (whether ads or official statements) is when they promote how much cheaper they are than the traditional alternatives. While it's often completely true, that's only the case because of their huge VC-funded warchest. This is a major omission from many people's public policy opinion-forming: They're subsidizing rides and losing money in a way that local customer-funded competitors can't match, moving market share toward either a monopoly (as they'd prefer) or an oligopoly (including Lyft etc). Previously NYC taxi and car service companies were diverse small competitors. Once they get enough of a collective stranglehold, or once VC funding gets sick of them waiting for self-driving cars to greatly reduce their cost of goods sold (drivers aren't cheap) in the rough and tumble real world, they'll raise prices and there will be either a captive audience or another rough societal readjustment period. People might still think the speculative future pain is worth the tradeoff, but "cheaper" is a skewers truth without the context. The context lets them consider the full picture when forming their opinion. But yeah, a frail elderly POC woman who needs a better way to go to the hospital has very different priorities than anyone thinking about long term economic and urban planning impacts, and I completely see why it's good for her. :) Glad her needs are better met now than they once were, even if through Uber.
  - TuringNYC 8y ago
    @jkaplowitz thanks for the insights -- all this makes sense. I should note that most of my drivers for Uber/Lyft were not cost-driven but feature-driven. Cost is a factor, of course, and note that my mom almost always uses the pool option to save money -- something Yellow cabs dont/cannot offer. Drivers: - Dispatch services work going from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but not the other way. You'd have to know the local dispatch service, they would need to know your mobile phone number (they usually dont ask) to coordinate with you, etc. The only dispatch services that seem to work well in Manhattan are black car services, which is way out of the conversation here -- she needs a ride home, not a Lincoln Towncar :-) - Dispatch services DO work going from Brooklyn to Manhattan give you a blanket "be ready in 5min" regardless of demand and you end up waiting and waiting -- sometimes at the worst times. I've known people to call 2 or 3 dispatch services, take the first car, and leave the other drivers hanging (unethical...but it happens.) - Dispatch services are hard to get ahold of when you really need them, often in bad weather etc. - Dispatch services do price in the dead-head ride back, so there is a legitimate cost issue there on both supply and demand side. Uber/Lyft mostly solve the dead-head ride back issue, so legitimately lower cost by better utilization. A personal issue when i travel for business: - Dispatch services mysteriously dont keep receipts or have broken credit card machines (not sure why? to hid tax revenue?) -- so I am left with a ride for work (e.g., to airport) with no receipt and thus i have to pay work expenses out of pocket and they wont be reimbursed without a receipt. - Dispath services mysteriously "dont have change" so you're paying $80 for a $62 ride - I'm arriving at Delta Terminal late night in LGA and all the yellow cabs are at the other terminals. You wait and wait. There isnt a good way to "hail" them. I understand the Arro app tries to solve this, but that came years too late.
davidgay 8y ago
What's the moral difference between political ads and donations to a political campaign which will presumably spend that money on ads (or other campaign related expenses)?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > What's the moral difference between political ads and donations to a political campaign which will presumably spend that money on ads (or other campaign related expenses)? Public versus private view, public versus private benefit. Ads put me--the voter--in the equation. A campaign donation removes me from it.
- dyarosla 8y ago
  What world do you live in that presumably most donations to a political campaign are spent on ads?

jkaplowitz 8y ago

I've never had any affiliation with any transportation company or lobby group on any side of the issue, nor have I bought or shorted any relevant stocks. I admitted my dislike of Uber and their peers very explicitly, but I'm only biased in the sense of having considered the issue and formed an opinion. As are we all, if we've thought about it enough. Not sure where bribery entered the conversation. The person I was replying to said that Uber spent $2 million / year on legal expenditures to affect the debate in NY, mostly through advertising. I have no reason to assume that this was any more bribery than PR campaigns and lobbying generally are, and indeed I presume it didn't go beyond that. The mention of the taxi lobby having "bought" de Blasio and the City Council was from the comment I was replying to, which I quoted to marvel at the tone of the conversation which Uber has managed to shape so favorably. And the public support which I said Uber has "bought" is, as I noted, "legitimately real" - they just fed skewed information to the public, which is not a bribe. (They do give lots of loss-leader promotional incentives to make people use and like their service, but we usually categorize that as marketing and not bribery without elements that are absent here.)

TuringNYC 8y ago
I'm not in marketing or advertisement, but I seriously wonder if honest grassroots support can be "purchased" through ad spending. For example, I see HSBC's ads incessantly at airports about how they value customer service, but 5+ personal interactions with the bank proved otherwise and no amount of ad spending can get me to suddenly get on message boards and support HSBC. They could spend 10x for all I care and I still wouldnt use their bank...and certainly would never get on message boards to support their product. What ride hailing apps did is make rides available to a giant sector of the population who didn't previously have any reasonable alternative. That makes me (both through my experience, and that of my mother) spend my valuable time on message boards arguing in favor of ride hailing apps. A one line summary of my mom's very limited anecdote: for a frail elderly POC frequenting hospital trips in Manhattan and traveling back to Brooklyn -- there was life before Uber and life after Uber. For excited consumers, it has to do with the product, not ads.
- jkaplowitz 8y ago
  Sure, that seems like a big win for her. I guess calling car service companies weren't an option, or there was no affordable reliable option nearby? NYC has traditionally used that for the same purpose as Uber, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are underserved areas or racial discrimination by the dispatchers. The biggest example of skewed information in PR (whether ads or official statements) is when they promote how much cheaper they are than the traditional alternatives. While it's often completely true, that's only the case because of their huge VC-funded warchest. This is a major omission from many people's public policy opinion-forming: They're subsidizing rides and losing money in a way that local customer-funded competitors can't match, moving market share toward either a monopoly (as they'd prefer) or an oligopoly (including Lyft etc). Previously NYC taxi and car service companies were diverse small competitors. Once they get enough of a collective stranglehold, or once VC funding gets sick of them waiting for self-driving cars to greatly reduce their cost of goods sold (drivers aren't cheap) in the rough and tumble real world, they'll raise prices and there will be either a captive audience or another rough societal readjustment period. People might still think the speculative future pain is worth the tradeoff, but "cheaper" is a skewers truth without the context. The context lets them consider the full picture when forming their opinion. But yeah, a frail elderly POC woman who needs a better way to go to the hospital has very different priorities than anyone thinking about long term economic and urban planning impacts, and I completely see why it's good for her. :) Glad her needs are better met now than they once were, even if through Uber.
- TuringNYC 8y ago
  @jkaplowitz thanks for the insights -- all this makes sense. I should note that most of my drivers for Uber/Lyft were not cost-driven but feature-driven. Cost is a factor, of course, and note that my mom almost always uses the pool option to save money -- something Yellow cabs dont/cannot offer. Drivers: - Dispatch services work going from Brooklyn to Manhattan, but not the other way. You'd have to know the local dispatch service, they would need to know your mobile phone number (they usually dont ask) to coordinate with you, etc. The only dispatch services that seem to work well in Manhattan are black car services, which is way out of the conversation here -- she needs a ride home, not a Lincoln Towncar :-) - Dispatch services DO work going from Brooklyn to Manhattan give you a blanket "be ready in 5min" regardless of demand and you end up waiting and waiting -- sometimes at the worst times. I've known people to call 2 or 3 dispatch services, take the first car, and leave the other drivers hanging (unethical...but it happens.) - Dispatch services are hard to get ahold of when you really need them, often in bad weather etc. - Dispatch services do price in the dead-head ride back, so there is a legitimate cost issue there on both supply and demand side. Uber/Lyft mostly solve the dead-head ride back issue, so legitimately lower cost by better utilization. A personal issue when i travel for business: - Dispatch services mysteriously dont keep receipts or have broken credit card machines (not sure why? to hid tax revenue?) -- so I am left with a ride for work (e.g., to airport) with no receipt and thus i have to pay work expenses out of pocket and they wont be reimbursed without a receipt. - Dispath services mysteriously "dont have change" so you're paying $80 for a $62 ride - I'm arriving at Delta Terminal late night in LGA and all the yellow cabs are at the other terminals. You wait and wait. There isnt a good way to "hail" them. I understand the Arro app tries to solve this, but that came years too late.

davidgay 8y ago

What's the moral difference between political ads and donations to a political campaign which will presumably spend that money on ads (or other campaign related expenses)?

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> What's the moral difference between political ads and donations to a political campaign which will presumably spend that money on ads (or other campaign related expenses)? Public versus private view, public versus private benefit. Ads put me--the voter--in the equation. A campaign donation removes me from it.
dyarosla 8y ago
What world do you live in that presumably most donations to a political campaign are spent on ads?