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Why do you have "actual" in scare quotes when Uber investors have put in something like 20 billion dollars worth of investment and AirBnB have put in about 4.5
by harryh 8y ago
Why do you have "actual" in scare quotes when Uber investors have put in something like 20 billion dollars worth of investment and AirBnB have put in about 4.5 billion?
You also mention that hosts & drivers own apartments and cars. This is, of course, true. But those assets are owned by the individuals and not by the company. So I don't see how this sort of personal ownership would be any sort of reasonable claim for ownership of the company.
- nicoburns 8y agoMaybe because the only thing those investors put in was cash. Which doesn't actually generate any value outside of our economic system.
- CamTin 8y agoI meant to imply that Uber and AirBnB have other investors which aren't really treated as such by the legal system: the drivers and hosts who have invested their time and capital driving, hosting guests, buying cars, and renting or buying property. I never meant to imply that the "actual" investors weren't real investors, only that the other sort is just as "actual" despite the legal reality where they are considered the only investors.
- harryh 8y agoThis has very little to do with the legal system[1] and much more to do with voluntary exchange. Investors voluntarily gave money to Uber in return for equity. Drivers voluntarily signed up and started driving in return for cash. Either of those exchanges could have been negotiated differently by either side but they chose not to. Such is the world we live in. 1. Obviously not zero, as this AirBnB request makes clear, but for the most part these sorts of restrictions can be dealt with if both sides really want it.
- allenz 8y agoYou're still making an ideological argument, though you might not realize it. The question is whether workers should have some degree of ownership and control of their company. You point out that the workers voluntarily gave that up. The broader question is whether free market outcomes must be fair/best. What you ignore is that in an unjust society with imbalances of power, markets will reflect and amplify those inequities. For example, what do you make of the fact that most board members are white men? Will you argue that this is the fair outcome? Or is it possible that there other explanations and better outcomes?
- harryh 8y agoCamTin said "Uber and AirBnB have other investors which aren't really treated as such by the legal system" and I pointed out that this wasn't really true. Now perhaps this is bad. Perhaps we would live in a more fair world if our legal system treated Uber drivers and AirBnB hosts differently and forced certain kinds of compensation structures on those transactions. Perhaps that would serve to create a more fair world, but that is not relevant to the point I was making.
- allenz 8y agoCamTin was saying that workers should be considered investors in a moral sense: they put time and effort into the company and deserve a share of the profits. Obviously, workers are not investors in the literal sense.