4 ms·

The article indicates that this is what the group is already known as, it didn't come up with the term. That said, "a popular spirit of hostility to legal rest

by pluma 8y ago

The article indicates that this is what the group is already known as, it didn't come up with the term. That said, "a popular spirit of hostility to legal restraint and to the law" sounds indistinguishable from how AirBnB, Uber & co operate.

rjzzleep 8y ago
I don't disagree and to be honest Uber did actually operate like a Mafia. Although I don't know if that's still the case. Rarely do we read it being labeled that way however. And while the group is called PayPal Mafia, the article specifically keeps using that term over and over. Besides the 5 times PayPal Mafia has been used in the article in compound there is a total 24 times the Mafia word has been used alone. That's a very clear framing of the article and most paragraphs contain it at least once.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  While I won't deny that Uber has a tendency to be scofflaws and engage in dubious business practices it stinks of hyperbole unless there were cases of extortion and outright murder we don't know about (even if they were negligent in self-driving car deaths that doesn't qualify). The article certainly feels like the editorial stance in the Daily Bugle towards Spiderman given how they grasp so hard at a mere 2% difference and the guilt by association.
  - mschuster91 8y ago
    > unless there were cases of extortion and outright murder we don't know about You don't need violence to run a Mafia. Makes things easier, yeah, but open violence primarily attracts cops. On corporate scale, there are far more attractive and especially legal things available: use price dumping backed by cheap VC cash to force your competitors to either match or close down (which is the entire business model of Uber), buy up competitors before they get dangerous and/or copy popular ideas from them (just watch what FB did to Instagram and Whatsapp, and how it then used that mass to strangle Snapchat), prevent key employees from switching companies (which they all did via NDAs or secret agreements), buy up key suppliers or lock them into exclusive agreements (sort of what Tesla is attempting to do with the Gigafactory), force restaurant operators to pay with cash to have fraudulent "user reviews" removed, ...

by pluma 8y ago

rjzzleep 8y ago

I don't disagree and to be honest Uber did actually operate like a Mafia. Although I don't know if that's still the case. Rarely do we read it being labeled that way however. And while the group is called PayPal Mafia, the article specifically keeps using that term over and over. Besides the 5 times PayPal Mafia has been used in the article in compound there is a total 24 times the Mafia word has been used alone. That's a very clear framing of the article and most paragraphs contain it at least once.

Nasrudith 8y ago
While I won't deny that Uber has a tendency to be scofflaws and engage in dubious business practices it stinks of hyperbole unless there were cases of extortion and outright murder we don't know about (even if they were negligent in self-driving car deaths that doesn't qualify). The article certainly feels like the editorial stance in the Daily Bugle towards Spiderman given how they grasp so hard at a mere 2% difference and the guilt by association.
- mschuster91 8y ago
  > unless there were cases of extortion and outright murder we don't know about You don't need violence to run a Mafia. Makes things easier, yeah, but open violence primarily attracts cops. On corporate scale, there are far more attractive and especially legal things available: use price dumping backed by cheap VC cash to force your competitors to either match or close down (which is the entire business model of Uber), buy up competitors before they get dangerous and/or copy popular ideas from them (just watch what FB did to Instagram and Whatsapp, and how it then used that mass to strangle Snapchat), prevent key employees from switching companies (which they all did via NDAs or secret agreements), buy up key suppliers or lock them into exclusive agreements (sort of what Tesla is attempting to do with the Gigafactory), force restaurant operators to pay with cash to have fraudulent "user reviews" removed, ...