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Uber didn't fix life for drivers; they just changed it. It is still a relatively low paying, sucky job. The only thing Uber did that is worth admiring is fixi

by blunte 7y ago

Uber didn't fix life for drivers; they just changed it. It is still a relatively low paying, sucky job. The only thing Uber did that is worth admiring is fixing the "get a ride" situation. Skirting regulation is not ok if you believe in rule of law. If the law is bad, then money can be spent to improve that law. Uber's approach (and Airbnb's, for a long time) just shifts problems around. Yes, there are some benefits for some people for some time, but it is not the way society and civilization should behave. Microsoft did this for years in the 90s. They would steal technology and then pay the occasional pittance of court judgement to the rightful owners. meanwhile, they gained dominance by some degree of theft. All these companies are just proving that laws don't matter if you have enough money. That kind of system is, as we say, unsustainable. If left to continue its course, it will result in some of the tech-dystopian societies which make for fascinating dark books and movies.

ralfd 7y ago
> Skirting regulation is not ok if you believe in rule of law. If the law is bad, then money can be spent to improve that law. I don’t want to snark on that idealism, but it is noteworthy that this didn’t happen. Instead everyone suffered in silence about horrible taxi systems until Uber changed everything.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  > I don’t want to snark on that idealism, but it is noteworthy that this didn’t happen. In some places in the US. And whatever improvements happened, were only side effects. The problem with Uber is that they applied the same disregard for law to every market they entered; it was never about improving things, it was about anticompetitive behavior sustained by investor money and moving fast enough to stay inside local regulators' OODA loops.
nradov 7y ago
Which technology did Microsoft steal?
- blunte 7y ago
  The specific one I remembered was Stacker, the disk compression app. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_law... I remember there being others, but the only one I can find right now is related to Spyglass (which you could argue was not theft, but was instead breach of contract or deception) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc. There were other stories in the 90s, but now I can't find them (so they may have been just stories). Regardless, and considering some of the other practices of MS in the 90s and 2000s, Microsoft was a very different company from the one some of us actually like and respect now.
viraptor 7y ago
> The only thing Uber did that is worth admiring is fixing the "get a ride" situation Every time someone says that I'm reminded of a pre-uber taxi driver telling me a "funny" story how a previous customer said he'll complain about some issue - "But what will he do? I'm just a contractor renting a radio. He can call the office all he wants." Now we've got driver ratings. And the drivers are concerned about them. And I'm happy that giving a terrible/unsafe ride 1 star will have some impact.
- blunte 7y ago
  Fair enough; but that is a side effect, and a rather obvious feature given that Amazon had already proven the value and importance of user ratings (even if they are largely fake now). Also, I wonder how the rating system was working for the people who were victims of assault or crime by an Uber driver in some countries... There was little question that the existing taxi system was bad, but Uber didn't roll in to right the wrongs, it rolled in to "disrupt" and take the market.

by blunte 7y ago

ralfd 7y ago

> Skirting regulation is not ok if you believe in rule of law. If the law is bad, then money can be spent to improve that law. I don’t want to snark on that idealism, but it is noteworthy that this didn’t happen. Instead everyone suffered in silence about horrible taxi systems until Uber changed everything.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
> I don’t want to snark on that idealism, but it is noteworthy that this didn’t happen. In some places in the US. And whatever improvements happened, were only side effects. The problem with Uber is that they applied the same disregard for law to every market they entered; it was never about improving things, it was about anticompetitive behavior sustained by investor money and moving fast enough to stay inside local regulators' OODA loops.

nradov 7y ago

Which technology did Microsoft steal?

blunte 7y ago
The specific one I remembered was Stacker, the disk compression app. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stac_Electronics#Microsoft_law... I remember there being others, but the only one I can find right now is related to Spyglass (which you could argue was not theft, but was instead breach of contract or deception) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc. There were other stories in the 90s, but now I can't find them (so they may have been just stories). Regardless, and considering some of the other practices of MS in the 90s and 2000s, Microsoft was a very different company from the one some of us actually like and respect now.

viraptor 7y ago

> The only thing Uber did that is worth admiring is fixing the "get a ride" situation Every time someone says that I'm reminded of a pre-uber taxi driver telling me a "funny" story how a previous customer said he'll complain about some issue - "But what will he do? I'm just a contractor renting a radio. He can call the office all he wants." Now we've got driver ratings. And the drivers are concerned about them. And I'm happy that giving a terrible/unsafe ride 1 star will have some impact.

blunte 7y ago
Fair enough; but that is a side effect, and a rather obvious feature given that Amazon had already proven the value and importance of user ratings (even if they are largely fake now). Also, I wonder how the rating system was working for the people who were victims of assault or crime by an Uber driver in some countries... There was little question that the existing taxi system was bad, but Uber didn't roll in to right the wrongs, it rolled in to "disrupt" and take the market.