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I can see your perspective but I personally do think it matters what the law in question is. While you wouldn't start a venture-backed company around the idea

I can see your perspective but I personally do think it matters what the law in question is. While you wouldn't start a venture-backed company around the idea of violating IP, I think it's quite likely that if you do found a venture-capital backed company in any field (i.e. where you think it's okay), you wouldn't instantly wrap it up and close it down at the first whiff that it were let's assume technically against some regulations you disagreed with, but which you could ignore. If you ran an innocuous online forum and found out it's illegal to run any forum, you wouldn't just shut it down. You'd look at why, or how serious those laws against it are, and the consequences of ignoring them. Now granted Uber is a business, there are certain minimum compliance things such as taxes. But I don't share your view that everyone needs to follow all rules no matter how technical. In a sense it's clear that uber is "just an app".

TeMPOraL 7y ago
I understand that things aren't black and white, and I wouldn't immediately shut down a business if I learned it's in violation of some obscure rule - not without trying to get an exemption or otherwise fighting it, if I believed the rule is wrong. But if you look at Uber's history, you get quite a different picture. They went into the ride share business knowing they'll be violating many major rules in most cities they try to operate, and then they just proceeded to violating those rules without attempting to find a better solution; instead, they continue to burn money to escape enforcement, and they've built special software whose explicit purpose is to help them hide from regulators. Uber's approach to local regulations is entirely antagonistic, which is something I don't like. Adding to that all the other stories about their abusive behavior with respect to drivers, customers and journalists, it paints to me a picture of a very antisocial company - in the sense that they're willing to exploit and abuse anyone for profit, without paying any attention to laws. It's a much different thing than discussing an off law that's arguably unjust or out of touch with reality.
- logicallee 7y ago
  Don't you think taxi companies captured a lot of the regulators in many cities, though? (this was my impression), and act monopolistically? why are you basically OK with legal enforcement of the status quo to the point that you want a company to be unable to float its alternative model? I really don't get it.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

I understand that things aren't black and white, and I wouldn't immediately shut down a business if I learned it's in violation of some obscure rule - not without trying to get an exemption or otherwise fighting it, if I believed the rule is wrong. But if you look at Uber's history, you get quite a different picture. They went into the ride share business knowing they'll be violating many major rules in most cities they try to operate, and then they just proceeded to violating those rules without attempting to find a better solution; instead, they continue to burn money to escape enforcement, and they've built special software whose explicit purpose is to help them hide from regulators. Uber's approach to local regulations is entirely antagonistic, which is something I don't like. Adding to that all the other stories about their abusive behavior with respect to drivers, customers and journalists, it paints to me a picture of a very antisocial company - in the sense that they're willing to exploit and abuse anyone for profit, without paying any attention to laws. It's a much different thing than discussing an off law that's arguably unjust or out of touch with reality.

logicallee 7y ago
Don't you think taxi companies captured a lot of the regulators in many cities, though? (this was my impression), and act monopolistically? why are you basically OK with legal enforcement of the status quo to the point that you want a company to be unable to float its alternative model? I really don't get it.