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I would love a carbon tax but if that existed I don't see how you can blame Uber for making society worse. In additions to all the economic gains you talk about

I would love a carbon tax but if that existed I don't see how you can blame Uber for making society worse. In additions to all the economic gains you talk about it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving. Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in. I did have to take a taxi in Los Angeles from the airport earlier this year and the guy wouldn't tell me how much it would cost. Gave me a ballpark that was $22 less than what it ended up being.

lazyasciiart 5y ago
> it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving According to Uber? > Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. Citation needed. I believe the last analysis I read showed that most people used Uber etc to replace transit or walking, which means it adds to emissions. I've used taxis in multiple cities that I booked through an app and got a fare ahead of time. At this point Uber is "a taxi, but with no guarantee of quality* and no cap on how many of them are creating traffic" *GPS routing does no good when the driver clearly can't read a map and doesn't know where they are or how to follow directions.
TeMPOraL 5y ago
> how you can blame Uber for making society worse There's a long, long, long list of reasons Uber has screwed over great many people, and continues to. From regulatory arbitrage, duping drivers into unprofitable deals, lack of proper insurance, privacy violations, harassing journalists, harassing employees... This has been covered non-stop on HN for pretty much a decade now. I invite you to do some searching, and you'll quickly see how Uber is one of the most ethically challenged companies of the 21st century. > More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in. Yes. And by higher-variance I meant that you never know what fare you'll have to either accept, or abandon the trip. With traditional taxis, the prices are variable, but it's easier to ballpark them (at least traveling in the city you know), and they have much tighter range.
- handmodel 5y ago
  As crazy as early Uber was I still have trouble believing that taxi companies are more deserving or were better to their employees or less corrupt. There's no evidence. I guess if you prefer being able to ballpark a taxi cost then that's cool! You can still use taxis. But most people prefer to see the price before they get in. Certainly the choice existing is better for the consumer and has helped keep taxi fares lower - even if you choose not to use an uber.
  - foobiekr 5y ago
    early Uber wasn’t crazy, it was a blatant and malign attempt to use cheap capital to monopolize an existing sector. Uber is and was always about as close to evil as a company can be without selling opioids or nicotine.
    - handmodel 5y ago
      I know me and you are not going to see eye-to-eye but I have trouble seeing how Ubers are more monopolistic than taxi companies which wanted a cap on the number of permitted taxi's per city - when they already had all the permits/medallions owned themselves.
      - foobiekr 5y ago
        Taxi companies (note the plural) were obviously not monopolies and the medallion systems generally required diversity of holders. That is not at all what Uber was up to. Uber was doing what used to be called dumping to destroy the incumbents. Stop defending Uber. Even if you work for them it is incumbent on you as a citizen to be honest about what they were doing.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    > As crazy as early Uber was I still have trouble believing that taxi companies are more deserving or were better to their employees or less corrupt. There's no evidence. Do you have any evidence, for any taxi network in any city on the planet, of that taxi network doing anything even remotely as illegal or antisocial as Uber has been (and still is) doing? Uber's transgressions are well documented, there is great many of them, and quite a few were done at scale. For the "deserving" part - they were there. Good or bad, I don't think any business deserves being steamrolled by an aggressive foreign multinational corporation, with practically infinite budget to undercut competitors and keep law enforcement at bay. Local businesses don't get to break the law without impunity. For being better to their employees, I honestly don't know. But in all the rides with traditional networks I took over two decades of my life, I don't remember any driver actually complaining about their job. Ironically, the drivers of Uber-like[0] services keep complaining all the time - mostly about constantly changing terms of contracts, and constantly testing new kinds of customer acquisition schemes, that tend to take away money from the drivers. > But most people prefer to see the price before they get in. I never said I didn't want it either. I like this feature - and guess what, I had that, way before Uber was a thing, thanks to a private company that fought for improvement in transport regulations. That's how I know sociopathy wasn't necessary to disrupting the taxi market. -- [0] - I don't use Uber itself, it's a matter of principle.

lazyasciiart 5y ago

> it has saved thousands of lives a year due to less drunk driving According to Uber? > Additionally, it has enabled millions of people in cities to skip buying a new car/any car which saves tons of emissions. Citation needed. I believe the last analysis I read showed that most people used Uber etc to replace transit or walking, which means it adds to emissions. I've used taxis in multiple cities that I booked through an app and got a fare ahead of time. At this point Uber is "a taxi, but with no guarantee of quality* and no cap on how many of them are creating traffic" *GPS routing does no good when the driver clearly can't read a map and doesn't know where they are or how to follow directions.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> how you can blame Uber for making society worse There's a long, long, long list of reasons Uber has screwed over great many people, and continues to. From regulatory arbitrage, duping drivers into unprofitable deals, lack of proper insurance, privacy violations, harassing journalists, harassing employees... This has been covered non-stop on HN for pretty much a decade now. I invite you to do some searching, and you'll quickly see how Uber is one of the most ethically challenged companies of the 21st century. > More predictable as in you know the fair before you get in. Yes. And by higher-variance I meant that you never know what fare you'll have to either accept, or abandon the trip. With traditional taxis, the prices are variable, but it's easier to ballpark them (at least traveling in the city you know), and they have much tighter range.

handmodel 5y ago
As crazy as early Uber was I still have trouble believing that taxi companies are more deserving or were better to their employees or less corrupt. There's no evidence. I guess if you prefer being able to ballpark a taxi cost then that's cool! You can still use taxis. But most people prefer to see the price before they get in. Certainly the choice existing is better for the consumer and has helped keep taxi fares lower - even if you choose not to use an uber.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  early Uber wasn’t crazy, it was a blatant and malign attempt to use cheap capital to monopolize an existing sector. Uber is and was always about as close to evil as a company can be without selling opioids or nicotine.
  - handmodel 5y ago
    I know me and you are not going to see eye-to-eye but I have trouble seeing how Ubers are more monopolistic than taxi companies which wanted a cap on the number of permitted taxi's per city - when they already had all the permits/medallions owned themselves.
    - foobiekr 5y ago
      Taxi companies (note the plural) were obviously not monopolies and the medallion systems generally required diversity of holders. That is not at all what Uber was up to. Uber was doing what used to be called dumping to destroy the incumbents. Stop defending Uber. Even if you work for them it is incumbent on you as a citizen to be honest about what they were doing.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  > As crazy as early Uber was I still have trouble believing that taxi companies are more deserving or were better to their employees or less corrupt. There's no evidence. Do you have any evidence, for any taxi network in any city on the planet, of that taxi network doing anything even remotely as illegal or antisocial as Uber has been (and still is) doing? Uber's transgressions are well documented, there is great many of them, and quite a few were done at scale. For the "deserving" part - they were there. Good or bad, I don't think any business deserves being steamrolled by an aggressive foreign multinational corporation, with practically infinite budget to undercut competitors and keep law enforcement at bay. Local businesses don't get to break the law without impunity. For being better to their employees, I honestly don't know. But in all the rides with traditional networks I took over two decades of my life, I don't remember any driver actually complaining about their job. Ironically, the drivers of Uber-like[0] services keep complaining all the time - mostly about constantly changing terms of contracts, and constantly testing new kinds of customer acquisition schemes, that tend to take away money from the drivers. > But most people prefer to see the price before they get in. I never said I didn't want it either. I like this feature - and guess what, I had that, way before Uber was a thing, thanks to a private company that fought for improvement in transport regulations. That's how I know sociopathy wasn't necessary to disrupting the taxi market. -- [0] - I don't use Uber itself, it's a matter of principle.