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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 e

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.

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.