5 ms·

Senior management doesn't use their users. They ask someone to open the page for them.

by ravishi 4y ago

dylan604 4y ago
fair point. does senior management even know what the platform looks like? if (user == onBehalfOfSeniorMgmt) doGrayball
- CobrastanJorji 4y ago
  I didn't know that term, so I googled it. > Greyball was used by ride-hailing company Uber to evade city regulators and deny service to some customers... What the hell, Uber? > Uber did not receive any formal punishment or restrictions from the city. What the hell, government?
  - dylan604 4y ago
    You might be interested in "Super Pumped"[0] on Showtime which is a dramatic telling of the Uber story [0]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11173006/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11173006/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 Edit: Travis is a horrible human being during the time of Uber. Maybe he has matured and mellowed out now? However, his stink is still in my mind and has forever tainted Uber for me. I will never use Uber on any of my devices, ever.
    - violiner 4y ago
      On the rare occasions when a friend will ask why I don't use Uber my reply is "Because I don't support organized crime."
  - avidiax 4y ago
    Greyball was actually a neutral tool that could also be used for good things. The regional managers of Uber could configure it to meet the needs of their market, so it had a variety of uses. One example is that it was used to prevent taxi drivers in South American countries from targeting Uber drivers for beatings, car jackings or worse. Regardless of what you think about Uber or the taxi monopoly, it was a good thing to prevent physical harm to drivers on the service. Even the supposedly bad uses of Greyball are, well, in the grey. Government regulators, often working at the behest of medallion owners (who generally don't drive taxis*), preferred to use fear as a tactic. They would target the drivers with whatever traffic tickets they could find, knowing that it is difficult for these drivers to fight. Greyball made this tactic harder, which forced cities into court directly with Uber, a much fairer matchup. The really odd thing about greyball, though, is that there's actually no user requirement that the cars in the Uber app be real. They could have just "greyballed" everyone, and use standard anti-fraud practices to prevent someone requesting many trips and never starting them. * Even where medallion owners are required to be owner-operators, they can often just sit in the taxi queue at the airport doing a crossword for a few hours.
    - dylan604 4y ago
      That's some heavy duty spin right there. Anything that you can do to justify what Uber did is glossing over the fact that what they did was just wrong. The ends do not justify the means, and it's a sad problem that it's accepted at this level.
mattkevan 4y ago
I once had a client’s ceo phone me up in a rage because the website was broken, how totally unprofessional it was etc. After some confused troubleshooting, I discovered he was looking was printouts of the website he had his secretary make so he could look at it at home.

Senior management doesn't use their users. They ask someone to open the page for them.

dylan604 4y ago

fair point. does senior management even know what the platform looks like? if (user == onBehalfOfSeniorMgmt) doGrayball

CobrastanJorji 4y ago
I didn't know that term, so I googled it. > Greyball was used by ride-hailing company Uber to evade city regulators and deny service to some customers... What the hell, Uber? > Uber did not receive any formal punishment or restrictions from the city. What the hell, government?
- dylan604 4y ago
  You might be interested in "Super Pumped"[0] on Showtime which is a dramatic telling of the Uber story [0]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11173006/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11173006/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 Edit: Travis is a horrible human being during the time of Uber. Maybe he has matured and mellowed out now? However, his stink is still in my mind and has forever tainted Uber for me. I will never use Uber on any of my devices, ever.
  - violiner 4y ago
    On the rare occasions when a friend will ask why I don't use Uber my reply is "Because I don't support organized crime."
- avidiax 4y ago
  Greyball was actually a neutral tool that could also be used for good things. The regional managers of Uber could configure it to meet the needs of their market, so it had a variety of uses. One example is that it was used to prevent taxi drivers in South American countries from targeting Uber drivers for beatings, car jackings or worse. Regardless of what you think about Uber or the taxi monopoly, it was a good thing to prevent physical harm to drivers on the service. Even the supposedly bad uses of Greyball are, well, in the grey. Government regulators, often working at the behest of medallion owners (who generally don't drive taxis*), preferred to use fear as a tactic. They would target the drivers with whatever traffic tickets they could find, knowing that it is difficult for these drivers to fight. Greyball made this tactic harder, which forced cities into court directly with Uber, a much fairer matchup. The really odd thing about greyball, though, is that there's actually no user requirement that the cars in the Uber app be real. They could have just "greyballed" everyone, and use standard anti-fraud practices to prevent someone requesting many trips and never starting them. * Even where medallion owners are required to be owner-operators, they can often just sit in the taxi queue at the airport doing a crossword for a few hours.
  - dylan604 4y ago
    That's some heavy duty spin right there. Anything that you can do to justify what Uber did is glossing over the fact that what they did was just wrong. The ends do not justify the means, and it's a sad problem that it's accepted at this level.

mattkevan 4y ago

I once had a client’s ceo phone me up in a rage because the website was broken, how totally unprofessional it was etc. After some confused troubleshooting, I discovered he was looking was printouts of the website he had his secretary make so he could look at it at home.