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The Uber leak exposes the global war on workers

• roenxi 4y ago
  Was there any serious group claiming otherwise? The powerful are usually fairly obviously moving to keep wages low, and the poor are usually complaining that the powerful are moving to keep their wages low. The part of this that jumps out at me is how much difficulty the workers have in getting someone in to politics who is one of their own. The incentives just don't line up, and they keep wasting all their efforts on wage disputes rather than more effective bargaining strategies to get part-ownership of businesses. We can see it again here - Uber drivers are literally bringing their own car, but seem incapable of producing their own app and marketing structure.
  • hotpotamus 4y ago
    > Was there any serious group claiming otherwise? The powerful are usually fairly obviously moving to keep wages low, and the poor are usually complaining that the powerful are moving to keep their wages low. The poor aren't complaining that the powerful are keeping their wages low; the poor are complaining that the rich pay too much in taxes and the "undeserving" (some ethnic outgroup or other) get handouts from the government. > “For decades, Americans have experienced a populist uprising that only benefits the people it is supposed to be targeting.... The angry workers, mighty in their numbers, are marching irresistibly against the arrogant. They are shaking their fists at the sons of privilege. They are laughing at the dainty affectations of the Leawoof toffs. They are massing at the gates of Mission Hills, hoisting the black flag, and while the millionaires tremble in their mansions, they are bellowing out their terrifying demands. 'We are here,' they scream, 'to cut your taxes.” ― Thomas Frank, What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America > “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.” ― Lyndon B. Johnson
    • base698 4y ago
      From Frank's more recent book: > What this doctrine means for the politics of income inequality should be clear: a profound complacency. For successful professionals, meritocracy is a beautifully self-serving doctrine, entitling them to all manner of rewards and status, because they are smarter than other people. For people on the receiving end of inequality—for those who have just lost their home, for example, or who are having trouble surviving on the minimum wage, the implications of meritocracy are equally unambiguous. To them this ideology says: forget it. You have no one to blame for your problems but yourself. > Because most of the fuses lit by Clinton and Co. didn’t actually detonate until after he had left office—and by then some science-denying Republican was in the Oval Office—they found it easy to absolve the Democrat from blame. When a Rhodes scholar was the one deregulating and cutting taxes, why, those were good times; when some idiot from Texas tried his hand at it, the world crashed and burned. Just another demonstration of the importance of a good education, I guess.
  • SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    They can have their own app but without the VC money that Uber has to run without a profit for literally years, they can’t compete. Because they actually need to be profitable!
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      I suspect they could make a business that would get enough sympathetic riders in a left-leaning city to be viable. It wouldn’t be outrageously highly valued, but at the end of the day, it’s driving people around in cars and there’s only so much willingness to pay there.
      • JKCalhoun 4y ago
        I suspect you're right — until one of the big players decided to shut you down.
      • SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
        They wouldn’t, actually. It’s been tried and they just don’t have the network effects to be comparable to Uber. A lot of big city rideshare is visitors, tourists, business meetings, etc. who already know Uber/Lyft UI and aren’t willing to download a new phone app for each city they visit, regardless of if it’s better for the drivers.
  • avianlyric 4y ago
    > We can see it again here - Uber drivers are literally bringing their own car, but seem incapable of producing their own app and marketing structure. You seem to be under the impression that Uber drivers are people with the time and money to engage in risk pursuits that cost upfront cash, with a hope of a long term payoff. Most Uber drivers are looking for cash now, to fill their already empty pockets. In many cases Uber is little more than terribly priced equity release tool, turning the capital cost of your car and fuel back into liquid cash. If these people had the capital and time to build a business, they wouldn’t be exploited by Uber.
    • andrepd 4y ago
      Exactly, the problem is that a taxi firm (+ app) would be a perfect fit for being organised as a worker's cooperative. However those workers have no way of raising the capital necessary, in the current system, to start that firm, even if it would mean better outcomes in the long run. It's perverse.
  • micromacrofoot 4y ago
    > The part of this that jumps out at me is how much difficulty the workers have in getting someone in to politics who is one of their own. That's largely by design. Look at all the effort put into the blatant attempts at union busting by most of the major tech companies. Tired workers are always at a disadvantage in a war of attrition against wealthy companies. Doubly so when those companies are paying the people who represent us in government.
  • capableweb 4y ago
    > Was there any serious group claiming otherwise? The powerful are usually fairly obviously moving to keep wages low, and the poor are usually complaining that the powerful are moving to keep their wages low. Depends on the country. In the US, the powerful have become influential enough to make the poor fight against each other (under the guise of "The Right VS The Left") instead of realizing that both groups have a common enemy that is manipulating them very successfully.
• michaelje 4y ago
  How can we do better to see, stop, or price-in externalities that impact people, communities, the world? This is a widespread issue across many essential areas of human life - like housing (Airbnb), or the environment (pollution).
  • avianlyric 4y ago
    We already have better. Labour rights are hard fought for rights that exist because employers used to be so abusive. Uber are just trying to wind back the clock, claiming that technology means that traditional labour rights are outdated.
  • mavhc 4y ago
    Actually charge for them, the current cost to use the road is much smaller than the actual cost. Tax everything the amount it costs to clean up the pollution it causes
    • JKCalhoun 4y ago
      And charge by weight please. My motorcycle is not causing the road to have to be repaved every couple of years.
      • mavhc 4y ago
        For road damage, (mass/axles)^4
• abirch 4y ago
  Uber's big promise was to replace workers with automation. This failed, but you could see Waymo or another service replacing all taxi drivers. You could have automated semitrucks that drive freight on freeways and reduce the need for truck drivers. Heck even most Burger King stores have kiosks that are replacing people.
  • mfer 4y ago
    Fast food restaurants are an interesting example. Where I live there have been problems with them sitting down for periods due to lack of staff. Are the kiosks to replace people or due to the lack of people?
    • djbusby 4y ago
      To replace. Labor is the highest cost and is a variable cost. These machines are fixed cost.
    • abirch 4y ago
      That's interesting about the seats. I've only used Burger King at a service center while driving. I wonder if they'll start having nagging robots :-D IMO the lack of people is due to salary. If they were paying 400 dollars an hour, I'd sign up.
      • mfer 4y ago
        I did some digging and found that we’ve had more people leaving the work force than entering it where I live. This is hitting jobs on the bottom end of pay first.
  • mschuster91 4y ago
    > Heck even most Burger King stores have kiosks that are replacing people. These things are a godsend, for multiple reasons: - no wasting time trying to establish a common language with the cashiers, particularly when you're not in your home country - no nearly exploding in line behind a ten people group haggling with the cashier over how many cheeseburgers they want - if you are in a large group, the inverse of the above: no need to fear pissing off everyone behind you - you actually see your entire order prior to payment and can make sure the cashier didn't fail to register an item
• pstuart 4y ago
  This goes a bit beyond the YC ask of "willing to break a few rules", eh?
• Havoc 4y ago
  > The company developed a ‘kill switch’ that would remotely encrypt its computers and devices if an office was raided by authorities, used at least two dozen times How are they not drowning in gigantic obstruction of justice lawsuits and regulatory demands?
  • aliqot 4y ago
    also encrypting takes time, unless they meant FDE with a reboot button.
    • worewood 4y ago
      That's probably what they meant.
    • rejectfinite 4y ago
      The initial yes. Once encrypted you can trigger remote via intune/sccm/MDM https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/information-protection/bitlocker/bitlocker-overview https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/informatio...
  • rob_c 4y ago
    Obstruction is difficult to prove, costly to prosecute and they can afford the fine. Unfortunately when dealing with international groups financials come into the equation regarding prosecution as they could hold this in the courts in years and spend 10x the fine in lobbying for a change in obstruction laws. I agree there guilty and are behaving in a borderline devil way but given they're playing with the big boys in the valley who actually has any control over them?
    • procrastinate1 4y ago
      Isn't obstruction of justice a criminal offence in US? Fines are not that scary, federal prison is.
      • rob_c 4y ago
• eecc 4y ago
  I thought the "kill switch" was old news, I heard the story years ago. How is it that it is resurfacing again? (not complaning about it, just asking.)
  • vanderZwan 4y ago
    Because they were never held accountable for it, it seems. People tend to bring up unresolved issues like that when the opportunity calls for it. I'd say for good reasons.
  • capableweb 4y ago
    First reference to any uber kill switches is from 2018 (https://www.ft.com/content/1489e9c4-f6f6-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00 https://www.ft.com/content/1489e9c4-f6f6-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1...) > Ripley operated like a “kill switch” that would lock down all the computers in an office, preventing staff from immediately providing any data to police even if they had a warrant. I guess what's new is everything around it as well as the scope of the usage of Ripley (or the newer tool "uLocker").
• aj7 4y ago
  We have reverted to cabs at Ft Lauderdale airport — Uber and Lyft drivers were often late, clueless, or had trunks stuffed with junk. The price was not appreciably more. Capitalism self-corrects, if no player is allowed to game the system.
  • throwaway290 4y ago
    The moment Uber (Grab or whatever local equivalent) appears, they undercut competition on price by operating at a loss for a while, then jack up prices. After that they aren't worth it except in crime-ridden localities or places without regulated taxi systems.
    • Ekaros 4y ago
      Having a human drive to pick you up and then drive you around is surprisingly expensive. At least if you are not in ultra low cost country. It is sad that the clear dumping of these services was allowed to happen.
• RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  > Uber’s real impact has been to make life worse for virtually everyone it touches. Actually, Uber has been great for consumers. Being able to travel internationally and still have a single app that can do your transport is amazing. In addition, there is data that Uber cuts down on drunk driving and the associated trauma and deaths. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2780664?guestAccessKey=811639fe-398b-4277-b59c-54d303ef9233&utm_source=For_The_Media&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=ftm_links&utm_content=tfl&utm_term=060921 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/278...
  • sokoloff 4y ago
    Uber is a god-send for that use case. Even in my home city, having a fare commitment up-front, knowing I won’t have to deal with cash or cabbie-bullshit, and ease of use is worth spending more than cabs cost. If I’m possibly going to have more than one drink with dinner, I’ll use ride sharing. Round trip ride shares aren’t that much more than weekend evening parking anyway. It may have downsides for some, but it definitely doesn’t have downsides for all.
• rob_c 4y ago
  But don't worry now _I_ don't have to talk to my taxi driver as a human being or walk to a cab because it comes and picks _me_ up on _my_ route to work and integrates with _my_ phone... Despite any convenience offered you fundamentally had a phone in your hand and the ability to ring a taxi if you planned ahead. This is entirely being lazy and self centred.
  • xdfgh1112 4y ago
    I don't miss the gruff taxi phone operator who would hang up on me if they couldn't hear me properly, or sent the taxi to the wrong place, or gave me a totally wrong time estimate.
• sylware 4y ago
  Moreover they have their owner, microsoft... which can do wonders in scaming the entire world.
• barneygale 4y ago
  "But it's so convenient!" whinge the tech bros of HN as they continue to make the world a shittier place.
  • micromacrofoot 4y ago
    The thing is, Uber is also convenient for the class of people it exploits. I've got some poorer neighbors without cars that use it all the time. Previously it was hard to get taxis to show up to this part of the city at all.
• epups 4y ago
  Now that venture capital is drying up and gas prices are exploding, I hope Uber implodes.
  • api 4y ago
    I would if it didn't mean I might have to use taxis. The taxi experience has been so consistently horrible I'd rather walk if I could. My favorite is the routine of pretending the credit card machine is broken and trying to get me to stop at an ATM so they can get cash. Had one actually threaten to call the cops on me for not paying if I didn't do that after pretending the credit card machine was broken. Refused to drop the ruse. Of course I must admit that most of these bad experiences were in San Francisco, a city of passive aggressiveness all the way down from the top. I have to admit that taxi experiences in New York and Boston were better, though the latter was kind of stupid expensive. Experiences in medium sized cities like Cincinnati have been hit or miss. Everything related to transportation sucks. Most airlines suck, airports suck, train systems are incompetently run, buses are slow, cars are expensive, taxis are corrupt, Uber is abusive, and... well... I guess bikes are dangerous and horses smell.
    • xorfish 4y ago
      > Everything related to transportation sucks. That is not the case everywhere. There are plenty of walkable places with good public transport systems. As the saying goes: "A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It's where the rich use public transportation."
• xchip 4y ago
  Not justifying Uber, but politicias sort of encourage these practices :(
• olalonde 4y ago
  s/Workers/Uber/? > Uber’s real impact has been to make life worse for virtually everyone it touches. Are we just going to ignore the millions of satisfied riders and drivers? TBH, I don't feel this article belongs on HN, it's pure politics and basically a repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32045906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32045906
• somecommit 4y ago
  My personnal experience. I come back from a trip in romania - bucharest. At first I didn't take Uber but tried for the regular Taxi from the airport. All of them requesting ~40USD. At the end I go with one who put the meter and indeed arrived to 200 Lei (~40 USD). I payed in euro because I didn't have enough local currency, hopefully I had some and the driver accept. Taking some information it's way too much, but would I have argue with how the meter was operating anyway? Now, I need to comeback to the airport at 4am. So instead, I reserve a airport transfer from the airline itself, pay in advance something like 30 USD this time. And... no one show up at 4am. Mobile phone of the transfer is not answering... I never heard of them * So I install Uber, hopefully it's working, enter my visa (from my country, no need for local currency at all), after 10 minutes, someone very nice take me and I just paid like 15 USD to get to the airport, at 5 in the morning, with the invoice by mail. How do you compete with that? Taxi business need to reflect. And every country is the same strangely, it's as universal than taxes: you can't escape! * Edit: In fact I know what happened, and there is nothing to do, because I looked at the invoice and on the third page of the voucher PDF there, it's said that I needed to call 24h before to confirm the transfer... They don't call, you have to call. Even after the first confirmation I already did for confirming the pickup address some days before, I wasn't feeling paranoid enough. So you can't say nothing because I didn't read the last page, but it's a dumb heavy process, do people changes their mind and decide to live forever in the country frequently?
  • bengale 4y ago
    The local taxis in my town don't seem to every want to take fares. They seem to be eternally waiting for a better offer and grumpy if you try to take what they consider to be a small trip. Never had that issue with Uber drivers.
  • capableweb 4y ago
    And on the other hand, plenty of stories of the opposite happening. I'm not sure how much anecdotes add to a story like this. Especially when the story here is not about if Uber is offering a better service to customers than "normal" taxis, but when the story is about that Uber is exploiting their employees (which they refuse to even call "employees"). If one business offers better service than another, but, the first business exploits their employees, which service should be investigated? I'd agree the second business should be aiming at improving their service, of course, but we also need to clamp down on businesses who are exploiting people.
• piva00 4y ago
  Shocking stuff like this, weaponising drivers against city governments to do Uber's bidding to lobby: > MacGann insists that Uber drivers were seen by some at the company as pawns who could be used to put pressure on governments. “And if that meant Uber drivers going on strike, Uber drivers doing a demo in the streets, Uber drivers blocking Barcelona, blocking Berlin, blocking Paris, then that was the way to go,” he said. “In a sense, it was considered beneficial to weaponise Uber drivers in this way.” > The files show MacGann’s fingerprints on this strategy, too. In one email, he praised staffers in Amsterdam who leaked stories to the press about attacks on drivers to “keep the violence narrative” and pressure the Dutch government. Uber was weaponising their workers (while fighting as hard as possible to not call them workers and pay for workers' benefits) against local governments, they were behaving like a tech-mafia, a mob with sprawling power across the globe. What the actual fuck?
  • infomax 4y ago
    Uber seems to have weaponized senior public officials and MPs in many European countries. This a scandal of huge proportions.
  • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > weaponising drivers against city governments to do Uber's bidding to lobby This dismisses drivers' expressed preferences and actions in favor of a chosen narrative. Drivers protested the measures purporting to help them. They polled against them in California. They voted against them. Claiming they were all brainwashed by corporate requires extraordinary evidence. (It is akin to dismissing a unionization vote by claiming the union brainwashed the workers.)
  • stainablesteel 4y ago
    taxi drivers weaponized themselves like this in france at some point, they probably learned from this tactic because i think it got uber banned in paris or something I don't have a link to any source, it was some years ago and it might have changed since
  • TrackerFF 4y ago
    I believe many of these of 2010s startup unicorns/companies (in the contractor/gigging space) will go down in history the same way as modern day robber barons. The ideas were good - use your leftover time/space/goods, and earn some money. We'll cover the tech, just pay us x% of the cut. But then it became obvious that these types of ventures were in direct conflict with various labor laws across the globe. So they begin to skirt the laws, pitting their laborers against governments, all while exacerbating the sectors. And turns out it's hard to subsidies certain businesses with VC money forever. Where did things go wrong? Maybe when people starting treating gigging economy as a full-time thing. Maybe they thought they could offer cheap and awesome service forever. Maybe they thought they could remain in the grey area of the law forever, or at least until they gained enough power to change the laws. I used to use airbnb, now it sucks. I'm back to hotels. I used to use uber, now it sucks. I'm back to using taxis. I used to use delivery services, now they suck. I just pick up my own food at a fraction of the cost. I - the consumer - obviously enabled all these things. Ok, enough rambling...
• timeon 4y ago
  Reading threads about Uber I have realized that I probably have traveled only to cities where you do not need taxi. I've used taxi less that 10 times in my life and Uber 0. Most Airports I have visited were serviced by train.
• a5withtrrs 4y ago
  Uber took over my local airport, a 100$ fare home now costs $200+ when, as you'd expect, a plane load of people call for an Uber all at once. 'Surge pricing'. Now there's a rank for exactly FIVE (count em FIVE) taxis, a 15 minute walk from the terminal exit and a line a couple hundred meters long for the bus. This isn't a small regional airport. This is the international/domestic airport for a city of 5 million people. Absolute madness and just another point of frustration I have to endure now when travelling.
  • dieortin 4y ago
    And yet another reason why using high speed rail is a much better experience than air travel. No need to take any taxis when you get off the train in the city center. (I know the US passenger rail infrastructure sucks and trains are worse for ultra long distances)
    • madsbuch 4y ago
      In my city the airport is connected to the metro. Statistics on getting to the airport: Bus 3% Taxi 14% Metro 27% Train 33% Car 23%
  • emsixteen 4y ago
    When you say took over what do you mean? Did they wrangle themselves a deal with the airport for exclusive access to the prime spots or what?
• stephc_int13 4y ago
  Uber (and many other companies I suspect) have really dubious practices, but the core of their success is tied to how taxis worked before. Too much regulation and a generally awful experience for users. I used Taxis less than 10 times in my life ant it was almost always too expensive and frankly unpleasant. I honestly despised Taxis and wanted this old system to die, I don't think my case is an outlier. Regulation is always a two edged sword, in this case I think it created an opportunity for disruption.
  • xyst 4y ago
    Our dependency on a car for all forms of transportation is what created this opportunity for a corrupt taxi business and Uber to disrupt that corrupt taxi business.
    • stephc_int13 4y ago
      Also yes, this is one of the big mistakes of the 20th century. But it is much easier to say so now. And we can't all live in megacities, but there are certainly better solutions than relying exclusively on cars.
  • TrackerFF 4y ago
    Some businesses are expensive, because they offer a very high coverage. In my country, traditional cab companies needed to offer their service pretty much 24/7 if needed, in order to operate. This, of course, meant that the expenses were thrown onto the customers. When Uber and the likes came, this disrupted the industry. But the big difference here is that the Uber drivers obviously only A) worked during peak hours and peak days. B) only used it as a side hustle, which meant not staying up at 3AM waiting for customers. Sure, in large cities, there probably are some of those drivers, too - but they're not obligated to that. Traditional cabs couldn't compete on price, and had to either start laying off drivers, or close shops all-together. Then the gov. budget, and started opening up to more uber-friendly laws around the taxi industry. They are no-longer obligated to offer 24/7 service, nor do you need to work for a cab company. In the end, I (living out in a rural place) end up paying the same rates as before, but with zero options should I need a cab 04-05 in the morning. Not really a problem until you need one, like catching a very early flight, getting stuck somewhere after a party, or whatnot.
• willnonya 4y ago
  FFS, global war on workers? Really? What's next, a global war on drugs, terror or poverty?
• JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  They were disruptive, and sure you can quote 100 times they admitted they were flying in the face of local regulations. So were automobiles when they came out; so were airplanes. UPS, FedEx fought with regulations protecting the Post Office. EBooks were a conundrum - were existing contracts for paper books meaningful any more? Sure I feel for drivers, they had a hard time. Definitely they got the raw end of the deal.
  • kiliantics 4y ago
    For me, your use of automobiles and airplanes does not help your argument. In my opinion, those industries got way too powerful and negatively shaped our entire society's infrastructure at a colossal magnitude. It's really very regrettable that those changes came about. Ridesharing companies are doing the same. They promised less cars but now there are more. People getting into crazy debt to just drive around the streets looking for clients, creating more traffic and more pollution.
• crisdux 4y ago
  It's difficult to feel bad for the legacy taxi industry. It's one of the most corrupt industries and totally resistant to market entrants. This business is ruthless and workers were exploited in the previous system. A corrupt system encourages corrupt behavior. Do people remember what it was like before Uber? Before Uber, I had personal experiences with taxis in Chicago and London trying to scam and bully me when visiting. Taxis in my hometown would never show up when called. Not to even mention the racial discrimination that was ubiquitous with legacy taxis.
  • capableweb 4y ago
    You're completely missing the point of the story that is coming out here. No matter if Uber is better/worse for the passengers, they cannot (shouldn't?) exploit their own employees. It's not worth allowing any human to be exploited, even if you get a better service for something.
  • lesstyzing 4y ago
    >> It's difficult to feel bad for the legacy taxi industry. It's one of the most corrupt industries and totally resistant to market entrants. Comments like this are frustrating. The taxi “industry” is made up of lots of small players in every city and small town around the world, each with different regulations and offerings. It’s not some massive conglomerate. Your experience with taxis in the place you use them can be completely different to the experience one town over not to mention in another country.
    • throwaway787544 4y ago
      Which is a great reason to end the Taxi system. When self driving cars finally arrive everywhere, they'll be done for. I can't wait for the political battle of "keep the jobs so people can continue being occasionally exploited by transportation".
      • pessimizer 4y ago
        A great reason to end the taxi system is that it isn't a monopoly?
• newaccount2021 4y ago
• radu_floricica 4y ago
  Besides the "kill switch" story which may or may not be illegal depending on what actually happened, beyond the layers of journalism - I want to comment on the War on Workers. Currently in my country there aren't a lot of places to work if you're young and untrained. But services like uber, bolt and various food delivery end up creating an unofficial floor for the wage of somebody willing to work. You don't need credentials or exams - you just need basic skills, time and will - and at least with food delivery services, you're a bicycle and 24 hours away from making money. Now, maybe where some of you live things are different. Maybe you can afford the extra friction of employment, maybe you don't need that safety "wage floor" because anybody can get employed at any time. Maybe you live in heaven, I don't know. I was born beyond the Iron Curtain and I'm actually ready to believe that some countries somewhere are heaven. But everywhere I could see with my own eyes: there are people that can make money with this kind of freelance services, that would most definitely suffer if formal employment was the only game in town.
  • mathieubordere 4y ago
    I can imagine Uber using different employment schemes in different countries, complying with local law. Maybe a gig based system is actually benefecial to society in some countries, like you claim, while it's not in others.
    • therealdrag0 4y ago
      Any voluntary employment shows it’s better than the alternatives for those who do it doesn’t it?
      • myroon5 4y ago
        Assuming full information symmetry. Predatory voluntary employment like pyramid schemes exist where workers are coerced through misleading rather than force
        • radu_floricica 4y ago
• standardUser 4y ago
  I'm really sick of everyone pretending that these big, bad tech companies came along and screwed over workers, as if it's some novel revelation. Countless other industries have been doing far worse for far longer with far greater ramifications - and they still are today. Uber is merely continuing a great American tradition. If we don't like it, blame the politicians who refuse to regulate them and other industries that take advantage of workers. Or continue waving a fist at big companies as if they care.
  • NoGravitas 4y ago
    Well, the issue is that companies like Uber and AirBNB used the fig leaf of being a "tech company" to evade the existing regulations on their respective existing industries. Of course we should blame the politicians who let them get away with it, as well as the companies lobbying for it.
• xyst 4y ago
  I was hoping to get a glimpse into the chaos that occurred after the city of Austin, TX voted against Prop 1, a "citizen initiative" in 2016. Basically, the prop was to reverse the city's requirement on TNCs, like background checks and fingerprinting. During that time, Lyft AND Uber spammed the people living in Austin with a shit ton of mailers, local billboards were bought up encouraging people to vote yes on Prop 1, and even the apps were pushing their propaganda. At some point, I remember Lyft and Uber pushing a false narrative that the number of DUIs and alcohol related deaths would go up if they pulled out of the market. Highly aggressive with this approach. IIRC, the amount of advertising spent to get Prop 1 passed surpassed any previous citizen initiated proposition in the city. Would have loved to see that two faced fuck Kalanick cry after it was defeated. edited: passed -> defeated
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• timwaagh 4y ago
  Paris Marx, what's in a name. Doesn't mean he is wrong. Uber should just respect the UK supreme court ruling. Minimum wage laws are there for a reason and if you don't comply well I think limited liability shouldn't even apply.
• cogman10 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • throwaway894345 4y ago
    I'm not a libertarian, but how many libertarians support slavery or child sex workers? Is there any indication that these are popular views among libertarians? Without evidence that these are mainstream libertarian values, this comment seems like a pretty egregious straw man.
    • cogman10 4y ago
      While forced slavery is not mainstream with libertarians, you'll be hard pressed to find a libertarian that wouldn't be ok with someone signing a slavery/indentured servitude contract. That's what "abolishing the minimum wage" IS. It's about allowing slavery. [1] > The real reason that the minimum wage is wrong is because the government should possess no authority to interfere with the employer/employee wage agreement or contract. As for child sex workers, there are 2 simple questions to ask a libertarian that will reveal where they stand there. 1. Do you think prostitution should be legal? 2. Do you think a 17 year old should be able to prostitute themselves? How about 16? How about 15? How about... You'll pretty quickly find a line that isn't a clear 18 or 21. It's seems like a strawman, but it isn't. You don't get to advocate for deregulation and allowing for anyone to contract for anything (a core tenant of libritarianism) without running into these issues. [1] https://www.libertariancountry.com/blogs/news/there-should-be-no-minimum-wage https://www.libertariancountry.com/blogs/news/there-should-b...
      • Jensson 4y ago
        > That's what "abolishing the minimum wage" IS. It's about allowing slavery. No it isn't, plenty of countries with much better worker conditions than USA doesn't have a minimum wage.
        • cogman10 4y ago
          Those countries you'd list have VERY strong labor union protections or even mandatory enrollment. [1] A libertarian does not support a nation with strong regulations protecting unions. They wouldn't stop a union, but they'd also be in favor of allowing a business to fire employees everytime they unionize. The better worker conditions are coming from strong unions, not lack of minimum wage. Unions are so weak in the US that killing the minimum wage would turn us into a sweatshop nation. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080515/5-developed-countries-without-minimum-wages.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/080515/5-dev...
• ChicagoDave 4y ago
  I always go back to one thing. No one and I mean no one was concerned about taxi drivers as workers before Uber. What’s different now? Drivers have flexibility and simple terms. Passengers love it. Who did Uber hurt? Medallion owners. I would argue at the root of every anti Uber push is the taxi industry lobbying against it. These “workers rights” people never once showed up to punish the pre-Uber taxi industry. I’m skeptical even if Uber has cut corners as a global business. I imagine many global corporations have as much, if not more dirty laundry.
  • athrowaway3z 4y ago
    Your comment is a bunch of straw-mans taken to the absurd. Medallion systems aren't that common, and you have no idea when and where "workers rights people" have showed up to punish the local taxi industry.
    • nailer 4y ago
      > Medallion systems aren't that common From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion: > Several major cities in the US use these in their taxi licensing systems, including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. They seem pretty common to me.
      • ChicagoDave 4y ago
        And Uber has much higher ratings than the Taxi industry in the Chicago area. I'm guessing there are people under 30 that have never even been in a cab. They've never felt the need.
  • philovivero 4y ago
    I like how this comment just sits here, unceremoniously ignored. Perhaps you're a little too cynical in how you've framed this, but it has a correct central thesis. The reason most people aren't as bothered by this situation as they "should be" is... things were worse under the old Taxi system for everyone we should have sympathy for. Uber didn't make everything perfect, but they improved things dramatically. So sure, let's keep improving things. But if the "anti-Uber" fanatics take down Uber, they won't get an improvement. They'll get the old system back, which was worse for drivers and passengers alike.
• user_7832 4y ago
  Meta - I am honestly surprised, and sightly appalled at the general attitude in these comments (and also in yesterday's thread). Uber has essentially not just broken laws, but outright exploited workers/drivers... and people comment "Aah but the local taxi mafia was bad"...??!? I'm sorry but that does not justify exploiting workers. That does not justify using political influence to enter/gain markets. This isn't some messiah coming to save us all from the "horridness of local transport". I'm not saying that having Uber as a player is necessarily bad, mind you. But it's possible to have some positive benefits for some people while hurting a lot of others. I sincerely doubt too many HN users have driven taxis, but my conversations with Uber/regular taxi drivers hardly painted a favorable picture of Uber. (Nuance - please note that my taxi drivers doesn't represent all drivers. There will be happy and sad drivers, my point being it's not always sunshine and rainbows... which the article speaks about too.) I wonder if this being a YC owned communication platform affects/biases users (some of whom I'm sure are YC founders etc themselves), however the ratio of apathy/"taxis were already bad" to "Uber shouldn't exploit workers, nothing justifies it" is disappointingly low. (I know this is a particularly ranty comment and I had kept quiet on the last thread but seeing the same type of comments here pushed me.)
  • colinmhayes 4y ago
    Every single time there’s an article about Uber exploiting workers/the law the top comments are always some Uber propaganda pieces that seem totally astroturfed. Yes, Uber is better than the old system, they can also treat their drivers like human beings.
    • 2OEH8eoCRo0 4y ago
      I get a sense that many on this site never want the gravy train to stop and will overlook/downplay anything to keep it going. The slightest scrutiny leading to regulation of one tech giant could be the first domino in a series of regulation against all. I don't think that most are outright shills for Uber but I think that many are unwitting shills for big tech.
      • 4y ago
• nailer 4y ago
  > The 'Uber Files' leak reveals the power of the company’s multimillion-pound lobbying effort – and how it worked with governments across the world to undercut workers’ rights. The amazing thing is the brazen twists of logic that laws protecting taxi monopolies that price gouge consumers are somehow ethical, and that Uber is somehow unethical in challenging those laws. Existing taxi drivers don't have a 'right' to not compete. > ‘Violence guarantee[s] success,’ said CEO Travis Kalanick after some executives expressed reservations about a plan to send drivers to a 2016 protest in Paris where they could be attacked. That's a blatant attempt to spin Travis' words as wishing Uber drivers got hurt. Knowing the Guardian (who previously had to apologise for incorrectly saying Mark Duggan, a drug dealer shot by police, was unarmed when Duggan had a gun in his vehicle) I want to see the actual text messages.
• athrowaway3z 4y ago
  I'm disappointed I can't browse the files. Is there a process that these files are eventually released to the public?
• jeffwask 4y ago
  At what point, does a corporation stop being considered corporation and instead be considered a global criminal organization?
• eecc 4y ago
  I like how the realization is spreading that Uber's mission is not to turn a profit over a new business, but rather to disarticulate unions and normalize low-guarantees and gig-economy to a new generation of workers. Even if it went ultimately bankrupt, it would be the most breathtaking political success - "reforms" like they like to euphemize - ever achieved by Global Capital.
• s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I wish we were we just transition to a business-to-business model requiring all drivers to file an LLC. Treatment of drivers would be the honest of the LLC owner. Drivers would receive the tax benefits of operating a business. It seemed like such a no-brainer that I struggle to understand why it hasn't been done. Maybe it would even bring to light some of the State challenges to setting up an LLC
  • symkat 4y ago
    I believe this is the model for taxis -- at least it was about 20 years ago when I worked as a taxi dispatcher in a small town for a short time. Drivers rented taxis, and the taxi company only made money based on renting out the fleet of cars. It was something like $80 for 12 hours. Drivers were independent and made money from the customers directly. The drivers I talked to most were a husband/wife pair who rented the same taxi and they told me about having a CPA that wrote off basically everything. Haircuts, clothes, the majority of what they bought was written off their taxes because it was for business. The dispatcher (what I did) answered the phone and got an origin/destination/name, and radioed drivers until one of them accepted it. I think the whole operation was a couple dozen cars, a tiny rented building, 3-person rotation of dispatchers, a general manager, mechanic, and an owner.
    • s1artibartfast 4y ago
      That's a pretty different model than an LLC where are the individual owns the car. Seems similar where are the LLC gets contracts/ dispatches from a different company
      • symkat 4y ago
        > where are the individual owns the car You're right -- the city required that taxi cars had medallions to be allowed to pick up passengers, and the one who owned the medallions on cars there was the owner. With a medallioned car you could pick people up in front of bars, night clubs, off a random street corner, etc. I don't, however see it as any different from an LLC. At the end of the day the taxi drivers worked directly for themselves, had their own clients, optimized for themselves on finding places to get hailed customers. At least the one I talked to about money stuff had their own CPA, if they filed as self-employed or formed an LLC/C-Corp/S-Corp, I don't know. They were paid by people they picked up, directly, rather than the taxi company. They had a B2B relationship with the taxi stand, they rented a car with a medallion rather than go through the process and cost of buying one, they earned money directly from the people they picked up, making themselves a B2C. And if you bought a medallion, you didn't need to rent the car from the taxi stand, so you could do it totally yourself and cut them out. You gain maintaining the car, the capital expense of the medallion.
• vt85 4y ago
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• zackmorris 4y ago
  I'm torn about this, because I'm normally against most free market (libertarian at the extreme) philosophy and the lobbying that coincides with that, because it trends towards the capitalist end of the spectrum and so is usually anti-labor. But Uber is one of the only games around that lets workers 100% set their own hours with no commitment to the job/client outside work hours. Think about that - out of all the countless millions of businesses around the world, almost nobody offers that kind of freedom. I don't think it's possible to list even 10 businesses that do. So I suspect that there is an underlying attack here against the basic freedom to work as much or as little as one chooses, protected by anonymity. That's the real story. Yes the law was broken, yes workers were exploited, but if the nanny state gets its way and regulates Uber into being just another 40 hour job with bennies, then a lifeline for non-mainstream makers and creatives like us will be lost. I think that motive to suppress alternative work models is so strong that I can't trust the headlines.
  • zackmorris 4y ago
    Stumbled onto a competitor to Uber and Lyft, although I can't tell if workers have 100% control over their hours, and it's only in New York City currently: https://drivers.coop https://drivers.coop https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26588607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26588607 It's getting too hard to keep up with everything, especially living in the northwest where I might be a year or two behind big cities. I'm starting to feel like I'm running against the wind so hard, even with my own constituents in the tech community, that I question if there's even a point anymore. Nobody seems to get anything that I'm saying, so why bother saying it. The status quo just keeps crushing down harder and harder and I fear that we're running out of time to get free of it before the singularity starts arriving around 2030.
• whittingtonaaon 4y ago
  I would have really dug this when I was in college and considered myself far left, but now I don’t believe it makes any sense: the reason Uber has succeeded is that there are people who voluntarily use it to make money by driving and people who voluntarily use it for their transportation. It therefor fulfills both the desires of many drivers and passengers who see it as their best choice. Regulation may be great for the few licensed taxi drivers, but for everyone else it decreases availability and increases price.
• marmada 4y ago
  I do not understand why this leak portrays Uber badly. Is there anything wrong with having a kill switch? Is there anything wrong with breaking laws that entrench local monopolies. Laws are not always good. I won't say this is the next civil rights movement, but sometimes extrajudicial measures are needed for reform.
  • RONROC 4y ago
    > Is there anything wrong with breaking laws that entrench local monopolies. Yeah, there is. Even if there's a point somewhere in there (there's not), Uber is not qualified to make those judgement calls. Save the greater good bullshit for the company picnic.
• robinjhuang 4y ago
  I was in Colombia recently, where Uber is officially illegal. That didn't stop most of the gringos from using it. Crazy how this is still how Uber works in many countries.
• noplsbecivil 4y ago
  A lot of the conversation here is based on anecdata (interactions with uber drivers or cabs) or people projecting what its like to be a driver on uber and they are unwittingly being exploited. I worked at a company that provided products to uber, lyft and doordash drivers, and personally interviewed well over 200 drivers, (along with having access to detailed data on a much larger dataset). The vast majority of drivers we talked to did not feel like they were being 'exploited' and generally liked the flexibility of the gig economy. Most workers were part time, working to supplement income from other jobs or in between other gigs, in fact when i was there, most drivers worked less than 6 months before stopping. I would say these people have a much better sense of whether they are being exploited than people who are not in their shoes. There was a small but important minority (we called them 'professionals') for whom driving had become their full time profession (most were not cab drivers before) who were perpetually annoyed by uber and their main gripes tended to be the changing promotions systems, and algorithmic changes that reduced/limited profitable rides (like airport pickups) and just general loss of control.
  • mcharawi 4y ago
    Do you think the 'professionals' were exploited?
    • noplsbecivil 4y ago
      Short answer - sometimes yes. I think this is where government regulation and laws could play a role in making these types of companies better, but its difficult because it involves scrutinizing individual product decisions that are often different in different geographies and markets. Here are some examples: Many uber drivers felt they qualified for a promotion, but were denied and had no recourse, thats a problem. Sometimes a bad faith customer would report a driver for unsafe driver because the driver refused some unreasonable request. The driver would be suspended and not be able to get back on the platform for a long time. Things like limiting certain profitable rides, or not allowing drivers to refuse uber pool (back when it was thing) should be scrutinized as well
• stjohnswarts 4y ago
  Titles like these seem disingenuous. As long as there have been rich and poor there has been been a "war", it's nothing new and it waxes and wanes.