4 ms·

Beside missing his point completely, your comment is needlessly rude.

knowtheory 13y ago
His point is a pretty meaningless hypothetical comparison. What if uber had been in his city and charged 4000$ for a ride to the airport? Does he live 60 miles from his airport? who the fuck knows? The story isn't even a useful anecdote, it's a Rorschach test for libertarians to project their biases onto.
- jdminhbg 13y ago
  > What if uber had been in his city and charged 4000$ for a ride to the airport? Then I would have dug car out of the snow and drove to the airport. I would not have been any worse off. The difference is that the LA Times wouldn't write a story about me.
  - knowtheory 13y ago
    So you're posting your hypothetical anecdote because you're upset that the LA Times didn't interview you? What unrepresented party to this story do you think you belong to? People who are upset that uber isn't around to serve them? Again, this is entirely dependent on circumstances that you haven't made clear. Maybe Uber and their pro-market pricing think that you're in a region they can't make a profit in, and therefor will never be an option for you anyway. Are you just in the class of people who are upset that taxis aren't available in bad weather in your area? Again, do you live up on the top of a mountain? Are you hard to get to? Again, it's not clear. It just sounds like you're unhappy with your local taxis, and support unrestrained market policies, which frankly, isn't interesting or relevant to stories about Uber, their places in existing market places, and whether they're serving their customers well with surge pricing.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      Guys, you're completely missing the point of his anecdote. Due to the weather, he was unable to get a taxi, he completely lost that option. If fares had been way higher then he most likely could have (either because more drivers would want to work, or because less people would be willing to pay those fares, or for a mixture of these two reasons). Thus, an Uber-pricing system would have been beneficial to him - even if he decided not to use it, it would have at least given him an option to use it (what if he didn't have a car and really needed to make that journey). He's not trying to complain about his local companies, or anything like that, he's merely pointing out that this sort of pricing can be beneficial to some people, not just to Uber. That doesn't mean it's the best system overall, it doesn't even mean this anecdote owner thinks it is, it's merely a discussion point.
williamcotton 13y ago
You know what? I'm not going to apologize for my explicit rudeness. I'm up against people with an implicit rudeness that NEVER apologize for their actions. I've realized that there are a lot of people in the technology industry who seem to be under the impression that capitalism is "out of our control" and that it also is somehow a system of ethics and morality. This isn't my only outlet, of course, but this is ground zero for this disgusting and expanding movement of market fundamentalism. I'm perfectly willing to trade some virtual karma for some real world karma.

His point is a pretty meaningless hypothetical comparison. What if uber had been in his city and charged 4000$ for a ride to the airport? Does he live 60 miles from his airport? who the fuck knows? The story isn't even a useful anecdote, it's a Rorschach test for libertarians to project their biases onto.

jdminhbg 13y ago
> What if uber had been in his city and charged 4000$ for a ride to the airport? Then I would have dug car out of the snow and drove to the airport. I would not have been any worse off. The difference is that the LA Times wouldn't write a story about me.
- knowtheory 13y ago
  So you're posting your hypothetical anecdote because you're upset that the LA Times didn't interview you? What unrepresented party to this story do you think you belong to? People who are upset that uber isn't around to serve them? Again, this is entirely dependent on circumstances that you haven't made clear. Maybe Uber and their pro-market pricing think that you're in a region they can't make a profit in, and therefor will never be an option for you anyway. Are you just in the class of people who are upset that taxis aren't available in bad weather in your area? Again, do you live up on the top of a mountain? Are you hard to get to? Again, it's not clear. It just sounds like you're unhappy with your local taxis, and support unrestrained market policies, which frankly, isn't interesting or relevant to stories about Uber, their places in existing market places, and whether they're serving their customers well with surge pricing.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    Guys, you're completely missing the point of his anecdote. Due to the weather, he was unable to get a taxi, he completely lost that option. If fares had been way higher then he most likely could have (either because more drivers would want to work, or because less people would be willing to pay those fares, or for a mixture of these two reasons). Thus, an Uber-pricing system would have been beneficial to him - even if he decided not to use it, it would have at least given him an option to use it (what if he didn't have a car and really needed to make that journey). He's not trying to complain about his local companies, or anything like that, he's merely pointing out that this sort of pricing can be beneficial to some people, not just to Uber. That doesn't mean it's the best system overall, it doesn't even mean this anecdote owner thinks it is, it's merely a discussion point.

williamcotton 13y ago

You know what? I'm not going to apologize for my explicit rudeness. I'm up against people with an implicit rudeness that NEVER apologize for their actions. I've realized that there are a lot of people in the technology industry who seem to be under the impression that capitalism is "out of our control" and that it also is somehow a system of ethics and morality. This isn't my only outlet, of course, but this is ground zero for this disgusting and expanding movement of market fundamentalism. I'm perfectly willing to trade some virtual karma for some real world karma.