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I feel like you're playing the devil's advocate here. Despite the recent witch-hunt surrounded the company lately (which I won't try to defend), you can't deny

by moab 12y ago

I feel like you're playing the devil's advocate here. Despite the recent witch-hunt surrounded the company lately (which I won't try to defend), you can't deny the fact that they've engaged in some fairly unscrupulous business tactics in order to 1) acquire drivers from competing ride-sharing services, and 2) significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services) at the cost of workers pulling fairly inhuman hours. The latter point is not just Uber's problem, but the ride-sharing industry's as a whole. I point it out mainly to argue that as the leader in the industry, Uber has at least some obligation to treat the pawns on the board a little better. To succinctly answer your question: there are real justifications, and it's a combination of Uber's business tactics, and the way they're treating their human capital.

yummyfajitas 12y ago
I'm simply pointing out more or less nonsensical arguments and mob behavior. The Uber CEO may be an objectivist jerk, but that doesn't mean everything he does is evil. 2) significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services)... Companies competing for workers drops wages? That's an interesting economic theory. I guess the Uber people who were hiring lyft cars in order to try and recruit the driver were saying "come join Uber, we'll pay you less?" I'm confused here.
- mrow84 12y ago
  >> significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services) > Companies competing for workers drops wages? I think that moab's point was that competition between ride-sharing companies lowers prices, and one of the places those price reductions come from is a reduction in worker's wages.
  - moab 12y ago
    Yup - thanks for phrasing that better :) Price reduction has played out its tune in tech before - at cost pricing was how Amazon won (and continues to have a chokehold over e-commerce). At Amazon, however, employees from the warehouse stockers to their receptionists are under contract and regulation, and get guaranteed wages for reasonable hours. Compare this to Uber where there's basically a massive disparity between the number of effective workers (drivers + employees) and the number of actual 'employees'. As a bystander, I'm worried about the humans involved in this bet between Uber/Lyft and co, and hope they start finding ways to either pull drivers into the company itself, or offer better guarantees or securities for the drivers. The first company to do this will probably get a ton of good press, and will also up the ante on consumer perception of ridesharing in general (it's great, but feels 'evil').
    - mrow84 12y ago
      I certainly agree with your sentiments, but I thought that Amazon had also had problems, with contractors in its fulfilment centres being denied guaranteed hours, though perhaps I misunderstood the issue. There have certainly been problems like that in the UK, with "zero hours" contracts, where people are offered positions without guaranteed hours, and it is currently a fairly hot political topic without an obvious resolution, beyond banning them, though that wouldn't necessarily be helpful. Personally, I think the fundamental issues in this area lie not with the flexibility that these types of arrangements offer, but rather in the asymmetry in negotiations between employers and employees. The labour market as a whole is completely distorted by poverty, for want of a better word, to the point where any notions of free exchange are, frankly, ridiculous. If the collective "we" can implement a way of preserving the ability of people to sell their labour without being placed into unreasonable positions to do so, then we could probably achieve quite dramatic improvements in overall welfare. Until then, as you say, the costs of the system will almost always fall on a group of real people whose difficulties, beyond the occasional editorial piece, are largely ignored (or attributed to something else, such as laziness).
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  "Companies competing for workers drops wages? That's an interesting economic theory." That's basic monopoly/monopsony pricing theory you'll find in an introductory microeconomics class. Nothing interesting about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_profit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_profit Your HN posts are hardly of outstanding quality at the best of times, but you're not even trying here.

by moab 12y ago

yummyfajitas 12y ago

I'm simply pointing out more or less nonsensical arguments and mob behavior. The Uber CEO may be an objectivist jerk, but that doesn't mean everything he does is evil. 2) significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services)... Companies competing for workers drops wages? That's an interesting economic theory. I guess the Uber people who were hiring lyft cars in order to try and recruit the driver were saying "come join Uber, we'll pay you less?" I'm confused here.

mrow84 12y ago
>> significantly drop wages (primarily due to competition in cities with multiple ride-sharing services) > Companies competing for workers drops wages? I think that moab's point was that competition between ride-sharing companies lowers prices, and one of the places those price reductions come from is a reduction in worker's wages.
- moab 12y ago
  Yup - thanks for phrasing that better :) Price reduction has played out its tune in tech before - at cost pricing was how Amazon won (and continues to have a chokehold over e-commerce). At Amazon, however, employees from the warehouse stockers to their receptionists are under contract and regulation, and get guaranteed wages for reasonable hours. Compare this to Uber where there's basically a massive disparity between the number of effective workers (drivers + employees) and the number of actual 'employees'. As a bystander, I'm worried about the humans involved in this bet between Uber/Lyft and co, and hope they start finding ways to either pull drivers into the company itself, or offer better guarantees or securities for the drivers. The first company to do this will probably get a ton of good press, and will also up the ante on consumer perception of ridesharing in general (it's great, but feels 'evil').
  - mrow84 12y ago
    I certainly agree with your sentiments, but I thought that Amazon had also had problems, with contractors in its fulfilment centres being denied guaranteed hours, though perhaps I misunderstood the issue. There have certainly been problems like that in the UK, with "zero hours" contracts, where people are offered positions without guaranteed hours, and it is currently a fairly hot political topic without an obvious resolution, beyond banning them, though that wouldn't necessarily be helpful. Personally, I think the fundamental issues in this area lie not with the flexibility that these types of arrangements offer, but rather in the asymmetry in negotiations between employers and employees. The labour market as a whole is completely distorted by poverty, for want of a better word, to the point where any notions of free exchange are, frankly, ridiculous. If the collective "we" can implement a way of preserving the ability of people to sell their labour without being placed into unreasonable positions to do so, then we could probably achieve quite dramatic improvements in overall welfare. Until then, as you say, the costs of the system will almost always fall on a group of real people whose difficulties, beyond the occasional editorial piece, are largely ignored (or attributed to something else, such as laziness).
dredmorbius 12y ago
"Companies competing for workers drops wages? That's an interesting economic theory." That's basic monopoly/monopsony pricing theory you'll find in an introductory microeconomics class. Nothing interesting about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_profit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_profit Your HN posts are hardly of outstanding quality at the best of times, but you're not even trying here.