As much as we'd like to think that the law and public opinion are separate, in reality, I think that if Uber had tried to be a better 'public citizen' they probably wouldn't be facing so much backlash.
That essay by Paul Graham about 'mean people' is looking downright prophetic right about now.
I remember how the music industry teamed up with politicians, and used police and courts to go after Napster and KaZaA. The founders of those companies were considered thugs by the establishment back then - thieves even.
Later, one of the Napster guys made money on Facebook and the KaZaA duo made money on Skype. Now they are all considered superhero entrepreneurs.
Napster and KaZaA didn't make much money but the next generation downloading and streaming apps such as iTunes, Spotify etc. did and personally I haven't bought a CD for years.
Maybe Uber will go down in lawsuits and prohibitions, maybe not, but the taxi industry has already been disrupted and if Uber doesn't defeat the taxis, other companies will. People have been shown much more comfortable and cheaper ways of getting a ride.
Just like I don't want to bother paying $20 going to the mall to buy 11 crappy songs on a disc in order to get that one song that I want to listen to, taxi riders don't want to bother with the expensive taxi tsars of their hometown.
Personally, I don't care if Uber or another nicer or more legal alternative wins. As long as the taxi companies lose.
Agreed. In my home town taxis break every rule that you can imagine in the name of their precious business. I've seen them ignoring priorities, bicycles, pedestrians, speed limits, I've seen taxis using walkways and bike lanes to avoid red lights. Indicating the direction is out of fashion since long.
My last taxis ride to the airport was with 180 km/h on a street with 100 km/h limit while the driver was flipping through a folder on his dashboard in order to organize - whatever - with his company. Not to speak about the noise of taxis dashing through the town at 3 in the morning.
Yes, I don't like what I read about uber, but alternatives for taxis are overdue.
Far too much commerce resides behind the walled garden of regulation, the worst being alcohol and tobacco; regardless how you feel about those the protection afforded by regulation and government enforcers is frightening.
Heck, if you want to see real silly, go read the horror stories in some states about enforcement on hair salons; as in if your not connected they will fine you to oblivion for any infraction they can find.
I did it and the driver once asked me for more money on arrival. I refused. He said, "Oh, OK. So this is your home? I'll meet you with my friends here tomorrow then, when you'll be heading to work."
I bet India today is not that much different. I bet Costa-Rica (not sure if Uber operates there) is even worse. Every time I'm booking a licensed (and slightly more expensive) cab to the airport, I'm super happy that I know what to expect.
https://twitter.com/nps2113/status/542063133809192960
The lady was on TV saying that she had complained about the creepy driver to Uber, a few days before he committed the dastardly act. They gave an assurance but failed to act, which resulted in something much worse. Granted that the bigger culprit is the police here who let go off the individual despite his previous run-ins with the law. But Uber has absolutely failed the trust here. Just goes out to show that they care about $$ above everything else.
Response from Uber: https://twitter.com/nps2113/status/542352404478713857
News coverage: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-buck-stops-here/woman-c...
(Credit goes to a comment down below for first mentioning this)
In any case, I think it's important to consider how this would play out in a pre-Uber world. If someone took a taxi ride and got attacked by the driver prior to Uber, there was very little evidence pointing to that driver. Passengers would need to remember their identification details or number plate after an event that tends to leave people quite mentally shaken. Not a good outcome; I think there's a good chance they would still be searching for the driver if this hadn't been facilitated by Uber.
They are providing a false sense of security to the passengers.
[1] https://www.uber.com/safety
[2] http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-we-did-not-run-backgrou...
Umm, depends on the nature of the complaint, don't it?
If you ran a restaurant, say, and you received a complaint about one of the male waiters "constantly staring" at a female customer in a way that she found sufficiently disturbing to write you an email about afterwards[1] -- at the very least you'd investigate. And if the investigation ended up sustaining the claims the customer was making, of course you'd fire the waiter on the spot. And there's be nothing in the least bit "harsh" about it.
But what's damning for Uber, of course, not only did they not investigate; they failed to meaningfully acknowledge her request. And this isn't a matter of poor training among their customer service reps; those poor folks are diligently acting on the priorities they've been given. And those priorities, of course, come from the top.
Also: back in the "pre-Uber" world, not only would the drivers at least have to go through a (meaningful) background check, but in many cities they'd have to risk losing their permits, which generally are worth something on the order of a driver's pension (or several years worth of pay in any case). In fact even being able to get a loan to buy one of these permits is a kind of a test for basic personal stability.
But in the brave, new Uber world? All you need is a phone.
[1] http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation...
The suspect in question was implicated in 2 other rape cases and on bail for multiple other criminal charges. At what point is the Indian government responsible for this guy being at large?
Also, what was reported to Uber was allegations of "staring" and just generally making the passenger feel uncomfortable. While thats definitely not cool and not the experience anyone wants to have with Uber, thats hardly enough to fire someone.
I don't think that them "acting" would've stopped anything. At the end of the day those drivers are contractors and I never judge Uber on what a driver says to me or how they act.
Uber has a duty to provide and ensure safety. I personally think they live up to that in the US.
Drivers that make passengers who are women uncomfortable due to harassment should absolutely 100% be fired. Sexual harassment is not tolerable for employees of a company, whether its to fellow employees and/or customers.
Indian government is totally at fault. And so is Uber for lying about background checks and not taking the complaints seriously. This is not an isolated incident that shows their cavalier response. A follow-up from Uber on the complaint would have absolutely won my trust in the company.
> thats hardly enough to fire someone
Maybe run a background check based on a complaint, that would have given sufficient grounds to take action.
Every step of Uber's success has been associated with some sort of law breaking. In each new market they ignore the established taxi/limo laws, and in some they ignore more serious laws (background checks, etc). The individual offenses are small and generally non-serious (unlicensed taxi driving, illegal fees) but when you zoom out you see that this is a company systematically encouraging thousands of small crimes every day. When you realize that the behavior comes from the top, you can aggregate the wrongdoing into something pretty serious.
At first this was kind of 'cute'. We were all rooting for the little startup who said no to an old system and tried to create something better. Uber is now a huge company. They have secured over $2B in funding and probably intending to IPO with a market cap over $50B. Yet they have not slowed down with the law breaking and general disregard for "the rules".
How can this be OK? When will we force them to be mature and obey the laws. I have to obey the law in my every day life. More importantly, I would be terrified if other companies with similar market caps (airlines, rental car companies, media companies) started ignoring the law left and right. If money and investors can make you above the law then there is no protection for the rest of us.
I really want Uber as a service to exist, as I said. They provide a great convenience for me. However I don't think it's acceptable that they get to ignore the established rules. The laws are there for a reason. If they are bad laws, then we can work to change them. No amount of VC funding should make you immune to their reach.
(With apologies to those who fight against things far more onerous than taxi medallions)
There is no moral duty to obey unjust laws.
Uber and its competitors are, more than anyone else in decades as far as I can tell, working to change them.
How do we verify law as well-written and protecting interests of constituents first and foremost?
If we assume breaking it was necessary to improve customer experience -- and there are some good indicators for that -- we should ask ourselves, does the law protect the entrenched service provider (here, taxis) more than the consumers?
Should that be the case, it's failure of the law, and perhaps also law making process.
> How can this be OK?
It's a terrible stretch, but still: "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison" - Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
Look at how Uber is breaking the laws. They are doing it with the financial backing of enormously powerful people. So while now they are just breaking old crusty taxi laws, it scares me to think that a well-funded company could take this model and break some laws that actually protect me. What if what happened to the taxi drivers happens to an industry that I work in? I will have no moral leg to stand on if I don't oppose Uber's tactics now.
My biggest gripe is perhaps not even the inefficiency of the system, but its natural tendency towards systematic support of entrenched players, see the kind of regulatory capture performed by Comcast, or the article about the Chase Whistleblower from a few weeks back. You say that no amount of VC money should make an individual institution immune to the law, but this sort of immunity is conferred all the time by anyone with deep enough pockets, through mechanisms like lobbyists, regulatory capture and the various campaign finance loopholes exploited by Super-PACs. See any of Lawrence Lessig's writings of the past few years for more discussion. I'm reminded of an article that showed up on Hacker News about the downsides of an economy with a lot of entrenched players (permit me to suggest the "cartel" nomenclature) taking advantage of their favorable position in overly-bureaucratic systems: http://intellectual-detox.com/2013/04/14/rent-seeking-econom...
I do agree that Uber's shady business practices are not laudable, and there are certain important regulatory functions that can only be performed by unbiased parties interested in the public good, of which the legal system/government ought to be the exemplary case. But I think your suggestion that we can simply work to change bad laws is perhaps dependent on a system that currently cannot consistently keep up with the pace of change, not just because of inefficiency but because of perverse incentives (here is where I could begin to talk about the influence of corporate money in politics). I suspect we will have to wait at least another half-generation before a critical mass of individuals with both a true understanding of the exponential pace of progress and well-credentialed clout can begin to make serious reforms and updates in that area.
Until then, "move fast and break things" may, terrifyingly, be our best option.
The people holding Uber back are also empowered by wealth and influence. I'd prefer that our country not work this way. It's very unfortunate. I'm worried that encouraging companies like Uber may seem to upset this system but it really enforces it. It further sidelines the average person, and the 'nice' rich people get to battle the 'evil' rich people.
So I instead have the idealist view that we can all vote our way out of this mess. That we can eventually put candidates in place that will create sensible laws around technology and markets. And that these laws will benefit the consumer.
The reality is that it's f*ed on both sides. I can avoid using Uber and the entrenched taxi cab lobby will win. I can use Uber and validate a startup that has systematically broken the law. I can use neither and never get where I am going on time.
So instead I'll just sit here and spout my thoughts on HN. Makes me feel a little better in the meantime.
So you never drive over the speed limit? Jaywalk? Smoke pot? When will we force you to be mature and obey the law? Many millions of small crimes are committed every day by practically every person in the world. The reason nobody cares is because there's often no negative consequences to those "crimes".
Additionally, there ARE negative consequences to what Uber does. They are just not negative to you or me. Taxi drivers are being hurt by the reduced number of customers and the de-valuing of their medallions. I don't like the taxi system at all, but I do feel bad for all of the drivers who tried to play fair and buy in and are now being muscled out by VC money.
This article doesn't even get into it, but beyond background checks, their not having medallions is a huge, unfair advantage; their labor practices are exploitative and probably illegal; and their insurance policies are not adequate.
(Note that you can minimize anything with word choice. "Google is just a web spider that looks at links," or "Clojure is just a lisp that runs on the JVM," etc.)
It's incremental. Not innovation.
I'm not pretending, I'm reporting empirical observations. Uber provides a service that is really nice, and significantly changed the way I transport myself around town. It is empirically an innovative and new service.
Actually pretty solid advice for Silicon Valley.
This isn't innovation. It's gypsy cabs with an iPhone app.
If you mean "disruption" - lowering the prices of a cab by bypassing regulation - not really.
The taxi regulations are lengthy and serve multiple purposes. To classify it with a single sentence is just silly.
After all, requiring proper operating equipment and frequent inspections obviously doesn't benefit users... Is that what you're really forwarding? I hope not!
However, I have no sympathy left for Uber. They're on their own as far as I'm concerned.
"I don't know if this is legally feasible, but my inclination would be to allow Lyft here a long time before Uber," the commissioner of Portland's Bureau of Transportation, told the Times. "Lyft seems like a respectable company, and Uber seems like a bunch of thugs."
It is a bit shocking to hear a public regulator talk like this. A regulator's role should not be to pick and choose winners between two (essentially identical) companies based on personal preference.
What if a few missing/implied words were added in that related to earlier parts of the conversation?
> my inclination would be to allow Lyft here a long time before Uber
becomes
> my inclination based on the legal interpretation of how these companies have operated would be to allow Lyft here a long time before Uber
His quote remains an opinion, the only missing context is whether this opinion is based on the legal arguments in the case or a purely personal opinion or external set of information that would show a bias away from the legal arguments.
He even said in the prior sentence "This is about one company thinking it's above the law". Again, implying that Lyft are following the spirit of the law as well as the letter, and Uber are following the letter and not the spirit (and thus working as many loopholes as possible to 'win' in-spite of the wishes of the people of the affected cities that they do so in accordance with the wishes of the people of those cities).
I think this is not shocking at all, it's how it's supposed to be. Shocking is how some companies wish to ignore the codified will of the people of a city (or state, or country) purely to turn a dime. And yes, it's also shocking that some representatives of the people are corrupt as hell and that the written law has enough holes in it to fly a 747 through.
But a representative of people's tax dollars standing up to ask for companies who operate within a city to do so in accordance with the wishes of those who pay the tax dollars is not shocking, it should be the norm
By definition, the codified will of the people is the letter of the law. The "spirit of the law" is what politicians kind of want to happen, but never actually passed a law for.
Also, the "will of the people" is a nonsensical concept by Arrow's Impossibility Theorem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theore...
In my opinion, this is actually one of the only points of accountability for a corporation growing unchecked (which has this many varying complaints against them and some think act like thugs)
It appears the lawsuit is mostly for "false advertising" and (as stated in the LA Times article) the damages are perhaps in the low dozens of millions. The complaint perhaps focuses on the background check system.
I can't find a copy of the actual complaint, but looks like it's "business tort": (via http://www.sfsuperiorcourt.org/online-services/verify?f=cnq ) Superior Court of California, County of San Francisco Case Number: CGC 14 543120 Title: THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA VS. UBER TECHNOLOGIES INC A DELAWARE CORPORATION ET AL Cause of Action: BUSINESS TORT
IMO the Mercury News article spins the magnitude of this lawsuit a bit too hard. Yes, Uber will probably pay (once again) for its hubris, but it's mostly gonna be dirt off its shoulders ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7HAYkB-gH0 ).
> Uber's background checks ... have become a worldwide
> issue: The company was banned in New Delhi ... drivers
> there had to produce a certificate of strong character
> signed by police ... a bribe of about $130 would easily
> garner the document
Just because the article is not well written, don't uber is not at fault.
I'm really keen to see if their growth startegy works and if they're able to dominate the industry; or become one of those companies that rises too fast and falls quickly.
Met a young kid recently, claimed he had the idea for Uber too.. Told him, it's all about the execution.
I'd expect the lawsuit against Uber will not be the last. They have really got to keep on top of their legal department to protect stakeholders.
While this may be a great media/PR strategy, its also a pretty good litmus test as to whether you're a respectable human being imo.
Taxi companies dominate the taxi industry, it seems to me: they're shutting down Uber in more and more places.
Go Lyft.