The "echo chamber" works both ways. When there is excitement and buzz, it drives startups to success like no where else. Apparently it works in reverse too and people love to see the big kid on the block take hits.
Sorry, this is not just or mainly what's happening here. Every time an anti-Uber article comes up, someone pops in and says something to the effect of your comment, but it simply isn't true.
Uber is evil. They do evil things. They should not be supported. Yes, people like to see the titans fall, but people also like to see those who behave poorly get what they deserve for that behavior. That's what's happening here.
For reference, here is a list I compiled a while ago of all the scummy things Uber does that would make one glad to see it go.[1]
Outside of the sexual harassment claims, literally none of this is different than any other huge tech company out there. People want to see Uber failing has a lot more to do with narrative than reality. People have created a caricature out of Uber's failings and applied it to every aspect of the company. It's starting to feel like an agenda more than actual concerns, it's pretty annoying actually. Once Uber is gone, if it ever goes, people will move on to Lyft or the next threat to the status quo. AirBnB and Uber are the current enemies because they endanger established businesses more than anything else. They don't have heavy B2B relationships like the other big players (Amazon, Google, etc) so they are naturally the targets of business that have no interest in seeing them succeed. This has a long history of happening well before Uber existed, people want to protect their interests and create and build upon a narrative of rapacious heartlessness.
I won't lie to you and say I don't have an anti-Uber agenda. I do. I would like them to fail and go away.
But you have cause and effect backwards. I feel this way about Uber because of all the things they do; I didn't feel this way and then decide to find evidence to support my feelings. Lyft isn't great, either, hell, neither are taxi companies, but they aren't saturating the world with crappy behavior like Uber is. Given how universal Uber's misbehavior is - even my list is only partial coverage - I don't see how it doesn't apply to "every aspect of the company."
At what point would you draw a line and say "this behavior pattern is unethical and shouldn't be encouraged/enabled" when we're talking about a big company? That is, if Uber doesn't fit the bill, who does - does anyone?
> Outside of the sexual harassment claims, literally none of this is different than any other huge tech company out there.
The Waymo lawsuit/Levandowski affair is clearly looking WAY out of the norm for any huge tech company, especially since it's looking more and more like Uber may have colluded from the beginning (discussed previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13860890 )
To be fair, other CEOs are not constantly acting like a jerk to everyone. Maybe Travis will be more likable if he follows the footsteps of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and pledge to give the majority of his wealth.
Many items on that list aren't actually bad things, they're just described using language with negative connotations.
For example
>Uber breaks laws all around the world to enrich itself, including allegedly trying to deceive government officials across the world.[4]
Detecting malicious users and protecting drivers by shadowbanning malicious users is neither illegal nor wrong. Uber has no legal nor moral obligation to help the governments entrap its drivers, or perform sting operations. [1]
> It refuses to treat its drivers as true employees, even though legally they are considered such in many jurisdictions, and only complies when faced with court orders.[6][20]
Stupid jurisdiction should not be complied with above direct legal necessity. Treating uber drivers as full time employees hurts both the drivers and the company (why do you think uber driver pay got lower the more 'benefits' uber is required to provide them?).
People shitting on uber always seem to ignore how much public utility it provides in every town it enters. I remember ~10 years ago when I was in Warsaw, coming back from a new years eve party, and I had to walk ~4 hours to get back home because there was no night public transport in that area, and no taxies were available at all. I was in wasaw again 2 years ago, and in the meantime uber has moved in. Getting a drive back on NYE was trivial - maybe we had to wait 20 minutes, and pay ~4 times more than a taxi would have been (but of course there were no taxis available); but split 4 ways it was still a great deal.
There's a reason people choose to use uber; and there's a reason people choose to be uber drivers. And yes, it sucks to be a taxi driver who has bought his way into a monopoly by buying a permit, and now cannot recoup the cost that easily. I wish there was a way to compensate them at a cost of the people who benefited from bringing in license requirements in the first place. But I don't see one, and in the end I believe it's more important to dismantle the broken system.
> Stupid jurisdiction should not be complied with above direct legal necessity.
Uber is breaking the law in these jurisdictions. That's what the court orders are for. Are you suggesting that it's okay to adopt a policy of "we'll break the law until we get caught" on the basis of not liking the law?
Do you believe, then, that Uber breaks these laws as a form of protest, rather than because they want to maximie profit and eating the fines won't hurt their bottom line? What evidence do you have to support that belief, if so?
I think Uber breaks the laws because the people making decisions in uber do not see the laws as useful, and I agree with that opinion. And if the fines for breaking the law aren't hurting their bottom line, it's a win-win - presumably the fines are calculated to more than offset any public harm done.
When you hear a company break an actually meaningful law, the outrage isn't "X is breaking the law!", it's "X is doing <bad thing>". And yes, some of the outrage about uber does take the shape of the latter, and some of it is actually bad. But a lot of criticism is "Uber is breaking <law X> in <country Y>", and you'd only say that if the law in question is actually ridiculous.
You didn't really answer my question, but I think the answer can be inferred: A law Uber finds unuseful is any law that costs them money. Why do you trust Uber with this power? Why would you trust _any_ corporation with this kind of power? They are not and will never be your ally. They are only out for themselves. Laws at least are meant to apply to everyone. You may agree with their individual decisions, or you may be against the individual laws they choose to violate, but the overall idea of "it's OK for them to break the laws I agree are bad" doesn't work when they start breaking ones you _don't_ agree are bad. You cannot and should not give them that kind of trust.
>A law Uber finds unuseful is any law that costs them money. Why do you trust Uber with this power? Why would you trust _any_ corporation with this kind of power? They are not and will never be your ally. They are only out for themselves. Laws at least are meant to apply to everyone.
But all corporations already have that power. There is nothing you can do to stop someone from breaking a law if they think doing it, even after accounting for any negative consequences the society might apply to them, will benefit them.
> the overall idea of "it's OK for them to break the laws I agree are bad" doesn't work when they start breaking ones you _don't_ agree are bad.
Um, sure does? Just because I'm saying "don't punish people for breaking stupid laws" doesn't mean "don't punish people for doing things that are wrong". Especially if doing those wrong things also broke laws!
I am not saying that Uber should be excused in anything they do. I'm saying that if you're complaining about Uber doing X, you should do it by pointing out how X is wrong, not how X is illegal. There are many things that are illegal but aren't wrong (see for example how Americans treat speed limits); there are many things that are wrong but aren't illegal. You should be outraged when someone does something wrong, not when someone does something illegal.
> I think Uber breaks the laws because the people making decisions in uber do not see the laws as useful, and I agree with that opinion.
I don't see speed limits and red lights as useful, because they slow me down. If I were rich and amoral enough, I could drive however I wanted, pay the fines, and simply not care.
Laws are created by a democratic society, and individual members don't get to unilaterally declare that laws are "not useful" while still remaining members of that society.
Why not both? Do you think that ending segregation wasn't also a major opportunity booster for the african american community? Is it impossible for something in your own interest to also be just?
It can be both, but see my reply to the latest comment in the chain. It's unwise to rely on it being both; you cannot write a blank check to a corporate entity to break rules just because you usually agree with the outcomes of breaking those rules.
> Stupid jurisdiction should not be complied with above direct legal necessity
Kalanick or you don't get to decide which laws are stupid and should therefore be broken. There's an established process for that. And on the empirical level, it's not enough to show that customers and drivers are choosing to do business with Uber. If that were the standard, not single law protecting workers, customers, or third parties would be necessary.
Also, 'jurisdiction' means something different than you think,
> Every person for themselves decides which law they should obey and which ones they should break.
Corporations are not people. And even if we're only talking about Kalanick, while one may choose what laws to break or not, that doesn't exclude one from prosecution for laws one has broken. You don't get to pick and choose like that.
Your basic proposition here is that rules you don't like shouldn't have to apply to you. Society cannot function that way.
> Your basic proposition here is that rules you don't like shouldn't have to apply to you. Society cannot function that way.
No, I never said that? Obviously when you break a law you should be prepared to face the consequences for breaking that law, as stated in the law. That's the baseline of paying fines. (And then possibly contesting the fines in court or building a public case for changing the law based on being fined for something really silly).
What is not necessarily good is the additional public punishment for breaking a law; whether in form of bad PR, people boycotting them, protests, etc. That outrage should not be encouraged based on legality of actions, but only based on their morality.
> Uber has no legal nor moral obligation to help the governments entrap its drivers, or perform sting operations.
Uber does, however, have obligations to obey the law. Part of which would include not using technology to hide law-breaking actions from local law enforcement.
> Part of which would include not using technology to hide law-breaking actions from local law enforcement.
I very much doubt there's a legal clause specifying that uber has to provide service to undercover agents. If there was, I expect uber's legal department would not allow that program to go through.
If you're lying to a government agency, that's almost certainly breaking some law. I suspect that Illinois's §31-4 applies here (assuming this were in Illinois):
(a) A person obstructs justice when, with intent to prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he or she knowingly commits any of the following acts:
(1) Destroys, alters, conceals or disguises physical evidence, plants false evidence, furnishes false information
(I'm not sure if the "prevent the apprehension or obstruct the prosecution or defense" would apply case, but I'm not about to try traipsing through Illinois law decisions to find precedence).
If they knew that these agents were investigating possible mis-behavior or law-breaking on the part of Uber then Uber (and the people who coded up this cute little internal service) are now involved in a conspiracy. The neat thing about conspiracy is that it is much easier to prove/convict than the actual criminal activity.
> Uber does, however, have obligations to obey the law.
The law does not state that you have to do certain things. It states what consequences arise from actions you may or may not chose to take, and get caught performing those actions.
UPS and Fedex drivers routinely double park on streets to make deliveries, and pay the fines. They have a fund to pay the fines with, and count it as the cost of doing business. The law doesn't obligate anybody to do anything.
The question is whether market capital wants to see those who behave poorly get what they deserve for that behavior (and its idea of 'deserve' may be somewhat counterintuitive).
Evil is more profitable than good, because of externalities. The question is, how MUCH more profitable, and for how long? There are also patterns to consider which have to do with over-reaching, hubris and inability to work within any external context.
Uber is the kind of evil that doesn't play nicely with other evil. It's an extraordinary profit opportunity and treated as such, right up to the point where it explodes. The whole thing is based on conflict and dominating everything it touches, but it escalates where it doesn't have to: it can only continue to grow when it's not meaningfully opposed.
As such, Uber doing evil actions isn't meaningful, but Uber running afoul of Google in legal conflict is meaningful. Government and law aren't rich enough to oppose Uber, but Google is, and if Uber prevails against Google that drastically weakens Google.
I think it'll go the other way. Google is like a considerably more restrained Uber. They're in a position to do what governments and laws cannot.
Kalanick forgot that proverb we're taught as kids: "Be nice to the people you pass on the way up, because you'll be seeing them again on the way back down."
