Re: Guest Post - Uber and the collapse of western civilization and plausible deniability

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Elon Musk's relentless proceduralism in the face of hobnail boots is none too promising either.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:13 AM
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Great post, Spike.Uber has nobody to blame but itself.


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:24 AM
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As the first comment on that story notes, Uber didn't cut surge pricing, or indeed do anything at all, until half an hour after the protest had finished. (12.36 am GMT - 7.36 pm New York time.)

Ah well. Time zones are hard.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:24 AM
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The phrase is "story too good to check".


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:25 AM
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It doesn't help that the Uber CEO sits on Trump's proto-fascist panel of business advisors, along with many other tech luminaries.

See this is the kind of thing...

...can't bring yourself to mention the name David Plouffe

David Plouffe (/ˈplʌf/; born May 27, 1967)[1][2] is an American political strategist best known as the campaign manager for Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign. A long-time Democratic Party campaign consultant, he was a partner at the party-aligned campaign consulting firm AKPD Message and Media, which he joined in 2000.[3] Plouffe was an outside senior advisor to Obama since the president's first day in office and was then appointed as a Senior Advisor to the President (inside the White House) in 2011 following the resignation of David Axelrod, who went on to start Obama's reelection campaign.[4] In September 2014, he became the Senior Vice President of Policy and Strategy for transportation network company Uber.[5] In May 2015, he left that role to become a full-time strategic adviser for the company.[6] In January 2017, he joined the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative to lead the policy and advocacy efforts of the initiative.[7]

Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:27 AM
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DeleteUber took off because Uber has been treading on thin ice with regard to labor practices and anti-regulatory activism

I think this is overthinking it, in a sense. At least from what I saw, most of "Delete Uber!" was followed by "Switch to Lyft!". Lyft is in about the same place as far as labor practices and anti-regulatory activism, but they're not as big/dominant and they don't have the same habit of being assholes in public, so I think those latter factors are what people are reacting to.


Posted by: Nathan Williams | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:35 AM
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6: You're right that Lyft is not appreciably more progressive in its effects on the world, but, in addition to not being assholes all the time*, they also made a well-timed donation to the ACLU. So the "switch to Lyft" wasn't driven just by a poorly-formed sense of the larger social effects of ride-sharing: it was driven by a clear contrast in response to the immediate crisis.

*which matters, and should: norms matter, and the norms that Lyft tends towards are the ones where corporations are not malign actors; Uber is all about malignity


Posted by: JRoth | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:41 AM
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Lyft is in about the same place as far as labor practices and anti-regulatory activism, but they're not as big/dominant and they don't have the same habit of being assholes in public, so I think those latter factors are what people are reacting to.

Yes. In addition, Trump's BFF Peter Thiel is an investor in Lyft, so it too is problematic.

Still, its better to have competition in that industry than a single dominant player. And if they are forced to compete over having good politics, thats a good thing.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:46 AM
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As the first comment on that story notes, Uber didn't cut surge pricing, or indeed do anything at all, until half an hour after the protest had finished

Sure, but you know, fog of war. It was a very confusing time and nobody knew what was going on.

Maybe Uber didn't even intend to be strikebreakers, but by undermining collective activity among their drivers, they really were not in a position to be anything but that. If they'd had a decent union, word of the action would have gotten out to the drivers, and Uber corporate would have been shielded from having this kind of PR disaster on their hands.

Nice beds you made there, assholes. Now lie in it!


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 11:52 AM
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WHERE IS HEEBIE'S TAKE??


Posted by: urple | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:11 PM
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I find the whole thing sufficiently confusing that I wonder if it's unfair to Uber. At the same time, I have the same reaction to this that Michael Ledeen had to Iraq -- it's good if we take a shitty company and throw it up against the wall every so often.


Posted by: Walt Someguy | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:14 PM
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A quibble with the excellent OP: Uber's CEO Kalanick and Musk are actually the only tech luminaries on Trump's board. Uber deserves every deletion.

I will immediately retract this claim if Heebie appends a conflicting take.


Posted by: Kymyz Mustache | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:22 PM
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(1) If you had Uber installed in the first place, you are the problem, and you sure as shit don't get to preen about removing it now.
(2) Disabling surge pricing actually discourages their drivers from going to the airport, and is the opposite of strike-breaking.
(3) In light of (2), the fact from comment 3 takes on a more malicious light, rather than less.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:23 PM
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11 Exactly, or tell them you think this tech bubble fantasy, we're just going to let it grow? Well, suck on this!


Posted by: Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:24 PM
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Count me on team "If they hadn't been such out loud and proud assholes, people wouldn't have been so ready to believe the worst about them".


Posted by: AcademicLurker | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:26 PM
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Both Lyft and Uber are bad, but aside from the strike issue Lyft is actually slightly less evil than Uber in their labor practices. I try to use public transit as much as possible, but I've been told long before this if you're going to use one of them go with Lyft over Uber.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:31 PM
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But I agree with the OP and 11. As the Chinese say, kill the monkey to frighten the rooster.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:32 PM
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Uber's CEO Kalanick and Musk are actually the only tech luminaries on Trump's board.

Has the board been trimmed? I was under the impression it also included Apple's Tim Cook and reps from Facebook, Oracle, IBM, etc. But I guess that was just who showed up for the preliminary planning meeting.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:33 PM
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It's one of those irregular verbs.
I: have been the innocent victim of a brutal social media hate campaign
You: have my sympathy but you should have shown more understanding of their very real and sincere concerns;
He: deserved everything he got for being an asshole even if he technically didn't do anything wrong this time.


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:56 PM
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18: Yeah, I think that was just the preliminary meeting. It's just Kalanick, Musk, and oh also Ginni Rometty of IBM who've signed on for the Full Trump Experience.


Posted by: Kymyz Mustache | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 12:58 PM
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deserved everything he got for being an asshole even if he technically didn't do anything wrong this time.

That's part of the thing though. They didn't not do anything wrong. They worked when there was a strike on! You aren't supposed to do that, and, if you do, you are going to get shit for it.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 1:11 PM
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I realize it's a meaningless gesture, but I switched to using Lyft except when it won't come get me. I feel this offsets one very small tire fire that I can light at a future date.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 1:24 PM
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21: so blame the Uber drivers, surely. Why didn't they strike?


Posted by: ajay | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 2:14 PM
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Uber has very deliberately constructed a labor force with no way to engage in collective action.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 2:18 PM
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Yes. That.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 2:21 PM
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So does Lyft, of course. And I think most taxi companies outside of New York.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 2:24 PM
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It kind of points up the fact that the 20th century model of organized labor is done. The Republicans are going to try - probably successfully - to pass a national Right to Work law, which is another nail in the coffin.

We are in dire need to a new model for labor geared toward the reality of service industries, individual contractors, and labor mobility, rather than manufacturing and lifetime employment. But I don't know what that new model is.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 3:59 PM
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I was recently in a car accident and one of the questions I was asked by my insurance company was whether I worked for Uber or Lyft.

I heard someone on the subway (who sounded like he drove for one of them) that they are required by the companies to have insurance but the insurance companies won't insure them if they work for a ride sharing company. They're supposed to say that they're transporting their friends.

This makes me think that insurance would be void. I don't know whether uber has any liability coverage during the period where the driver is actually transporting the passenger, but I'd worry about who would cover injured people.

It's kind of like that corporate law case about the taxi cab company. Walkovszky v. Carlton. Someone will go after the companies themselves.


Posted by: Bostoniangirl | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 6:18 PM
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Yep, that was another way the companies were very nakedly exploiting their workers, directing them to non-commercial insurance policies that they knew could easily cut them off when they needed them. This makes it seem like in the past couple of years, to avoid bad publicity, the companies saw to it so that there will be insurance to cover damages to passengers or third parties, but not necessarily for drivers' own injuries. Regulate now!


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 6:27 PM
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That makes me think of "Young Guns".


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 6:29 PM
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They're supposed to say that they're transporting their friends.

Wait, what??? Uber's having its drivers going around with insurance that won't cover them? Shouldn't that be, I don't know, regulated?

I'm sure Congress will get right on it.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 01-31-17 6:59 PM
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I fucking hate people who bitch about red tape and rules and bureaucracy, and then bitch about the consequences of not having them. Like, bitch that rules or regulations could be better, but there's a reason we make people have things like adequate insurance or get licensed and stuff.


Posted by: Buttercup | Link to this comment | 02- 1-17 1:24 PM
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Oh, hey, peer pressure is working. The Uber CEO left Trump's advisory council, although it was with a memo-form whine about how his attendance had been misinterpreted as endorsement of the president.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 02- 2-17 4:22 PM
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Ha! That's great. You're on notice, Musk.


Posted by: Spike | Link to this comment | 02- 2-17 4:25 PM
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