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Adar posted:Guys, Uber could easily cheat you into paying $14 for a $12 ride *hops into Las Vegas cab, which takes the tunnel instead of the freeway* It's cool guys, Uber is the solution! I can verify everything with my phone GPS! *jumps into illegal digital jitney with unlicensed driver* *driver drives wrong way up ramp and leads police on a high speed chase to avoid fine* Uber rocks! *is goon* http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dr-gridlock/wp/2014/07/09/man-visiting-d-c-says-uber-driver-took-him-on-wild-ride/
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Jul 24, 2014 19:21
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Also, I know it hurts all your little socialist hearts, but the reason why libertarianism is on the rise is because people are sick of some regulations. Is Airbnb riskier than a hotel? Sure, but it's cheaper and maybe more fun. Is it safe to drink my friend's unlicensed homebrew? Maybe not, but he didn't die. Is it risky to have sex with strangers I meet on an app? Sure, but it's fun... Again, you can regulate businesses, but you can't regulate consumers. If they are sick of regulation, too bad.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:24
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Adar posted:Out of curiosity, why do we even care if ex-cons can drive cars for a living? If they're here legally (and I'm pretty sure most of them are), they have undergone EXTENSIVE background checks, not just 'in the usa' background checks. To move here you need to have done very little in the way of crime. The USA has a fairly rigorous process for ensuring they don't get 'bad people' which includes checking for sickness/hiv etc.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:27
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Trabisnikof posted:We shouldn't let companies like Uber, AirBnB, et al violate the law and regulation in the name of "innovation".
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Jul 24, 2014 19:27
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Also, I know it hurts all your little socialist hearts, but the reason why libertarianism is on the rise is because people are sick of some regulations. What's funny is only 1 of the 3 things you listed has a regulation issues: AirBnB. AirBnB's issues are mostly tax and legal liability. Otherwise you're allowed to drink your friend's homebrew or gently caress who you can. But keep making up fake regulations to be angry about.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:28
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Dude who cares? You are a weird goon, so you do. Taxi companies care. Consumers DO NOT. Until a cab can get my friends and I to the bar faster and at a lower price than UberX, no one will give a poo poo about any of these discussions. Really don't get this either, the prices uber quotes me on its website are either above or in the same range as the local taxis for UberX. Not just for my current location but for new york too.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:28
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cheese posted:Especially when that "innovation" is literally "You can summon our car service with a smart phone ap instead of a phone call". Honestly its more about the distance and price of the trip known before via inaccurate and uncertified GPS rather than a taxi long hauling someone for an unnecessary but accurate 20 bucks.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:32
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Trabisnikof posted:What's funny is only 1 of the 3 things you listed has a regulation issues: AirBnB. AirBnB's issues are mostly tax and legal liability. Otherwise you're allowed to drink your friend's homebrew or gently caress who you can. But keep making up fake regulations to be angry about. Of course! But to a consumer, it's all the same. I also had recently had alcohol delivered to my house via some app -- is that illegal? Who knows. Also, the consumer DOESN'T CARE AND WILL DO IT ANYWAY. Condiv posted:Really don't get this either, the prices uber quotes me on its website are either above or in the same range as the local taxis for UberX. Not just for my current location but for new york too. UberX is much cheaper in LA. Edit: Hmm, I guess alcohol delivery is legal in CA.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:33
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Of course! But to a consumer, it's all the same. I also had recently had alcohol delivered to my house via some app -- is that illegal? Who knows. Also, the consumer DOESN'T CARE AND WILL DO IT ANYWAY. So does that justify the companies involved acting illegally, just because there's a marketplace?
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Jul 24, 2014 19:35
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cheese posted:Especially when that "innovation" is literally "You can summon our car service with a smart phone ap instead of a phone call". You're right it is a pretty simple and small thing, which is why it's baffling that normal taxi companies haven't started offering the same thing en masse. It's also not just summoning the taxi, when you order an Uber it gives you a somewhat reliable ETA and shows you where the car is physically, with the taxis here the ETA they give you is wildly inaccurate and there's no way to track the cab's progress towards your location.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:36
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Trabisnikof posted:So does that justify the companies involved acting illegally, just because there's a marketplace? Who cares about morality? It's going to happen. You could make the same argument about drug prohibition. People want cheap cabs and hate the cab monopoly. Crush the cab monopoly and inject some semblance of regulation and everyone can be happy. MaxxBot posted:You're right it is a pretty simple and small thing, which is why it's baffling that normal taxi companies haven't started offering the same thing en masse. It's also not just summoning the taxi, when you order an Uber it gives you a somewhat reliable ETA and shows you where the car is physically, with the taxis here the ETA they give you is wildly inaccurate and there's no way to track the cab's progress towards your location. Taxis also have an app (TaxiMagic), but they are crippled by the taxi meter and the taxi dispatch. So the app is really just a front end.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:38
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Also, I know it hurts all your little socialist hearts, but the reason why libertarianism is on the rise is because people are sick of some regulations. Is anyone going to die if they use an Airbnb? Probably not. But there are good reasons we have hotel regulations, reasons that the 2014 American almost certainly does not know about or lived to experience. I have no idea what you are talking about with the other two things - no one cares if you drink what you make in bathtub or who you bone.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:38
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cheese posted:People are "sick of regulations" because they have no personal memory of a time before said regulations and do not understand or remember the reasons for them in the first place. Anyone who read in the 1911 papers about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, where 120+ young women died in a factory inferno caused by a comedy of safety errors, would be behind workplace safety regulations. Now Joe Schmoe just rolls his eyes at his office's yearly mandatory fire drill. No one who grumbles about the water bill credit Detroit just gave its poor citizens has lost a loved one to dysentery or cholera. The flip side is of course true as well. Ask some airline passengers in 2000 if they think they should have to take their shoes off to be inspected and turn in their nail clippers, and they would say "God drat government regulations, what about my freedoms?". But 9/11. Yes, culture is fickle. Regulations always ebb and flow. There can never be a perfect society. Sorry about post-modernism I guess?
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Jul 24, 2014 19:42
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Who cares about morality? It's going to happen. You could make the same argument about drug prohibition. What does operating illegally have to do with morality and how is this like drug prohibition? Uber is not a black market drug operation. They are a legitimate company that operates illegitimately. People do want cheap cabs. Uber is not cheaper. It has been known to charge $300-$400 for 30 minute rides because of their surge pricing. "Inject some semblance of regulation" is exactly what Uber does not want to happen. What exactly is this cab monopoly?
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Jul 24, 2014 19:43
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Slobjob Zizek posted:UberX is much cheaper in LA. So I assume you'd start caring in new york about uber tacking on extra mileage. Especially when you're coming home from a bar drunk and might not be in the best state of mind to catch things like that.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:44
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Condiv posted:So I assume you'd start caring in new york about uber tacking on extra mileage. Especially when you're coming home from a bar drunk and might not be in the best state of mind to catch things like that. I had a "next morning" experience when I saw that Uber charged me for a $45 cab ride I never took. I was drunk the cabbie must have picked up some other fare. I complained and they removed the charge.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:46
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Yes, culture is fickle. Regulations always ebb and flow. There can never be a perfect society. Sorry about post-modernism I guess? 
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Jul 24, 2014 19:47
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cheese posted:People are "sick of regulations" because they have no personal memory of a time before said regulations and do not understand or remember the reasons for them in the first place. Anyone who read in the 1911 papers about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, where 120+ young women died in a factory inferno caused by a comedy of safety errors, would be behind workplace safety regulations. Now Joe Schmoe just rolls his eyes at his office's yearly mandatory fire drill. No one who grumbles about the water bill credit Detroit just gave its poor citizens has lost a loved one to dysentery or cholera. The flip side is of course true as well. Ask some airline passengers in 2000 if they think they should have to take their shoes off to be inspected and turn in their nail clippers, and they would say "God drat government regulations, what about my freedoms?". But 9/11. Things I give a poo poo about : -disease control -fire safety -that my alcohol is not made in a bathtub Things I do not give a poo poo about : -whether the guy driving me to work has a clean record -how many nail clippers are on my plane -whether the cheap room I got through Airbnb is illegal because the owner did not take a training course in hotel management it is possible to feel all of these things at the same time. well, that's my story, hope this helps
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Jul 24, 2014 19:50
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cheese posted:Then what is your point? As has been demonstrated in this thread, people, including yourself, have a generally poor understanding of what regulations even exist and cannot possibility fully comprehend why man of them exist. But I guess that is what is driving the "libertarian" expansion and not the panic and fear of a white middle class seeing their privilege and power eroded financially and socially Exactly! Life is too complicated. People want the here and now. This is why interest in state regulation is declining. Every single cab experience I've had has been worse than every single Uber experience I've had. Is a cab safer if something goes wrong? Probably. But what are the chances of that happening?
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Jul 24, 2014 19:51
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Condiv posted:Also, where I live UberX fares are slightly higher than a cab, sooo.... I don't believe that, do you have proof?
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Jul 24, 2014 19:57
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Condiv posted:And how do you tell innacurate from deliberately biased. Like, how do you prove with your smartphone that the 2.2 miles uber claims you traveled is inaccurate? The gps in all of these phones isn't terribly accurate, cause it was never meant for precision measurement. Inaccurate means that it's not terribly accurate but the inaccuracies are randomly clustered around the correct answer instead of all being too long. You can tell because you are not generally traveling from an arbitrary and unknown point with only your phone GPS and going to an arbitrary and unknown point. You are traveling to and from a known address.
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Jul 24, 2014 19:58
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evilweasel posted:Inaccurate means that it's not terribly accurate but the inaccuracies are randomly clustered around the correct answer instead of all being too long. You can tell because you are not generally traveling from an arbitrary and unknown point with only your phone GPS and going to an arbitrary and unknown point. You are traveling to and from a known address. There's no reason Uber can't just assume it's the farthest distance no matter what.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:02
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24-7 Urkel Cosplay posted:"Inject some semblance of regulation" is exactly what Uber does not want to happen. What exactly is this cab monopoly? That's exactly what Minneapolis just did and Uber didn't complain, I couldn't find a statement by Uber but Lyft is fully supportive of the ordinance. Lyft posted:"Today's vote recognizes that regulations can be modernized to allow innovative industries to thrive while maintaining the highest level of public safety.," read a statement released by Lyft. "By creating a common-sense regulatory framework that secures a future for ridesharing in the city, Minneapolis has stepped up as leader in welcoming community-powered transportation options and forging a path for other municipalities to follow."
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Jul 24, 2014 20:03
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Deregulation: a natural force, like the tides.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:03
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crusader_complex posted:Deregulation: a natural force, like the tides. Uh, yes, it's called entropy.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:05
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Adar posted:You certainly could. Of course this would be insta-caught by a halfway competent software audit at any of a dozen steps along the way so maybe that's a good idea for a city or state government to propose regulations around. There's not really an effective way to audit server-side programs. Even if you audited the code and had some sort of Weights And Standards authority sign the binary there's not really an effective way to prove that the signed binary is actually the one that's being run on the server. For that matter as long as it's an Uber phone instead of your own phone acting as a taximeter you can't really audit that either. Rhe idea that Uber wouldn't pitch a fit about that kind of oversight is patently ridiculous though. They absolutely would fight that kind of oversight tooth and nail. Adar posted:-whether the cheap room I got through Airbnb is illegal because the owner did not take a training course in hotel management And this is you mis-stating the issue again. You definitely would care whether the cheap room you got through AirBnB gave you bed bugs because the owner wasn't following health regulations for rooms designed to have a new occupant every night. If your housemate/neighbor was running an unlicensed hotel and you were getting a new, possibly shady neighbor every couple days you'd probably care about that too. Drunken 3 AM domestic disputes, holes getting punched in your walls, or getting your poo poo broken into is only cute the first zero times. There's a bit more to "hotel management" than sitting at a desk and handing out room keys. Like, you do realize that transient populations like that carry fairly well-recognized health and public safety risks, right? Paul MaudDib fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Jul 24, 2014 |
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Jul 24, 2014 20:06
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computer parts posted:There's no reason Uber can't just assume it's the farthest distance no matter what. Well, it would then run into the problem of finding anyone with an infinite amount of money willing to take an infinitely long car ride.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:09
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My only problem with Uber is that the single thing they're doing of note is using a slick app to do a simple task. Nothing else about them is innovative - contract labor, dodging regulations, rent collecting, leaving employees out to dry, etc. are all standard features of the 'new' neoliberal corporate economy. Someone else could come along and cook up an app that completely undercuts Uber and then that's it. And yet it's worth $18 billion.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:18
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Popular Thug Drink posted:My only problem with Uber is that the single thing they're doing of note is using a slick app to do a simple task. Nothing else about them is innovative - contract labor, dodging regulations, rent collecting, leaving employees out to dry, etc. are all standard features of the 'new' neoliberal corporate economy. Someone else could come along and cook up an app that completely undercuts Uber and then that's it. And yet it's worth $18 billion. Don't forget, they etched out a pretty sick deal with car dealerships to let you get that brand new Lexus for only $200 down!
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Jul 24, 2014 20:20
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Perhaps you haven't been following tech company valuations? If loving Snapchat was turning down $3B, a service that will be impossible to monetize, could be copied within two days by a skilled developer, and is mainly used for sexting - I can easily believe Uber is worth 6x that, considering they actually make money.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:20
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Slobjob Zizek posted:Exactly! Life is too complicated. People want the here and now. This is why interest in state regulation is declining.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:21
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this_is_hard posted:Don't forget, they etched out a pretty sick deal with car dealerships to let you get that brand new Lexus for only $200 down! I can't wait to see how many people rush to destroy a $40,000 car in the name of "disruption" while being paid an average of $12/hr
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Jul 24, 2014 20:22
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24-7 Urkel Cosplay posted:Uber is not cheaper. It has been known to charge $300-$400 for 30 minute rides because of their surge pricing. UberX is dramatically (in the neighborhood of 50%) cheaper than normal cabs in Boston You are always notified about surge charging prior to booking. If someone got charged that much it's because they agreed to it. They also tell you an estimate for when the surge charge ends. The other night it was 1.5x normal price but told me surge pricing would end in 5 minutes. I walked a bit, opened the app again, and it was back to normal Have you even used the thing you're so upset about?
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Jul 24, 2014 20:23
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Radbot posted:Perhaps you haven't been following tech company valuations? If loving Snapchat was turning down $3B, a service that will be impossible to monetize, could be copied within two days by a skilled developer, and is mainly used for sexting - I can easily believe Uber is worth 6x that, considering they actually make money. Uber is losing millions per month. They have no long-term survival strategy.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:23
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Popular Thug Drink posted:My only problem with Uber is that the single thing they're doing of note is using a slick app to do a simple task. Nothing else about them is innovative - contract labor, dodging regulations, rent collecting, leaving employees out to dry, etc. are all standard features of the 'new' neoliberal corporate economy. Someone else could come along and cook up an app that completely undercuts Uber and then that's it. And yet it's worth $18 billion. Well, barriers to entry are a thing. I don't know the economics term, but there's a chicken-and-egg situation where it's problematic to get drivers until you have a critical mass of passengers and it's problematic to get passengers unless you have a critical mass of drivers, and customers have their own inertia from brand loyalty and familiarity. You might as well theorize about how Amazon is going to topple any day now because it's just like, a website, man! You can make your own site and then the next day you have a billion customers and you're doing 75 billion in gross sales, that's totally how business works, right? evilweasel posted:Well, it would then run into the problem of finding anyone with an infinite amount of money willing to take an infinitely long car ride. Cute, but the implication was "the farthest distance that could be justified within the error of the GPS device", as opposed to errors being randomly distributed and sometimes in the driver's favor and sometimes in the rider's favor.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:24
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cheese posted:Oh come loving on man. I've probably taken 300-400 cab rides across my time in DC, SF and Boston, and the vast majority are of no significant note. I get it, tell the driver where I want to go, he takes me there and I pay. You can argue that Uber/Lyft are a better service than cabs (because in some ways they are) but you don't have to demonize cab rides as some kind of third world hellscape where you will be spit on if you are not taking a 40 dollar ride downtown. Likewise. I've used taxis maybe ~30 times in my life and don't remember much about any of them. From reading some of these pro-Uber testimonials you'd think that some people just can't help but get robbed at gunpoint by cabbies. Paul MaudDib posted:Well, barriers to entry are a thing. I don't know the economics term, but there's a chicken-and-egg situation where it's problematic to get drivers until you have a critical mass of passengers and it's problematic to get passengers unless you have a critical mass of drivers, and customers have their own inertia from brand loyalty and familiarity. Well, there's really nothing stopping me from picking up people in my car for money except brand loyalty. All Uber is is an app and a brand. Those are replicable under the right conditions. You could even start small and sell it as a local thing.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:29
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Riptor posted:UberX is dramatically (in the neighborhood of 50%) cheaper than normal cabs in Boston I don't know why "surge pricing" is problematic, honestly. It's a pretty standard practice in lots of industries to charge extra for scarce resources at peak usage times. If you use electricity around 5:30 PM you'll pay more, if you charge your car overnight you'll pay less in lots of places. Taxicabs are much more in demand during certain hours of the day, why shouldn't prices float up during those periods to reflect that? Particularly when those high fares incentivize more drivers to offer rides during those hours? Ignoring the issues of congestion, let's assume we're not talking about NYC here, it's basically the same concept as carbon trading. The high price of rides incentivizes some people to change their behavior in order to sell the resource to people who can't. Is it just a moral argument that taxi rides should always cost the same amount no matter what time you want them, as opposed to peak/off-peak commuter train fares or something?
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Jul 24, 2014 20:30
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Paul MaudDib posted:I don't know why "surge pricing" is problematic, honestly. It's a pretty standard practice in lots of industries to charge extra for scarce resources at peak usage times. If you use electricity around 5:30 PM you'll pay more, if you charge your car overnight you'll pay less in lots of places. Because the conditions that trigger surge pricing are known to uber and uber alone? They were caught gouging customers by artificially triggering surge pricing.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:36
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Paul MaudDib posted:I don't know why "surge pricing" is problematic, honestly. It's a pretty standard practice in lots of industries to charge extra for scarce resources at peak usage times. If you use electricity around 5:30 PM you'll pay more, if you charge your car overnight you'll pay less in lots of places. Of course, since Uber is really a car service and not a ride sharing tool, no one really signs up to operate in that way, and nothing really changes. They trigger surge pricing to make money, and there is no horde of average joes coming out of the woodwork to take up the excess demand since all of the Uber drivers are just taxi drivers in all but name.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:37
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Paul MaudDib posted:Cute, but the implication was "the farthest distance that could be justified within the error of the GPS device", as opposed to errors being randomly distributed and sometimes in the driver's favor and sometimes in the rider's favor. Driving the long way is a scam that is entirely independent of if there's a meter or not. That's the point. However the long way is not GPS error, there's a starting point and an ending point and there's a mapping algorithm for getting from point A to B. If GPS is involved it's telling you how to get there, and the only variation would be variations based on traffic. GPS is involved when you're trying to tell if you were lied to about how long it was from point A to B. Ultimately, the argument here - what if uber tries to scam you! - is misleading. Of course Uber can slightly tweek its algorithms to steal pennies from me each trip. But I don't even know what the actual formula is, what I'm going to be deciding (like with a taxi ride, when I couldn't tell you the formula either) is if the amount seems right. I've had taxis take me the long way or claim that a flat fare actually didn't exist, or ended on the border to Manhattan instead of being airport-to-door that when you tell me Uber might steal a few pennies each trip, that's a net plus for me. Anytime I'm in another city, I'm essentially trusting the cabbie, who has a direct financial incentive to take me the long way if he can tell I'm not from around there and can't tell when I'm paying five bucks extra. So sure, Uber can scam me. If they get their code audited that would be a plus, I'm certainly not going to oppose that or anything. But I really don't care that it's not because it can't be rigged enough to scam me enough I care without getting caught.
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Jul 24, 2014 20:37
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