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Uber Must Submit CEO Emails
Rambo Tribble writes: Uber has lost its bid in U.S. federal court to avoid disclosing emails from Chief Executive Travis Kalanick in a California lawsuit accusing the popular ride-booking service of deceiving customers about how it shares tips with drivers. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, in reference to U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu's ruling that the plaintiff in the lawsuit can receive emails from Kalanick and global operations chief Ryan Graves, wrote, "That Judge Ryu's order may require defendant to review approximately 21,000 documents does not represent an improper burden given the potential role of defendant's CEO and vice president of operations in defendant's challenged conduct." This comes amid mounting legal problems for Uber, including South Korea indicting Kalanick on charges he violated local licensing laws and numerous cities around the globe banning the service.
Part of Uber's billion dollar investment money well spent on marketing.
Uber is an ethically-challenged company. They are repeatedly in the news for their unscrupulous behavior (e.g. DDoSing their competitors by requesting and canceling rides) and dragged into court by multiple jurisdictions for their negligence in matters of insurance, background checks for their drivers, and predatory business practices.
Uber's CEO's tone deaf call to harass journalists was the last straw for me and I stopped using Uber and began using their competitor Lyft.
If Lyft is as good in your city as it is in mine, you may be pleasantly surprised should you also choose to switch.
I'm personally sick of hearing about Uber acting like assholes in the news and, for my money, they can't go under quickly enough.
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This is not an "editorial" on Uber as a service compared to traditional cab services, but rather an observation that growing government regulation (banning) of Uber (and similar services) and the liability of an almost certain stream of lawsuits will simply negate any way for services like Uber to continue.
I think that Uber-like services are here to stay. They've simply been too effective at out-competing cabs, regulation can only slow down these things for so long, the question is what the eventual market looks like.
No matter what Uber-like phone apps are going to be part of the answer, the big question is whether the drivers will be "amateurs", driving their own cars and either working full-time or just making a few bucks on the side, or if they'll be medallioned taxis with all the artificial scarcity and extra regulations entailed with that.
If phone apps are the big things that make Uber better than traditional taxis might rebound and eventually kill the ride-sharing services.
If the marginal workforce (ie part-timers, students, etc) working for cheap and following high demand is what brings the benefits then I suspect the regulations will eventually find a way to allow them, and the future cab industry will consist of multiple small players signing up with driver networks.
Either way Uber is a bit of an interesting experiment business wise. They've got a massive first mover advantage to go with some horrible PR and it seems like a bunch of that first mover advantage comes from the fact that they're willing to be assholes and simply ignore the law.
They're one of those companies where I suspect a lot of people will jump ship the moment a viable alternative is available since there's so much borderline stuff going on. I suspect Lyft or one of the other services with slightly better PR will eventually surpass them once the regulatory environment has changed and the services start hitting critical mass so the network differences aren't as apparent.
I stole this Sig
Yes, they're rigged in favour of businesses which meet certain requirements in order to be permitted to operate.
Uber's business model is based upon ignoring these requirements.
To be fair, either Uber needs to meet the same requirements as traditional taxi companies, or the conditions need to be lifted for all firms wishing to offer cars and drivers for hire.
Which is it going to be?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.