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Uber Denies Access To Harvard Startup That Compared Ride-Hailing Prices (boston.com)
In April, a group of Harvard Business School students created an app called Urbanhail that allowed users to see side-by-side real-time pricing -- including surge rates -- for different ride-sharing apps including Uber. The app received a tremendous response from users. Shortly after that, the group received emails from several Uber representatives, asking them to remove Uber's data from the app citing terms and policies. "Uber's developer terms explicitly forbid using its data in any manner that is competitive to Uber," said Chris Messina, Lead at Uber Developer Experience. This has resulted in Urbanhail removing Uber's data from price-comparison-list. Urbanhail's Amber James didn't find Uber's stance on the matter. He said: They are absolutely a champion of competition when it's them against taxi companies or them against regulators. However, in its own ride-hailing niche of the transportation market, Uber's stance is ironically absolutely anti-competitive.
Grease those pockets proper.
The word you're looking for is "hypocritically".
I find Uber's behavior to be totally expected, and not ironic in the least. Hypocritical, perhaps. Ironic? Not even a little bit.
> competition when it's them against taxi companies
Doesn't he mean "against other companies".
A taxi company with an app is still a taxi company.
Film at eleven!
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Surely custome price data is in the public domain and so fair use applies?
Allowing customers to compare prices is a slippery slope. What we need is to hand all market control to a small number of really big companies like Uber, Apple and Comcast. That will guarantee low prices and great products and services without the danger of a free market hurting everyone.
In their app they make it clear that they are showing only competitively priced rides without mentioning Uber. Even if they just omit Uber, they are in effect cutting Uber out.
And since this app is so popular, I guarantee you that Uber will eventually change their minds and maybe even PAY these folks to list their company.
Uber management did NOT think this through.
I have many more suggestions like this Uber management. I charge $10,000 per day with a 30 day minimum booking. Sorry, cash only. I don't take Silly Valley funny money (stock or stock options).
Just use predictive averages based on historical and current prices reported by users.
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They should use the standard line from the uber playbook:
Uber:
We aren't a transportation company - we're not competing with the taxi's, we're a data company!
Urbanhail:
We aren't a data company, we're advertising your service! We don't have cars or a data service! just ads!
But ignorant poster!
The term you wanted is "Free Market". Capitalism speaks about who owns the means of production. It doesn't describe a market at all.
"They are absolutely a champion of competition when it's them against taxi companies or them against regulators. However, in its own ride-hailing niche of the transportation market, Uber's stance is ironically absolutely anti-competitive."
Allow me to be the first to say, "Duh!"
Uber wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Nothing surprising about this at all.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
this is millenials we're talking about. they go all stupid and rainman when it's time to open two or three apps to compare prices. if it's not one step it's too hard for them
Two major differences in your scenario. McDonald's has W2 employees, your hypothetical has contractors. Taxi companies, including Uber, use contractors.
Each McDonald's has a food safety permit, and in many states each employee does as well. If they used contractors, the contractors would by law be required to have a permit for commercial food preparation in all states. Much as traditional taxi drivers have the appropriate permits. Uber drivers of course do NOT have proper commercial driver's licenses, in 99% of cases.
It's unfortunate that taxis, unlike food handlers, have developed a special relationship with politicians in many cities and ask their politicians to improperly restrict licensing. For some reason, the taxi, garbage, casino, and solar-electric industries have a lot of political graft and corruption. That's the real difference between taxis and fast food. Nail salons have a lot of Korean owners, convenience stores are popular with Indian entrepeneurs, and taxis are popular with crooked people who engage in political corruption.
They push too hard too often. They have made themselves the last service I will try if I need a ride.
Don't step on the baby.
Not this.
The objective is to communicate. If you can't decipher the shti, thn mayb u shud edyouk8t ursef.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Or ...
Use three fucking apps and do the maths?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Here in the state of Ohio, a standard taxi rate is $4 for the hire plus $2 per mile. Any licensed taxi service has to abide by that rate. If I can't find out what my ride will cost before I book the trip, and without downloading an app on my phone, I'm not going to use their service. As an additional bonus, I can pay cash for a taxi.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
Also:
Urbanhail's Amber James didn't find Uber's stance on the matter.
She didn't find it? Didn't find it what? Or did she put it down somewhere and forget where?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Well, it's against their ToS. Sounds like someone didn't read the not-so-fine-print.
So, taxis aren't Ubers, just like McDonalds aren't apps to link you up to some dude's backyard cookout.
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This is going to sound controversial, but I think we are at the point where we would be best to let these mega-corps go crazy disrupting industries and livelihoods en-mass. Big money has won, and workers are just fighting a rear guard action attempting to slow down the destruction of the middle class.
The reality though, is that none of this can sustain itself inside a democracy. Once enough of the middle class realize that even modest dreams (a home, stable income, time to pursue their own interest) are no longer attainable, there will be a political backlash. In my view, if that moment comes sooner, the backlash might be someone progressive, modifying the rules of capitalism to bring some sensibleness back to the setup. If the process is left too late, anger will build and I fear the backlash will be a coin-toss as to whether it is better or worse than what we have now.
Free-marketers like Uber just cannot see that there is a bigger 'free market' than the economic system. It is called the will of the masses, and even without democracy, it has proven to be quite capable of disrupting the rules when its interests are not met.
food safety permit
Having seen a McDonalds (and most Fast food) kitchen, I wouldn't call it "safe". The kitchen itself may be acceptable, but the weak spot is always the worker. There is NO permit for the cook with a dripping nose, or sneezing or coughing or jacking off in a hamburger ...
But if if makes you feel good that there is a big fat "A" rating on the door, by all means feel good.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
A central app reduces the amount of time the user spends on that. Both time and willpower are limited--time by the obvious mechanism, willpower by the consumption of ATP in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (you can't keep making yourself do boring, annoying shit for the same reason you can't keep doing push-ups forever: eventually, the part of your body physically involved in doing that runs out of energy store and has to manufacture new ATP in the mitochondria from glucose; in the case of willpower, it's the part of your brain that overrides base reactions).
If you use a single, predictive application, then it will tend to lag behind when more-expensive but less-cooperative services reduce their prices. That means Uber's higher price of 20 minutes ago hasn't quite trickled down to the app, while Lyft adjusted their prices in 4 seconds and showed up as cheaper. Sucks to be Uber.
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What's the difference between:
a) A service that connects you to a driver, who is an independent contractor.
b) A service that connects you to a driver, who is an independent contractor.
Choice (a) is a taxi. Choice (b) is Uber. They do precisely the same thing, because Uber is a taxi company, plain and simple. The ONLY difference between Uber and most taxi companies is:
a) A service that connects you to a driver, who is an independent contractor, and who is licensed by the city and sate as required by law.
a) A service that connects you to a driver, who is an independent contractor , and who is operating illegally, without the required license, because the driver is either unable or unwilling to be licensed properly.
Oh, now, you're not even trying at all now.
Don't tell me you're getting tired of me already? :(
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
A billion years ago, I worked as an intern for a research group called CSTaR. One of the things they came up with was one of the first shopping bots. It would poll a bunch of sites like CDNOW (yeah this is old, back before Amazon ruled the roost) and a few others, and would come up with the cheapest price. A few sites blocked the bot.
Nothing new here, just interesting that Uber starting to do it now.
You keep repeating what you first guessed the facts MIGHT be. You're not listening. Most taxi drivers are NOT employees. They are contractors. The company you call is a dispatch service. Drivers most often own the cars, except in New York where the $1 million medallion, and attached car, is most often owned by investors who lease it to the driver (not to the dispatch company).
* In the very smallest cities the driver is often neither employee nor contractor, he is the whole company .
But all those guy on slashdot and other forum railing against "ordinary" taxi anti competitiveness system... Well how is that crow tasting ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I like this because it'll inevitably be slightly inaccurate and therefore force Uber to allow access to their accurate and up-to-date pricing in order to compete more effectively.
If Uber doesn't allow access yet remains in the lead then what else can you say but that Uber's service is that much better/cheaper/faster than the competitions.
The reason people don't like taxis is because drivers always play shenanigans with fares. Always.
You mean, like, surge pricing during a terrorist attack? Oh, wait, that wasn't taxis, that was Uber.
Shit like this is the reasons taxis are regulated. And the reason why Uber is fighting regulation tooth and nail: so they can screw people for every last penny they possibly can.
I don't know if pricing data is public domain or fair use but it cannot be both. Fair use is a term applied to the lawful use of material that is otherwise protected by copyright.
I do not block ads. I do block third party scripts.
The objective is to communicate. If you can't do it well enough for the average person to understand, then maybe you shouldn't even try.
Uber drivers aren't employees. They are independent contractors.
Uber isn't a taxi service. It's a ride sharing program.
This program isn't abusing Uber's database. It's reposting public information.
You forget the network effect, which can be a very high barrier to entry.
Drivers are on Uber because the customers are there. Customers are on Uber because drivers are available.
Try to compete against Uber by being a lone driver with your own application. Even if you are cheaper you won't get any customers.
The only way Uber can loose once they get a dominant position, is if someone can develop a single application to give prices from multiple sources, since the user do not have to know them all (and ideally, doesn't have to be registered with them all). Exactly why they are blocking this.
Or maybe the reader is less than average.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
A central app is aggregating separate apps and some of the separate app owners don't like it. It's about money. It's not about convenience to other app users.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
My point is users will use a central app like Expedia or Travelocity and find it adequate, and thus not bother with other apps; or they will have no such app and will select a favorite service and not put in effort to cross-check. Effort requires time and the expenditure of energy, both of which humans avoid expending.
In the event of one service (e.g. Uber) having less-than-perfect data, users who find Uber's prices listed in the aggregate as lower than what Uber actually offers will more frequently report this than users who find that Uber's prices are lower. Why?
If Uber is listed higher, users will either ignore it *or* check, find that Uber is lower, and have a least-effort action of hailing Uber and ending. That's the optimum decision; reporting takes effort; and they make the effort to double-check anyway (rather than being told it's cheapest and then finding out it's not), so there's minimal gain by reporting. Just the fact that some subset of these doesn't even look makes reporting less likely; that only the more pedantic subset will bother reporting rather than hailing and continuing with their lives increases that effect.
End result? Uber ends up frequently listed for prices higher than Uber is currently charging. Uber loses business over this.
Consumers have a limited amount of total income to spend. They spend it where they feel they are best served. Providing convenience and a perception of price savings will divert some user behavior from one activity to another. The product that makes money *is* user convenience.
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"He said:" Amber is a woman, not a man. Should be "She said:" I know we don't RTFA here but the name "Amber" may have been a dead giveaway...
> Taxis can be hailed as they are driving past
That depends. In New York, for example, there are three types of licenses, yellow, blue, and black. Yellow and blue cabs must be painted the designated colors. Black CAN be any other color, but are typically painted black. Black cars must be arranged ahead of time. Blues should be called, but often unlawfully pick up hails.
!.) What's the chances of travel sites allowing their data to appear along a competitor's without the same objections?
2.) YOU are suggesting a business model for companies you don't own.
Call Apple and see what you can do for them while you're at it.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Uber is the only one who complained; and I am suggesting a consequence of marketing when making the best effort to supply a service within the declared and current business model of an existing company. I never suggested a business model.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I don't actually have a problem with you at all.
You clearly have a problem of some kind, though. Low self-esteem? Not enough hugs as a child?
I thought it would be funny to give you a hard time
Why would any well-adjusted human being find that funny?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I thought you were a decent person. Now I realize that you really are an ass.
Well I always thought you were an ass. You deliberately behave like one to provoke, which is indistinguishable from being one.
Quite frankly I'm proud to be thought of as an ass by someone like you.
Most people don't take stuff on here seriously, but it appears that you do.
It has nothing to do with with whether the target takes it seriously. Your comments are water off a duck's back to me. It's to do with the attitude of the instigator, an attitude which takes the form of deliberately insulting and attempting to provoke the target for no rational reason. That's not the behaviour of a well-adjusted human being. That sounds to me like the behaviour of someone so starved of attention or anything positive in their own life that they'll stoop to anything just to form some kind of connection, even a toxic or wholly imaginary one (as this would have remained had I never responded).
You obviously have issues, but anyway, I've managed to do exactly what I was trying to do, which was to lure you into a correspondence wherein I could try to hold a mirror up to your actions and see if I might just be able to get you to analyse your own behaviour critically and rationally, and perhaps make you realise that you are not making the world a better place for anyone - because, unlike you, I do try to make the world a better place in my own small way. I didn't expect to succeed, and pretty much assumed I would get the kind of response you've just given, but at least I tried.
While I don't intend to troll you anymore
I think you mean "have realised I can't" rather than "don't intend to" but you just go ahead and spin it whichever you need to to keep feeling like a big person.
and have no intention of replying to you at all any longer
I think it'd be safe to bet that you're really itching to right now, though.
wonkey_monkey is an ass who is incapable of taking a joke.
You're a miserable excuse for a human being who wouldn't know a joke if one punched him in the face. I pity you your presumably worthless existence and hope you will consider doing something about it, rather than continuing to slime your way through life feeding on the provocation of others who have done absolutely nothing to deserve it.
Go and make someone's life better for a change.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
It was definitely one guy, he was definitely a twat, and he definitely deserved to be called out for his behaviour.
Worst of all, he wasn't even any good at trolling. Same schtick, every time. Kids these days...
there is no basis to make or support any claims about one's character or supposed good deeds.
I never said there was. It was said simply to get across my point. Replace "I" with "some people" if you prefer. It still works.
By the way, in regard to provoking another user, this is someone who responds aggressively with apparent rage in his words whenever anyone questions his view on a particular topic.
I don't know how he responded in real life, but I see no rage in his post. At most, he was stroppy. You know, like a toddler denied a toy.
I'm not going to talk about your character.
Stop bringing it up then. I haven't mentioned your underpants but I'm not going to point it out.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.