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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.
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.
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.
I think you're right and they've adopted the ego of a 900-lb-gorilla monopolist a bit prematurely in their lifecycle.
As a further example, was the game-of-chicken Uber played with the City of Austin. As an example set to frighten other cities that might try to stand up to the bully, they left Austin. But they left a community fertile with tech startups that have jumped at the opportunity to fill their vacuum. These are people / companies that NEVER would have gotten funded to compete against Uber prior to its departure. They left the factory in place, so to speak. The message to other cities looks to be that there is life without Uber.
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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.