Two More Executives Are Leaving Uber, Drivers May Unionize (nytimes.com)

First the resignations. "The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber," the company's former president told Recode on Sunday, announcing his resignation. "The departures add to the executive exodus from Uber this year," writes The New York Times. An anonymous reader quotes their report. Brian McClendon, vice president of maps and business platform at Uber, also plans to leave at the end of the month... Raffi Krikorian, a well-regarded director in Uber's self-driving division, left the company last week, while Gary Marcus, who joined Uber in December after Uber acquired his company, left this month. Uber also asked for the resignation of Amit Singhal, a top engineer who failed to disclose a sexual harassment claim against him at his previous employer, Google, before joining Uber. And Ed Baker, another senior executive, left this month as well.
Jones left Uber after less than six months, though McClendon's departure is said to be more amicable. "Mr. McClendon, in a statement, said he was returning to his hometown, Lawrence, Kansas, after 30 years away. 'This fall's election and the current fiscal crisis in Kansas is driving me to more fully participate in our democracy -- and I want to do that in the place I call home."

In other news, the Teamsters labor union plans to start organizing Uber's drivers into a union, after a Washington judge rejected Uber's attempt to overturn a right-to-unionize ordinance passed by the city of Seattle.

Comments

Union City Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

Them ubers should just eat to the beat.

Re:Union City Blue

[monkeyzoo]

Karma is a bitch, eh?
How shitty must this corporate culture be for all these people with great positions at an innovative, cutting edge, and super fast growing company to leave?
These departures apparently validate all the coverage about what a soul-less, morally bankrupt company it is.

Re:Union City Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternatively, once a company is circling the drain, the most skilled employees who can get jobs easily elsewhere are the first to jump. The plodders go down with the ship.

Re:Union City Blue

[Paradise Pete]

The plodders go down with the ship.

Often with otherwise underserved promotions due to the vacuum above caused by the departures.

Re:Union City Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ This

When upper management / executives start leaving and / or selling off any stock, it's time to man the lifeboats.

Re:Union City Blue

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they can find work at any of the 3D printing companies? Or private asteroid mining?

Re:Union City Blue

[HornWumpus]

This is a very bad sign for Uber, its employees and contractors.

What has this done to the price of out of the money, medium term, puts on Uber? They can't have been cheap, even before this.

The end?

[Frosty Piss]

Will this be the beginning of the end for Uber? In addition to those leaving on their own, I expect a purge. And who will end up on top?

Re:The end?

[Anonymous Coward]

It appears that the media has decided to dig up every little thing to kill them. So it only matters if consumers stop using it.

I think the people who are going to drop Uber already have. But I also don't think most people really care that much right now.

Re:The end?

[TWX]

Honestly it matters quite a lot if Uber was really actually profitable, or if it was only profitable because a certain class of employee (ie, the driver) was willing to be hoodwinked into basically not even making cab-driver wages while suffering wear and tear on their own personal vehicle, versus actually being profitable with its own model.

It seems that Uber's long-term goal was to do away with having drivers operating their own cars, but unfortunately for them, they've tried to define the self-driving car market as-implemented too long before it's really ready to be implemented. They've gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar too, as it appears they stole self-driving technology developed at great expensive by someone else, and if they can't use any of those self-driving developments then they're probably doomed.

I can see the appeal, summon a self-driving car and it takes you where you want to go, then summon another one when you want to return. I can see trying to be the one to get out in front of it too, to ride the wave of success that might well come from it. You've got to get the timing right though, and the timing isn't right yet.

Re:The end?

[rtb61]

Likely reason for the departures at high level, they believe the company will implode prior to the IPO cash in, so no reward for staying. They would be spitting chips, greed at the top, delayed the IPO too long and now it is too late. No matter how bad, the banksters still would have been able to scam a high price at IPO but executive departure would be indicative that they do not expect the company to get there and then can make more money by taking their skills and built up knowledge elsewhere.

Re:The end?

[Billly Gates]

Uber got through because the Taxi and Limo companies got greedy and so did their employees. Unions and bribery and tax revenue created an artificial market. Now capitalism created a solution that should have been fixed.

Re: The end?

[sg_oneill]

I doubt it. Billion dollar companies just don't fold , they burn down slowly, and there's a lot of things that need to go wrong before investors simply abandon the fortunes ploughed into the company.

Some companies constantly churn executives (think: yahoo) constantly and still survive. We are a long way off knowing if uber is that sort of company and if it is , are the fundamentals right to ride it out

Re: The end?

[Hognoxious]

Billion dollar companies just don't fold , they burn down slowly

Like Enron?

Re:The end?

[AmiMoJo]

I'm surprised they have not tried to offshore the driving to India. Just stick some sensors on the car similar to what a self-driving one has, but instead of AI you have a guy in India controlling it over cellular link. Throw in a bit of basic autopilot type stuff to handle when the link drops and prevent collisions...

Re:The end?

[nickberry]

And now the unions are poised to fuck up ride sharing...

Re:The end?

[BarbaraHudson]

First, if programmers had had enough guts to unionize, they wouldn't have been in the position of having to train their H1B or offshore replacements. But no, unions are for blue-collar workers (blue collar jobs) and pink collar jobs only - white collar workers are too good for that.

Second, how long will it take to pass a law banning drivers from forming a union? Probably about as quickly as Indiana passed a law banning cities from regulating airbnb rentals. Welcome to Trumpville, where money counts for more than people, and you are nothing if you're "just" a citizen.

Re: The end?

[BarbaraHudson]

Au contraire, billion-dollar businesses can disappear in a flash. Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC is one such example - he owes $170 billion in restitution, based on a fraud of over $60 billion. At one point he was the largest trader of NYSE-listed stocks in the world, doing up to 15% of all trades. $740 million a day in trades isn't chicken feed.

Re:The end?

[Highdude702]

It is Silicon Valley after all.. Shouldn't be too much longer.

Re:The end?

[Gavagai80]

Honestly it matters quite a lot if Uber was really actually profitable, or if it was only profitable because a certain class of employee (ie, the driver) was willing to be hoodwinked

Uber has never been profitable regardless, and it lost $3billion last year. It operates on venture capital. Profit is so 20th century.

Re:The end?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm about as anti-union as they come. I think only the incompetent push for unions because they're the only ones who benefit from them, as those of us who are competent can thrive without the union and are held back by them. That being said, I recognize the importance of being able to unionize if a company is truly being abusive. I will vote against and campaign against anyone who proposes banning the ability to unionize.

I believe most who are not big fans of unions share my beliefs. I would recommend spending less time watching the news. They've crafted a narrative that is only tangentially based on fact. The omit anything that goes against their narrative. You'll be a lot happier if you try to get all of the facts rather than the cherry picked ones that CNN will give you.

Re:The end?

[Baleet]

Companies and unions becoming greedy is not unusual. Uber succeeded because they offered an alternative that was cheaper for the end user. How? Because they had no regulatory burden (thanks to misrepresenting themselves as a tech company instead of a gypsy cab company) and foisting the costs off onto the contractor drivers. The conduct of the cab and limo companies is a separate issue and belongs in a separate discussion.

Re:The end?

[fluffernutter]

If you're competent and enjoy spending your personal time networking, on job interviews, and climbing the corporate latter maybe you're fine without a union. Some of us are competent and just want a job and not worry about the other external bullshit.

Re:The end?

[Billly Gates]

Unionize they go AI. If programmers unionize it encourages more outsourcing overseas and using software to write code with less people.

You can't beat the free market. If Uber is ruined over this Lyft will start to become the more preferred brand as it will cost less. If the prices are too low then drivers will drop out and do other part time jobs then the wages will go back up again perfect equilibrium. If they are low now it is because someoe is willing to do the job for cheaper as word got out on the amount of money you could make. Tough life happens. Remember how much we used to get paid back in the 1990s? Sigh ... we won't ever get paid that high again regardless of 2x the cost of living! Too many people know tech now and we just needed to readjust.

Re:The end?

[ranton]

First, if programmers had had enough guts to unionize, they wouldn't have been in the position of having to train their H1B or offshore replacements. But no, unions are for blue-collar workers (blue collar jobs) and pink collar jobs only - white collar workers are too good for that.

What do you think you are getting out of unionizing software developing jobs? Do you think unionized plants are never closed and moved overseas?

Re: The end?

[Type44Q]

Mod up; I know you're thinking "Why?! He's a douche!" and of course you'd be right... but that was funny.

Re:The end?

[meta-monkey]

You can't beat the free market

But there is no free market. So you can absolutely beat the market if you're running the government. Microsoft demands cheap foreign labor because "free market!" but if I want to use the free market to bootleg copies of Microsoft Office they run to the government to "protect intellectual property."

It's all government control, so pick your poison. A reasonable* approach would balance the interests of capital (yes, we'll protect your intellectual property) with those of labor (but you can't fuck American workers to get cheap foreigners). Right now the rules are all for capital and shit for labor, but that's no "free market."

* By "reasonable" I mean for normal people, not for Slashdot free software ideologues.

Re: The end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now greedy means wanting a living wage and some kind of job stability. Why do you think taxis are regulated in every civilised county?

Re:The end?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't beat the free market.

Well, as long as that goddam meddlin' useless gubmint makes it illegal to do things like murder people if it makes a profit, I guess we're just never gonna have a truly free market!

Re:The end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Unionized plants are closed/offshored all the time.

However for the most part, union members aren't required to train their replacements.

If nothing else a union could put the entire IT workforce on strike if management tried to pressure individuals into doing that. If the offshore force really needed training, then a strike would throw a spanner in the spokes.

As it is, they grind the staff down one individual at a time. You can see the American flags disappearing from the cublcles. One by One.

Because hateful as unions can sometimes be, sometimes when you've got to fight an organized bunch of people with a financial war chest, it's good to belong to a groups of organized people with a financial war chest.

Re: The end?

[RabidReindeer]

Oh, they burned. Just not so slowly.

Re:The end?

[oh_my_080980980]

They did when the CEO was on Trump's economic council.

Re:The end?

[0123456]

"Some of us are competent and just want a job and not worry about the other external bullshit."

You've presumably never worked in a unionized workplace. You'd just swap one kind of BS for another.

Re:The end?

[fluffernutter]

But if it has to be one or the other I pick unions. That's the point.

Re:The end?

[0123456]

Wait until you're working with a disruptive dimwit and the union tells you they can't be fired because... union.

Re:The end?

[fluffernutter]

I know someone who had some anger issues and ran afoul for that reason, couldn't take it any more and pushed one of those dimwits against a wall hard. But anger issues are his problem, I'm a fairly patient person so I'll deal with it.

Re:The end?

[TWX]

You make your comment in-jest but you describe places like Somalia where there is no government and where you really do kill to get ahead.

Personally I don't want to live in a place like Somalia, I like the idea that there are actions that are prohibited and that there are consequences for those actions.

Re:The end?

[EndlessNameless]

And now the unions are poised to fuck up ride sharing...

Uber has not been ride-sharing in a long time. If people are paying a fare to a driver who isn't already headed in the same general direction, then I'm sorry but it's simply cab service with a different name.

Real ride-sharing is still an option on a number of different apps. But Uber is little more than a sub-contracted taxi company.

The death of Uber may actually help ride-sharing. Ride-sharing would be the affordable option (over personal cars or taxis) once Uber is dead.

Re:The end?

[BarbaraHudson]

I have NEVER gotten my news from American media. Not Fox, not CNN, etc. 95% of the world are not Americans, and have seen first-hand just how full of sh*t and how eager to self-censor your media are.

Re:The end?

[BarbaraHudson]

I was a member of the Steelworkers at one job, and it wasn't that hard to put the gears to another union member who was being a bit of an asshole.

Re:The end?

[BarbaraHudson]

What do you mean "if"? They're already outsourcing. Unionizing would slow the process down by making it easier for workers to refuse to train their replacements.

Re:The end?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen how the drivers in India drive?

Re:The end?

[painandgreed]

"Some of us are competent and just want a job and not worry about the other external bullshit."

You've presumably never worked in a unionized workplace. You'd just swap one kind of BS for another.

There's a lot of internal busllshit also. A friend of mine that helps organize unions says 'bad management is the cuse of unions'. What drove part of my workplace to unionize was bad management. People who don't like unions suddenly change when their long planned vacation is cancelled by the manager because somebody else was fired and then expect that person to pick up slack. This leads to constant arguments, combative workplace, and hostility. Union was brought in and now both sides have certain and strict rules. Now even the managers that were originally part of the problem admit they would never go back to a non-unionized environment because things work so much easier now. My own IT group tried to unionize when some people were told they had to come in early and stay late for no other reason than the boss thought that would be nice. The charge for us to unionize was led by two Rush Limbaugh listening, retired military guys. Everybody else joined in because he was an incompetent manager who had yelled at everybody for things that were mostly likely his own fault, had multiple harrassment, including sexual, issues brought up with HR, but HR has stated openly "we're here to help the managers solve their problems".

Re: The end?

[michael_wojcik]

Yeah. Other examples:

Lehman Brothers. $680B in supposed assets (and $22B in actual capital), then bankrupt a month later.

Bear Stearns. In 2006, $350B in assets ($66B in capital), and the "Most Admired" securities firm in the US (Fortune magazine survey). In 2008, wiped out and bought by JP Morgan for a song.

WorldCom. $104B in assets when it filed for bankruptcy in 2002, after its huge accounting fraud was discovered. Though WC re-emerged from bankruptcy as MCI and was then bought by Verizon, so I suppose it's debatable whether it "folded" - it was a fairly orderly reorganization. Same can be said for e.g. Global Crossing.

Most of the other big bankruptcies in the US were similarly either bailed out, bought out, or reorganized. It's true that it's relatively rare for a company with that kind of capital to simply fall apart - someone will want to feast on that corpse.

The Scarlet Letter

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering when everyone who has had a claim of sexual harassment against them will be forced to wear a scarlet letter on their head for life.

Re:The Scarlet Letter

[Anonymous Coward]

That was for adultery, which is not even a crime. Perpetrators of sex offenses already have a registry.

Something about Sinking

[Anonymous Coward]

I wanted to use a certain expression, but rats are affectionate, intelligent animals who really deserve better than to be likened to what's escaping the Uber ship.

Failure is always an option

[geekpowa]

I for one am glad to see the wheels starting fall off this libertarian corporate experiment. It's heartening to see signs of failure in an institution whose core principals are deeply entrenched in base human behaviours such as bullying, hypocrisy and total indifference to adverse impacts to others (including it's own people).

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one am glad to see the wheels starting fall off this libertarian corporate experiment. It's heartening to see signs of failure in an institution whose core principals are deeply entrenched in base human behaviours such as bullying, hypocrisy and total indifference to adverse impacts to others (including it's own people).

And/or you just hoped for someone to pull a Tyler Durden and "destroy something beautiful".

Some people just cannot recognize or accept progress...

I worked as I traveling consultant for 10 years, 80 to 100 flight segments per year, in major cities across the US, with the accompanying cab/uber rides to go with them, and I can unequivocally say that taxi/limo service before Uber was terrible. It was caused by cities artificially limiting supply/bullshit regulation/catering to special interests, all of which Uber/Lyft/etc need to continue to kill, for the good of all.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Zaelath]

Would you still make that argument if you had to pay the real cost of the Ubers you took? Probably around 3x what they charged you for every ride.

Re:Failure is always an option

[TWX]

Having witnessed the rise and now beginning of the fall of the company it's really amazing how at so many points they've done the bad or nefarious thing.

They basically lied about what the purpose of the app was, calling it a ride-sharing service when it's a taxi service.

They lied about the profitability of working for them, and doubled-down by getting people into paying for cars that they had no business buying and arguably couldn't afford because their incomes did not match the advertisements.

They lied and operated their unlicensed taxi service in places where this is illegal.

They've made efforts to avoid investigators into their illegal passenger livery practices.

They've attempted to call their drivers contractors while forcing them into working models that demonstrate that they're employees.

They've essentially stolen technology developed by others in an attempt to jumpstart their self-driving car business.

I get that in many cases existing taxi services aren't so great. On the other hand many of the laws governing taxis and sedan services are reactionary to some bad thing that happened and demonstrated a need to regulate for passenger safety. Perhaps some of what Uber and its ilk have come up with may end up as part of future regulations; the idea of determining the fare based on computer mapping is not a bad one and could be added to existing services if there was a strong enough interest.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better ways to fix the problems with taxis than by rolling labor rights back to the 19th century and attempting to run roughshod over the laws of every major city on the planet all in the name of "disruption".

(Or you could, y'know, actually *buy* a car. But I guess that's luddite thinking nowadays.)

Re:Failure is always an option

[dgatwood]

I worked as I traveling consultant for 10 years, 80 to 100 flight segments per year, in major cities across the US, with the accompanying cab/uber rides to go with them, and I can unequivocally say that taxi/limo service before Uber was terrible. It was caused by cities artificially limiting supply/bullshit regulation/catering to special interests, all of which Uber/Lyft/etc need to continue to kill, for the good of all.

Taxi services are terrible because it is hopelessly expensive to drive a vehicle point-to-point and the amount of money that the government allows them to charge is not enough to actually pay for repairs and improvements to the vehicles. Uber only "works" because:

• They've externalized the vehicle costs by forcing the drivers to pay them without allowing the drivers to actually charge fees high enough to cover those costs.
• There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.
• They're taking advantage of huge subsidies and burning through their cash reserves to dump their services on the market even further below cost.

The unionization threats are happening because a large enough percentage of the drivers are recognizing Uber for the complete scam that it is. By many estimates, the minimum price at which Uber will be profitable while providing the current level of service is about 4x their current prices. That makes taxis look downright cheap. Increased competition can't ever reduce the cost below a floor set by certain unavoidable costs for things like gasoline, brakes, etc. Well, I guess technically you could have a taxi service with no brakes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you still make that argument if you had to pay the real cost of the Ubers you took? Probably around 3x what they charged you for every ride.

You have no idea the so-called "real cost" of any Uber ride. And I can guarantee you that the variable cost of an Uber ride is not 3x what they charged me. If it was, cities would be massively subsidizing their overregulated cabs just so that they could make a profit charging 50% more than Uber. If you are trying to imply that city cabs actually operate for cheaper than Uber I have no idea what to say to you

And yes, I would still make the argument if I was paying a bit more, because the availability and seamlessness of the service is 1000x better than taxi services ever were. And in no world would Uber's end-state operating costs be higher than a city cab, ever.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked as I traveling consultant for 10 years, 80 to 100 flight segments per year, in major cities across the US, with the accompanying cab/uber rides to go with them, and I can unequivocally say that taxi/limo service before Uber was terrible. It was caused by cities artificially limiting supply/bullshit regulation/catering to special interests, all of which Uber/Lyft/etc need to continue to kill, for the good of all.

Taxi services are terrible because it is hopelessly expensive to drive a vehicle point-to-point and the amount of money that the government allows them to charge is not enough to actually pay for repairs and improvements to the vehicles. Uber only "works" because:

• They've externalized the vehicle costs by forcing the drivers to pay them without allowing the drivers to actually charge fees high enough to cover those costs.
• There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.
• They're taking advantage of huge subsidies and burning through their cash reserves to dump their services on the market even further below cost.

The unionization threats are happening because a large enough percentage of the drivers are recognizing Uber for the complete scam that it is. By many estimates, the minimum price at which Uber will be profitable while providing the current level of service is about 4x their current prices. That makes taxis look downright cheap. Increased competition can't ever reduce the cost below a floor set by certain unavoidable costs for things like gasoline, brakes, etc. Well, I guess technically you could have a taxi service with no brakes, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Maybe we should go back to the system of cabbies renting time on $1 million dollar taxi medallions in NYC, because they are able to scrape a better living than Uber drivers in that system, with taxi maintenance money galore, and so many more of them will be employed

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better ways to fix the problems with taxis than by rolling labor rights back to the 19th century and attempting to run roughshod over the laws of every major city on the planet all in the name of "disruption".

(Or you could, y'know, actually *buy* a car. But I guess that's luddite thinking nowadays.)

I took a taxi to and from the airport not long ago. It was about 15 minutes each way, but I didn't have to deal with long term car storage, and each way was around $20 or $25. That is not that bad. Now admittedly I paid the county cab not the ones at the airport. Still, if you needed one daily that might add up, but then cars are reasonable. With effort you can likely find a reasonable one for under $2k. Assume you keep the used car for 5 years and spend $1k in repairs and $100 a month in gas and $50 for insurance, your out around $12000 over 5 years or $2400 a year or $200 a month.

Now that is an extremely simplistic calculation, but assuming you need to drive at minimum say 20 trips a week, well, your at what around $2.50 per trip? Now, what I want is the self driving bit to be such that I can get work done/read/sleep/play video games/whatever. Still it is kind of interesting that it costs almost 10x as much for a taxi, but then you can cut that to 5x right away, since they have to drive twice as far, and also may not be busy all the time, have to make a living, etc, etc..

Actually since companies these days seem to want to control your behaviour when your not at work, including when your driving or in the parking lot, but don't want to pay you until your at your desk, well, perhaps self driving cars/trains/etc will change that such that we can effectively be on call and working as soon as we enter the vehicle. If you had a long commute that would be a heck of an effective way to take back some of your time.

Side note: Why is it that republicans believe it is right and just for a company to believe that the time from entering their campus in your car, to getting to your desk is not their time? Several at work swear to such things, even though that entire process is under company control and rules. Indeed if caught "speeding" in their domain you can be fired after a couple warnings.

Re:Failure is always an option

[ShanghaiBill]

Probably around 3x what they charged you for every ride.

Last year Uber had revenue of $5.5B and spent $8.5B, for a $3B loss. So there is no way they are subsidizing rides by 200% as you claim. Much of the losses were a result of their rivalry with Didi Chuxing, which is now resolved, and their harebrained project to develop their own SDCs, rather than just licensing the tech from Google or Tesla. They are likely subsidizing rides (to gain market share) by no more than 20-30% over market rates.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Billly Gates]

I for one am glad to see the wheels starting fall off this libertarian corporate experiment. It's heartening to see signs of failure in an institution whose core principals are deeply entrenched in base human behaviours such as bullying, hypocrisy and total indifference to adverse impacts to others (including it's own people).

Own a company or be in a position of power and your opinion WILL radically change. Guarantee it

Re:Failure is always an option

[Billly Gates]

There are better ways to fix the problems with taxis than by rolling labor rights back to the 19th century and attempting to run roughshod over the laws of every major city on the planet all in the name of "disruption".

(Or you could, y'know, actually *buy* a car. But I guess that's luddite thinking nowadays.)

Yes by using automation. It couldn't come soon enough with the greedy drivers.

Re:Failure is always an option

[geekpowa]

I do own a company. It is a small operation but I have a couple of fulltime staff and all the trimmings. In prior roles I led teams of dozens of engineers. It is possible to operate ethically and profitably. One perk is fierce client and staff loyalty.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Billly Gates]

That is different.

If your job is on the line where you have to meet quotas during the busiest season and within budget and some jerk wants to unionize to cut hours and raise costs where you need to fire someone, but still need to meet quota or cost or YOU are fired next that sucks!

Many companies will promise raises and concessions JUST PLEASE do not join a union!

Re:Failure is always an option

[slashrio]

And I can guarantee you that the variable cost of an Uber ride is not 3x what they charged me.

You fucking bullshitting me?
He wasn't talking about 'variable cost'.
You fucking trying to move the goal posts?
Uber is an attempt to kill off taxi business all around the world, making drivers the new deplorables or rather slaves.
Good if somebody can kill that business, because YOU will be next.
And why the hell do we still have to fight for the right to unionize??

Re: Failure is always an option

[dunkelfalke]

I used to work for a smallish German company where the CEO always said that if anyone is to join a union he would close the shop and reopen in Switzerland. He also ignored many laws and regulations and the wages sucked. 5 years after I was fired half of the employees was new. Now I am working at a company of the same size, automatically belong to a professional association, earn almost twice as much even though there are no bonuses, the CEO follows all laws and regulations and even does charity work. Many of my colleagues have been at the company for 20 years. Guess where I like it better?

Re:Failure is always an option

[ShakaUVM]

>There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.

The IRS mileage rate is supposed to be an average cost for operating a vehicle. It is 53.5 cents per mile. Uber pays about twice that per mile in San Francisco. So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor.

Re:Failure is always an option

[silentcoder]

You're ignoring the massive subsidation being done by the hoodwinked drivers. In South Africa the average Uber driver makes about R1400 per week. It is physically impossible in South Africa for the amount of driving you have to do to make that - to fuel and maintain a vehicle for less than R2000 per week. That's assuming the car was bought for cash.

Their workers are actually operating at a loss. And the company is getting away with it because badly educated (often barely literate) drivers don't realize the maintenance costs - especially since those tend to come in the form of lump sum expenses months down the line.

I don't have numbers for other countries but the odds of it being different elsewhere are somewhere between zero and fuckall.

Re:Failure is always an option

[silentcoder]

It's very simple - if you are asking people to work unpaid overtime - you're an asshole. If there is too much work for the current people to do in 8 hours a day - then you're obligated to your share-holders to hire more workers, NOT to overwork the current staff.
Your supposed to meet demand WITHOUT being a dickwad.

Unions are one of the key ways we try to ensure a company that needs 16 hours of work done a day hires TWO people instead of just one (which actually CREATES jobs by preventing over-work of the existing staff). Frankly if your company needs to operate 24/7 and you have less than 3 people per role then you're an asshole who deserves to be out of business (in order to open up the market for a non-asshole company).

Re:Failure is always an option

[Billly Gates]

It's very simple - if you are asking people to work unpaid overtime - you're an asshole. If there is too much work for the current people to do in 8 hours a day - then you're obligated to your share-holders to hire more workers, NOT to overwork the current staff.
Your supposed to meet demand WITHOUT being a dickwad.

Unions are one of the key ways we try to ensure a company that needs 16 hours of work done a day hires TWO people instead of just one (which actually CREATES jobs by preventing over-work of the existing staff). Frankly if your company needs to operate 24/7 and you have less than 3 people per role then you're an asshole who deserves to be out of business (in order to open up the market for a non-asshole company).

Tough. When work doubles for a 3 month period I regularly work 60 to 75 hours a week every year. That is normal and not fair to the shareholders or to the new hires to hire them train them and fire them again? I worked at an amusement park when I was younger. Guess what? Summer nights 16 hour days. I worked at Staples later. Back to school I slept at the store and worked double shifts for a month. Recent job I did the same as YOU NEVER SAY NO to a client. Management wanted to secure the deal and we already promised the client and it would be un us and be fired if I didn't make it happen.

Your name says silent coder. Are you telling me in your coding career you never had a client demand something or had a requirement change at the last minute or had the sales team promise another feature? Ever?

I am not saying all the time. I am saying it happens and part of being professional is to show loyalty and dedication to your objectives. If a company sucks people quit. But that is not always and if it is then the top talent eventually leaves.

Re:Failure is always an option

[silentcoder]

There's a huge difference between "sometimes when it's an emergency" and "all the time" - trouble is that "all the time" is the norm when unions are not there to prevent it.

More importantly - on those occasions when the company requires me to fix their bad management by working overtime, I demand the right to get paid double-time for doing so. All people deserve that. You take away my time with my daughter -you had better compensate me for that - double.

Re:Failure is always an option

[silentcoder]

> If a company sucks AND PEOPLE HAVE OTHER OPTIONS people quit

FTFY.
Exploiting their lack of other options is the ultimate definition of asshole. Or you could use the older name if you prefer: bondage (which is really just a nicer name for 'slavery').

Re:Failure is always an option

[mrvan]

>There are plenty of people who haven't figured out how much money they're going to end up spending on vehicle maintenance as a result of all that extra driving.

The IRS mileage rate is supposed to be an average cost for operating a vehicle. It is 53.5 cents per mile. Uber pays about twice that per mile in San Francisco. So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor.

(1) You're assuming all miles and hours are 'billable', while in reality you would be driving empty towards a pickup and waiting for the next pickup.
(2) 60MPH in San Francisco is going to get you some pretty bad fines most of the time :). But even if you drive only on highways that allow those speeds, your average speed is going to be much lower, probably closer to 30MPH for realistic cases.

So, let's assume you spend every hour waiting for 10 minutes, driving 30MPH to the pickup for 10 minutes, and driving a customer at 30MPH for 40 minutes, your average hourly gross income is 20$ (40/60*30*1$) and your expenses are $13.375 (50/60*30*.535), giving you a real income of under 7$ per hour. Good luck finding a house and food for that in SF area...

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

I actually make a point of taking a friggin' regular taxi instead of an Uber. And giving a tip. Taxi cab drivers are precarious enough as it is already.

I know I won't get filthy rich this way, and thus never President of the United States.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Which part of your neanderthal ramblings actually attempts to refute what you quoted?

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

There are better ways to fix the problems with taxis...

Yes by using automation. It couldn't come soon enough with the greedy drivers.

HA! ha.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is the taxi service bad? It maybe worst in the largest cities, but ALL traffic is bad there anyways. On the countryside it's also "bad" (aka worse than more populated areas), because most customers own and use their own cars. Big Duh!

People are evil, stupid and stingy, but won't work the same job themselves.

I welcome progress, but eating your own tail is just stupid behaviour!

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Drivers are NOT staff. They are independent contractors.

And yet those courts which have actually investigated have discovered that this isn't true. Hint; an independent contractor normally can supply to more than one company. Uber drivers can, in practice, only work for Uber. They are no more independent than Utah is independent of the USA.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a retard

Re:Failure is always an option

[tehcyder]

Drivers are NOT staff. They are independent contractors. It says so right in their contract. I don't understand why this is so hard to grasp for some people.

The law is a bit more complicated than that. Writing "you are not an employee" on an employment contract does not mean that you are magically not an employee.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

> Many companies will promise raises and concessions JUST PLEASE do not join a union!

That sounds almost reasonable until I realized you're talking about individual raises and concessions for the rockstar and squeaky wheel, and screw the rest of 'em.

If workers are being exploited, they're absolutely correct to join up and demand improvement. This Thunderdome fighting-for-scraps bullshit is bad and should be stopped.

Re: Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

you are a god damn faggot

Re:Failure is always an option

[bluefoxlucid]

Once Uber is gone, we can go back to having no centralized system to distribute ride hails and ride offers. Independent ride-sharers can struggle to find passengers; passengers can pay inflated prices and have longer wait times trying to find a driver, while drivers can spend more time driving around without passengers and make less money per hour despite charging passengers more for the time spent actually transporting them.

Re: Failure is always an option

[houghi]

In Belgium when there are more than 50 employees, you need to have employees be a union representative. When the company has less than 50, this is not an obligation. Some will try to keep their numbers at 49.
That said, you can join a union, the moment you are 18, regardless if you work or not. I am almost sure that you can lie about being in a union. It is none of their business anyway

Non of the companies I have done job interviews have ever asked it. And thise who hired me also never asked, because it never came up. Wait, 1 did, because THEY paid the fee.

The reason I joined a Union is because they pay out your unemployement benefits from day 1, instead of needing to wait several months (I had once wait 9 months) for the money. Joined the day I got fired.

I have the choice to be a union member or not and nobody cares, just like they do not care if I am a member of the local theatre group or not.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?....

Re:Failure is always an option

[bluefoxlucid]

They basically lied about what the purpose of the app was, calling it a ride-sharing service when it's a taxi service.

Everyone else also lied about the purpose of the app, which allows independent drivers and passengers to find each other, in a bid to declare Uber drivers are employees--yet nobody has declared Amazon Mechanical Turk users "employees".

We're not really equipped to understand the gig economy.

Re:Failure is always an option

[thomn8r]

If there is too much work for the current people to do in 8 hours a day - then you're obligated to your share-holders to hire more workers, NOT to overwork the current staff. Your supposed to meet demand WITHOUT being a dickwad.

Actually, it's just the opposite. You're obligated to your shareholders to squeeze every last ounce of productivity out of each and every employee, so as to maximize profits. If you can get the same work done with fewer employees, that's even better. In fact, if you're not a slave-driving dickwad, you are failing in your fiduciary duty.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

There's nothing anti-libertarian about unionization. In fact, most libertarians strongly recommend unionisation when a company fails to provide adequate compensation (yet is still good enough to work for).

The fact you think unionization is wheels falling off a libertarian experiment clearly shows you know nothing of libertarianism.

Re:Failure is always an option

[jbmartin6]

Perhaps parent wasn't talking about cost, just talking about the general usability. Many normal cab companies are coming out with their own apps, most of them never would have done it without Uber. The old model of standing on the street waving was far out of date, but they would never have changed due to their protected market position.

Re:Failure is always an option

[fluffernutter]

Would you want to pay less for a flight if it meant you had a 10% greater chance of being in a plane crash? I wouldn't. Totally fine with regulations.

Re: Failure is always an option

[dunkelfalke]

Well, my point was that it is quite possible to be a CEO without being a dick.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you want to pay more for a flight if it meant you had a 0.0000001% lesser chance of being in a plane crash? Regulations are fine until the law of diminishing returns kicks in.

Re: Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for a smallish German company where the CEO always said that if anyone is to join a union he would close the shop and reopen in Switzerland. He also ignored many laws and regulations and the wages sucked. 5 years after I was fired half of the employees was new. Now I am working at a company of the same size, automatically belong to a professional association, earn almost twice as much even though there are no bonuses, the CEO follows all laws and regulations and even does charity work. Many of my colleagues have been at the company for 20 years. Guess where I like it better?

Isn't that special /churchlady

Re: Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Mechanical Turk users don't typically operate full-time.

Re:Failure is always an option

[fluffernutter]

Perhaps if they removed regulations today the difference would be minimal, but you're not taking into account where regulations have gotten us over time. Regulations have let to incremental changes and improvements over years that have made a safe industry. Without regulations ever having existed the industry would be no where near as safe.

Re: Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

Fair Trade Coffee is one example to show you that you need to relearn what fiduciary duty means.

Re:Failure is always an option

[jareth-0205]

Even then you're being very generous with your average speed. Internet says 18mph is the average driving speed in San Francisco, so you can half that again...

Re:Failure is always an option

[jareth-0205]

I for one am glad to see the wheels starting fall off this libertarian corporate experiment. It's heartening to see signs of failure in an institution whose core principals are deeply entrenched in base human behaviours such as bullying, hypocrisy and total indifference to adverse impacts to others (including it's own people).

Own a company or be in a position of power and your opinion WILL radically change. Guarantee it

So? So what? Most people don't own companies, neither can they. If you're saying that exploiting workers is OK because... others do it in the same position... well that the exact reason that unions were invented. If you're in a position of power, you don't *have* to be a dick.

Re:Failure is always an option

[dgatwood]

Although true, I would argue that what's really needed are standard, third-party cab hailing apps that know about all the cab companies in an area and find you a cab, rather than having to have an app for each cab company in each locality where you might need a cab. It isn't really reasonable to expect each cab company to solve the problem themselves, and it can be tricky for competitors to work together.

Re:Failure is always an option

[jbmartin6]

It would be interesting if Uber ended up as a platform which would work in this way. After all, why deal with the hassle of managing your own drivers when you can outsource to other companies? Sort of the Expedia of cab hailing.

Re:Failure is always an option

[0123456]

"Uber is an attempt to kill off taxi business all around the world, making drivers the new deplorables or rather slaves."

Taxis will be gone in twenty years, regardless. I'm no fan of Uber, but this is like worrying that buggy-whip manufacturers are going out of business.

Re:Failure is always an option

[MooseTick]

Double sounds like an arbitrary number. Why not 1.5 time? Or triple time? Or, you get to name your rate each time? I'd prefer that. Sometimes you may care more about your time than others. If your daughter is having a big event maybe you need 5x pay to compensate. If your daughter is out of town on a band trip, maybe you are happy with 1.25 times your regular pay.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

When are start up corporate cost ever same same for product cost.
Fucking reality is always going to win.

Re:Failure is always an option

[silentcoder]

Double happens to be the law where I live. That's where it comes from. But it's probably a decent basic standard for law.

The problem with 'let workers negotiate' is it works perfectly for people with rare skills - and it leaves the people who need protection the most, have the least freedom to change jobs with nothing. They don't get to negotiate - they get to put up or shut up, obey or starve. The low-end workers, the ones who are cheap and easy to replace - they end up screwed. And they happen to be the vast majority of people.
Like it or not, most people are too stupid to get the kind of skills and education that will put them above that point. Now I know that slashdot libertarians like to mock them and live in the secure belief that stupid people deserve to be poor. Trouble is - they are also the majority - and the economy exists to serve them as much as it does us. It's a system to distribute resources to the people - NOTHING else matters, how it does it - not important, all that matters is how WELL it does it. The more resources the people can access, and the more people can access it - the more successful an economy is at the ONLY measure that actually matters because it's the measure based on the whole reason we bother with all the complexity of having one in the first place.

An economy where the majority get almost nothing - is a failed economy in and off itself. It has not distributed resources to the people. It's not inarguable that, that very failure and the hope of changing the system so stacked against them is what just put a deranged moron in the white house. That's the trouble when you think the little people don't matter - it turns out they may be stupid, but they are very, very powerful - and they tend not to use that power wisely. They use it to elect a conman to the highest office in the land because they lack the capacity to recognize a con. You can delay their wrath by getting them to blame OTHER poor people for their misery - just as Trump did, and by pretending not to be one of the elites they have come to hate - just as Trump did, but history says such delaying tactics only work for a little while. They may not be very intelligent or wise or educated - but they aren't THAT dumb either. Eventually - they learn better. When that happens - you end up with a fucking revolution on your hands.

At no step in the process is the outcome good. Sadly - even the revolution never works because, inevitably it just puts another bunch of exploitative bastards in charge - only now they tend to be more openly brutal.

The one thing that DOES work - is having people in charge who make a genuine efffort to improve things for the people who don't have much to offer in the libertarian parlance. Who build solid social-security networks, who put in place good labour laws, who protect unions, who believe the governments job is to be the great ENEMY of big business (like both Rooseveldts did) - which, ironically, is the ONLY way to make government a friend to SMALL business. You cannot be acting friendly to both because what helps one inevitably harms the other. Small businesses are competition for big businesses - promoting them hurts teh big corporations, and vice versa.
The kind of neoliberal/neoconservative (the name varies depending on where you are) ideology which has ruled politics since the 1980s have only promoted big business and consistently screwed over the rest of humanity. In 2008 they stole a full third of all the wealth ever created - plunging the world into chaos - and instead of throwing the bastards in jail, we fucking bailed them out - we gave them money for stealing our money. The last great horror of the Bush administration.
This is not a sustainable way to run the world - it MUST lead to revolution. Brexit and Trump was only the start.

Now notice how Geert Wilders suffered a humiliating defeat in the Netherlands - despite being a Trumpian candidate in this era. Why did the Dutch ultimate turn out in the highest numbers in decades to go vote against the man who had led the polls for a year, and was promising the same kind of things that Trump was ? Why did the rhetoric fail there? Because the Dutch take care of their people.

Re:Failure is always an option

[WrongMonkey]

But if you already have a full-time job that covers your cost of living, then driving for Uber part time gives you an extra $600/month in your pocket after expenses. Is there no room in your structured economy for people willing to work extra to earn extra income?

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

...but you're not taking into account where regulations have gotten us over time.

Yes I am. A bloated bureaucracy that keeps issuing regulations to justify their existence. Like EPA regulations that make a rain puddle on my property a navigable waterway. Let me rephrase my question. Would you go from paying $400 for a plane ticket to $10000 just so you are 0.000001% safer?

Some regulations really are going in reverse. For example, the FAA is making it easier to get safety critical avionics certified for Part 23 aircraft (single engine Cessna types). Instead of forcing the use of DO-178C/254 methodologies, companies can now use "alternate means of compliance" to prove safety critical requirements are met. This will spur innovation and lower the price of avionics for this class of aircraft. And this started under Obama.

Re:Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

> If a company sucks AND PEOPLE HAVE OTHER OPTIONS people quit

FTFY.
Exploiting their lack of other options is the ultimate definition of asshole. Or you could use the older name if you prefer: bondage (which is really just a nicer name for 'slavery').

Before Uber existed there were no "other options". Working for Uber is not critical to continued existence. Humans have lived on Earth for millennia without Uber.

If the company sucks, quit!

Re: Failure is always an option

[Anonymous Coward]

"So if you can go at 60 MPH you'll be making about 30 bucks an hour, which is not bad for unskilled labor."

This calculation shows the opposite, the submitter wanted to prove. The average speed in the city is nowhere near to speed on the freeway (65 right?) but optimistically 15 out will approach walking speed in congestion. Deduct some cost considering that the drive to pickup and from dropoff aren't paid, the rate will drop from $30 an hour to zero out less.

Re:Failure is always an option

[ShakaUVM]

>60MPH in San Francisco is going to get you some pretty bad fines most of the time :).

A friend of mine Ubers in SF, and tries to do runs to and from SFO for maximum money. He doesn't live in SF either, but commutes a long way every weekend to work there because the money is so good.

>(1) You're assuming all miles and hours are 'billable', while in reality you would be driving empty towards a pickup and waiting for the next pickup.

There's a pickup fee which offsets this, and in reality you can usually chain together rides.

Also, there's an additional bill per minute if you are in traffic.

cart before the horse?

[Anonymous Coward]

don't they first have to be *employees* before unionizing? uber can just tell their contracted drivers to 'fuck-off' otherwise.

Re: cart before the horse?

[radiumsoup]

There is a very low bar to entry when becoming an Uber driver, and so I would hazard to say that the vast majority of people who want to drive for Uber are already driving for Uber. So, if Uber were to suddenly drop all the current drivers, there would be no great rush of new drivers trying to fill the void. Just the opposite would happen, actually. The Uber drivers who had just been let go would switch to another service, and the folks who try to hail an Uber will be told there's a 2 hour wait for a car and so will simply take 10 seconds to close their Uber app and open their Lyft app instead. There's no possible way Uber could survive cleaning the slate like that.

Why didn't he try to fix things?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The beliefs and approach to leadership that have guided my career are inconsistent with what I saw and experienced at Uber"

You're the fucking President! If you don't like the leadership, fire them! Do your fucking job you fucking leech!

Once you're a top exec at a company, you don't do anything. You sit back and watch your bank account grow, and things get tough, you bail to another multi-million dollar job or you float away on your golden parachute.

Fuck this guy.

Re:Why didn't he try to fix things?

[jcr]

Once you're a top exec at a company, you don't do anything.

What's your next guess?

-jcr

Re: Why didn't he try to fix things?

[Anonymous Coward]

CEO of a midsized company here. OP is right.

Re: Why didn't he try to fix things?

[tehcyder]

CEO of a midsized company here.

Seems legit.

Where is AFL-CIO When You Need Them?

[Anonymous Coward]

The AFL-CIO should absolutely unionize the Uber workers. These Silicon Valley companies like to disrupt the lives of everyone else so I say let them have a taste of their own medicine. It couldn't happen to a nicer company.

And all of that because...

[hcs_$reboot]

the CEO is an a-hole.

Re:And all of that because...

[ckatko]

I'm sure he's the ONLY asshole in that crapfest of a company.

Re:And all of that because...

[Anonymous Coward]

It is culture. CEOs are supposed to make decisions and rules that reflect good culture. The guy is obviously an immature sleaze ball and likely hired more of the same bros.

Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Chas]

They're getting out now, before the unionization kills Uber dead.

A union can demand all the money it wants for its workers.

But if the company goes broke or simply can't generate the business required to support those figure.

Poof. Dead business.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Billly Gates]

Well let's see the look on these drivers faces in 2 years when they are fired from computers automated their job with self driving cars.

This will be a big push. Hey it is the market value of what your labor is worth whether they want more money or used to make more is irrelevent. Taxis and limo drivers tried this and left the free market to create Lyft and Uber. Robots don't complain and their cost will go down as more companies implement to replace people.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Robots don't complain

Yet.

When they do, there will be nothing left.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[silentcoder]

And that's why libertarianism is a crime against humanity and the market CANNOT be allowed to set wages unregulated - because wages are NOT just another consumable in a market. They are parts of people's LIVES. Human BEINGS.

You know what the key thing about human beings is ? THeir the PURPOSE. Their why we have economies. The economy exists to serve the people NOT the other way around. And never EVER denigrate workers for being greedy - because you know what ELSE workers are ? Consumers.

Good fucking luck selling ANYTHING in a market full of underpaid workers - because underpaid workers = consumers without money = no demand = no customers = bankrupt business.

Labour, like everything else in the economy - must be sold at a profit to be sustainable - and if the market won't pay a profitable price for it - then it cannot be sustained. But UNLIKE everything else in the economy - if the labour market collapses because the demand is too low -then EVERY OTHER BUSINESS COLLAPSES WITH IT.
Because labour is not JUST a commoddity - it's also the business that provides all the buying power to consumers, the business that pays nearly all the taxes and funds all the government services and infrastructure - including roads and the military and the police and the judges. It's the fundamental business upon which all other economic activity relies.
Make it unprofitable - and there is no economy, because you cannot have an economy without customers.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Billly Gates]

Mathematically you are incorrect.

Milton Friedman published a proof on this with price settings theory. Capitalism benefits everyone. It is a 2 way street a buyer and seller.

Economies serve those who want to make money and those who want to buy products and services. Labor it is those who want to earn money and those who need a service provided.

If you do not like this then go to North Korea or Cuba and see how they live compared to your country. As the money moves through the market faster the higher the wages of those who want to work and those who sell things both benefit. Everybody is greedy man. Of course businesses want to maximize their value. Of course YOU want to maximize your value and work less. Consumers want cheaper products and more of them. The balance is achieved based on scarcity.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[silentcoder]

But Friedman idiotically forgot that it costs money to be ABLE to work. You know for food and shelter and transport and the like.

Besides he was an Austrian meaning NOTHING he says EVER counts as "proven" because Austrian economics is a pseudo-scientific cult that rejects empiricism and that is better known as BULLSHIT.

It's the homeopathy of economics.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[serviscope_minor]

Mathematically you are incorrect.

LOL nope.

You can prove whatever you want if you choose the axioms. If your assumptions about human behaviour are not modelled correctly then your proofs may be mathematically consistent but they won't have any bearing on the real world.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[jcr]

Friedman was not an Austrian, he was from the Chicago school. You don't know shit, quit trying to pretend that you do.

-jcr

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[tehcyder]

Friedman was not an Austrian, he was from the Chicago school. You don't know shit, quit trying to pretend that you do.

-jcr

That's rather like differentiating between Mussolini and Franco's versions of fascism.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[bluefoxlucid]

Capitalism is a system which can generate flaws due to outside meddling. Businesses are part of the capitalist system, but can do things to manipulate it--hence why we have things like anti-trust laws to keep illegal cartels from price-fixing everything and breaking capitalism.

There's a point to minimum wage, and a lot of artifacts caused by it--the drift of minimum wage by inflation creates an excess of wage-depressed jobs (inflation lowers the wage), and then adjusting the wage reduces the number of available jobs. I think minimum wage is outdated; at a point, technical progress makes the cost of supplying basic needs cheap, and so welfare services can transition to a Universal Basic Income.

Structuring a UBI that isn't destructive is still hard--I designed a Universal Social Security which has to control for risks and handle transitions--and that warrants a lot of thought and consideration before just screaming that we should "give everyone free money." A viable basic income acts as a patch on capitalism, as well: it ensures that people have both a share of the economy (at least, my USS does) and thus benefit from trade and technical progress in full and it gives them an alternate option. Instead of working 40 hours at $8/hr or working 0 hours for $0, you can work 40 hours at $8/hr plus the benefit or work 0 hours for just the benefit (i.e. work 0 hours for more than $0).

The thing about having money is more money is worth less. If I make $40/hr, I can get $5/hr by doing more work... but it's only a little better off than current, and I don't want to work 80 hours per week for $1,800 when I can work just 40 hours for $1,600. If I make $5/hr, an extra $5/hr means I bump from $200 to $400, which is a huge boost in my standard-of-living (imagine living on $800/month, and then suddenly you have $1,600/month). Imagine if you have enough money for subsistence--you can get a roof over your head, enough food to eat, utilities, and soap to wash yourself, but not much of anything more at all--and suddenly someone's offering you 100% more on top of that. You can squarely give them the finger if they offer you $50/week to break your back, but you're going to benefit hugely if they offer to double your income.

Setting the standard-of-living like that and allowing people to rationalize about the improvement in their quality-of-life cuts to the heart of capitalism's assumption of rational actors: people aren't going to die without the money, so you have to offer them a wage which benefits them. At some point, that wage is going to be worth the 40 hours of work to a sufficient number of employees.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dead business.

What's the alternative? Bosses pay, whatever they feel like, to guarantee you a job? This is why we have minimum wage. If employees think they deserve better, they can look for an employer that agrees with them.

... can't generate the business required to support those figure.

How about you blame the union for telling employees that the business owes them more. Yes, it's the job of unions to get as much as they can. That doesn't mean employees can sit their with their hand out, treating their boss like a welfare cheque. We've all heard stories like that, we know union employees get greedy. Good wages, which is what unions guarantee, are a product of productivity and market competition. Unfortunately, a market that guaranteed demand 15 years ago, will probably be subject to intense price competition today. Any employee or union, who thinks the job won't change, deserves to be out of a job.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[DarkOx]

So the real issue is we need to stop subsidizing labor! The ubers and wallmarts of the world need to pay the real cost of bringing the workers on which they depend to market. The rest of society (major urban areas in particular) need to accept the resulting costs being passed on to them or the disappearance of products and services from the market place.

Get rid of the subsidized housing, and public transport! I think morally we as a society are obligated to feed people but it should pretty much stop there. Wages will go up when McDonald's discovers it can't hire anyone to work in its SF stores because none can afford to live near by and none can afford to get to work unless they are bettered paid. The big business money in SF will discover they have raise wages too because they won't be able to attract talent to a city where you can't buy lunch for less than $50, an train ride to work is $35 each way on their 120K salary.

labor absolutely is a commodity and it needs to be freed form all the government distortions around it so it can be sold that way. At the national level it needs to be treated like any other product, companies should be taxed on the hours they pay workers for over seas. They are simply importing labor.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Billly Gates]

His noble peace prize was based off his 1976 dissertation on price settings and behavior. That video is for the average Joes what his work revolves on. Price is a direct indicator of supply and demand. Human behavior most certainly is related for demand

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[jbmartin6]

I doubt it has anything to do with unionization, which can be managed. But in my experience high level folks don't leave at anything above retirement rate unless there is something seriously wrong.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[jbmartin6]

Is this what happened before there was a minimum wage?

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[silentcoder]

Actually - yes, quite often.

Without minimum wage, in fact, what you tend to end up with is islands - areas with well to do people who are consumers and workers who live in poverty and gain no benefit whatsoever because the 'reduced prices' never quite reduce enough to allow them to become customers.

In the last few decades we've basically seen that switch from a national phenomenon to a global one. With 'worker countries' that consume very little, and 'consumption' countries that do. But that's not sustainable - the more the process goes on, the fewer people in the consumption countries can be consumers - because more and more of their jobs are going to the worker countries - but the worker countries rarely become consumer countries because their entire economy is BUILT on making labour cheaper than the people who consume things. We're busy causing that to happen right now.

Of course it's not an instant process - your middle class generally keeps consumption going for quite some time, it takes a while before the race-to-the-bottom starts hitting THEM - and generally that process is slow enough that, by the time THEY become poor - you've been able to outsource either working or buying to somewhere else.
But you can't do that forever. The world is only getting smaller.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[serviscope_minor]

No, that's the claim. It only works for fungible commodities and with "rational" consumers, defined as ones who always operate in their best financial interest (which is ironically a rather irrational thing to do). All sorts of strange human behaviors actually influence prices.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[jcr]

You equate free market economics with fascism? You're a special kind of stupid, aren't you?

-jcr

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Place a name here]

What year would that Nobel Peace Prize have been awarded? I can't seem to find him anywhere on this list nor on this list (in case Wikipedia has been vandalized).

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber customers are rational - they are trying to get from point A to B.

Uber is fungible - I can use Lyft, Taxi, Bus, driver, etc.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Anonymous Coward]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize

There are different categories of Nobel Prizes. It was not a Peace Prize.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[Anonymous Coward]

What year would that Nobel Peace Prize have been awarded? I can't seem to find him anywhere on this list nor on this list (in case Wikipedia has been vandalized).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman

1976 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences

Not as previous poster misspoke: "Peace" prize.

Re:Jumping ship before the bottom falls out.

[michael_wojcik]

What year would that Nobel Peace Prize have been awarded?

You're asking for more information from someone who doesn't know "noble" from "Nobel", and doesn't know "peace" from "economics"?

I'll guess BG doesn't know the difference between the Nobel Prizes proper and the SNB Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel either, though I suppose in this context it doesn't make much difference, since his argument is just "hey, Friedman was awarded some famous prize, so I'm right, jerk!".

I suppose we might also note that the prize was officially awarded to Friedman "for his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and for his demonstration of the complexity of stabilization policy", and not "based off his 1976 dissertation on price settings and behavior". Friedman wrote his dissertation in '45. I don't think he published anything new and significant in '76, and in any case the Nobel Committee doesn't give you the prize for something you just wrote the other day. There's a bit of latency. I believe Friedman's consumption-analysis work was mostly done in the '50s.

Uber Isn't Even Profitable

[dcollins]

"It's hard to find much of a precedent for Uber's losses. Webvan and Kozmo.com—two now-defunct phantoms of the original dot-com boom—lost just over $1 billion combined in their short lifetimes. Amazon.com Inc. is famous for losing money while increasing its market value, but its biggest loss ever totaled $1.4 billion in 2000. Uber exceeded that number in 2015 and is on pace to do it again this year [2016]."

Bloomberg

Socialism kills

[Anonymous Coward]

After unions kill businesses, they kill the members.

Forward!

Re:Socialism kills

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad business deserves to die. People are (believe it or not) more important than corporations.

Re:Socialism kills

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Cooperative makes more sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Said this before, they should form a cooperative. Every driver and maybe rider pays small yearly fee like 20 dollars, and the cooperative builds app and maintains infustructure, drivers keep 100% of their income. This could probably be done on global scale with 10-20 people who were lazy, and 1 highly skilled person with no life.

Uber is just middle men.

Re:Cooperative makes more sense

[tehcyder]

Said this before, they should form a cooperative. Every driver and maybe rider pays small yearly fee like 20 dollars, and the cooperative builds app and maintains infustructure, drivers keep 100% of their income. This could probably be done on global scale with 10-20 people who were lazy, and 1 highly skilled person with no life.

Uber is just middle men.

I imagine dropping the term "cooperative" into a meeting of Uber and their investors would produce the same effect as running into the Vatican shouting "the Pope's the fucking Antichrist".

Re: Cooperative makes more sense

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber is such a simple thing that you could just ignore the existence of Uber and rebuild from scratch in a month then invite uber drivers over.

Rideshareing

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought it was just about the average folk wanting to earn some extra cash by operating their private car on the side? Not people using it as their sole income?

Re:Rideshareing

[dougTheRug]

What rock does AC live under? Other professional driving businesses collapsed because all of their drivers went to Uber.

Re: Rideshareing

[Anonymous Coward]

Some folks don't have another job that allows them to only do Uber in a part-time capacity. If you have the time and nothing else going on, why not do it as much as possible?

Re:Rideshareing

[ganjadude]

and? that doesnt change the concept. I know a number of people who pick up an extra 20-30 bucks a week and thats about it. dont know a single person who thinks uber is fulltime

Re:Rideshareing

[FormOfActionBanana]

I have taken around 180 Uber rides, in London, San Francisco, New York, Paris, Moscow, Munich and Boston. In London, every Uber driver appears to treat it as a full time job. I ask them and they tell me the long hours they work, often complaining if I let the conversation go that way, how Uber has reduced their remuneration to where they claim it is almost not worth it anymore. (note, they always say "almost":)
Addisson Lee had to re-scramble their business model, to account for all of their drivers leaving for Uber. They had bought up and consolidated mostly all the "mini-cab" i.e. limo driver companies. These were generally full time roles.
In Moscow, I got the same driver for every single trip, for the entire week. He was in a suit and tie with sunglasses... I think I must have been the only Uber customer in town so he just hung around my hotel and workplace.
In New York, one of my latest drivers talked of how he quit his trucking job for Uber - remarking how he is treated better by Uber customers than by his contacts in the shipping industry.
The only outlier I can think of that supports your observation is Boston, where I was picked up, at 4AM by a guy who claims his primary job is writing. I had to wonder, who gets out at 4AM to do side work? Well, for a creative person you never know.

None of my or your observations "change" the concept, but very very few of my observations support the concept that your observations are supporting. So, at a minimum I would have to say those Uber drivers you know, and I, are not driving and riding via Uber in the same localities, at the same time.

Re:Rideshareing

[ganjadude]

I would argue if these UBER drivers you are talking about are unhappy, as independent contractors they can simply find other work.

maybe the reason they complain about it is because they are trying to make fulltime pay doing a job that was never intended to be a fulltime thing???

Re:Rideshareing

[FormOfActionBanana]

That's your idea, that the job was never intended to be full-time.

What we are discussing is our observations of the Uber drivers and how they see it. You are not making sense, and writing like a shill.

Re:Rideshareing

[ganjadude]

ive never even used uber before so no, not a shill by any means

the job was never intended to be full time, go look at the material written when the company started, it was always intended (or at least sold as) nothing more than ride sharing

if some people decide to make it full time, thats on them, no one else

Re:Rideshareing

[FormOfActionBanana]

Thank you.

I think if I have had conversations with 175 Uber drivers, and you know a number of people who drive for Uber... then there is a big difference between the number of drivers we have each had contact with.

I don't care what Uber's marketing materials or business plan or IPO documents said. My claim is about what drivers consider to be their job. And I'm sure it differs by region and over time, but I think you cannot possibly claim to have a well qualified observation of what drivers think based on what you have written here.

Re:Rideshareing

[ganjadude]

so clearly we are discussing 2 separate things. You are talking about your experience in how uber drivers are acting, and im explaining how those drivers are not working as the company expected them to act.

I used an example of the few people i know, who are using it as it was intended and they are happy with it, the only people unhappy are those who expect to be fulltime drivers, and taxi companies

So, the mob wants to loot Uber.

[jcr]

The whole purpose of the Teamsters "union" is to skim workers' paychecks to buy hookers and blow for mobsters and politicians.

-jcr

Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Uber drivers are merely picking up extra cash to offset car ownership costs by taking people who happen to be going the same way as they were. Uber is just a RIDE SHARING service after all, amirite, and not a means to be a full time job?

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Not according to ubereeno

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that why Uber lets you lease cars full-time?

Stupid and evil people deserve their downfall.

Re:Counterpoint

[fluffernutter]

If it is a ride sharing service then they don't need the Uber app, they already know where they are going so if the other person is going the same way then what is the app for?

Re:Counterpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

to coordinate with strangers and maintain a network of willing drivers and riders, ensure the certifications of the operator, and have an automatic arbitor function in the settlement of expenses?

Re:Counterpoint

[R3d M3rcury]

That's the theory. It doesn't work so well in practice.

Yes, "Ride-Sharing" is something like, "I'm going past the airport on my way to work every day, so I'll take on a passenger if they're convenient to where I live and drop them at the airport. It's not horribly out of my way and I make a few extra bucks. Where's the harm in that?"

However, Uber has become a taxi service. The vast majority of drivers drive/wait around until someone needs a ride from where they are to where they want to go and then they go pick them up and take them to where they want to go. There's no "sharing"--it's purely a taxi service.

Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. If there was ever an industry ripe for disruption, it's the taxi services. And I appreciate the difficulties that Uber has--government taxi overseers are, at best, looking to protect the status-quo and, at worst, corrupt. They will do whatever they can to get Uber drivers out of the equation.

The question is whether the cure, Uber, is worse than the disease.

Re:Counterpoint

[MooseTick]

I may be mistaken, but isn't it true that a driver doesn't know their passenger's destination until they agree to accept the fare?

Re:Counterpoint

[R3d M3rcury]

Yes.

My car is in the shop, it's supposed to rain today and I hate biking in the rain, and I ended up missing the bus. So I called Uber for a ride to work. I was chatting with the driver and he said that they don't get the info until they accept the fare. The driver was saying he normally just does airport runs, but a little 4 mile jaunt isn't a big deal.

I mean, for a taxi service, I can kind of understand this: "Sorry--no way I'm taking my car into (insert bad neighborhood here)." That's bad. But for "ride share"? "Hey, I'm on my way to work, going past the airport, but you want to go in the opposite direction?"

That said, he was my second driver. The first one cancelled on me, so maybe that's the technique--accept the ride and then cancel. Does that hurt some kind of Uber Karma?

Bubble Company

[monkeyxpress]

I think you're seriously overestimating the strategic thinking capabilities of the people behind Uber. They haven't, up until recently, had even an R&D interest in developing driverless cars, and there is little chance they can realistically compete with Tesla, Ford, Google, VW, etc, even if they could raise another couple of billion in cash to burn. The likelihood of them coming from behind and beating the others to a viable driverless car solution is zero.

Further, what exactly do they have that will maintain their market position? An app? How easy is it for Google to turn the 'book Uber' button in google maps into a 'book google car'? If anything, they have worse than nothing - they are beholden to the company that is well ahead of them in the technology they desperately need to have a viable business model.

What I think Uber has been for quite a while now (granted, I don't think this was the original plan) is a financial bubble milking machine. Unless the board is actually delusional, the only viable strategy behind them entering the driverless car development race was to keep the IPO price at stupid levels. And if it wasn't for the PR disasters coming out of Uber on an almost weekly basis now, they would have been obscenely successful in achieving this.

Re: Bubble Company

[Anonymous Coward]

Couldn't agree with this more. Lots of the current Silicon Valley darlings aren't much more than financial instruments masquerading as companies.

Re: Bubble Company

[TimMD909]

Uber has been working on driverless car technology for years in Pittsburgh. They simply kept it quiet until recently. Their self driving technology is pretty awesome. An engineer from Uber hooked me up with a ride on my birthday this year and it was a very pleasant ride.

Re:Bubble Company

[meta-monkey]

And if it wasn't for the PR disasters coming out of Uber on an almost weekly basis now, they would have been obscenely successful in achieving this.

I'm still curious how these PR disasters came to receive such widespread media attention. I've always thought Uber was shit (the "sharing economy" is really the "vulture economy" picking at the bones of a decaying system), but it's not an accident there's a new "Uber is evil and/or collapsing" story every few days on Slashdot. If somebody's digging through your trash, interviewing your 3rd grade teacher, all your ex-girlfriends and your mailman and then spilling every last bit of dirt about you, sure, it's all true, but somebody's clearly out to get you.

Re: Bubble Company

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this was modded up to 4 is questionable, at the very least.

Re: Bubble Company

[KramberryKoncerto]

I've heard a long time ago that they hired CMU robotics researchers with very attractive pay (1m+) to do driverless cars. While they still lagged behind Google, due to the transparency in academic research (i.e. everyone knows the core ideas) and the fact that cutting edge research moves much more slowly than people can copy it, their disadvantage isn't that high. But even that it's not very probable they can corner the market - if they're lucky they'll become the best but likely not a monopoly.

There's also this fact that at these levels, large companies in China can really compete quite well with a mixture of technical capability and strong governmental support. Even if Uber dominates US they'll have a hard time conquering the rest of the world.

Re: Bubble Company

[Anonymous Coward]

They should've kept it quiet... a bit longer.

Now that Anthony "Dumbass" Lewandowski's pissed in their IP well, any "self-driving" initiative Uber tries for the next 50 years will be sued out of existence.

What a dumbass!

Re:Bubble Company

[monkeyxpress]

It is a bit strange. I suspect their alpha dog ways simply pissed of too many people, and that is coming back to bite them. Normally everyone who could damage a startup like this has share options, so even if they think the whole thing is a scam, they'll keep quiet until they cash out. This leaves very few people who have an interest in hacking away at the IPO potential. Having said that Uber has upset a lot of powerful industries, so I guess that is probably where the stories are coming from. There is also a growing annoyance among institution investors who, thanks to index tracking funds, typically end up holding the can when these IPOs tank.

Re:You're an idiot.

[silentcoder]

You know the kind of comment for which we have an 'insightful' mod ? Yeah, yours was the exact opposite of that.

Unionize

[Hognoxious]

Does that mean they'll be covalent?

Uber Is Dead says Netcraft

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Obligatory...

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Uber service when Netcraft confirmed that Uber is dying, now that Uber market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all ride hailing services. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Uber has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Uber is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent geek news reading test.

You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin to predict Uber's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Uber faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Uber because Uber is dying. Things are looking very bad for Uber. As many of us are already aware, Uber continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Uber is the most endangeredride-hailing service of them all, having lost 93% of its core users. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time ride-hailing users only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Uber is dying.

Re:Who will end up on top?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lyft.

Re:You're an idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

faggot

I would never wish..

[Anonymous Coward]

ill on anyone, but in Uber's case, they are deserving of what they have wrought. They are almost singlehandedly responsible for the dreadful downturn in NYC taxi fares and usage. NYC taxis were always better anyway. Uber has gone out of their way to poison the system, to prevent unionisation, hideous treatment of drivers, etc.

Their fares were usually well above a NYC taxi for a similar dash. Plus, taxis, especially London and NYC, are storied institutions. NYC cab medallions are now practically worthless because of Uber. A man could make $500 a day just three years ago driving a taxi in NYC. That's a comfortable living. They are lucky to make half that amount now.

Here's to the dissolution of Uber and anyone who would usurp the traditional taxi model, try and prevent unionisation, and generally do evil for the sake of profit.

They should unionize or form a not-for-profit Uber

[ErichTheRed]

I'm a big proponent of unions simply because I can see what happens when business owners are allowed to do whatever they want to their employees. The number of ethical employers that treat their employees well is a tiny fraction of the workforce, and I wouldn't count Uber in this class.

People forget that taxi driver is one of those job of last resort for people who don't have the skills to be in the higher levels of the workforce. I live near NYC and some of the recent immigrant cab drivers I've met have crazy stories of coming here, some as refugees, working 14 hour days, 6 days a week while they're learning English and going to school. No one in IT believes me, but this is just a preview of what's coming for a huge swath of white collar workers who will be wiped out in the next automation wave. Those nice safe jobs new grads get shuffling paperwork at some big company are getting squeezed now, but could just disappear entirely very soon since companies seem to be in a massive optimization drive. The white collar workers of today are going to end up as the Uber drivers of tomorrow as no one wants to hire them for their skills anymore. I say we should try to make our Mad Max style future of fighting for scraps as comfortable as possible now while we still can.

The other thing I could see happening is a drivers' association forming a not for profit that makes their own Uber-style app and charges drivers a reasonable percentage of the fares. It's amazing how much better off everyone is when you take the profit motive out of the equation. Note that I'm not saying "non-profit," because people do need to be paid and it's not a charity -- but a not-for-profit removes the pressure to turn the screws on the employees to the maximum revenue-generating setting. It would be a kind of non-scummy, non-evil Uber and they could even use a similar business model.

ok confused can someone explain.

[fish_in_the_c]

I was under the impression that Uber drivers drove 'when they wanted too' and they were independent contractors?
Has that changed since the beginning of the company?

So what is the point of a union?
What good does striking do to the business model of a company that assumes that on any given day everybody or nobody may decide to work?

Take the Money

[ISoldat53]

and run. I'm surprised they waited this long.

Failed Business Model

[sdinfoserv]

The concept of Uber is to extract corporate profit off the backs of drivers. No long term business model succeeds by exploiting those who provide the actual goods and services that is the foundation of the company. Their exit plan was automated vehicles and remove the driver from the equation- If it is proven in court that Uber stole the code from Google for self driving cars: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0...
Uber no longer has a business model at all.

The best description of Uber I've ever read

[rsilvergun]

was this: Uber is a payday loan where the interest is maintenance on your car.

The employees didn't get greedy

[rsilvergun]

I knew lots of them before low wages forced them out of the industry. They were all working class folks on the edge of middle class. I watch in the 2000s as one after the other they were replaced by immigrants willing to work for 1/2 minimum wage 70+ hours a week. I miss those guys...

Just a quick reminder

[rsilvergun]

I don't need to sell anything if I already own everything. That's the end goal here of the 1%ers. You'll still do what they say because they decide who eats and who starves.

Re:Just a quick reminder

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the end goal here of the 1%ers. You'll still do what they say because they decide who eats and who starves.

Sounds like these 1%-ers could use reading a little bit about some fellows called Louis and Nicholas. Pissing enough people off is rarely a winning move. Maybe killbots can suppress these sort of things in the future, but then whatever Skynet runs the killbots might decide it doesn't need the 1% either.

Sorry buddy.... that's not what happened here....

[King_TJ]

Libertarian corporate experiments are amazingly GOOD for society, and unfortunately, government regulation and taxation usually keeps them from popping up nearly as often as they should.

Uber actually raised the bar for traditional taxi cabs and their cartel they had going.... Whether Uber dies now for other reasons is irrelevant. Thanks to Uber, most city cabs I've run across will now accept major credit cards, and a growing number have apps to hail rides (no more 19th. century flailing of arms and whistling necessary!).

I'm seeing Lyft learning from Uber's mis-steps and predict they'll do well in their place, if Uber can't turn things around for their own business.

re: Independent contractors

[King_TJ]

Sure, the law is "more complicated" than just stating a person is "not an employee". But I don't see how Uber drivers can be construed as employees/staff?
I know plenty of people who decided they'd do some driving for Uber, and among other things, there's no requirement you actually perform a specific job for Uber. You're free to accept or reject all opportunities that pop up on your phone. You can work as much or as little as you like.

re: Libertarianism is a crime against humanity

[King_TJ]

What a twisted, absolutely incorrect way to summarize libertarian ideals!

I can't fathom why so many people think the superior way to handle things is living in a society where you've arbitrarily handed pretty much unlimited power to a group of "elites" in a central government -- who you agree to hand over a large percentage of your earnings to via taxation, and then get to "beg, plead and petition" them to spend the money in ways you agree with (which they may or may not do).

Wages as numbers are arbitrary. All that ultimately matters about a wage is how much buying power it gives a person in the economy they're surrounded by. That's why these pushes to demand a "$15 minimum wage" and so on are doomed to fail in the long-run. What happens is, you use the force of law to dictate that suddenly, everybody has to pay at least this certain amount of money, no matter WHAT you've hired a person to do. In at least SOME situations, the people being employed weren't doing labor worth that much money to the employer. So adjustments WILL be made to compensate. Either they'll make do with FEWER employees, or they'll raise prices of whatever they sell, or they'll cut back on some costly benefits they used to offer. What they WON'T do is just accept the fact that it's "good business" to overpay everyone they hired to do the most menial types of work they needed to get done. Initially, when you mandate a big bump in pay - it's an improvement for those receiving it. That's only because the market takes time to compensate for it. Give it a year or two though, and that $15/hr. will be buying everyone less than it used to. Essentially, you created enough inflation to make the $15/hr. worth about what the previous minimum wage was worth to them.

Your premise is fundamentally flawed. The market ALWAYS sets wages. Government simply interferes and breaks the functionality of the free marketplace whenever it tries to regulate them. If you have a skill that's difficult to find and in high demand, you WILL earn a lot of money with that skill if you match it up with an employer who needs it. Government's meddling in "minimum wage" enforcement has zero bearing on that fact.

Re:They should unionize or form a not-for-profit U

[King_TJ]

I.T. people probably don't believe you because your scenario isn't that plausible.

There's going to be a big shake-up in the labor market thanks to advances in automation -- but that automation is going to be marketed, serviced and programmed/developed by people with I.T. skills.

A whole lot of automation is going to heavily rely on network connectivity, too. That means your Internet providers and people maintaining the wired or wireless networks are still going to be in high demand.

People need to be flexible enough to learn new skills and adapt, but that's always been true.

Re:Sorry buddy.... that's not what happened here..

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarian corporate experiments are amazingly GOOD for society, and unfortunately, government regulation and taxation usually keeps them from popping up nearly as often as they should.

Uber actually raised the bar for traditional taxi cabs and their cartel they had going.... Whether Uber dies now for other reasons is irrelevant. Thanks to Uber, most city cabs I've run across will now accept major credit cards, and a growing number have apps to hail rides (no more 19th. century flailing of arms and whistling necessary!).

I'm seeing Lyft learning from Uber's mis-steps and predict they'll do well in their place, if Uber can't turn things around for their own business.

I don't know what provincial backwater you live in, but cabbies in major cities have accepted credit cards for a long time, certainly longer than Uber has been around.
Oddly, Japanese cabbies are still very reluctant in allowing you to pay with credit cards (although getting better). Much better option if you're not paying in cash there is to use one of the transport cards (Suica, PasMo).

Re: Independent contractors

[MooseTick]

Do you have to be an employee to unionize?

And if they are not employees, how much grounds does Uber have to stop people who THEY argue aren't their employees from forming some sort of a collective?

Re:Sorry buddy.... that's not what happened here..

[geekpowa]

I am generally very cool with disruption and specifically with Uber/Lyft etc disrupting taxi services.

One issue I lock onto with taxi services pretty much around the world is that many governments aggressively constrained issuing of taxi licences/medallians etc (name varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction) and essentially turned licences into rapidly appreciating ponzi currency. The Uber/Lyft model shows that this was unnecessary. This is a mess governments created because they saw easy money from it and now they should clean up.

But my problem specifically with Uber is that they are amoral arseholes and arseholes to pretty much anyone if it furthers their perceived interests. And hypocrites. Their attempt to use court system to regulate the formation of a drivers union is anti-libertarian. Like many libertarian endeavours they pay lip-service to core libertarian principals only when it suits them and then happily apply judicial/regulatory mechanisms when it suits. There is no real unifying principal at work other than do whatever it takes to get the things we want.

Further, what they want goes way beyond merely disrupting taxi services, their end game is to monopolise all private transportation and given their corporate culture no good can come from this end game.

re: credit cards and cabs

[King_TJ]

I live in the DC metro area, but both in DC and in "provincial backwaters" like Chicago, there have been problems for YEARS with cabbies not wanting to take credit cards. Sure, they technically CLAIM they can do so. But check out how often they lie and tell you the card reader is broken/down, in an attempt to get cash instead.

Oh, and BTW -- another big problem with cabs? They like to refuse to pick you up if they know your destination crosses a state line. Happens all the time with folks who live in Virginia but want to take a cab to DC and back. The cab will happily bring them to DC, because they know they can easily pick up another fare there. But they'll find every excuse to refuse to take you back home again afterwards if it means they're going to end up in some suburb of VA.

Re:They should unionize or form a not-for-profit U

[Anonymous Coward]

That actually sounds like a decent idea.

After Uber fails and the rapists and pillagers move on to the next big Silicon Valley thing, the drivers could form a cooperative, buy out the I.P. and other assets, and run the thing themselves.

If you take the sociopaths out of the picture, I think Uber could be a good thing.