After reading the many stupid, unforced errors committed by Uber, I’ve decided that their whole ridesharing business model is just a cover story for an elaborate social experiment. Uber isn’t out to make a buck — instead, they’re experimenting to determine just how fucking awful a Silicon Valley tech darling startup needs to be before some government agency regulates them. Here’s the latest:
[…] A person who had a job interview in Uber’s Washington office in 2013 said he got the kind of access enjoyed by actual employees for an entire day, even for several hours after the job interview ended. He happily crawled through the database looking up the records of people he knew – including a family member of a prominent politician – before the seemingly magical power disappeared.“What an Uber employee would have is everything, complete,” said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution from the company.
The funny thing about this is that it isn’t that hard to build a company that is celebrated for vacuuming up personally identifiable information. Google, to pick one example, knows if you’ve been sleeping, they know when you’re awake, and they certainly know if you’ve been bad or good. In order to make billions on that information, they slapped on a bit of privacy veneer, starting with their motto (“Don’t be evil”), and following through with a few policies and procedures (like having a Chief Privacy Officer). In return, they’re treated like Internet royalty. The glibertarian douchebags at Uber are so clueless and arrogant that they can’t even be bothered with the slightest pretense that they give a shit about the privacy of their customers. I eagerly await the howls of pain from the editors of Reason when the FTC or some other entity finally cracks down on these assholes.
Joel
And yet, for all their problems — there are many!! — Uber recognized a need in many markets. I remember waiting 1/2 hour or more for Orange Cab to pull up at any non-airport, non-downtown location when I lived in Seattle.
Sherparick
Really, just call a freaking cab. The premium you are paying is worth the privacy protection and you are not completely putting yourself outside the protection of the state.
aimai
Google may or may not be evil but at least they provide a real service that I really use and enjoy 24 hours a day and that has significantly enriched my life. They aren’t mere app peddlers. I don’t know whether it makes it better or worse but there’s a mort of difference between Uber and Google.
MomSense
Just wondering if it is possible to be a glibertarian without being a douchebag.
O/T but this debate is like a scene from a Terminator pre-quel.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540
Amir Khalid
Uber is basically a broker for unlicenced taxis and limos. Its refusal to accept licencing or regulation by any agency makes me suspect that its hat is really black, despite its protestations to the contrary. And its refusal to put the umlaut in its name means that it is uncouth.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: LOL at your last line. I don’t understand how transportation regulations work, but yeah, Uber appears to be completely flouting the spirit of taxi regulation if not the letter of the law. And I’m not sure how they’re getting away with it unless it’s that politicians are too cowardly to rein them in for fear of being denounced as statists and job-killers.
samiam
Yea, I’m sure backwoods water blogger markymux who can’t even administer a wordpress website knows all about running a silicon valley startup.
Please….continue.
srv
gliberal MM joins the Thielbot brigade.
Next up, Uber driver throws babies out of incubators.
scav
Personally don’t think they’re altruistic enough to be making an experiment, social or otherwise — which at least would evidence a modicum of interest in truth or fact or something outside the personal self. They’re more like a set-piece of sophmore MBA class project gone a bit unexpectedly big by accident. Overuse of simplistic business philosphy and a view that everyone else is the enemy and to be hacked down, abused and exploited; that all including competitors, governments from local to national, employees, customers, . . .
Helmut Monotreme
I’m not sure why anyone who wasn’t a douchebag would find libertarianism appealing. People who aren’t douchebags don’t need libertarianism. There may be non-SCUBA divers that own SCUBA compressed air tanks, but they sure aren’t the intended customer.
srv
Obama helps his enemies:
balconesfault
Taxis do function as a cartel in many cities … and I can see value in the model of allowing people to go out and bid for rides. But my feel is that Uber was so determined to take over the complete market for this kind of service instantly and block out any potential competitors (eg – AirBnB vs Homeaway) that they just skipped over the internal protocols that someone who was really concerned about their customer base needed to implement.
Down here in Austin, there was the case Halloween night when a guy was surprised with a $200 fare for his ride. For any business that’s spending a ton on advertising, it’s just brain dead to allow a customer to take that hit without all sorts of red flags flying before he steps into the car. One incident like that can negate tens of thousands dollars worth of goodwill as you try to grow your market.
kindness
Yea well I want to believe Google isn’t evil even though they have every opportunity to be so. Uber……well, not so much.
You know what really pisses me off though? Morans who seem to think it’s OK to hijack threads and make it all about themselves. You know who I’m talking about. Google Trolls.
Zandar
Friend drives for Lyft in Boston to make extra holiday cash, she never even considered driving for Uber because of the douchie techbro mentality there. Lyfties are apparently much nicer.
Shakezula
Shouldn’t it be Guber?
But I’m not sure why giving a non-employee this kind of access would ever be considered smart or even hip.
JCJ
@Amir Khalid:
Couldn’t agree more! Maybe they should be renamed Unter
srv
Finally, someone who cares about freedom:
scav
@Shakezula: Smart or hip? What it is is cheap, although the nose-thumbing is no doubt worth some manly giggles.
Punchy
Look up “Dudebros” in a dictionary and pics of Uber’s exec management will appear. As Josh Marshall’s reader’s comments have attested to, Uber isn’t about being any long-term company with a long-term outlook–it’s about making a few dudebros a shitload of cash quickly before imploding. In this case, they may actually implode before said d-bags make the scratch, but alas….
Platypus
It’s the “excluded middle” business strategy, pursued not only by gUber but by several others as well.
(1) Identify a legitimate case of regulatory excess, corruption, etc.
(2) Conclude that *no regulation whatsoever* is the answer.
(3) Start a business premised on evading relevant regulation.
The “funny” thing is that the corruption in (1) is often a matter of regulatory capture, perpetrated by the “new” business’s soulmates of the previous generation. Despite their libertarian marketing, Kalanick et al don’t have a problem with rules or with oligarchy. They just want to be the oligarchs who make the rules.
boatboy_srq
Isn’t that the essence of glibertarianism? It’s their rules, and it’s your fault for not following them as intended (which intention isn’t necessarily the same as the rules as stated).
srv
@kindness:
That was a fucking work of ironical. Well done!
MattF
Well, in my neighborhood the (heavily regulated) taxi industry is unprofitable and the biggest player filed for bankruptcy several years ago. It’s quite a mess. Unfortunately, Uber also seems to be quite a mess.
? Martin
IT’S RAINING IN CALIFORNIA!!
I can only conclude we are being rewarded by the almighty for continuing to send Democrats to Congress and state office.
SRW1
@Shakezula:
Gluber. Like, a ‘Gluber in allen Lebenslagen’.
(For reference cf comment #7)
? Martin
@MomSense:
No. Libertarianism is a cheap religion for selfish people, giving them intellectual cover for their own personality failings. The only reason to be a libertarian is because you’re already a douchebag.
CONGRATULATIONS!
The same way they’ve cracked down on Google and Apple?
Shit, don’t hold your breath.
Once Rape Taxi Incorporated cuts a deal with the DOJ to turn over all their ridership records it’ll be all good.
? Martin
@Joel: Yeah, I agree. There’s a clear market need for this, but it could hardly be delivered in a more unappealing package.
@MattF: Keep in mind that much of the ‘heavy regulation’ is demanded by the industry itself. The high barrier of entry to the taxi market has been used for decades to keep the entrenched players on top. No enterprising self-starters are dropping a million bucks on a medallion in NYC.
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
I don’y know, Amir, the reputation of the actual umlaut people is stained enough as it is.
Barry
@Shakezula: “But I’m not sure why giving a non-employee this kind of access would ever be considered smart or even hip.”
It’s incredibly sloppy work, and given what else has come out, it’s because they don’t care about things like that.
Shakezula
@scav: Letting a non-employee splash around in your database seems more like an open invitation to some expensive problems. Also, why go to the trouble of setting up that kind of access for job applicants?
I know it is dorky, but I look at shit like this and can’t help wondering what line of thinking gets these morans to “THIS is a brilliant idea!”
lol
@Sherparick:
Hahahahaha, that’s hilarious “Just call a cab”. Good luck making a flight or any sort of appointment.
As douchetastic as Uber’s front-office is, Uber caught on for a reason. Cabs in a lot of big cities are complete shit and people are willing to pay *more* money just to avoid using them. If Uber accomplishes nothing else, they’ll have forced cabs to modernize, kicking and screaming the whole way.
scav
@Shakezula: But are they making long term plans with backup plans, insurance, belts and braces or just going for the cheap and easy and works well enough for now? It’s almost like the Private Equity LBO school of driving the company into the ground while extracting maximum profit applied by the originators. Self-cannibalism. If it survives, they win, if it dies, they win.
Bobby B.
Right now Reason is having “fundraiser drive” . Those non-producer parasites on society need to die off sooner rather than later.
PIGL
@lol: Well, no they are not. Cabs in Toronto, Vancouver, Quebec and Montreal, and Edmonton except when the tar sands are ultra boomy, are fast, available, reliable, and not that expensive. I have never missed a meeting or a flight for lack of a taxi. I don’t know where you are getting your information from, but I see a lot of Uber fanboiz spreading complete fabrications about the horrors of regular old cabs.
SatanicPanic
@? Martin: Thank you Jerry Brown!
Amir Khalid
@Shakezula:
Aside from being uncouth, Uber is badly run. Its senior executives lack discipline; that’s down to poor leadership. Its ethical lapses suggest that it doesn’t police itself well, and is headed for legal problems sooner or later. There may be a company out there that has found a better way to operate a taxi and limo business, but I don’t think Uber is it. I am not so confident it will survive in the long term.
Joey Maloney
There’s an app called Gett (formerly GetTaxi) that works with the existing licensed medallions. I’ve found it to be uber-satisfactory, so to speak. You get a small discount and you can pay in the app with a credit card, including tip.
They’re only in a handful of cities so far…London, NYC, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa.
? Martin
@Amir Khalid: The problem isn’t that Uber will implode. The problem is that Uber is such a bad actor that their individual actions will expand that regulatory umbrella simply as a way for officials to head off the knuckleheaded shit. The regulatory loophole that they are exploiting may have remained open if the players were responsible and could show that they can self-regulate, but they’re fucking that up for everyone.
Amir Khalid
@Joey Maloney:
I think they’re in Kuala Lumpur as MYtaxi.
MomSense
@? Martin:
It seems like they are immature guys who do not grasp just how much they benefit from generations of people who have invested in the schools, infrastructure, etc that help to make their lives possible. They focus on just the things they like to do and discount the many ways in which our lives are interconnected. It also seems like they aren’t too worried about civil or privacy rights broadly but just in the particular ways they want privacy or rights.
Goblue72
@PIGL: thank you for playing but those are all Canuck cities.
Here in America, outside a few cities (NYC, Boston, Chicago), the taxi industry is worthless. In Seattle, getting a cab outside downtown is nearly impossible (and downtown its a bit of a pain too), the cabbies can’t find their way around, and they make it a complete PITA to pay by credit card
There’s a reason Uber, Lyft and Sidecar have caught on so quickly. Taxicabs suck in most U.S. cities. Even in NYC, there’s long been a well developed jitney and private car service market due to frustrations with taxis.
Booger
@MomSense: No, it is not. SATSQ.
Full metal Wingnut
@Joel: I use Lyft. I’m sure they’re also shady, just like every Silicon Valley…not nice word redacted.
They’re all dirty. But it’s like sex, you know. Uber is Bill Cosby and Lyft is Prince. Prince has done and sung about some freaky deaky stuff, but at least it was consensual.
JGabriel
mistermix @ top:
Ever since I read in 2010 that Google was lobbying congress in conjunction with Verizon on net neutrality, I’ve suspected that they must have internally shortened their motto to “Be Evil.”
am
@aimai:
Completely agreed. Also, this is generational. The youngs have a lot less sense of private vs public, and even the Uber outrage seems to have an age gap (at least for the ‘God mode’ nonsense, not so much the threatening journalists…)
Also, while Uber is no angel, I have no pretensions that I’m not in the middle of a big pissing match between them, Lyft, and incumbent badged taxi services.
Roger Moore
@Shakezula:
I don’t think it’s appropriate to give that kind of access to most employees, either, and the ones who do have access need to have some kind of monitoring to make sure they aren’t abusing it.
Roger Moore
@Shakezula:
I can think of two reasons, and Uber is probably thinking of both:
1) To test applicants to see what kind of cool stuff they can do while given access. Lots of tech companies like to give tests during the interview to see how their applicants can do, and this would fit the pattern.
2) To prove to applicants they want to hire just how cool the company is so they want to work there. This is also a fairly standard tech company gambit.
Comrade Luke
@Betty Cracker: Well, for one thing, politicians LOVE using Uber. And their story of “Uber bypasses the terrible taxi industry” resonates with everyone who can afford to pay extra in order to avoid taxis.
Unfortunately, it will result in taxis only be used by people who can’t afford Uber, i.e. the poor. A two-tiered system, just like everything else.
The fact that my liberal friends refuse to acknowledge this, simply because they can afford to avoid taxis, is infuriating.
divF
I travel a fair amount for work, and for the U.S. metropolitan areas I frequent (live in Berkeley, travel to DC, Chicago, Denver, NY, Hartford), traditional taxis have been reliable. In fact, over the last few years, there has been an influx of new cars into the taxi business, in the form of hybrids (mainly Priuses). This is not surprising, given that two of the biggest costs for a taxi service are fuel and maintenance, and the Prius does very well in both areas.
As an Old, I still have a residual fondness for the Checker Marathon, which was a mainstay of the NYC taxi business into the 1980s.
Villago Delenda Est
@Platypus:
Long history of this in North America. For example, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by a bunch of people who were upset that they were not the religious oppressors back in the old country.
Tenar Darell
@Roger Moore: Essentially, they’re advertising for stalkers to come work for them. They’re going to get someone hurt or killed; I have no idea what kind of contract could protect them from the lawsuits. Has anyone here dug through their terms of use? I’m only guessing, but they are probably pretty evil.
Annamal
I am wondering whether the inevitable fall of Uber is going to result in another tech stock crash.
Based on the talking points memo they are ridiculously over-valuing themselves and I am wondering whether other people might start believing the hype.
Goblue72
@Comrade Luke: Uber isn’t anymore expensive than a taxi unless you are using Uber a lot during surge pricing times.
I’ve used taxis a lot and now use almost only Uber or Lyft if I’m not using Car2Go (basically when I’m too tipsy to drive or cant find a Car2Go parked in walking distance). Car2Go is cheapest since I’m the driver, but Uber/Lyft is no more costly than a cab.
Major Major Major Major
I can’t be the only person here aware that Uber is in full agreement and open negotiations with for instance the California Public Utilities Commission (the biggest such agency in the country) and Uber, Lyft, etc. had a big regulatory overhaul by the SFPUC–which they hated–what, last year (representing the core of their user base)?
Major Major Major Major
Also, at least in the Bay Area (it’s no coincidence they came from here), the taxis had set up such a worker-abusing regulatory capture cartel that you basically couldn’t get one unless you were lucky enough to find an empty one on the street or got into the late-night lineup at 18th & Castro for instance. Uber is cheaper and your car actually arrives, and the cab companies were a complete nightmare to work for.
Uber clearly has a lot of problems, but crippling the Bay Area taxi corporations is not one of them.
some guy
@Comrade Luke:
good point, except that a typical Uber ride is 1/3 to 1/2 of a comparable taxi ride, which is why the poor hate them. Poor and working people always like to pay more for services than they need to.
Sondra
@Sherparick:
I don’t know how Uber works – I’m old and I often don’t pay attention to things I consider irrelevant to my life.
Now that it’s a bfd – I’m with you. Just call a real cab. The few minutes you have to wait for it to arrive cannot be worth all of the aggravation that the Ubers will inflict.
Just what is it’s niche market?