
Progressives Are Regulating Away Equality Benefits of Uber, Airbnb and Google - malandrew
http://time.com/5364088/uber-google-equality-progressives/
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csours
Can anyone take this article seriously?

> "Progressives are singling out technology companies for new regulations. For
> instance, in New York, the City Council has just voted to cap the number of
> ridesharing vehicles for services like Uber and Lyft, and may require that
> drivers earn a minimum amount"

Taxis have been limited in New York since forever. Uber is not being singled
out in this regard.

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TheBeardKing
So pro-consumer regulations = harming business = increased inequality. Got it.

How anyone could argue that the benefits of the gig economy actually improves
worker lives is beyond me. I tend agree that it's better for the consumer in
terms of price and service, which I guess you could say reduces inequality
because more consumers can afford access that used to be cost-prohibitive. But
by and large, if more and more workers don't have a steady and liveable wage,
health care, and retirement benefits, this leads to drastically increased
inequality.

I tend to think that pointing fingers to anywhere but the tax code and
resulting social services or UBI to reduce inequality is barking up the wrong
tree.

~~~
will_brown
>How anyone could argue that the benefits of the gig economy actually improves
worker lives is beyond me.

Exactly, makes you wish the professor would give up his nice cushy job in the
ivory tower, with no more fat salary, with no more health insurance...then
take a loan from Uber to buy a car and try making a living wage.

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mschuster91
The author certainly has a couple of valid points, especially that there is a
certain amount of equality distribution and trust-breaking provided by the
"gig economy".

However, what the author totally misses is that the regulation movements are
not without merits, often due to blatant abuse and profiteering:

\- Uber gets flak because of surge pricing, whereas (at least in Germany)
taxis are mandated to provide the same price to all customers, no matter
source or destination, or the skin color or BAC of the passenger

\- AirBNB gets flak because instead of people renting out their spare rooms, a
_lot_ of "hosts" abuse the system and run straight hotels in residential
areas, with all the problems this incurs (noise, drunkards, sometimes illegal
prostitution). In addition for many years AirBNB dodged the hotel and tourist
taxes that hotels had to pay, thus depriving the cities of tax revenue.

\- Google, well, is Google - their customer service is non-existing unless you
are handing them over dollars (which isn't even possible for many services).

\- Facebook/Twitter/Youtube... same problem and their "algorithms" were abused
by hackers and right wing trolls to feed the population vile conspiracy
theories and xenophobia.

Turns out that the state _does_ have to provide regulatory frameworks or the
"free market" will simply screw over the weakest people in society.

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berbec
I was interested in what he had to say until I got to:

"California imposed costly and complex regulations on the voluntary exchange
of data with such services as Facebook and Google."

Righttttt......

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PrettyPastry
Let’s not forget Time was purchased by major right wing political influencers.

~~~
neo4sure
Thank you....

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jewelthief91
"Progressive" is marketing term backed by a shaky ideology that has been
totally twisted to serve the powerful.

Eric Holder for example was hired for big money by Uber to push the narrative
that background checks for Uber drivers is discriminatory against minorities,
never mind that lack of background checks exposes women (especially women of
color) to a lot of danger from sex offenders.

Another example is in my own city of Seattle, Comcast for years has been
successfully advocating against broadband competitors and one of their
"arguments" is that building out higher speed internet in high income areas
will cause inequity that will affect minorities in poorer neighborhoods. By
"progressive" logic this makes perfect sense but it's obvious that it's simply
a powerful company blocking out competition.

