
Can We Trust Uber? - petercooper
https://medium.com/@petersimsie/can-we-trust-uber-c0e793deda36
======
freshflowers
We can answer this question by simply looking at what Uber is without the
smokescreen of "tech" and "disruption".

Uber is simply a very old and familiar way to circumvent labor, safety and
consumer protection laws. It just happens to have two new elements enabled by
tech: an app and dynamic pricing.

There is nothing "cool" or innovative about Uber. Many of the laws and
regulations Uber runs afoul of aren't outdated, they exist _very specifically
because of operations like Uber_ , which existed in the days before
smartphones and the internet.

And Uber brings absolutely nothing new to the table that changes the rationale
behind those regulations. What the fuck is innovative about facilitating
unlicensed taxi drivers in private cars? Hell, in Dutch we even have a word,
"snorders", for such people, a word that has been barely used in decades until
Uber popped up and revived it.

Uber is basically the kind of "business" that you would expect from an
organized crime outfit, and their _other_ dubious practices should come as no
surprise.

~~~
Loughla
First off, let me say that I want someone to please counter my argument. I
have been unable to see a valid counterargument so far.

I've thought about this quite a bit, anytime I see someone use the phrase
'disrupt an established company,' I assume they're talking about barely
skirting the law through the use of hazy, gray areas. And an app.

The only 'innovation' in (most of) these companies is the same 'innovation'
that this site screams about when it's on the part of patent trolls; I will do
X, but now I will do X with a smart phone or computer. That's not innovative,
it's lazy.

It would be super easy for giant companies to meet the same prices if they
were able to ignore laws. That's not competition, it's cheating.

~~~
hammock
The reason so much disruption comes from "barely skirting the law" is because
government sets up the law/regulation to entrench these old business models.
So much of what the US government does today is in service of big business,
not necessarily adhering to whatever moral standard you have in mind for the
rule of law.

Uber has to use the gray areas precisely because regulation was set up to
prevent disruption of the cab industry. This regulation inhibits growth and
promotes stagnation, evidenced by the fact that NYC cabs did not accept credit
cards until 2007 and by how obviously under-served the SF cab market was.

Uber, by skirting the laws that were not serving the consumer but rather
entrenching an industry has been able to do more in five years than the entire
taxi industry has in 50.

~~~
Loughla
I think you have the chicken and egg backwards. Issues with quality and
service are what formed regulation in the first place. Regulation exists to
fix a problem; look at the history of transportation, and the current state of
3rd world country transportation.

Cabs were dangerous and took advantage of people before regulation, much as
3rd world country cabs do today.

Your argument is not persuasive and is very short-sighted in terms of history.

And to take it one more step: Lead-uber, by skirting the laws that were not
serving the consumer but rather entrenching an industry has been able to do
more in five years than the entire lead mining industry has in 50.

Does that make you feel comfortable about 'disruption'? What makes mass
transportation any different?

------
saurik
I wish the title of this post on Hacker News could be the context-providing
"Uber allegedly revealed well-known rider's location without consent for
promotional purposes".

~~~
300bps
The article is not just about the one thing you mentioned. The first example
in the article of why we should question whether to trust Uber is the
corporate attacks that Uber allegedly waged against Lyft.

~~~
ryao
The real story is that Uber leaked confidential information without consent.
The discussion about Lyft is tangential.

~~~
outside1234
Is it? It shows a pattern of sleaze that raises the question on if Uber can be
trusted.

~~~
wavefunction
It seems like every time I see Uber in the news they're being assholes in one
way or another to their customers, drivers, competitors, and governments of
all types.

The ends don't justify the means.

------
jnaglick
My fairly worthless opinions as an NYC Startup Programmer:

1) 'Disruption' is just a code-word for skimming margins in legal grey areas

2) The founder of Uber's twitter avatar used to be the cover of "Atlas
Shrugged" (update: it's now a picture of Thomas Jefferson.)

3) Only tourists and transplants believe using an app is in any way better
than simply hailing a cab (with exception for storms, bad times, and bad
locations)

No idea why this company ever deserved my trust in the first place.

~~~
monksy
> 3) Only tourists and transplants believe using an app is in any way better
> than simply hailing a cab (with exception for storms, bad times, and bad
> locations)

You don't get taxis very often. From my experience in Chicago. They're
everywhere you want them to be. There are huge dead zones for taxis.
(Webster/Clybourn, Grand/New Orleans, Western/Armitage anytime before 6pm,
Humboldt park, 5am in Old Town [4am bars have a 5am cut off in Chicago on
Saturdays]). They tend to be either: a. on the phone the whole freaking time
speaking Hindi or b. blasting music.

They also tend to pull shit like: "Oh my CC machine is broken, please give me
cash" (which is against the ordinance), they'll try to use their square
payment reader instead (which is also a big no-no), etc.

Uber cuts that out. With Uber, despite my bad experiences, they're
consistently better.

~~~
untog
_You don 't get taxis very often. From my experience in Chicago._

I'm pretty sure the OP was only referring to NYC.

And even then, only Manhattan. Uber and the like have made it a lot easier to
book private cars, though it's difficult to know what the green "Boro" taxis
would look like if the apps hadn't launched.

------
DodgyEggplant
The question is even bigger: should we trust startups that claim "no evil"
when they are small, and quickly forget it when they grow? Here is another
example: [http://blog.garrytan.com/infanticide-how-anti-competitive-
la...](http://blog.garrytan.com/infanticide-how-anti-competitive-lawsuits-by)

~~~
zyx321
Short answer: No.

If faced with a choice between money and doing the right thing, corporations
are legally obligated (c.f. Dodge v. Ford) to pick money every single time.

~~~
GVIrish
Only a publicly traded company would be subject to Dodge v. Ford.

Even then, making money and doing the right thing are rarely a strict
dichotomy.

Trying to sue start ups out of existence is not the only way to ensure the
profitability of an incumbent company. Lawsuits always have the risk of losing
and flushing all of those legal costs down the toilet, or potentially inviting
countersuits. A company like Fab for instance could've just as easily decided
to buy the new competitor or get more aggressive on price or marketing to
snuff them out.

~~~
zyx321

       Only a publicly traded company would be subject to Dodge v. Ford.
    
    

...or startups that have publicly traded corporations as investors (which is
approximately all of them).

Don't delude yourself into thinking you can trust a corporation. Corporations
are sociopathic by design, barely kept in check by threats of lawsuits and bad
PR.

~~~
ceejayoz
> ...or startups that have publicly traded corporations as investors (which is
> approximately all of them).

What definition of startups are you using here?

~~~
zyx321
Okay, "all of them" might be an exaggeration, but it's certainly true of Uber
in particular.

~~~
ceejayoz
Startups with billion dollar valuations are rare and the exception, not the
rule.

------
atmosx
Of course you can't. That's crystal-clear by now. They've been called out more
times than I can count in the last 6 months.

"Does it matter?" That's the question that puzzles me, because seems that Uber
got the pockets and backers to continue it's aggressive progression towards
cabs annihilation.

------
Evolved
Uber cars aren't gypsy or livery cabs because the difference is that gypsy and
livery cabs often try to shake down the passenger for more money than what was
previously quoted or agreed on.

I had the exact experience that monksy outlined and it happened with Yellow
Cab (largest taxi provider in So Cal afaik) and I discovered the next day that
my card was used to ring up almost $1000 in gas and purchases almost 80 miles
from my house in a city I've never been to in my entire life. This obviously
doesn't mean that all taxi drivers are unscrupulous like this but you can't
help but appreciate that Uber and Lyft provide something not so trivial as a
way to pay without having to factor in an unethical driver.

Can we trust Uber? Not entirely. Shouldn't the question be, can we trust Uber
(and by proxy , Lyft) more than the alternatives?

~~~
morganvachon
> Can we trust Uber? Not entirely. Shouldn't the question be, can we trust
> Uber (and by proxy , Lyft) more than the alternatives?

But at that point you still must answer the question: Do you trust Lyft or
other alternatives more than Uber? Given the evidence we have, I don't trust
Uber to tell me the sky is blue; I'm damn sure not doing business with them.

------
godisdad
When I moved to the Bay Area, I was amazed at how bad cabbies were. They were
expensive, took a long time to show up, often flaked out on even showing up
and often refused to take me where I wanted to go.

Über was a breath of fresh air. I rationalized their competitive gaffs with
Lyft as "they're just competing" and their syncretic religion of Ayn Rand
books and Clayton Christensen as objectionable but tolerable. But I don't use
them anymore. I started to use Uber constantly, refer friends and some OSS
I've written even powers Uber's node.js components today.

But their support of Urban Shield is the straw that broke the camel's back.
And I do not want to line the pockets of anyone accelerating the
militarization of the police in the US. Like the author, I can't see myself
trusting them to do what's right.

------
kapnobatairza
You can probably trust Uber just about as much as you can trust the TLC. The
only real difference is that Uber has a bit more real--time data they can
mine. Even if you only pay for your cabs in cash, your privacy can be
compromised by pick up/drop off point meta data
([http://research.neustar.biz/2014/09/15/riding-with-the-
stars...](http://research.neustar.biz/2014/09/15/riding-with-the-stars-
passenger-privacy-in-the-nyc-taxicab-dataset/)).

Then what about all the other plethora of apps and OS features that do
background location tracking. Can we trust them?

I think this problem really goes beyond Uber and touches on something
fundamental about how we can maintain privacy when everyday technology asks
for so much more personal information to operate.....

Maybe we need more robust data privacy laws. Maybe we need better technology
that allows for identity obfuscation or anonymity. Maybe we need to mature as
a society so transparency is less likely to lead to harassment, violence or
discrimination. Maybe it is a combination of all of the above.

I just don't think you should leave it up to Uber.

~~~
wdewind
Except that the the yellow cab leaks are unintentional and based on ignorance,
and these are (allegedly) based on intentional disregard for privacy. So I
don't agree that the two are the same at all.

------
declan
These are shocking and worrisome allegations, but I do want to hear Uber's
response. Perhaps they asked certain well-known users if they wanted their
locations to be revealed and there was a miscommunication? It seems unlikely,
I admit, but there tend to be two sides to every story.

If the allegations are true and there was no miscommunication, Uber violated
its privacy policy and should be held accountable. Note I'm not calling for
FTC action, but (again, if this is true) Uber's management owes me and other
users an explanation, an apology, and a plan for privacy controls to ensure
this doesn't happen again. Firing the person responsible would not be
inappropriate. You can read the privacy policy yourself here:
[https://www.uber.com/legal/usa/privacy#3](https://www.uber.com/legal/usa/privacy#3)

It's also a little depressing. I've taken pains to try to get privacy "right"
when working on [http://recent.io/](http://recent.io/), including being
extremely sensitive about location privacy, and examples like this (again, if
true) will make folks less likely to trust apps in general. It's a shame
because phone owners will assume that if you can't trust the billion-dollar
lawyered-up companies to get privacy right, you surely can't trust the smaller
ones. So it becomes safer not to install the apps in the first place. :(

------
vonklaus
THIS IS ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE, and MAY BE COINCEDENTAL: I was having serious
problems using Uber because both forms of payment I was using were failing
processing. They were both credit cards I had used earlier in the night, and
were both certainly valid. I became frustrated, and as Uber has no customer
support I had to sort out contingency. I downloaded lyft and then Uber started
to work. It processed both cards and let me request a a car (if it does not
process it saves the info but does not let you request). So instantly, without
me doing anything, I was immeadiately able to use Uber after I downloaded
lyft, without doing anything extra. So I now exclusively use Lyft. It has been
cheaper for all comparable distances I can track.

------
gainorpain
I suspect this is a bogus article designed to stir up the name Uber and draw
some attention to them.

Stealth marketing, or "murketing" as Rob Walker calls it in his book Buying
In.

Seriously. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced this article is a
sneaky Uber marketing ploy. Don't trust it. I call fake.

------
bingobob
in uber we trust.??

------
lemcoe9
However, for the _vast_ majority of users, who cares? The service is useful at
a usually-fair price. If it works, use it.

~~~
300bps
_The service is useful at a usually-fair price. If it works, use it._

Hopefully we can agree that Uber doing things like corporate attacks against
Lyft might say something about their character that should give you pause on
dealing with them. For example, someone willing to unfairly attack a
competitor might also think nothing of disclosing a customer's location in
real time without permission for promotional purposes. Oh, they reportedly did
that too. With a pattern of poor judgment, it only makes sense to question
whether you should use them even if it generally just works.

~~~
morganvachon
For me at least, it's not even the questionable morality of pulling dirty
tricks on your biggest competitor. It's the fact that Uber feels they have to
do these dirty deeds to get ahead in the game. If you feel you can't compete
on a level playing field and you have to do such things to keep up, it tells
me that you don't have a clue how to really do business in the first place.

If I can't trust Uber to build a better product instead of sabotaging their
competitor, I'll go with their competitor by default.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
Why do you think they're doing it because they 'have to' instead of doing it
because they 'can'.

~~~
morganvachon
It could be either, or both. Regardless, it's dirty and makes me feel that
they'd probably treat their customers with the same disdain.

