Voting With Dollars: Politicians and Their Staffers Roll With Uber 132
The Center for Public Integrity, an anonymous reader writes, has conducted an analysis of the relationship between one interesting group of riders (275 federal politicians and political committees) and ride-sharing services like Uber. From their report, it seems this group "together spent more than $278,000 on at least 7,625 Uber rides during the 2013-2014 election cycle." That's a roughly 18-fold spending increase from the previous election cycle, when federal committees together spent about $15,000 on Uber services. It represents a veritable monopoly, too: Almost no political committee used Uber's direct competitors, Lyft and Sidecar, according to the analysis, and traditional taxi use declined precipitously. Bipartisan love of Uber abounds, with politicos of all stripes composing a de facto Uber caucus, voting with their money for a wildly popular but controversial company.
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Hate for Uber (Score:1, Interesting)
I'll never understand the hate for Uber. It reminds me of the middle class voting against their best interest. I don't use Uber, but they are here to provide YOU with competition in the taxi market. This is a net win for YOU. Have you used yellow taxis in the US? They are invariably old and decrepit and don't seem to be particularly safe. Every Uber cab I have seen seems to be nice and clean and well maintained.
Again I don't use Uber as it seems strange to me to enter a car with a freelance stranger driving
Re:Hate for Uber (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand the hate for people who drive without a license. I mean, I know people who have licenses and have had many accidents. And a lot of people I know who have no driver's license are good drivers. Why the hate, man? It's a free country you should be allowed to drive without a license or insurance if you want...
I think the point is people who have to jump through certain legal hoops to comply with laws, bylaws, rules and regulations of an industry don't feel too happy when any John Doe can offer the same service without having to do any of the above. The regulations are there for a reason, just like the driver's license is there for a reason.
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I hate Uber, but its not for the driver safety reason.
Here we have an app that is putting the entire taxi industry out of work, while the apps creators become billionaires. So all the drivers, dispachers, mechanics, etc employed in the entire taxi industry are facing job losses. Instead of taxi money supporting thousands of families in every city, the same money is going to support a part time job, and fill Uber's bank accounts.
Disruptive capitalism at its finest. Sure uber is cheaper for the consumer, but
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So you hate Uber because it makes some people rich? At least you are being honest. You are right: people hate Uber because they see the Uber execs getting rich.
"So all the drivers, dispachers, mechanics, etc employed in the entire taxi industry are facing job losses."
Uber cars also need drivers, dispatchers, mechanics, etc. That isn't a reason to hate them. You pinpointed the reason in your first sentence. It is jealously because some guys in California are getting rich off of it.
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That's refreshingly honest. The laws exist to protect jobs in that particular industry.
Despicable, but honest. Usually people bleat about how unlicensed hair-braiders (or tour guides, or interior decorators, or whatever) will cause the apocalypse, as unsuspecting customers get back-alley hair-braidings (or whatever).
But not this time. Just a flat-out claim that without government stifling competitors, they wouldn't have jobs.
Kudos to you!
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We need to pick one, which is it?
Yes, the industry is using it to their advantage. I used to get angry about this too but now I see that people have to defend their jobs People *here* gotta ma
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The economy is sucking for people. They are working for Uber because they have to. They are desperate. That is all that is happening here.
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Two inapt economic metaphors for the price of one!
The mining metaphor ("extracting", like it was bauxite).
The maritime metaphor ("keeping it afloat", like it was a rowboat or an ocean liner).
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We need to pick one
Uh, no. (Also, who is this "we"? The Commissariat for Personal Transportation Services?)
Some people want the better service enough to pay more for it. Some prefer something more affordable, and are willing to tolerate the lower quality, so they can spend the difference on other things. Maybe they'd rather put up with the lower quality than do without.
What's wrong with allowing diversity in this area, too?
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Oh. I thought you were talking about government, not society, not the public.
A reasonable mistake, since we had been talking about government, specifically, a law.
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Always?
That explains why all restaurants are McDonald's, all cars are Yugos, all computers are Commodore Pets, and so on.
Oh, wait. They aren't.
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Except for the whole "We want to use robot cars" thing. Uber wants to dump the Uber drivers, kids. They want self-driving cars, and all the profits for the executives. They aren't out to make you money. They want all the money. And yes, that means two million cab drivers, poor laborers in a crappy job, out of work forever.
Same thing in the trucking industry. They want the drivers gone. And not because of human error- the error is caused by pressure by the owners to increase profits, which dials down to maki
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So you hate Uber because it makes some people rich?
Making money is not necessarily a morally neutral activity.
People who get rich through human trafficking, for example, are scum.
Re:Hate for Uber (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed to the owners of New York taxi medallions, who do no work at all whilst still getting rich?
Eh? Uber, at most, replaces the taxi cab dispatchers at the other end of the phone line. The cars still need drivers. If anything they're creating more jobs by making it easier to go everywhere by cab, so increasing the demand for the labour intensive service of driving.
Now when Uber start to phase out drivers entirely in favour of robots, then you'll have a point. But it'll be another round of the same debate that's been rolling for centuries.
What, you only get driven by immigrants who cross the border each morning? I think you'll find plenty of the money goes to the driver and some gets kept by Uber. Well, why not use the Canadian competitor to Uber then? It's not like they have any kind of cutting edge technological advantage. It's just a mobile app and some databases.
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Of course, in this case, the laws, bylaws, rules and regulations exist to maintain the monopolies held by the existing taxi companies.
If you think service is better with the entrenched monopoly, no problem. But don't make the mistake of thinking that the existing condition is anything other than a monopoly literally bought and paid for by the taxi companies....
Note, for the record, that I'm pretty much a disinter
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This argument may be valid in some jurisdictions but not all even in the US.
Here in New Zealand the taxi industry was deregulated some 20+ years ago. Requirements are an appropriate level of licence, police check and a vetting by the govt. Transport Authority that you have the right structures, log books etc.
No monopoly exists to any one firm in any major city but the pre- existing firms have maintained their dominance in the main: e.g. Auckland Co-op, Black & White Cabs (Wgtn). Why? Better service and
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Note, for the record, that I'm pretty much a disinterested third party in all this - I don't use Uber OR taxis, don't drive for either, don't even know anyone attached to either....
The poster doth protest too much, methinks.
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Because its sets a president that you o not have to provide any significant skill set to haul people around. Would you want pilots to be hired like this? Or truck drivers? I think eventually Uber will face resistance like Kansas who has passed legislation that basically makes Uber illegal in its present form. Every business has regulations and requirements to do business. Why is it Uber is incapable of doing this, and why do some think that's OK?
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Just because you think something is against the "law" and "regulations" doesn't mean it is wrong.
It also doesn't mean it's right, despite the extremist libertarian view common here that anything which is anti-government is inherently A Good Thing.
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While I dislike Uber for different reasons, why do we need to regulate/legislate tax drivers in any other way than regular drivers? Is giving rides to others somehow requires
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"Is giving rides to
others somehow requires a different skill set than
driving yourself?"
None at all.
That's why I always argue that school busses should be replaced with kids just hitchiking to school and back.
Same goes for all other cases wher one needs to be driven somewhere safely and on time.
Any random stranger with a car will do.
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Uber is like the non-handicapped person that parks in a handicapped spot in the parking lot, and then smugly thinks to themselves that they cracked some sort of code to society that entitles them to be the closest.
*cough* Steve Jobs *cough*.
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Speaking of traffic court, a bill in the Missouri General Assembly would limit the percentage of a municipality's revenue that could come from traffic fines (or fines in general -- I forget which). It's 12.5% in St. Louis County (where Ferguson and other ticket-heavy municipalities are), and 20% elsewhere in the state.
The governor is expected to sign it.
Why not lyft (Score:2)
Why is uber preferred to Lyft?
As for whether these services should be allowed is another question. The central issue is do taxi licensing provide useful standards. The answer is definitely yes and one can see this from the regulations cities imposed that were show stoppers. for example, NM required drug testing after any vehicular collision. Kansas required commercial carrier insurance during the time the vehicle is hired. Others have required sex offender background checks (and notably there have be
Re:Hate for Uber (Score:5, Interesting)
You may not agree with it, but surely you must understand it? For what it's worth I am ambivalent about Uber and I am a Bitcoin developer, so I'm hardly someone to have kneejerk reactions against libertarian positions. But I do fully understand why Uber makes people uncomfortable.
The basic issue here is we are all raised in a social environment where it is assumed that law and morality are the same thing. Children aren't exposed to the difference at all - if a child asks their parents "why can't I do this thing?" and get an answer like "because it's against the law honey" then they aren't likely to enquire any further, and if they did, it's unlikely their parents will launch into a deep discussion of the history and theory of state power. It's just something you don't do because it's against the law.
In parallel children observe something else - things that are illegal are very often bad, and things that are bad are very often illegal. If a kid doesn't like it when her older brother steals her toys, and then her parents tell her that (a) stealing is wrong and (b) stealing is against the law, the link between law and morality is reinforced. Keep doing this over and over and the two notions develop as one.
Eventually, when we're much much older, we may start reading in the newspapers about miscarriages of justice. We realise the system is flawed. We may encounter laws or regulations that don't make much sense. We may decide that laws in other countries are unjust. But the notion that breaking the law is inherently immoral is ingrained very deep and is very hard to discard. Does English even have a word for an act which is illegal yet moral? I can't think of one. The closest is the concept of civil disobedience, but somewhere along the line that notion got linked with the idea that you have to put yourself up for arbitrary punishment as part of the "protest". So all governments have to do is make the punishments incredibly severe and hey, now there's no civil disobedience anymore, thus all law must be moral, right?
Laws are especially important because they are intended to give people stability, certainty and the ability to make long term plans. Some philosophers argue that the entire purpose of the state is to give people the ability to make long term plans. Certainly, stability is how regimes like the PRC justify their existence. The ideal body of law is precise, easy to understand, minimal, just and yet robustly enforced - thus everyone knows where the line is drawn and everyone can stay on the right side of it. Of course, real law falls short of this ideal quite often.
Now throw technological change in the mix. Larry Page once observed that it seems every time someone invents something new it starts out by being illegal. I can't quite remember where he said this unfortunately, so I can't give a citation. It might even have been some internal Google event. But he's said very similar things in the past in public [businessinsider.com].
So, enter companies like Uber. Or Lyft, or AirBnB, or even PayPal (it had a world of legal pain in the early years). Does anyone seriously think it'd be possible to build a service like Uber in the legal way? Bear in mind that many of the taxi regulations that governments want to mindlessly enforce specify details of things like how CB Radio is to be used (irrelevant with smartphones), how to print license information in the vehicle (irrelevant with smartphones), that the vehicle should be bright yellow so it can be spotted from the street (irrelevant with smartphones) .... in India they even specify that you must have a minimum of 12 phone lines going to your New Delhi based HQ! And you can forget about just asking nicely for change. Taxi regulators appear to be pretty much the opposite of dynamism, and taxi regulations are so boring that no parliament
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That wasn't a bad assumption when laws were almost entirely against acts widely regarded as malum in se. Now that we have a shit-ton of laws (and a googol of shit-tons of regulations) against acts that are merely malum prohibitum, that assumption is of more questionable validity.
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Eventually, when we're much much older, we may start reading in the newspapers about miscarriages of justice. We realise the system is flawed. We may encounter laws or regulations that don't make much sense. We may decide that laws in other countries are unjust. But the notion that breaking the law is inherently immoral is ingrained very deep and is very hard to discard. Does English even have a word for an act which is illegal yet moral? I can't think of one. The closest is the concept of civil disobedience, but somewhere along the line that notion got linked with the idea that you have to put yourself up for arbitrary punishment as part of the "protest".
I think this isn't quite right.
You suggest obedience to seemingly unjust laws is solely due to the fact we've been conditioned to equate respect for the law with morality, but I think there's a far more pragmatic aspect to it as well. Humans are spectacularly good at rationalization, it is really easy to convince yourself that a self-serving act is moral. Therefore your default assumption should be to respect the law even when it seems wrong because you might be rationalizing an immoral behaviour.
The second
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Unless you think it's okay to drive around on the wrong side of the street hurling feces out your window.
I get the feeling that a lot of people here would be fine with that as long as it somehow made them rich.
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The only real problem I have with Uber is their insistence that they are not a taxi service. Their weasel wording attempt at trying to redefine their business using semantics triggers every bullshit alarm and it sounds like they're trying to pull a fast one. If they would just admit to being a taxi service, require their drivers to carry full commercial insurance, and focus on being the best goddamned taxi service in the world and following the rules that are in place to protect consumers (and drivers), I
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They dont understand it because they've never lived anywhere without taxi regulations. They don't know what an unregulated industry actually looks like.
I have lived in places where the government simply didn't give a shit about taxi drivers. It may seem nice now, but eventually oversupply has to be dealt with. If the government doesn't do it then the drivers themselves will and their methods are far less pleasant than overpriced taxi medalli
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The basic issue here is we are all raised in a social environment where it is assumed that law and morality are the same thing. Children aren't exposed to the difference at all.
Speak for yourself. My parents instilled a very strong sense of right and wrong and the difference between the law and morality into me.
Breaking a law in order to make yourself a lot of money is not a moral act, even if the law is wrong. You don't carry out civil disobedience for profit.
(My parents taught me that the pursuit of money for its own sake is not a good thing, but I guess they were just communist hippies.)
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I'll never understand the hate for Uber. It reminds me of the middle class voting against their best interest.
What you decided was in their best interests.
Following ideals instead of greed is what a person thinks is generally in their best interests, but you have decided that doing this isn't in their best interests. This leads us to question why greed so easily overtakes your own ideals.
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I'm not sure how Yellow Taxi is some sort of "ideal" to strive for. Local taxi companies are corrupt and hand in hand with the politicians. The are exclusionary. I guess if opening up markets to new participants makes me "greedy" then I am "greedy".
You are blind to the disconnect between this view and your view on voters "voting against their best interests." Quite inconsistent. A yellow cab driver that supports uber and votes based on this support would be "voting against his/her best interests" as you so callously decided. You arent the arbiter of what is or is not in the best interest of others, especially when principles are on the table.
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I've used Uber 4 times and found it convenient and user friendly, especially for rides to the airport where getting a cab on demand in a residential area is not easy.
Most of the hate directed at Uber seems to boil down to one of two things;
1) They're dangerous -- poor insurance, poor screening, etc.
Whatever the risk potential actually is (and I seem to hear a lot of competing claims about coverage and when its in effect), in practice it seems smaller than many everyday risks. In December Uber claimed somet
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What if the law itself is unethical?
I think you can make a reasonable argument that a number of laws surrounding the taxi business are themselves unethical in that they in effect use the force of law to guarantee a healthy profit margin to a select (and likely politically influential) group of local businessmen who are allowed to operate a cartel that has poor service, high prices and bad working conditions. It's naive in the extreme to believe that this also hasn't involved bribes, payoffs and organized
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This stinks of shill.
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You don't like Uber or Bitcoin? Then don't use them.
You don't like child porn? Then don't watch it.
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The social contract is a non-existent thing.
Ah yes, "there is no such thing as society". You're the fucking delusional one.
Do as I say, don't do as I do (Score:1)
Perhaps Uber's "it's not illegal if we can get away with it" attitude speaks to politicians, but ideally you'd expect the people who make the law to have more respect for it.
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Perhaps Uber's "it's not illegal if we can get away with it" attitude speaks to politicians, but ideally you'd expect the people who make the law to have more respect for it.
They don't. Consequently, neither should any of us. We don't comply with the law because it embodies some philosophical ideal, but because the enforcers of the law vastly outclass the average citizen in terms of power (social/political/fire power) and the amount of retributive force that can and will be applied to those who dissent.
So, yes, follow the law for your own sake, but don't respect it. It has veered off the rails of good sense and blind justice long ago.
Horse bollocks.
If you really want to throw the baby out with the bath water and reject "the law" entirely, you're saying that murder, rape, theft and everything else are acceptable.
Won't matter (Score:3)
Politicians are nothing if not hypocritical. They'll vote wherever the campaign donations are biggest, regardless of whether they use Uber or not.
What is Uber offering up behind closed doors? (Score:1)
Vote for Johnson! The name you know
Uber is the perfect example of free-market failure (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Uber is the perfect example of free-market fai (Score:5, Insightful)
That is patently wrong. Once you get in the car, it and you have a million dollar commercial insurance policy.
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Good point. They can sell insurance to Uber and whenever there is an accident, they can just say" Oops! No commercial license. Sorry, no payout. Oh, by the way, your premium is due for renewal."
"Of course it's ok for me to operate on you, look I bought special surgeons' insurance. What do you mean, am I a qualified doctor? What's that got to do with it?"
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Wrong (Score:2)
Perhaps where you live there is Uber insurance. but New Mexico legislature just passed a law demanding such insurance and Uber and Lift said they would pull out when it became law.
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Yes, but that's a risk that the driver takes not the Uber customer. And coverage when the app is on but not being used is a relatively minor detail of insurance - it will get worked out in one way or another.
Uber isn't even cheaper than a regular taxi in many places. It can be more expensive. When I was last in SF there was never a time without surge pricing. Seems it doesn't hurt them though. Lots of people seem to prefer the Uber experience regardless of price.
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Lives get destroyed when insurance companies start to "work things out". They just refuse to pay, preiod.
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Lots of people seem to prefer the Uber experience regardless of price.
1. It is perceived as cool because you access it via an app, rather than a boring old phone call.
2. You can convince yourself that you're a powerful executive in a chauffeur driven car.
3. It is perceived as cool and edgy because it's "disruptive".
tl;dr wankers love it
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They already got a large commercial insurance policy for their drivers. Insurance companies care about money and risk, they aren't denying insurance for the period when the driver is alone but with the app switched on because of some specific high minded ideal, it's a commercial decision.
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+1 to this.
However, the standard "Libertarian" response boils down to, "I'm getting what I want, fuck everyone else."
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Free to choose.
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Which is its the most common form of government in the world and no country has ever said "this aint working" and replaced it.
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I and most other reasonable professional adults are carrying massive amounts of insurance, health insurance, umbrella, long term disability, short term disability, life insurance. You have to because you cannot control what someone else's insurance will and won't pay. And because of Uber's advertising the passenger as covered when the accident inevitably happens the insurance company will go after Uber and get their money. The people who are really at risk are the Drivers as their insurance policies do n
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Not in New York City. (Score:3)
Of course if you are a black man, getting picked up immediately, rather than watching 20 cabs ignore you may make you willing to spend more for Uber.
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Of course if you are a black man, getting picked up immediately, rather than watching 20 cabs ignore you may make you willing to spend more for Uber.
You shills are getting quite ingenious.
Apart from being disruptive, edgy, cool and all, Uber is also anti-racist.
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But you're taking a huge risk of financial ruin if there is an accident.
How does this speculative risk compare to the well-established risk of death
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But you're taking a huge risk of financial ruin if there is an accident.
How does this speculative risk compare to the well-established risk of death
YOLO right?
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Uber is cheaper than a real taxi. They have better customer service. The drivers generally drive in a much more polite way. It probably *feels* safer. But you're taking a huge risk of financial ruin if there is an accident. Likely *nobody* will pay for your injuries and you will end up bankrupt. But that risk is hidden. It's unlikely that most uber users are thinking about this possible consequence.
Recently I saw an Airbnb horror story where by a guest ended up being savaged by the owner's dog, while on the property and had to spend 2 days in hospital (this occurred in Argentina, and apparently the dog had been OK with this guest for a couple of days prior). Until a journalist got involved, the Airbnb response was "Nah, not our problem". Then Airbnb came back with "Can we take a second look at those hospital bills?" and apparently they have now rolled out some sort of liability insurance - but on fo
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Let's examine your points:
So, Uber is cheaper and better - that's failure?
And Uber is replacing a non-free solution (government regulated taxis)
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I wonder how many other laws people will find that are keeping them from a billion dollars and what this will become.
Cab companies are riskier (Score:2)
> But you're taking a huge risk of financial ruin if there is an accident. Likely *nobody* will pay for your injuries and you will end up bankrupt.
The cabs in New York, for example, are usually worse than this. There was a court case a while back about how they screw you with their insurance. Basically they made each cab its *own* LLC and provided the minimum insurance permitted by law. So good luck recovering.
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The reason you have shit as a consumer (automotive, energy, communications, etc) is precisely because of regulations.
Better products and services come in spite of regulations, not because of them.
Ah yes, the good old "of course the 2008 banking crisis was caused by too much regulation, not too little" argument.
So now we're against government regulation? (Score:1)
It's funny how many Slashdotters will rage against industries like energy companies and internet providers for trying to ramrod their business models through the market just to try to make, gasp, MONEY and therefore need to have government regulation.
Now along comes Uber which bypasses all regulation and doesn't want to be regulated like the taxi companies (which are highly regulated specifically to protect and insure people's safety on the roads, prevent overcrowding, pollution controls, etc) and oh hey, i
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The difference is that industries like energy companies and internet providers are generally trying to ram through their business models which consist primarily of "screw you, customers, we're a monopoly and you can suck it!", while Uber is attempting to bypass regulations that are primarily designed to *protect* a monopoly (taxi companies - there might be multiple, but if they all work together, it comes to about the same thing). More competition is *always* good for consumers.
Could Uber use a bit more reg
Hiring Obama's campaign manager was a smart move (Score:3, Interesting)
Hiring David Plouffe [cnn.com] was a smart move for Uber. The man knows, how to improve pubic perception of anything. Not that I disapprove of his current employer, but to sell the country the shit-sandwich we have in the White House today — that's a sign of a true master.
While we are repeatedly told [salon.com] to hate on rich donors like Koch brothers, it is people like Mr. Plouffe, who really run the country...
Of course, the first sign of his coming onboard at Uber was the spike of spamming by the company. And not just the specials and discounts, which are legitimate things a business may send to existing active customers, but propaganda crap like "women equality at Uber" or "Uber for safer cities". I was disgusted and now begin my search for a ride with Lyft, but it must've been a win with most of their customers...
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This is where you would normally demand a citation. I love how you demand nothing short of black-and-white proof from those on the other side of an argument, but then you make totally absurd, hyperbolic comments like the above with no evidence at all.
So either:
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I see, that you find my ideas intriguing. Would you like to subscribe to my newsletter?
Please, don't hate...
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Ha, you self-aggrandizing jackass. I just called you out on your crazy bullshit by applying reason. Is this
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Sigh... Haters gonna hate...
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Instead of repeating that same, tired meme, why don't you use your big boy words and put together a real response? I've exposed you as a hypocrite and either an idiot or a troll. Are you too stupid to defe
Privacy and tracking (Score:2)
I am surprised politicians don't mind getting tracked this way. All it takes is one drop-off near anything mildly controversial to create serious blackmail against said politician.
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It's high time we had an anonymous internet device for anonymous activities like shopping, web search, hailing taxis etc... i.e. personal stuff that's nobody else's business. And another highly tracked, non-anonymous part of the internet where security is more important than privacy.
The two flavors of Uber (Score:3)
The "traditional" Uber - Uber Black - is almost certainly what's being used by politicians. It provides a nice black car (complete with a registered driver who already holds all of the necessary permits, etc) for slightly more than the cost of a Taxi and in my experience has always been great. UberX is the "new" Uber, where random people are driving. Don't confuse the two.
Personally, for the money I'll take "Uber Black" any day. It doesn't command a very significant premium and gives a generally nicer and more professional experience all around.
Never was it a ride sharing servic. (Score:2)
Stop fucking calling it one. You share a ride to the same place with a friend.
When you communicate with a dispatcher, who then sends you a stranger driving a his car who has never met you, to take you to a destination he isn't even aware of without the dispatcher ... And then you pay him when you get there ...
That's called a taxi.
If you are too stupid to understand this then there is absolutely no way we can have a discussion about it in any form.
If you can't even understand what they do, you don't get to