Discussion for article #230272
Ah, I understand now. Two-year olds are running our corporations now.
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Seems like Uber is going the way of Gamergate.
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What a blithering jackass. I have no idea what the hell “Uber” is, but this dickhead just gave lots of people justification for ignoring it.
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Uber is a bad company. They offer no protection for the public from drivers that they employ. In addition, they are attacking many taxi drivers who have spent multiple thousands to purchase a medallion, which is now considerably reduced in value by Uber and Lyft and other such companies. These companies should be forced to abide by the same laws for public carriage providers that taxi companies must satisfy.
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My views “do not reflect my actual views”. Oooo-k.
Sounds like a class-A douchebag.
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They allow you to hire people who act like taxi carriers with their private vehicles. However, there are insurance issues (if the vehicle has an accident, are you covered), issues of fairness (since the existence of Uber and Lyft undercut the value of taxi medallions, are taxi medallions owners owed compensation), issues of safety (no one vetts the drivers for Uber and Lyft, and it isn’t clear that anyone actually knows who is driving - are they sex offenders, rapists, etc).
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It’s cleat that he really does regret his remarks, quite sincerely. It is also clear that they quite accurately reflect the attitudes of him and his company.
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Let us also not forget the issue of “congestion pricing.” Apparently if you try and get one of these cars during a period where lots of people are also trying (such as the end of a concert) the service’s double secret decoder jacks up the price…a lot. I heard one report of someone in San Francisco who left a concert downtown for their apartment in another part of town and found themselves with a $300+ bill for the service.
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Well, he does seem to have hired a crisis management firm smart enough to grasp that a prompt, actual apology rather than a weaselly nonpology has a far better chance of shutting down a shitstorm in the early stages and he’s shown he’s smart enough to follow their advice.
But anyone who thinks this came from his heart, untainted by any trace of cynical professional crisis management advice is dreaming.
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No walk backs. You say it, you own it.
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Basically regulatory arbitrage.
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Ah, now I understand Uber’s popularity among the DC power boys…kismet.
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Wealthy Sociopaths just HATE IT when the plebeians challenge their authority.
They will use any and all means to extract revenge.
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It’s hard to ignore Uber since their cars sport pink moustaches.
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No, those are Lyft cars with mustaches – Uber’s chief competitor.
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They’re really big around around San Francisco, and in September an Uber driver attacked his passenger with a hammer.
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On the one hand, it’s pretty obvious that Uber and its ilk are dodgy attempts to evade regulatory responsibility for taxi service (NickDanger outlines the issues). On the other hand, taxi medallions are kind of a racket too - in major cities their cost to drivers is out of all proportion to any reasonable value they confer, and so the medallions are a way to maintain a cartel of taxi service.
Human-driven taxis have perhaps a decade still to live; once self-driving cars start hitting the road in numbers, the human-driven taxis will be out of business not long after. (Also long-haul truckers, but that’s another story.)
I stand corrected. But I do see a lot of the pink moustaches around town.
It’s high time we did something about these aliens or spirits or whatever it is that is forcing people to say things that do not reflect their own views. This is a travesty!
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