Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!)

HardwareGeek

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Can you even get an Uber on a computer?

I don't use Uber, but you can with Lyft. For a while, there was some problem with the app on my phone. I forget exactly; it was trying to get me to accept updated terms and conditions, or something, but wouldn't respond to my acceptance. The app would work if I opened it in response to a notification that a driver was on the way, but not if I opened it to request a driver; I had to do that from my computer prior to opening the app on my phone.

With a taxi, you see a taxi driving around on the street and you stick your finger in the air and you yell TAXI! and hope they hear you.

In most of the world, taxis don't happen to drive around on the street often enough to make this a useful mode of transportation. If you want a taxi to arrive at your house before the heat death of the universe, you have to request one from the dispatcher.

GuyWhoKilledBear

@HardwareGeek said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Hail-by-contacting-the-central-office-using-a-telephone versus hail-by-hailing is the central difference between a car service and a taxi service.

I disagree. Maybe if you live downtown in an urban area you can just walk outside and hail a passing taxi, but most places I've lived (suburbs, not rural, which would be even less frequent), you might wait days or even weeks for a taxi to just happen by. Before Uber/Lyft, if you needed a taxi, you had to look up the phone number of the taxi company in the phone book and call them. And you still might have to wait an hour for one to show up at your door.

I don't think you do disagree, because you're saying the same thing I am.

If you call it and schedule it to come to your house, it's not a taxi. It's a different thing called a "car service." My house isn't serviced by "taxi services" either. (Because some people don't understand the difference - because it often doesn't matter - many car services market themselves to customers as taxi companies.)

A taxi service and a car service are slightly, only slightly, different from each other. From how it's being described on this website, it sounds like German law is exaggerating the difference between Uber, a car service, and a taxi company.

HardwareGeek

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Yeah, a lot of places have gotten rid of POTS landlines. In the US, next to no one actually has a land line anymore.

Some of us haven't had a "landline" (POTS or VoIP) for many years. My cell phone is my only phone.

HardwareGeek

@Carnage said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

this is some anal arguing over dumb shit about a horrible company.

So, a typical Thursday at TDWTF.

HardwareGeek

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

If you call it and schedule it to come to your house, it's not a taxi. It's a different thing called a "car service." ...
A taxi service and a car service are slightly, only slightly, different from each other.

That difference is very, very, very slight if the car that shows up my house is the same car (that says XYZ Taxi Company on the door), with the same meter, the same fare, and the same driver that you could wave your arm at as (s)he's dropping me off at my destination.

topspin

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

A taxi service and a car service are slightly, only slightly, different from each other. From how it's being described on this website, it sounds like German law is exaggerating the difference between Uber, a car service, and a taxi company.

Not quite. Their first service, UberPOP, was classified as a taxi service. For which they just didn't follow the rules. They could've just followed the rules, but then they wouldn't have a competetive advantage, because they themselves apparently don't think their app alone makes that much of a difference.
They are now deliberately operating (with UberX or whatever, who knows) in a way that makes them fall under rental car regulations, or something like that. Now, if they actually followed those rules instead of just trying to avoid the others ...

dcon

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

With a taxi, you see a taxi driving around on the street

I live in the suburbs. You need a taxi, you call. They might hang out in some places (like a high volume train station, but don't bet on it). Explains why I see basically zero difference between a traditional taxi company and Uber.

GuyWhoKilledBear

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

A taxi service and a car service are slightly, only slightly, different from each other. From how it's being described on this website, it sounds like German law is exaggerating the difference between Uber, a car service, and a taxi company.

Not quite. Their first service, UberPOP, was classified as a taxi service. For which they just didn't follow the rules. They could've just followed the rules, but then they wouldn't have a competetive advantage, because they themselves apparently don't think their app alone makes that much of a difference.

I have no idea what UberPop is, but Regular Uber isn't a taxi service and I'm suspicious that the laws that Germany is citing were good ones. In my experience, Uber has a much better track record with this than the governments who oppose them.

They are now deliberately operating (with UberX or whatever, who knows) in a way that makes them fall under rental car regulations, or something like that. Now, if they actually followed those rules instead of just trying to avoid the others ...

Rental car? Like you go to an Uber place at the airport and they give you the keys and you drive yourself around for a few days?

dcon

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

calling emergency services stops working if the power goes out.

My "land line" stops working if the power goes out. Well, it'll work for a little while since I do have a UPS. (<rant>Until my "ultra reliable" AT&T router decides to reboot itself.</rant>)

boomzilla

@dcon said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

With a taxi, you see a taxi driving around on the street

I live in the suburbs. You need a taxi, you call. They might hang out in some places (like a high volume train station, but don't bet on it). Explains why I see basically zero difference between a traditional taxi company and Uber.

I suspect the difference is more about being able to drive around and pick people up without a prior arrangement. This little subthread seems to me to be going down the wrong track.

dcon

@HardwareGeek said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Some of us haven't had a "landline" (POTS or VoIP) for many years. My cell phone is my only phone.

I keep debating about dropping mine. It's just that I've had that number for 26 years now... And it's associated with so many accounts...

boomzilla

@dcon said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

calling emergency services stops working if the power goes out.

My "land line" stops working if the power goes out. Well, it'll work for a little while since I do have a UPS.

#MeToo, except FiOS. Well, it's more that the FiOS terminal has its own battery backup.

topspin

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

A taxi service and a car service are slightly, only slightly, different from each other. From how it's being described on this website, it sounds like German law is exaggerating the difference between Uber, a car service, and a taxi company.

Not quite. Their first service, UberPOP, was classified as a taxi service. For which they just didn't follow the rules. They could've just followed the rules, but then they wouldn't have a competetive advantage, because they themselves apparently don't think their app alone makes that much of a difference.

I have no idea what UberPop is, but Regular Uber isn't a taxi service

Of course it is, as discussed to death above. The app doesn’t matter, and the hailing part doesn’t either as you call for taxis the same way as for them.

and I'm suspicious that the laws that Germany is citing were good ones. In my experience, Uber has a much better track record with this than the governments who oppose them.

Really? A company that has procedures for blocking law enforcement from using their app and to destruct evidence every time the get raided? They’re basically organized crime.

They are now deliberately operating (with UberX or whatever, who knows) in a way that makes them fall under rental car regulations, or something like that. Now, if they actually followed those rules instead of just trying to avoid the others ...

Rental car? Like you go to an Uber place at the airport and they give you the keys and you drive yourself around for a few days?

Not quite sure. But whatever set of regulations apply to them now they intentionally put themselves in to avoid the other ones. So no need to complain on their part that Uber taxis should return to base or whatever petty thing it us that should give them a wildcard to do whatever they want.

GuyWhoKilledBear

@dcon said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

calling emergency services stops working if the power goes out.

My "land line" stops working if the power goes out. Well, it'll work for a little while since I do have a UPS. (<rant>Until my "ultra reliable" AT&T router decides to reboot itself.</rant>)

Yeah, because it's a land line. If it were a real land line, power would be delivered by the phone company over the phone lines, even in an emergency that took out regular electricity.

dkf

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

If you call it and schedule it to come to your house, it's not a taxi. It's a different thing called a "car service."

Different name in the UK, but same idea. Mind you, it's also the case that an actual hailable taxi could do the task too; some take on both types of task (and have to follow the full taxi rules as a consequence). Not that that's Uber, whose core innovations seem to have been to try to make using a car service as easy as hailing a taxi, and to have broken the back of the sheer rottenness of many of the taxi medallion ~~mono~~oligopolies in many US cities, where the norm used to be both very expensive and shit. But when they moved into the UK, at least, that particular monopoly had already been broken by regulators, so there wasn't nearly as large a window of opportunity. (Don't know the situation in Germany so well; I've only very rarely been in taxis there.)

The worst of the problems with Uber seem to be mostly to do with trying to avoid the standard regulation for the service that they do offer, some of which is dumb but much of which isn't. Part of the problem appears to be that they've tried to industrialise the level of tricking of regulators into leaving them alone, which is definitely going to bite them in the ass, in part because this is an area where there's been such massive abuse even before Uber came on the scene that the laws have really sharp and well-tested teeth.

HardwareGeek

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

A company that has procedures for blocking law enforcement from using their app and to destruct evidence every time the get raided?

I read it as more obstruct (access to) than destruct, but yeah. This is why I don't use Uber.

dcon

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@dcon said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

My "land line" stops working if the power goes out. Well, it'll work for a little while since I do have a UPS. (<rant>Until my "ultra reliable" AT&T router decides to reboot itself.</rant>)

Yeah, because it's a land line. If it were a real land line, power would be delivered by the phone company over the phone lines, even in an emergency that took out regular electricity.

Yup - that's what it was for many years (until I switched to uVerse). I'm enough that I once had 2 POTS lines in this house. One to talk and one for the modem. (I ran cat5 wire throughout the house to enable both lines at each outlet)

GuyWhoKilledBear

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@GuyWhoKilledBear said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

A taxi service and a car service are slightly, only slightly, different from each other. From how it's being described on this website, it sounds like German law is exaggerating the difference between Uber, a car service, and a taxi company.

Not quite. Their first service, UberPOP, was classified as a taxi service. For which they just didn't follow the rules. They could've just followed the rules, but then they wouldn't have a competetive advantage, because they themselves apparently don't think their app alone makes that much of a difference.

I have no idea what UberPop is, but Regular Uber isn't a taxi service

Of course it is, as discussed to death above. The app doesn’t matter, and the hailing part doesn’t either as you call for taxis the same way as for them.

What's the other kind of service called? The one here you go back to the Central Office? What is that, and how is it different than a taxi?

and I'm suspicious that the laws that Germany is citing were good ones. In my experience, Uber has a much better track record with this than the governments who oppose them.

Really? A company that has procedures for blocking law enforcement from using their app and to destruct evidence every time the get raided? They’re basically organized crime.

Please come into the Garage and ask me whether I think governments destroy embarrassing documents to prevent their regulators (We The People) from finding out about them.

Given how subpoenas for documents are being abused in my country, I'm at the point where I think we'd be better off if we changed the rule about "You can't be forced to testify against yourself" to make that apply to being forced to turn over documents either.

Pretty much any Garage topic will work for this.

As for Uber's conduct with regard to deleting documents, to the extent that it's true, sure, it's not great. But how angry I am about it depends very much on what alleged crime Uber was covering up. If they were covering up a sexual assault by Uber management, that's one thing. If they were covering up not returning to the Central Office, I care significantly less.

They are now deliberately operating (with UberX or whatever, who knows) in a way that makes them fall under rental car regulations, or something like that. Now, if they actually followed those rules instead of just trying to avoid the others ...

Rental car? Like you go to an Uber place at the airport and they give you the keys and you drive yourself around for a few days?

Not quite sure. But whatever set of regulations apply to them now they intentionally put themselves in to avoid the other ones. So no need to complain on their part that Uber taxis should return to base or whatever petty thing it us that should give them a wildcard to do whatever they want.

That's not how that works.

It sounds to me like Germany has a few definitions for different ways of hiring a guy to drive you somewhere, and they're very strict about those differences.

Uber's business model, the service they provide in normal markets, is somewhere between a few different kinds of German definition. The German government forced them to hobble their service to fit into one of the German boxes.

The fact that Germany crippled Uber service to fit into one of Germany's boxes doesn't mean that Uber shouldn't be able to agitate for a saner set of boxes.

CHUDbert

@dcon said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

I live in the suburbs. You need a taxi, you call. They might hang out in some places (like a high volume train station, but don't bet on it). Explains why I see basically zero difference between a traditional taxi company and Uber.

Cost. For me, it costs $$ to get a taxi to come out to my house. For Uber, it is more like a "maybe..." -- half the time I get no one available...

Land line??? I can't get one where I live. At least, I have no idea who provides service where I live, and searching only gives me results for various internet options. An my house (built in 1960, completely renovated in 2000 or so) has all phone lines going to a punch down box, and box was connected to cable modem (that had a phone line as well). At least, it did when I bought the place. Now, I'm thinging RS 422 / RS 485 time... Or maybe ethernet. Some are category 5 cables, the rest are pots I think...

dcon

@CHUDbert said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

For Uber, it is more like a "maybe..." -- half the time I get no one available...

My recent experience via a friend is they just didn't bother showing up (at 6a for a lift to the airport).

topspin

@GuyWhoKilledBear it’s called “taxi” to me. I said that multiple times, we’re going in circles.

And requiring things like driver’s having insurance and Uber having a taxi license isn’t “crippling their service to fit into boxes”. It’s making sure they don’t get away with playing stupid games on made up technicalities of “we don’t have to follow regulations, we can do what we want.”

Since you like “go to the garage, collect $200” so much, here’s an analogy: if you have rules for, exhaustively, either “prisoners of war” or “ordinary prisoners (non-POW)”, you don’t get to make up “enemy combatant” to not follow the rules of either.

dcon

@CHUDbert said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

An my house (built in 1960, completely renovated in 2000 or so) has all phone lines going to a punch down box,

When I ran the cat5 wire, that's what I did (the punch down box).

boomzilla

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Since you like “go to the garage, collect $200” so much, here’s an analogy: if you have rules for, exhaustively, either “prisoners of war” or “ordinary prisoners (non-POW)”, you don’t get to make up “enemy combatant” to not follow the rules of either.

But "enemy combatant" is equivalent to "ordinary prisoners" in the context of war. You're confusing people the police arrest with people captured on the battlefield.

topspin

@boomzilla that’s the opposite of what you said last time, but I’m merely pointing out that you can’t make up different names just to say “the rules don’t apply to me.”
A taxi is a taxi.

boomzilla

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@boomzilla that’s the opposite of what you said last time, but I’m merely pointing out that you can’t make up different names just to say “the rules don’t apply to me.”
A taxi is a taxi.

I haven't talked about prisoners of war for a long time so I'm not sure what you're trying to tell me there. Your analogy was internally wrong, irregardless of how it might or might not relate to taxis vs non-taxis.

I never disagreed that a taxi was a taxi, but you and I don't seem to be in full agreement about what a taxi is, either. And the legal definitions in various places will differ, as well.

HardwareGeek

@boomzilla said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Your analogy was internally wrong, irregardless

So is your grammar.

boomzilla

@HardwareGeek thanks for noticing!

CHUDbert

@boomzilla Irregardlessly...

topspin

@boomzilla said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):
Your analogy was internally wrong

No it was not. You have either A or not A, tertium non datur, and classifying something using a different name doesn’t make it “neither”.

GuyWhoKilledBear

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

Since you like “go to the garage, collect $200” so much, here’s an analogy: if you have rules for, exhaustively, either “prisoners of war” or “ordinary prisoners (non-POW)”, you don’t get to make up “enemy combatant” to not follow the rules of either.

We don't, though.

There are protections for lawful enemy combatants who have been captured. These people are called Prisoners of War.

There are also protections for non-combatant civilians, who, again, are expected to act lawfully and be non-combatants.

I think you're talking about unlawful enemy combatants, who don't act lawfully and are not subject to the same protections if they're captured.

Just like unlawful enemy combatants dont fit into the lawful enemy combatant box or the non-combatant civilians box (because they're unlawful combatants), Uber doesn't seem to fit cleanly into any of the German boxes.

boomzilla

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@boomzilla said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@topspin said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):
Your analogy was internally wrong

No it was not. You have either A or not A, tertium non datur, and classifying something using a different name doesn’t make it “neither”.

False dichotomy. Your analogy was assuming that there's only one kind of "Not A."

loopback0

@dkf said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@Arantor said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

the drivers are certified above a certain standard on local knowledge

I think that was always a London-only regulation, and it's being dropped because modern satnav is pretty damn good.

There's a local knowledge test in Birmingham for taxi (Hackney Carriage) drivers, but not for private hire drivers.

Arantor

So I just had to go out for a walk around town, and I wanted to get a taxi back because it was quite a lot of walking and I didn't feel like walking all the way back as well.

The part of town I was in, Uber wouldn't have been able to get to me (that particular part of town is bus lanes and 'actual' taxis only, though the Deliveroo drivers skirt that a bit), so I went to the cab rank.

All of the cabbies in the rank told me they wouldn't take cards. WTF?

Anyway, this thread is getting very tiresome with the levels of pendantry on display that are verging on the levels of wilful ignorance and the usual agitation. It's tedious, knock it off already.

loopback0

@Arantor said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

All of the cabbies in the rank told me they wouldn't take cards. WTF?

Even now finding taxis that accept paying on card is a pain outside of London, where it's mandated by TfL.

Arantor

@loopback0 this wasn't a problem during the pandemic times. All the cabs seemed to take them. I'm assuming that now we're post-covid they've decided they would rather take cash only and not pay the merchant fees (or necessarily declare all the tax)

loopback0

@Arantor

It's another reason why, if you're somewhere it's available, Uber is more convenient.

MrL

@Arantor said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

I'm assuming that now we're post-covid they've decided they would rather take cash only and not pay the merchant fees (or necessarily declare all the tax)

You mean steal from everyone?!
That doesn't seem possible - only uber is capable of such atrocities.

Arantor

@MrL no, no, they’re only stealing from the tax man, a vibe that most people in this country seem to be content with even though they quite like the socialist perks that result from it.

MrL

@Arantor said in Uber, the sociopathic company full of psychopaths, now with murder! (Because regulations aren't "Disruptive" enough!):

@MrL no, no, they’re only stealing from the tax man, a vibe that most people in this country seem to be content with even though they quite like the socialist perks that result from it.

Positively shocking. Outlaw country.