The Uber whistleblower: I’m exposing a system that sold people a lie(theguardian.com) |
The Uber whistleblower: I’m exposing a system that sold people a lie(theguardian.com) |
The simple act of being able to know what I'm going to be charged beforehand, and know that the driver has little ability to scam me out of as much money as they can extract from me at my destination made Uber and Lyft SO much better. That should be the bare minimum, and yet the taxi industry couldn't figure that out for the most part.
I do not care about them breaking taxi laws or regulations. Their treatment of their "employees" absolutely needs improvement, but my god I do not care about the taxi industry as a whole.
They seemed to hate their customers
I signed up for Uber after a panicked morning in Denver with 2 no-showing taxis. Never looked back after that, though I use Lyft 90% of the time now.
I have no tears at all for anyone involved in the taxi industry.
Uber will show a message saying you won't see the fare until there's a ride. Their FAQ claims it can happen if you hail faster than they can calculate a price, but it happens awfully often to me.
I've also noticed their scheduled rides are really unreliable. They seem to start searching way too late, and I've almost missed a flight over them not finding an available car in Miami of all cities...
I've switched back to taking cabs from the airport. Ubers are slower (cabs are sitting there just waiting) and much, much expensive now (like 2x the cost of a cab).
The product isn't any better anymore. The cars are rundown and often smelly. It is nice to be able to put in an address and not deal with a credit card payment at the destination -- but that's about the only benefit left.
Feels like the economies of scale only work when you own the taxi fleet itself. I.e. you have dedicated mechanics etc etc. As soon as the consumer has to pay the true price of a taxi ride, Uber crumbles. There's another world in which Uber was a whitelabel app for cab firms, making millions but certainly not worth billions (so, making millions rather than losing billions!).
Yup cabs are way better experience at the airport and the same price or cheaper. I haven't tried using our local cab app, but its been on my mind.
Meanwhile Uber drivers still haven't figured out where to park, or stop in the middle and wave you to run out to their car... while everyone honks at them.
I don't take Uber/Lyft often but yes, it seems like at least 25% of the time it's obvious that the driver smokes in the car when not driving customers. I've also been in a lot of vehicles which very clearly had blown shocks (based on the noises I heard when we went over even mildly rough road)
The taxi picked us up, proceeded to drive us Downtown and upwards of 85-90mph on the highway (was about 11pm at night at this point). The car was probably at least 15 years old and the shocks nearly as old.
After that experience, we used Uber the rest of the trip (and back to the airport) and it was an overall better experience by far.
In Spain they forbid all this stuff because they sold cab licenses, but the prices are abusive.
And what for? For a business model that make no sense (unless they become a monopoly)?
But mostly because it didn't had to pay the same fees. It treated employees as independent contractors and negate their rights. And it burned millions on AstroTurfing and ads.
The Mafia also can overtake business where others where there before.
That's a strong word here. I'm sure it had nothing to do with taxis being government sanctioned monopolies in most places that they operated.
Wonder what the going rate for a NYC taxi medallion is these days. I bet it's 1/5th of what it was fifteen years ago.
No Uber driver has ever tried to scam me. I'd gladly pay a premium for it.
The reality is that most of the sentiment against uber is against the new kid in the block, not at all a moral or policy position.
OTOH, I've lost count of the number of Ubers and Lyfts that just never showed up, or cancelled en route, or tried to go the wrong way to pad mileage.
No. The reason was that Uber has been losing billions of dollars a year, every year, for over a decade and hasn't imploded as a company. Providing a nice ride hailing UI is just the cherry on top.
Same with Lyft, but on a slightly smaller scale.
I have a lot of negative feelings about Uber, and I would never work there myself as a SWE, but these feelings pale in comparison to my experiences with yellow cabs (NYC bias here).
I've had my partner be threatened (the usual pay cash/credit card machine broken or "better be a good tip"), cabs drive right pass after asking where you're going, scammed. I've had female friends molested by drivers.
Sure, all this could happen (and some have) in an Uber. But I'd bet dollars to donuts that Uber can track down the driver must easier than your usual taxi driver. (Who the hell remembers the medallion numbers?)
TK is an asshole, and I'm no fan of assholes (e.g., screw Apple products). But if he was the price we have to paid to upend the yellow cab industry, then I for one am willing to pay it.
Other than the term "informant" or "insider" I can't really think of how you would describe this type of thing. There's whistleblowers, and death bed confessions.
I suppose someone could simply be called a "tattle tale" or a "former employee", but neither really describes the act of revealing knowledge that was not publicly available.
"Leaker" might fit, but that seems to be more for someone who is a current employee, who is trying to disclose information in a secretive manner. Advocate has an equally weird meaning, too.
Can anyone else think of a better term?
Uber has broken the law to incredible extends, and it has corrupted many politicians. That's the truth, that are the news.
But the comments here seem to be about American taxis!
> MacGann insists that Uber drivers were seen by some at the company as pawns who could be used to put pressure on governments. “And if that meant Uber drivers going on strike, Uber drivers doing a demo in the streets, Uber drivers blocking Barcelona, blocking Berlin, blocking Paris, then that was the way to go,” he said. “In a sense, it was considered beneficial to weaponise Uber drivers in this way.”
> The files show MacGann’s fingerprints on this strategy, too. In one email, he praised staffers in Amsterdam who leaked stories to the press about attacks on drivers to “keep the violence narrative” and pressure the Dutch government.
And most comments are quasi-whataboutism on the taxi industry vs Uber. Yes, the taxi industry is bad, in lots of places ran by some kind of mob, etc. Still, Uber was weaponising their workers (while fighting as hard as possible to not call them workers and pay for workers' benefits) against local governments, they were behaving like a tech-mafia.
What a laudable moral pivot! Good for him, finding a path to redemption. I guess he was just haunted by all of his sins and felt a need to make things rights with the world.
> MacGann is understood to have recently reached an out-of-court settlement with Uber after a legal dispute relating to his remuneration. He...acknowledged he had had personal grievances with the company.
Ah, there it is.
There is no legal way that the taxi cartel could have ever been challenged without some company like Uber just ramming it through regardless of the technical legality of certain actions. Insofar as they didn't steal from customers, them taking down the taxi cartel is arguably a public service that should be forgiven and applauded.
Emmanuel Macron aided Uber lobbying drive in France, leak reveals - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32054380 - July 2022 (21 comments)
Uber told staff to use ‘kill switch’ during raids to stop police seeing data - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32051364 - July 2022 (35 comments)
‘Hit the kill switch’: Uber used covert tech to thwart government raids - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32046559 - July 2022 (8 comments)
Uber broke laws, duped police and built lobbying operation, leak reveals - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32045906 - July 2022 (500 comments)
What about COVID?
But the important thing to remember is that we were in this situation because the lobbying of Taxi companies was doing the same thing as Uber previously and this is why we are in this situation in the first place.
And compared to its beginning, you can see that the service and prices provided by degraded a lot in last years now that they are in a kind of dominant position!
So, in my opinion, everyone should reprove such a behavior. Ensuring that our leaders can't be corrupted like that by lobbyist is the only way out of problematic situations like that.
However, cabs were abundant and easy to hail, and prices weren’t much different than Uber. Cabs are about 30% cheaper than uber today.
This was replaced by Uber, one of the most destructive influences on cities via the traffic and the “gig worker freedom” wage slavery. Add in its shadow war against public transit.
Cabs really weren’t as bad as this thread seems to imply. I hope Uber goes down for this.
If you leak private emails of any arbitrary company, there's a 100% chance some things will be taken out of context.
I suggest Travis was in some ways a kind of a giant turd, but that's definitely his right, unless it involves something illegal.
I'm wary of the press misrepresenting the issue like they did the FB CA scandal, which was actually a scandal, just presented as the wrong kind of scandal.
Why is this so common and acceptable? You have these towering technological firms who already possess vast amounts of power who have a pattern of hiring former political elites. Interestingly, apart of a top conservative at Facebook, many of these people have worked for powerful liberals. There's no excuse for this behavior, if a person has just gotten done working for a candidate or someone in office, they should be barred from private industry until they are politically irrelevant.
Uber arrived in Phoenix ... in 2013 or 2014? I remember sitting at the Cardinals' football stadium. Another of the company's drivers had gotten an uber fare. He said something like, "it's not that cheap". We didn't realize at the time that what the driver got was not what the passengers paid (that is, drivers' pay was subsidized).
Things started to get bad for us taxi drivers in 2015. I remember sitting in old town Scottsdale. Two ladies were waiting for their ride-share driver to show up. A "gypsy-cab" driver (someone not associated with one of the big taxi companies - who'd gotten a taxi meter and insurance, and complied with Arizona's minimal licensing) asked if they needed a ride. The ladies said, "you're too expensive." A Honda Accord showed up, with two ladies in the front... I figured the female driver didn't feel safe driving around by herself late at night, and recruited her friend to copilot with her.
Cars are expensive. I'd made enough to upgrade my old honda civic to a Uber-acceptable Ford Fusion by ... 2013? (Truthfully my father paid for most of the vehicle, I took out a $5,000 loan.)
When I did the calculations on driving my Fusion for Uber, the numbers just didn't work. I figured I'd need a transmission sooner or later, and the miles really add up quickly when you're driving. We'd put 100,000 miles a year on our taxi-Priuses. The early years of 'ride sharing' was an exercise in Wall Street tricking people who wanted nice cars into wearing out their personal vehicles for barely minimum wage.
I took to blogging about my fares, initially at kuro5hin.org [rip]. Lots of stories... reposted them at https://www.TaxiWars.org/
Had this recent comment about the taxi industry get a couple upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31065345 ("The company had economy of scale in their fleet operations that was hard to beat: mechanics who knew the Prius like the back of their hand, boneyards (for parts), connections in the automotive industry.")
On the one hand, Uber's software was better than our 'electronic taxi dispatch v1.0' system [0]. But Arizona's taxi regulations were so incredibly minimal, that it wasn't very fair for Governor Ducey, et al, to throw us under the bus.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVmm3kECLxw / http://www.taxiwars.org/p/electronic-taxi-dispatch-v1.html
Also, what Uber did is what every single corporation does with respect to its interactions with the regulatory states across the world.
People have this fantasy that regulations are these perfect bodies of law that really do accomplish their stated goals. WRONG! They are more often counterproductive crap that people work around because they have to. The regulations create incumbents who have an interest in maintaining regulations because it cements their market power. The citizens are bamboozled by useful idiots like The Guardian journalists who just spout the party line without actually investigating how regulations actually work on the ground.
Is there a single person at the Guardian who is aware that Private Equity firms and other investors bought up all the taxi medallions in NYC and were extracting monopoly rents to consumers, while simultaneously abusing a pliant population of renter/drivers. The profits were going to the medallion holders. Consumers were being f'ed by a corrupt and inefficient system, and drivers were getting the shaft. Only politicians and the investors were pleased.
Yeah Uber busted that wide open. Drivers don't like the situation now? Guess what, if you stay off Uber and use a competitor, you will shrink Uber's dominance over time. There are competitors in every city.
The cab industry as it was pre Uber needed to die. These days it's gotten a bit better now that they actually have some competition. But I simply have no tolerance left for anything to do with cab drivers given how bad it was in the late 90s and early 200s.
And yes, I am 100% in agreement that Uber sucks too. But they suck 1000% less than cabs did at least for the riders.
I believe London taxis also have a good rep but haven't use them.
On the other hand I've had criminal experiences in Istanbul and Rome and non-pleasent experiences in LA and SF.
He went to a local College in my area and spoke about it. Showed us a hat from the College and pictures.
Our cabs are probably twice as expensive as NYC cabs, and there is no credit card machine in the back. 90% of the time the driver lies and says "it's broken" to try and force you to pay cash. They'll even drive you to an ATM sometimes to get cash, just don't leave your stuff in the cab because they may just drive off with it instead of waiting.
When they DO give you a cash machine there is a high chance of getting your card swiped. And yes, they commonly do the "where are you going?" trick then refuse you a ride because it's not far enough for them, they want the more lucrative fares. Also, the cars are all completely awful quality, just terrible.
Two can play at that game. Despite the practice being illegal, cabbies in the Vancouver area ask if you've got cash before you get in. I always say yes. But, I never carry cash. When we get to the destination, I play dumb, and ask if they've got a machine. They do, because they're required to by law. Or, on the off chance I do have cash, I'll say "oh, but I only have a $10" and sometimes they'd rather knock $5 off my fare than take a card.
Also, I live in a burb, so I've taken to lying about where I'm headed until the car's in motion. Since they always want directions, not a destination (are they dishonest or ignorant about what route's best?) this has always worked for me.
The article wasn't about TK or about assholes -- it was about political corruption.
That said, I consider ridesharing apps better than traditional taxis.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tony-west-life-career-uber-m...
That's not how democracy works. You'd be creating a second class of people who are ineligible to participate in their own society. And you'd be selecting along the dimension of those who actually do participate.
I am a data engineer. If my state representative calls me to advise in a technical capacity on data legislation should I resign from my day job? Do we want our lawmakers to be well informed?
What's the line to be barred from private industry? If I have to resign from private industry to advise my representatives then won't I simply become a career lobbyist?
The current situation is affording a whole host of people who make everyone else second class citizens to their reach and ideas.
Wait why? There's already such little incentive to get into public service. The pay is certainly garbage. Hell, the top position in the US government only pays $400k.
Who is going to want to work in government if we get rid of the ability for them to transition to private industry afterwards?
The reason you're supposedly supposed to get into public service is because you want to serve the public.
I know it's being naive on top of being fiction but it reminds me of this ep from West Wing where they recruit a press secretary who's making $550k a year in Hollywood and tell her the press secretary job pays $31k a year
The taxi company put together a system where drivers could take their contract fares (such as in the video I linked) in personal vehicles. I had to get a commercial license plate. Then the company did a safety inspection on my car. Their contracts paid better than standard ride share fares, but the numbers still didn't work. I only did that a couple times. One time I got a solid fare, but it took me out to Apache Junction. It was 40 miles to get home. The technical term for unpaid miles is deadheading [0].
> I honestly don’t think most Uber drivers realize they are just trading deferred maintenance costs, and depreciation expense for cash now.
I referred to this as this 'economic cancer'. Professional drivers figure out how to keep their expenses down.
[0] "They report 40.8% of their total distance traveled (VMT) being lost to deadheading." https://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/bhat/ABSTRACTS/RidehailingE...
I got taken for a ride by a taxi driver in San Jose, cira 2003... That should have been a $20 fare, not a $100 fare, but I was naïve.
Sometimes my passengers would watch our route on their phone.
If there is a train to the airport, I usually prefer it, because it avoids (unpredictable) traffic jams.
But FWIW I scheduled a 5am flight to the airport in mexico city with Uber and it was great
So we should artificially restrict the supply of talent for one of our society’s most important jobs?
That means you’re likely to get at least some combination of
- less competent people
- independently-wealthy people, who are I’m sure completely unbiased and objective
Japan was the first (only?) place I've been where the taxi experience was comparable to Uber/Lyft. Every payment method accepted, apps, GPS routes, non-hostile drivers, and clean vehicles. It's no wonder why ridesharing companies have failed to gain much market share there.
London definitely has a better standard of cars and service, but they will still try to take longer routes and play games with you if you're obviously a tourist. Definitely better than most places though, their standards for cabbie training are very high.
Yes black cabs are great, but the cost is so high most people take mini-cabs which aren't.
Lyft/Uber take 20-25% of the fare, so the ride share drivers are making more on the trip. They have variable vehicle upkeep costs, but taxi drivers renting medallions and the vehicles are hardly better off.
Ref:
- Overview: https://documentedny.com/2021/11/23/taxi-cab-medallion-expla...
- NY govt role: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/19/nyregion/taxi-medallions....
85-90 might seem like a lot to some folks, but it's not at all uncommon for traffic on the highways around Chicago. Personally, I'd much rather a driver get me to where I'm going quickly if it's safe. 80-90 on an open highway isn't a problem, it's the drivers who are constantly switching lines and cutting off other drivers to "get ahead" I have a problem with.
If you're cruising at 90 in cook county you're asking for a court date. 15mph over the limit mandates it, and I think the highest speed limit is 60 on 290 out in Arlington Heights. It's 45 on the Kennedy once you get into the city right now.
In my experience, 80-90 mph would be uncommonly high for either route even on an open highway. It's not the norm until you get out to the far flung suburbs like Naperville (I-88).
This was at 6a to catch an 8a flight in a Bay Area town that’s 35 min from SFO.
Uber and Lyft are now exactly like cab companies, the only difference being that their “credit card machine works”
Private car services work remarkably well if you’re done with Uber, Lyft, or taxis not showing up.
They can't wait to back to the point where they can dictate people's schedules and induce FOMO in their customers. They just have to condition us slowly into accepting it after netflix spoiled us.
I think it’s most likely changes in I-88 since I lived there are responsible for any difference.