I think in many countries companies like Uber and AirBnB are seen to be a challenge to the democratic will of the people. It should be no surprise that we don't care very much for this!
I wonder if Uber could have achieved success in markets with more trusted governments (Germany, Japan) if they started with a softer approach.
Uber solves a problem in the US because the US government is failing to provide adequate public transportation and fails at properly regulating taxis.
In most other civilized places with governments that succeed in these areas, Uber just doesn't have product market fit. The legal problems are only producing noise.
Uber is much more efficient than taxis regardless.
For one, it uses the spare time and preexisting cars of regular people (which are cheap) and two, it has the algorithms and data to pool more than one person in the same car.
Uber is not uniquely positioned to pool multiple people in one car, to suggest otherwise is quite frankly ridiculous. Also there are no preexisting cars of regular people for Uber to take advantage of because regular people don't have adequate insurance.
> Uber is not uniquely positioned to pool multiple people in one car, to suggest otherwise is quite frankly ridiculous.
Of course they are, this feature is highly dependent on network effects and Uber is the biggest player.
> Also there are no preexisting cars of regular people for Uber to take advantage of because regular people don't have adequate insurance.
Besides the fact that most people don't give a shit about this, Uber does provide commercial insurance for UberX drivers while they are logged in: https://www.intact.ca/uber-ride-sharing
Really? I find that most people think it's the other way around, that Uber and AirBnB represent the democratic will of the people, challenging broken systems that the people do not endorse now that a better idea is available.
Here in Germany companies like Uber are largely perceived exactly as the author points it out, especially this stuck out in the article:
>Their significant price advantage comes from the fact that they choose to ignore a great many laws and regulations that their competition must follow.
Airbnb hosts routinely ignore zoning laws, hotel taxes, safety regulations and insurance requirements. Most Uber drivers do not have taxi or chauffeur licenses, obtain commercial insurance, pass safely inspections or comply with ADA regulations.
In my opinion Uber is nothing but a business that makes money by shifting every responsibility that an employer should hold on the drivers who function as pseudo self-employed individuals while Uber rakes in a quick buck. A business that any nation can do without. Companies need to be able to be held reliable to regulations and standards. Uber's whole model is incompatible with this.
At least with Uber I think Australian governments are getting it right because even after (imo) Uber acted in bad faith by ignoring the law, ride sharing is still being legalised. I think US governments are still a bit behind, especially as Uber has been there for longer.
I've always dislike the idea that "people vote with their dollars" because theirs no way people "voted" that all their dollars go to a 1% of individuals, who strictly speaking are rarely model or even popular citizens (.i.e. the Walton family).
I'm missing your point. In the example of Walmart, individuals chose to take there business there, enriching the Walton family at the expense of other merchants. While literally not voting for the Walton family to receive their business, a large number of individuals did make the choice of doing business with the Walton family didn't they?
I think in many countries the freedom to engage in gay sex is seen to be a challenge to the democratic will of the people. It should be no surprise that we don't care very much for this!
Those of us who are less democratic and more individualistic recognize how horrible it is when democracy prevents consenting adults from engaging in harmless private activities. The tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.
One is a harmless private activity - the other is a large company gaining an unfair advantage by choosing to ignore the law. Even though they are are both about freedom I think it's impossible to compare these.
> an unfair advantage by choosing to ignore the law
It's 100% okay to talk about this, but if we do talk about this, let's also talk about what happens when you get the local politicians to enshrine your particular business model in law and block all your competition from stealing your property - I mean, your customers.
You have this backwards, the incumbent taxi companies are the ones with the unfair advantage enshrined in law (medallions purchased 20 years ago for 1/10 of the price).
You make a convincing argument. We need to strictly regulate gay sex on public roads, and in all other places where it might endanger innocent bystanders. While we're at it, let's tax gay prostitutes who use our tax-funded public bathrooms for commercial purposes.
I'm confused what public roads have to do with anything. Does this mean you oppose regulation of private acts happening off the public roads? For example, if I want to employ people in a racist manner and pay them $3/hour in the privacy of my own bedroom, that's ok?
Or perhaps if the democratic will of the people decides that blacks must use a separate but equal set of public roads, that's also OK?
My only point is that appeals to the "democratic will of the people" are a dishonest justification for a policy. People are perfectly happy to ignore it when it leads to policies they dislike.
Correct. I favor ignoring the democratic will of the people and protecting individual rights. I make no pretenses about this, and I think the tendency of democracies to violate individual rights is one of their deep flaws.
I'm just pointing out that either a) you favor laws against gay marriage since the democratic will of the people supports them (and similarly segregation in the south in 1969) or b) your appeals to the democratic will of the people are dishonest. Which is it?
Are we talking about the "gay marriage" kind of gay marriage, or the "exposing people to the single biggest threat to life and limb, without telling them that you don't have insurance" kind of gay marriage?
Either way, I guess you caught me. I'm a giant hypocrite. I am of course quite angry at you for exposing my terrible secret. Fortunately for me, you are a supporter of individual rights against all laws and public consensus who will gladly support my right to hit you in the face with a piece of rebar.
I simply said "democratic will of the people" is a terrible justification for a law and can be used to justify all sorts of horrible things.
Similarly, on the safety issues which you bring up, I think you are also being hypocritical. If regulating safety is your goal, then either you should a) support banning gay sex, which is extremely unsafe and spreads disease to unwilling participants, or b) it's just another cheap excuse to pass laws against people you simply don't like.
It's not always perfect, but I'm interested to hear your alternative. What if not the will of the people should be he foundation of your government? Brute force? The will of God?
And yes, I do support a ban on gay sex that involves unwilling participants.
Hmmm, except I can't play YouTube videos outside of YouTube and Play Music doesn't give me access to the raw MP3 files, therefore the second point wouldn't apply. I think the difference is that Google isn't proactively enforcing this rule so for example, the Kindle app can link to the Kindle store even though that's technically not allowed.
You can use the youtube app on your phone, or the browser on your laptop, or the youtube app on your tv. So it isn't content that can only be consumed in the app on your phone.
WHen the article complains all the time about how it's oh so hard to deal with all those screen sizes I was expecting a terrible app and I was not surprised!
* Has <b> tags instead of actually bolding text
* Shows the price in my locale's format, not what they're actually charging!
* Intro movie is very annoying, and after it's done it moves around a few pixels every 10 seconds or so
* Sign in screen has a massive logo but the email and password fields don't fit on my Galaxy Nexus
I can't understand his whining about the removal of the What's New section. Google obviously removed it because it disproportionately helped the spammers. If you released a good app it only got a few minutes on the list anyway before the spam apps pushed it off.
