Uber, Lyft and Sharing Economy Regulations

[blowfish]

All the new networked, Internet-coordinated, data-based, computerized business models still rely on the same set of bricks and mortar everyone was using in the 1970s. If we refuse to accept a level of regulation and taxation that people willingly paid in the 1970s as part of the price of creating that infrastructure... the infrastructure will cease to exist, and our cities will continue to decay.

Information technology won't change that.

Clearly there is something wrong with you for refusing to embrace our cyberpunk future.

[Raw Shark]

Clearly there is something wrong with you for refusing to embrace our cyberpunk future.

DIARY OF A CYBERPUNK CAB DRIVER:

So I picked up another dickbag hacker who tried to defeat my firewall and convince my cab that he'd already paid tonight. Those little shits feel invincible in the back seat with six inches of blast-proof steel between us, but he wasn't laughing anymore when I hit the manual override on the door locks, hauled his skinny, tattooed ass out in the street, and knocked his teeth out with my tire iron. I'll get a thousand bucks for his rig from Durango, at least.

That creepy biker gang that all get themselves twanked to look like Michael Jackson is hassling me again. I had to use the flamethrower to get them to quit swarming my road space and pirating my wi-fi, which means I have to do the clean-up on THAT now. Dickheads.

A really drunk girl left an iPhone with the Uber app on it in the back seat. Spent my lunch break on a rooftop calling Uber and practicing my marksmanship.

The new ad playing over the smart surface of the passenger compartment has some serious vertigo shots. Are they TRYING to make people barf back there?

Fucking neurostim addicts. No, you cannot plug into my car to get high, you pissant.

[blowfish]

Clearly there is something wrong with you for refusing to embrace our cyberpunk future.

DIARY OF A CYBERPUNK CAB DRIVER:

So I picked up another dickbag hacker who tried to defeat my firewall and convince my cab that he'd already paid tonight. Those little shits feel invincible in the back seat with six inches of blast-proof steel between us, but he wasn't laughing anymore when I hit the manual override on the door locks, hauled his skinny, tattooed ass out in the street, and knocked his teeth out with my tire iron. I'll get a thousand bucks for his rig from Durango, at least.

That creepy biker gang that all get themselves twanked to look like Michael Jackson is hassling me again. I had to use the flamethrower to get them to quit swarming my road space and pirating my wi-fi, which means I have to do the clean-up on THAT now. Dickheads.

A really drunk girl left an iPhone with the Uber app on it in the back seat. Spent my lunch break on a rooftop calling Uber and practicing my marksmanship.

The new ad playing over the smart surface of the passenger compartment has some serious vertigo shots. Are they TRYING to make people barf back there?

Fucking neurostim addicts. No, you cannot plug into my car to get high, you pissant.

Insufficient descriptions of decaying roads and bridges kept working by bootstraps and the enterpreneurial spirit, not believable

[Starglider]

Insufficient descriptions of decaying roads and bridges kept working by bootstraps and the enterpreneurial spirit, not believable

No need, will all be replaced by toll roads and toll bridges. Driving without a revenue protection transponder will be punishable by summary vaporisation.

[Lord MJ]

While I dislike the title of the article (associating regulating Uber with "the Left"), and I dislike the clear dishonest cherry picking from Hilary Clinton's speech in an attempt to characterize her as an anti-innovation statist.

It does further highlight:

1. It is not credible for De Blasio to make an argument for the need to regulate Uber/Lyft when he gets campaign cash from taxi companies.
2. How is a 1% cap in the increase of Uber drivers anywhere near reasonable. It's hard to take any claims seriously when he throws out such a number.


http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-uber-dr ... 1437950641

Why Uber Drives the Left Crazy
Why New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attempt to protect a government-enforced cartel ran out of gas.
Lining up in Queens, N.Y., to register as Uber drivers, July 21. ENLARGE
Lining up in Queens, N.Y., to register as Uber drivers, July 21. PHOTO: SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS

By L. GORDON CROVITZ
July 26, 2015 6:44 p.m. ET
89 COMMENTS
Progressive New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo found common cause on a shared threat while attending a recent climate-change conference at the Vatican. “The people of our cities don’t like the notion of those who are particularly wealthy and powerful dictating the terms to a government elected by the people,” Mr. de Blasio declared. “As a multibillion-dollar company, Uber thinks it can dictate to government.”

But before Mr. de Blasio could return from Rome, he learned that people really don’t like when politicians try to take away their favorite app for getting around the government’s taxi cartel. The mayor was forced to drop his plan to limit Uber to a 1% annual increase in cars, far below the current rate.

It’s hard to see why Mr. de Blasio thought that would be good politics. Two million New Yorkers have downloaded the Uber app onto their mobile devices—a quarter of the city’s population and more than twice the number of citizens who voted for Mr. de Blasio. But it’s easy to understand why he views Uber as an ideological threat. A tipping point is in sight where big-government politicians can no longer deprive consumers of new choice made possible by technology—whether for car rides, car sharing or home rentals. Mr. de Blasio’s experience should encourage other politicians to sign up for innovation.

Uber has become a wedge issue. The Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, took the opposite approach from Mr. de Blasio. “You are dealing with a huge economic force which is consumer choice, and the taxi trade needs to recognize that,” he said recently. He told a gathering of taxi drivers in London: “I’m afraid it is a tragic fact that there are now more than a million people in this city who have the Uber app.” When cabbies objected that Uber drivers were undercutting their prices, Mr. Johnson replied: “Yes, they are. It’s called the free market.”

Presidential candidates are divided as well. Hillary Clinton implicitly criticized Uber in her campaign speech on economic policy, saying the “so-called ‘gig economy’ ” is “raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like.”

By contrast, Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio has a chapter in his presidential campaign book, “American Dreams,” titled “An America Safe for Uber.” He describes explaining to a college class he taught how Miami had banned Uber cars. “As my progressive young students listened to me explain why government was preventing them from using their cell phones to get home from the bars on Saturday night, I could see their minds change,” he writes. “Before I knew it, I was talking to a bunch of 20- and 21-year-old anti-government activists.”

For its part, Uber hired David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, to help wage the political fight. Mr. de Blasio didn’t know what hit him. He justified the cap on Uber cars by blaming the company for traffic congestion, citing a 0.84-mile-an-hour decline in Manhattan’s average vehicle speed between 2010 and 2014. That took chutzpah, given that the mayor himself pushed through a reduction in the speed limit to 25 miles an hour from 30. It also ignored the numerous bike lanes and pedestrian roadblocks the city built during that period.

Uber made the fight personal by adding a “de Blasio” mode to its app, estimating how long the wait would be under the proposed law. Model Kate Upton tweeted in Uber’s support. Errol Louis wrote in the Daily News that “Mayor de Blasio is leaving N.Y.ers stranded—like a black man trying to hail a cab uptown.” An Uber spokesman picked up the theme: “There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi [campaign] donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders.”

New York taxi medallions have plummeted in value due to competition. Their owners made the fatal miscalculation of assuming City Hall would always protect them by limiting the number of cabs. They failed to anticipate how new technology eventually disrupts every industry. Apps like Uber give consumers better protection, prices and services than regulators ever can.

Government-enforced cartels fall faster and harder to disruptive innovation than most businesses. When change comes, it is more dramatic than in industries that already have competition. The fate of taxis is a warning to other regulated industries that new technologies always give consumers more choice. And citizens can always make the choice to vote for candidates who embrace innovation over regulations that protect entrenched interests.

[biostem]

So stupid question here - if so-called "Gypsy cabs" are illegal, then why should someone running, what is in essence an unlicensed car service, legal? What is the legality of me deciding to drive around my personal car, and provide rides for cash? I am not licensed, nor am I subject to any regulations.

[Simon_Jester]

If you do it alone it's illegal. If you do it working for Uber, it's the business model of a corporation whose stock is valued in the tens of billions of dollars, so of course it's legal.

And Uber has every reason to want it that way.

On the one hand, they love being able to outcompete the other taxi companies by outsourcing their maintenance costs to the drivers and paying said drivers less money. They do NOT want, say, someone else coming up with an open source version of their app so that ordinary people can decide to spontaneously carpool for themselves for even less.

Because while the old taxi companies' profits are just statist over-regulated monopolies, Uber's profits are Sacred Fruits of Innovation.
_____________________________

While I dislike the title of the article (associating regulating Uber with "the Left"), and I dislike the clear dishonest cherry picking from Hilary Clinton's speech in an attempt to characterize her as an anti-innovation statist.

Here's the thing. Uber's a corporation. A rapidly growing one, that's making big profits from ignoring and undermining regulations.

The American right wing, especially its anarcho-capitalist wing (strongly represented in the Wall Street Journal), loves that. A lot of them have never met a regulation they approve of, and the only thing better than small businesses making money by not dealing with regulations is big businesses making money the same way.

[If you don't believe me, look at which regulations get the most attention. Generally the ones that affect large businesses with deep pockets. Not many people were talking about taxi regulations until Uber went public...]

So yes, the same people who think the only problem with the 2008 financial crash was that we didn't step back and let the hedge funds do their thing some more... are the same people who are going to laud Uber. And who will criticize de Blasio (and any other Democrat they can find) as a statist for thinking there ought to be laws regulating the conduct of the taxi drivers to keep city centers from getting congested.

It does further highlight:

1. It is not credible for De Blasio to make an argument for the need to regulate Uber/Lyft when he gets campaign cash from taxi companies.

Here's the problem:

De Blasio is the mayor of New York. There is no other mayor, at least not right now, and not for over two more years. Someone, like it or not, has to be responsible for managing the city of New York and making sure it can deal with emergencies and sudden changes in the urban landscape. Right now, that's Bill de Blasio.

Uber wasn't a very big deal before de Blasio took office. There are good reasons that de Blasio's predecessor, Bloomberg, didn't see the need to do much of anything about it. By the time he leaves office, it's going to be a very big deal, even if he doesn't win re-election.

So what's he supposed to do, completely ignore Uber and recuse himself from even trying to do anything to govern the city that might be construed as interfering with Uber's business model and its plan to outcompete the existing taxi services? If he honestly thinks Uber's business model may result in problems for New York, like traffic congestion and a "race to the bottom" in terms of taxi quality, service, and salaries...

Again, is he just supposed to not do anything because taxi companies contributed to his election fund? Is he supposed to resign and ask that a new mayor be elected in his place? Who will donate money to that election? What issues will the new mayor be expected to ignore on account of having received contributions?

If we have a problem with campaign finance in America that's reasonable. But like it or not, we've got to have someone in government. We can't just declare anarchy until we figure out how to do campaign finance reform properly. And in the case of New York, that means that like it or not, de Blasio is responsible for speaking out if he thinks Uber is causing a problem. And for doing something about it.

2. How is a 1% cap in the increase of Uber drivers anywhere near reasonable. It's hard to take any claims seriously when he throws out such a number.

How many Uber drivers are there in New York already, again? And how many hours are they working per driver, on average? If he wants to put a cap on their total number of drivers, or driver-hours, maybe there's a reason for it. I can't say.

Why Uber Drives the Left Crazy
Why New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s attempt to protect a government-enforced cartel ran out of gas.
Lining up in Queens, N.Y., to register as Uber drivers, July 21. ENLARGE
Lining up in Queens, N.Y., to register as Uber drivers, July 21. PHOTO: SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS

By L. GORDON CROVITZ
July 26, 2015 6:44 p.m. ET
89 COMMENTS
Progressive New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and Socialist Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo found common cause on a shared threat while attending a recent climate-change conference at the Vatican. “The people of our cities don’t like the notion of those who are particularly wealthy and powerful dictating the terms to a government elected by the people,” Mr. de Blasio declared. “As a multibillion-dollar company, Uber thinks it can dictate to government.”

But before Mr. de Blasio could return from Rome, he learned that people really don’t like when politicians try to take away their favorite app for getting around the government’s taxi cartel. The mayor was forced to drop his plan to limit Uber to a 1% annual increase in cars, far below the current rate.

It’s hard to see why Mr. de Blasio thought that would be good politics. Two million New Yorkers have downloaded the Uber app onto their mobile devices—a quarter of the city’s population and more than twice the number of citizens who voted for Mr. de Blasio. But it’s easy to understand why he views Uber as an ideological threat. A tipping point is in sight where big-government politicians can no longer deprive consumers of new choice made possible by technology—whether for car rides, car sharing or home rentals. Mr. de Blasio’s experience should encourage other politicians to sign up for innovation.

Uber has become a wedge issue. The Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, took the opposite approach from Mr. de Blasio. “You are dealing with a huge economic force which is consumer choice, and the taxi trade needs to recognize that,” he said recently. He told a gathering of taxi drivers in London: “I’m afraid it is a tragic fact that there are now more than a million people in this city who have the Uber app.” When cabbies objected that Uber drivers were undercutting their prices, Mr. Johnson replied: “Yes, they are. It’s called the free market.”

Presidential candidates are divided as well. Hillary Clinton implicitly criticized Uber in her campaign speech on economic policy, saying the “so-called ‘gig economy’ ” is “raising hard questions about workplace protections and what a good job will look like.”

By contrast, Florida’s Sen. Marco Rubio has a chapter in his presidential campaign book, “American Dreams,” titled “An America Safe for Uber.” He describes explaining to a college class he taught how Miami had banned Uber cars. “As my progressive young students listened to me explain why government was preventing them from using their cell phones to get home from the bars on Saturday night, I could see their minds change,” he writes. “Before I knew it, I was talking to a bunch of 20- and 21-year-old anti-government activists.”

For its part, Uber hired David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, to help wage the political fight. Mr. de Blasio didn’t know what hit him. He justified the cap on Uber cars by blaming the company for traffic congestion, citing a 0.84-mile-an-hour decline in Manhattan’s average vehicle speed between 2010 and 2014. That took chutzpah, given that the mayor himself pushed through a reduction in the speed limit to 25 miles an hour from 30. It also ignored the numerous bike lanes and pedestrian roadblocks the city built during that period.

Uber made the fight personal by adding a “de Blasio” mode to its app, estimating how long the wait would be under the proposed law. Model Kate Upton tweeted in Uber’s support. Errol Louis wrote in the Daily News that “Mayor de Blasio is leaving N.Y.ers stranded—like a black man trying to hail a cab uptown.” An Uber spokesman picked up the theme: “There is nothing progressive about protecting millionaire taxi [campaign] donors who mistreat drivers and discriminate against riders.”

New York taxi medallions have plummeted in value due to competition. Their owners made the fatal miscalculation of assuming City Hall would always protect them by limiting the number of cabs. They failed to anticipate how new technology eventually disrupts every industry. Apps like Uber give consumers better protection, prices and services than regulators ever can.

Government-enforced cartels fall faster and harder to disruptive innovation than most businesses. When change comes, it is more dramatic than in industries that already have competition. The fate of taxis is a warning to other regulated industries that new technologies always give consumers more choice. And citizens can always make the choice to vote for candidates who embrace innovation over regulations that protect entrenched interests.

[/quote]

[Thanas]

I am very glad that the Uber model has been banned in Germany, because it sounds as if it would leave any passenger who gets into an accident up on the proverbial creek without the proverbial paddle.

[Borgholio]

Spent my lunch break on a rooftop calling Uber and practicing my marksmanship.

Fuck you for making me snort my soda.

[Lord MJ]

Regardless of the end determination of the validity of Uber's relationship with it's drivers, the lady that was brought the suit was thinking about nothing other than "Cha-Ching"

http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/detail/ ... al-statism#

The Entrepreneurial Statism of Uber's Enemies
There’s no reason statism can’t be an entrepreneurial activity
DANIEL BIER
July 24, 2015
#Entrepreneurship#Statism
The Uber driver who got designated as an “employee” by the California Labor Commission (even though she signed an agreement as an independent contractor) is starting a school to teach others how to use the state to coerce more money from companies like Uber and Lyft.

Barbara Ann Berwick drove with Uber for less than two months before quitting and later filing a case against the company with the state Labor Commission. She was awarded over $4,000 for expenses she incurred during her time as an “employee” of Uber.

Business Insider reports:

Berwick delivered a potentially huge blow to Uber when she was declared an employee, not an independent contractor, by the California Labor Commission in June.

She was awarded more than $4,000 for her employee expenses from the ride-hailing company.

Now she wants to teach other drivers how to do the same.

Berwick’s Rideshare School launched Tuesday and promises to teach “drivers from ridesharing services how to enforce their rights as employees and reclaim funds for driving expenses, overtime, and more.”

Berwick will charge $50 for the three-hour class, and will hold it twice a week at her home in San Francisco.

How is Berwick qualified to teach people to do this? Well,

because she’s a “seasoned litigator.” A search for her name returns 26 cases in San Francisco courts alone, and she can recite the address of the labor commission off the top of her head.

One wonders what the subjects of all those cases were. How many people find themselves involved in even a couple lawsuits in a lifetime? It’s hard to imagine it’s just bad luck. And how did she find time to do anything else — like, for instance, run her own business using independent contractors?

But she does seem to have the state’s regulatory apparatus pretty well wired. Now she’s going to teach others (for fun and profit) how to exploit the regulatory doctrine she helped invent to drive ridesharing companies in California into the ground.

There’s no reason statism can’t be an entrepreneurial activity, but, to say the least, it is an unusual career choice.

[Broomstick]

But... but... isn't that yet another example of the free market at work? Or at least entrepreneurship. She found a niche and is exploiting it. Greed is good, right?

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah, it's a moral good, this lady is a hero.

[Lord MJ]

But... but... isn't that yet another example of the free market at work? Or at least entrepreneurship. She found a niche and is exploiting it. Greed is good, right?

I'm not a believer in greed is good. Doesn't sound much better that the ambulance chasing lawyer. But at least in the ambulance chasing lawyer's case, despite he/she being a greedy lawyer, if a victim did suffer an injury, he/she is providing a helpful service.

This lady on the other hand is basically helping people fleece more money than what they agreed to when they signed up to do Uber rides, on their own time I might add.

If for some reason that the agreement itself is invalid (and I already stated earlier that the sharing economy will effectively require us to do away with categorizations like Employee and Independent Contractor in favor of custom categorizations), then the state itself should be doing the suing and levying fines. I fail to see how the individual driver is a victim here.

[Simon_Jester]

But... but... isn't that yet another example of the free market at work? Or at least entrepreneurship. She found a niche and is exploiting it. Greed is good, right?

I'm not a believer in greed is good.

Then why are you (apparently) a believer in Uber?

Either greed is good (in which case what this woman is doing is just as legitimate as what Uber is doing), or greed is bad (in which case Uber's attempt to save money to the tune of $4000 per driver by ignoring California labor law is wrong).

This lady on the other hand is basically helping people fleece more money than what they agreed to when they signed up to do Uber rides, on their own time I might add.

No, it is not.

According to the law of California, Uber was legally required to give them more money. The reason Uber lost that lawsuit is because Uber broke the law. And since Uber is plenty rich enough to hire good lawyers who should be able to advise it on issues like this, I can only assume they knew they were breaking the law, or at least stretching the existing law to the breaking point.

So this lady is doing nothing other than reaping the rewards of having earlier been cheated out of money that Uber was legally obliged to pay her.

And teaching others, who were cheated in the same way, how to retrieve their money.

The fact that at the time, these people agreed to a contract that paid them less than they deserved under the law, is irrelevant. The contract cannot protect Uber from the obligation to obey the law, and given how labor law works in America, it's Uber's responsibility to make sure the contract complies with the law.

If for some reason that the agreement itself is invalid (and I already stated earlier that the sharing economy will effectively require us to do away with categorizations like Employee and Independent Contractor in favor of custom categorizations), then the state itself should be doing the suing and levying fines. I fail to see how the individual driver is a victim here.

The individual driver is a victim because they are the ones who were cheated out of money. If the state levied the fines, it would only end up paying the money to the drivers anyway.

[Lord MJ]

Then why are you (apparently) a believer in Uber?

Either greed is good (in which case what this woman is doing is just as legitimate as what Uber is doing), or greed is bad (in which case Uber's attempt to save money to the tune of $4000 per driver by ignoring California labor law is wrong).

Who said that what Uber is doing constitutes greed. This is a model they came up when they were an early stage startup. Were they being greedy when they came up with this model? Well maybe the VCs were, but the entrepreneurs? Based on this logic all startup founders are greedy.

I would hope Liberal politicians don't start repeating talk like that. Startup entrepreneurs tend to be more progressive and forward thinking and looking to solve the world's problems, and thus tend to lean liberal. If liberal politicians starting talking like this, startup entrepreneurs would turn conservative in a heartbeat.

Just because the legal frameworks are not compatible with how the innovation economy works today, doesn't make the entrepreneurs "greedy."

Case in point, it is common practice among many startups in the very early stages when the founder is still starving, to hire interns that to help build their product, or market, or whatever, and these internships be completely unpaid. This violates minimum wage laws. Is it because the founders are greedy? Well in some cases they are because they don't want to give up any equity. But even when the founder does give up equity, they would still be in violation of minimum wage laws. The founder doesn't have capital, or has very little, so he/she can't pay the intern a traditional wage.

Would it be ok for this lady to charge these interns money and then set them loose on the founders?

Technically if the founder finds a co-founder to join him/her, both people have to be paid minimum wage, even if they own the company! Now say the founders later have a breakup, and a disgruntled cofounder sues for not being paid minimum wage, who is the greedy one here?

Who wins in that scenario. Nobody, except for the state and politicians who can say their regulations have been enforced. The founder loses, the intern/cofounder loses too, and ultimately society loses because it is not that much harder for startups to get established.

Another example of laws being out of sync with the reality of things.

No, it is not.

According to the law of California, Uber was legally required to give them more money. The reason Uber lost that lawsuit is because Uber broke the law. And since Uber is plenty rich enough to hire good lawyers who should be able to advise it on issues like this, I can only assume they knew they were breaking the law, or at least stretching the existing law to the breaking point.

So this lady is doing nothing other than reaping the rewards of having earlier been cheated out of money that Uber was legally obliged to pay her.

And teaching others, who were cheated in the same way, how to retrieve their money.

The fact that at the time, these people agreed to a contract that paid them less than they deserved under the law, is irrelevant. The contract cannot protect Uber from the obligation to obey the law, and given how labor law works in America, it's Uber's responsibility to make sure the contract complies with the law.

How can Uber drivers have been cheated, when both parties agreed to the arrangement and it was faithfully executed by both parties. Agreement basically being "you now have access to our App as a driver, you use your own car, and when you want to take rides you sign on to the app and indicate your available, you get paid a certain amount per ride, the company gets paid a certain amount per ride."

I fail to see how the driver is cheated here, regardless of what California Labor law says. Now if California has a problem that it's precious laws have been violated, that is between California and Uber. And California can levy whatever fines it deems fit, and Uber can challenge them in court as they seem fit. The driver would be out of it in that case.

Also the issue of whether the driver is an employee or an IC is far from settled. It hasn't even gone to a court yet, so for all we know the court will rule in favor of Uber and the discussion will be moot.

[Thanas]

How can Uber drivers have been cheated, when both parties agreed to the arrangement and it was faithfully executed by both parties. Agreement basically being "you now have access to our App as a driver, you use your own car, and when you want to take rides you sign on to the app and indicate your available, you get paid a certain amount per ride, the company gets paid a certain amount per ride."

I fail to see how the driver is cheated here, regardless of what California Labor law says. Now if California has a problem that it's precious laws have been violated, that is between California and Uber. And California can levy whatever fines it deems fit, and Uber can challenge them in court as they seem fit. The driver would be out of it in that case.

That is not how labour law works.

If I offer a starving person in africa a donut to suck my dick, it would still be exploitation even though the person in question would agree to the arrangement and faithfully execute it.

[Lord MJ]

That is not how labour law works.

If I offer a starving person in africa a donut to suck my dick, it would still be exploitation even though the person in question would agree to the arrangement and faithfully execute it.

Well that would be being a dick (no pun intended).

Not comparable to the Uber arrangement.

It's only exploitative because a legal statute says that it is.

Would you feel the same way if Uber was still an early stage startup run by starving startup founders?

Now don't get me wrong, I think there could be potentially many things about being an Uber driver that would be unattractive. The fact that they increasingly reduce rates, making driving less profitable for the driver for starters. And if Uber gets so big that a competing ride sharing service can't enter the market and offer a better deal to the drivers because it would be higher prices for the end user, which they wont pay because Uber is cheaper, then that could be a problem that would need to be addressed when the time comes.

[Thanas]

Would you feel the same way if Uber was still an early stage startup run by starving startup founders?

Yes, because a company that only works because their business model is against the current law and exploitive deserves no protection at all. If such a company were allowed to succeed it would harm the other, legal companies and therefore society as a whole would suffer.

[Lord MJ]

Would you feel the same way if Uber was still an early stage startup run by starving startup founders?

Yes, because a company that only works because their business model is against the current law and exploitive deserves no protection at all. If such a company were allowed to succeed it would harm the other, legal companies and therefore society as a whole would suffer.

Once again it's only exploitative because a statute says that it is.

Would you say the other startup founders in the intern example I mentioned above deserve no protection either?

Congratulations, you just wiped out a large portion of the innovation economy.

So is the problem that the business model is against current law, or that current laws (and politicians) are contrary to how the innovation economy and ecosystem operates today? I would argue the latter.

Laws can't be victims, their words on pieces of paper. I'm concerned about people.

I'm not a libertarian or conservative, so I believe that the new economy will require regulations to protect the well being of people. Trying to apply current law would be a foolish and quite frankly lazy way of achieving that regulation.

Regulations will need to be appropriate to the new paradigm.

And years from now when the paradigm shifts again those new regulations would themselves be outdated and a new set of regulations will need to be created. Rinse and repeat.

[Thanas]

Would you feel the same way if Uber was still an early stage startup run by starving startup founders?

Yes, because a company that only works because their business model is against the current law and exploitive deserves no protection at all. If such a company were allowed to succeed it would harm the other, legal companies and therefore society as a whole would suffer.

Once again it's only exploitative because a statute says that it is.

A statute that was formed as a result of the state's fight against exploitation. That is no small authority.

If Uber's business model is impractical due to the statute, then that is Uber's problem.

It is like a coal mine arguing from being allowed to operate without regulation because otherwise it would be impractial for the coal mine to work. To which the response is usually "So?" and not "OMG we need to abolish regulation".

[salm]

Using unpaid interns because they require work experience has been a cancer on our society for quite a while now and I´d be very happy to get rid of some innovation if this meant getting rid of this horrible practice.

[Lord MJ]

A statute that was formed as a result of the state's fight against exploitation. That is no small authority.

And at the time it was a perfectly valid cure to a real pain point felt by society at that point in time. Now today, the cure has become the pain. Pain in hindering the innovation economy. Now the government stepped out of the way and let the free market do it's thing, and later if new pains arise that the market can not or will not solve, then an appropriate regulation cure can be applied.

Of course for this to work we really need to get money out of politics, which should be society's focus instead of trying to stomp down on Uber.

If Uber's business model is impractical due to the statute, then that is Uber's problem.

This isn't just an Uber problem, multiple sharing economy startups are running into the problem. You're saying that the new paradigm is wrong because it goes against the standards of the old paradigm.

It is like a coal mine arguing from being allowed to operate without regulation because otherwise it would be impractial for the coal mine to work. To which the response is usually "So?" and not "OMG we need to abolish regulation".

There is already demonstrated pain and need for coal companies to have reasonable regulations placed on them because people have died as a result. And the dying isn't in the distant past. It's happening today in the present day.

Using unpaid interns because they require work experience has been a cancer on our society for quite a while now and I´d be very happy to get rid of some innovation if this meant getting rid of this horrible practice.

Are you talking about big mega-corps that want to take advantage of free labor, or starving startup founders who have no money using free labor?

[salm]

Using unpaid interns because they require work experience has been a cancer on our society for quite a while now and I´d be very happy to get rid of some innovation if this meant getting rid of this horrible practice.

Are you talking about big mega-corps that want to take advantage of free labor, or starving startup founders who have no money using free labor?

I don´t care who´s doing it. If you don´t pay your people you´re a cunt.

[Lord MJ]

Using unpaid interns because they require work experience has been a cancer on our society for quite a while now and I´d be very happy to get rid of some innovation if this meant getting rid of this horrible practice.

Are you talking about big mega-corps that want to take advantage of free labor, or starving startup founders who have no money using free labor?

I don´t care who´s doing it. If you don´t pay your people you´re a cunt.

Pretty judgmental and presumptuous statement. Do you know the story and struggles of startup founders to make such a broad statement that they are all cunts. That's like saying all Muslims are terrorists.

Sure I bet some founders are like "HA HA HA, I can get all this free labor and not have to pay these poor saps, and then I can get rich and not pay them a cent."

That is the exception not the rule though. Arrangements like this are needed to even get a company off the ground. A VC isn't just going to hand a startup founder a million dollars to launch a company, even in Silicon Valley those days are coming to an end. There needs to be some initial traction.

Furthermore I mentioned that even if the founder gives the intern equity in the company[/i] the law says the founder/company has violated minimum wage laws. Are you going to say these founders are cunts?

[salm]

Pretty judgmental and presumptuous statement. Do you know the story and struggles of startup founders to make such a broad statement that they are all cunts. That's like saying all Muslims are terrorists.

Sure I bet some founders are like "HA HA HA, I can get all this free labor and not have to pay these poor saps, and then I can get rich and not pay them a cent."

That is the exception not the rule though. Arrangements like this are needed to even get a company off the ground. A VC isn't just going to hand a startup founder a million dollars to launch a company, even in Silicon Valley those days are coming to an end. There needs to be some initial traction.

Furthermore I mentioned that even if the founder gives the intern equity in the company[/i] the law says the founder/company has violated minimum wage laws. Are you going to say these founders are cunts?

I didn´t call all startup founders cunts. I called people who abuse people by not paying them cunts. I know a fair share of founders, some of them were successful and some were not. I´ve worked for such startups myself and they managed to pay me real money. Sometimes the pay wasn´t exorbitant but it was at least decent so that you´d not feel ripped off.

You know, I agree that it is silly that you have to pay a co-founder.
But then, they are not unpaid. They are paid in a different way, that is, a percentage of the company.

If you don´t pay people, however, and use the current employment climate that may require the intern to have work experience in order to get a real job or something similar, you´re a cunt.
Not paying interns means that somebody else has to pay them because they have to eat and pay rent and stuff. So, if companies rely on such immoral business practices they can go fuck themselves and need to be dealt with by the law.