FCC slaps Lyft with citation for calling and texting customers | Hacker News Reader

FCC slaps Lyft with citation for calling and texting customers

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This startup culture of "begging forgiveness rather than asking permission" has really got to stop -- if only because it's impolite.

Edit: I also worry about where the line actually is when there is no line. What if a startup takes advantage of children? Is that crossing the line? I mean, when paying fines is part of your business model, everything short of whatever might send you to jail is fair game, isn't it? That makes me uncomfortable.

Why? If Uber and lyft did this from the beginning, they would have never lasted a week.

"Turns out we can't operate like a Taxi". "Turns out we are actually supposed to be treating the drivers as employees". "Turns out we are supposed to be vetting these drivers more extensively".

If uber and lyft asked permission they simply wouldn't exist.

Correct

Still, you want to limit your liability.

Not following FCC rules seems a stupid and pointless transgression

Seems like an oversight

> Not following FCC rules seems a stupid and pointless transgression

Perhaps unless the FCC rules themselves are pointless?

The reason why Uber and Lyft are given a hard time is that they're a serious threat to state-maintained taxi-cartels all over the world.

Or they just forgot to include the opt out options.

Perhaps the Pure Food and Drug Act is pointless, too.

Perhaps the safety-related government agencies aren't really doing their purported job?

> The reason why Uber and Lyft are given a hard time is that they're a serious threat to state-maintained taxi-cartels all over the world.

No, they're given a hard time because they ignore regulation like driver background checks or insurance or calibrated tamper proof meters.

> No, they're given a hard time because they ignore regulation like driver background checks or insurance or calibrated tamper proof meters.

"Ignoring regulations" in this context basically boils down to "competing with taxi cartels". That's obviously upsetting to the cartels, and unhappy noises are made about background checks and meters, as if those potential problems could only be solved with a cartel.

We both know that Uber & Lyft drivers give better service overall than taxi drivers overall. That's because Uber and Lyft are not part of a cartel, and have to therefore please their customers lest they lose them.

And why should they last for more than a week if they break rules? Sure, you can argue that the rules are pointless but it would be arrogant for you and I to decide which rules we want to follow and which ones we can ignore. Maybe treating drivers as employees and vetting them would cost more but benefit both parties more. Maybe not. But not doing either definitely benefits the company. And maybe certain rules exist to protect us from companies; even if we don't know it because we haven't lived without such protection.

It's probably healthy for a system's rules to occasionally be tested. The important rules are probably more efficiently/effectively enforced than the others.

You mean startups, a type of company that exists to rapidly grow in a niche unregulated industry, should wait for the government to regulate their new business before it ever exists? I could be wrong, but I like to think politicians have better things to do than make laws about things that don't exist.

Edit: This is relevant.

He envisioned his storefront as a beachhead for Bitcoin in the heart of the Financial District, but it has been losing money as he waits for government agencies, such as New York’s Department of Financial Services, to decide how to regulate virtual currencies.

“Oh please Mr. Government man, please let me run a business so I can feed my children myself, so y’know, I don’t have to go on food stamps to leech off of the people who already have your approval to eat.”

http://www.contravex.com/2015/03/08/bitcoin-is-unfair-thats-...

From the article: "Even though the company’s terms say that a user can opt out of robocalls and texts simply by using “provided unsubscribe options,” the investigation by the FCC found that the company does not actually have these options available."

Lame.

Getting ad robocalls and texts on mobile phones is really annoying, totally unacceptable, and illegal.

Getting robocalls anywhere is illegal, but that doesn't stop "Anne" or "Rachel" from "Cardholder Services". The FCC hasn't cracked down on that festering hive of illegality, so why is it bothering with Lyft? Which Important Person wants to count coup on Lyft?

What kind of contact is it? Do they do more than send texts or calls when your ride is there?

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