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Comment by mwnz | Hacker News Reader

Successful for the company. Not necessarily the population.

I'd disagree with that. It is providing a means of income for many who are unemployed/underemployed. It's much better than nothing. It probably can be better, but most of these drivers aren't complaining.

But that can change quickly, history has lots of examples of how asymmetric power relations between the owners of the means of production and the workforce can end in conflict and a heavy push for a regulatory framework.

They aren't complaining yet because 1. they effectively have no collective voice other than social media, and 2. this "gig" industry Uber has propelled into the stratosphere is just too relatively new to see any significant societal fallout.

Wait until we see more and more drivers whose only job is Uber no longer able to work. What do we say to the veterans who, after being rejected everywhere else due to a dearth of skills took out a car loan on a new $60k SUV to drive for Uber, only now to get injured? Who's going to take care of them? Won't be Uber, who will just be shoving the middle finger in their faces. And I don't think you can call this a strawman, given how aggressive Uber is with vets.

Sure. But why don't we blame literally every other company who is worse and isn't giving any better opportunity. It would be fantastic if everyone had hundreds or thousands of options and they could compete for the best opportunity, but for some people that's not the case. I'd blame every other company before I blamed the one doing the most to help provide a compelling opportunity.

That would be a very financially-imprudent move, in any case. Just extrapolating from my car payment, that's like a $1200 payment. Moreover, are you going to make any more money from fares than if you had bought a used SUV at $20k?

> It's much better than nothing. It probably can be better, but most of these drivers aren't complaining.

This sounds strikingly similar to the working conditions undocumented immigrants encounter in US agriculture.

It's NOT better than nothing. In a proper first world country, you'd have a real safety net for people to fall back on instead of being exploited by shitty technology companies.

It is better than nothing. Consider the most extreme case, child labor (and I don't mean teenagers working at their parent's business). Enough people thought this was not better than nothing and thus pushed to end the practice. In some places this worked (more through economic pressure than laws if memory serves). The children who ended up with nothing found that they were worse off and many turned to the world's oldest profession to make money. They ended up worse off because nothing is worse than being exploited.

Ooh, better than nothing. Sounds enticing.

For the most part, the fares seem to gravitate toward uber. Drivers likely do better with uber than with local taxi cos who at times act like extortionists (kickbacks or no dispatches, car rental charges, medallion charges, etc.)

100% agree. Pushed goverments to review their approach to labour law.

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