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Comment by exelius | Hacker News Reader

How so, by requiring background checks for Uber drivers? When I lived there, they required the same livery license for pedicab drivers as well -- which was basically getting fingerprinted and paying a $25 fee.

Uber and Lyft were the ones who pulled out. The regulation that Austin passed was in no way overbearing; it just required fingerprints. They claim this "destroys the ridesharing economy" but in my experience, Uber is basically a part-time job for most drivers. Most people will go get fingerprinted for a part-time job. Very few people are ridesharing; but maybe this undercuts the argument that Lyft and Uber use for the drivers not being employees...

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Were Uber and Lyft being required to perform a level of background check beyond what was required of existing taxi cab drivers? Or, were the new set of regulations simply bringing Uber/Lyft drivers in line with other professional drivers?

The whole thing is weird to me. I've used Uber a few times and the car that showed up has always been a licensed limo (just dumb luck, I suppose). Pretty sure I'd turn down a ride in some clapped-out Civic, should that be the car that showed up (but, perhaps that's why I usually use car services and not Uber).

They weren't even bringing them up to the same level as taxi drivers; they were just requiring a livery license -- which is a rubber-stamp process in Austin and again, is required even of bicycle-taxi drivers who are only allowed to work for tips.

Uber and Lyft threw a hissy fit because it undermines their complete control over the driver ecosystem. Best I can tell, they're afraid that licensing drivers would cause them to expect to be treated like employees, while making it ever-so-slightly harder for Uber/Lyft to recruit drivers. IMO it's more about labor relations than regulation.

> Most people will go get fingerprinted for a part-time job.

That's how it starts. Then the government starts mandating transdermal implants at birth that contain a GPS chipset, and a kill switch. We're headed to a level of dystopian control that would make a brutal banana republic dictator shudder.

I can't tell if you're serious or not. If you are, that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

If you're not, congratulations, you got me.

Actually, we're not that far off from being chipped voluntarily. That's how it will start. "Let us chip you, and you won't need your badge to get through the front entrance anymore; and we'll give you a $50/week bonus."

In an era when the government has access to our cell phone data via easily obtained FISA court permission, we're already a good chunk of the way there.

Ok, I'm willing to walk with you at least that far. Now take me on a journey to, "With a kill switch".

Not a very long journey.

After all, it was not so long ago in this country when people of a certain ethnic descent were locked up en masse.

Maybe a kill switch is too far: how about an electrical charge to block the activity of your optic nerve and brain stem?

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