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Comment by synicalx | Hacker News Reader

Why should he have to apologise for this? This is normal 'robust' conversation between an employer and an employee who have a disagreement.

The driver is apparently bankrupt (well done), so I would not be at all surprised if he deliberately tried to bait Travis into this conversation so he'd have a story to sell. At the end of the Bloomberg article where this surfaced, they noted that the driver got 1 Star for that ride - I find it hard to believe that anyone other than Uber and the driver would have been able to know that.

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You one of those who never ever talks to their Uber drivers? Talk to them sometime. Here in NYC, it's their full time gig, requires TLC license and expensive commercial insurance paid upfront. Not to mention the car which is financed. People take a big risk investing in Uber driving and they get lured with deceptive ads promising "guaranteed income" they can't actually attain. The money the drivers are making is an absolute joke now, especially since you're required to drive UberPool. People relied on Uber, not thinking they would try to screw their own so called "partners."

> People relied on Uber

For future reference, that is always a bad idea no matter what the company.

Most people don't have the ability to choose not to rely on their employer.

But most can choose to work only for those they trust.

This is not even close to being true if you also assume most people need to eat and pay rent/mortgage.

I don't even have the benefit of a high school education and came from a very poor background (think a step above Appalachia) and yet after a decade of working I have never been beholden to a single employer. Perhaps the problem is we still teach kids like it's the 40's but you should be constantly building skills in your own time and keeping a toe in the job market. I got laid off on Friday during the finical crisis and walked into a new job that next Monday.

Exactly! Thank you! Some people are in a situation where they literally have no choice but to rely on their employer for almost everything in their lives. This can be especially true for people of color because of the endless social injustices they are forced to endure.

Thank you for your comment.

Uber is still raking people in on the promise of it being a lucrative gig. They even have TV ads now. It's disgusting.

Actually the driver rated Kalanick 1 star: > Later, the Uber driver app prompts him to rate Kalanick, as he does all his riders. Kamel gives him one star.

It wasn't a meaningful encounter.

Ah he did indeed, I misread that. In that case the driver almost certainly sold this story.

Uber drivers are not employees. Uber is a vendor to its drivers. In fact, Uber's existence depends on no employee relationship existing.

More of a franchise than a vendor. They do not sell anything.

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