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Comment by mikeash | Hacker News Reader

A major point of this article is that Uber skirts regulations by sticking to the letter of the law while violating its spirit, which a lot of people (falsely, in the author's eyes) see as Uber thinking its above the law.

I was under the impression that Uber outright broke the law in many places. The author describes how things went for them in San Francisco: the laws never considered smartphone apps, so Uber was able to legally operate as a "limo service." In that particular case, I agree with the author. But I thought that in many other cities, Uber came in and started operating in clear violation of the letter of the law, not just the spirit.

Is that true, or am I just misinformed?

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You are not. Here is a list of scummy things Uber does that I put together recently for another thread.[1] All are pretty gross, many are "word but not spirit" issues, but at least a few of them are outright, flatly illegal.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13793923

Thanks. That's quite a list. Given that, it seems like this whole article rests on false pretenses.

The funny thing is it's not even complete. There is definitely much more out there; I just ran out of time to compile it all.

In fairness, I'm not sure I would go so far as saying the article's pretenses are false - rather, the article is assuming good faith when it probably shouldn't. I also think that it's talking mostly about Uber's core business idea being a gray area (which it is), rather than all the myriad bad things Uber does that aren't directly related to its actual business.

In Philly, Uber asked for a license, was denied, then told its drivers they would cover the costs of any fines and they should drive anyway. Offering upfront to pay fines doesn't sound like they thought they found a loophole.

That is a loophole!

If the fines incurred are less than margins, then you have a profitable strategy.

Margins? Profit? Both seem like not a priority for Uber. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/uber-s-lo...

>The company is said to have lost at least $2 billion last year and is on track to pile up a loss of at least $3 billion this year. Those are rough figures that may underestimate how much money Uber is losing and don't include interest, taxes or stock-based compensation.

Yeah, I don't think that's too bad. If you know you're breaking the law and accept the fines and pay them willingly because it's worth the cost, I don't see a big problem with that. Where I start having trouble is when they try to hide their lawbreaking, or fight against enforcement.

For a similar example, UPS and FedEx both rack up an unbelievable amount of parking tickets in major cities for stopping their delivery vehicles in places where they're not allowed. These companies do this deliberately, because it's cheaper to pay the tickets than to have drivers take the extra time and effort of locating a legal place to stop. Some big cities have gone so far as to set up special accommodations for these companies to pay their tickets in bulk rather than dealing with each one individually. In effect, these parking tickets work as a tax on delivery companies. Doesn't seem particularly evil.

Interesting side note: USPS, as a federal agency, apparently has immunity from local laws like this, so they don't get ticketed. This gives them a substantial advantage over their non-governmental competitors in big cities.

You're advocating for wealth being over the law. I don't see how you can feel that this is not a big problem.

Some laws are dumb.

There's a distressing trend on HN recently of people citing "the law" as if it were the end of any kind of practical or moral discussion.

So those with the money to do so should be free to break them, while those who can't need to obey, and that's just right and proper?

No, but then that's an issue with the way fines and punishments for said crimes are structured, not the fault of those who takes advantage of the loophole.

There are 2 types of fines: fines that are meant to stop things from happening and fines that are there to basically make the city money. Most traffic fines seem to be structured for the latter.

Good to know it's up to you to pick and choose which laws inconvenience you, I mean which laws are there to make those fat cats at the city office the big bucks.

Do you ever exceed the speed limit? Pass on the right? Rip your music or movies? Download torrents? Take pens from work? Park inches over the line? Throw away mail addressed to the previous resident of your house (federal felony)? Participated in an office pool? Smoke weed?

If so, kindly do not speak from the glass house about picking and choosing which laws to follow. You do it, I do it, everybody does it. Society still functions somehow.

I don't think that was the point of my argument. I don't agree that rich people should be above the law, but that doesn't mean I can't disagree with the way the punishments are structured. I'm all for punishing all equally under the law whether you are rich or not. With that said, that also means that I think financial punishments for laws should be redesigned. A good start would be to fine people based on their networth instead of a fixed sum. Even then, the impact of a $900,000 fine on a wealthy person is likely less than a $900 fine for a poor person.

What in the world are you talking about?

They stated that different laws exist for different reasons. That's not picking and choosing laws. And they didn't say that laws to make money are inherently bad either.

Wrong. It is an issue with the idea that the rich are above the law.

If you want the rich to not be above the law then the punishment for breaking said law should not be financial in nature. Any punishment that is financial in nature will ALWAYS be less impactful to the rich than to the poor.

An improvement to this would be to structure fine based on networth rather than a fixed amount. Yet even then, a millionaire paying $900,000 in fines is still not as devastating as a poor person paying $900. So I would say that the issue is still the structure of the punishment.

A lot of the Nordics apparently have some fines based on income: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...

I can't say I really favor this but it has been done.

Someone with money to burn can already get priority access to so many things. I don't mind if they can buy priority access to roads and reduce the amount of funding that has to come from everyone. When there's no harm or risk of harm, it's a pretty big exaggeration to use a phrase like 'above the law'.

Let's say you're in a really big hurry for something, and you park illegally knowing that it's illegal and accepting the chance that you'll get a ticket. When you do in fact get a ticket, you pay it willingly.

Is that morally wrong, in your eyes?

Are we talking about parking in a spot and not feeding the meter? Or parking in the bus zone, forcing riders to wade out into traffic to board?

Does it matter when it comes to the morality of breaking the law? You might consider the latter action to be morally wrong, but it seems like it would be because of its impact on others, not because it's breaking the law.

I think choosing to disregard the law also means choosing to disregard why the law exists. Not so easily disentangled.

There is no inherent morality, positive or negative, in obeying the law; the law is not meant as a moral authority, but a social one. To be consistent in your logic, you would have to argue that helping slaves escape their condition in 1800s America would be morally wrong, as it would be breaking the law.

I think you might have me backwards. I'm arguing that there is no inherent immorality to breaking the law, and that deliberately breaking a law and paying the resulting fines is a reasonable thing to do.

Sure, let's say that. Let's say I have, for all practical purposes, infinite money. And every single day I park outside your house, in a way that it blocks your parking garage. And I do that illegally, knowing it's illegal, and accepting the chance that I'll get fined, knowing that any fine has absolutely no consequence.

Is that morally wrong, in your eyes?

Uber has been consistently breaking the law (or parking into society's collective parking space, if the metaphor is lost). And your response is that they are wealthy enough right now to do it, so no big deal.

The act of breaking parking law wouldn't be wrong. The act of harassing me would be. I believe the state would agree with me on that, and would escalate beyond simple fines before too long.

What if parking outside your garage is "not personal, just business"? Because the person has a need to park there?

Pay a fee to the victim?

In any situation where illegal parking blocks an exit, it is possible to get the car towed. My experience is that the police become very prompt about repeat tow requests. I realize I'm quibbling about the analogy, but there is a big difference between blocking a garage and sitting in a curbspace for too long, and these large companies are only doing the latter.

In general, I expect that most people would find actions that are (in their eyes) most directly tied to inconveniencing others, putting them at risk, etc. are different. I suppose all laws are theoretically about reducing actions that are viewed as harmful to individuals or society as a whole. But clearly some have a more direct linkage to others.

I doubt many people would think feeding a parking meter (which is not allowed in a lot of places) is "wrong" in any material way even though you can get fined for it. Taking a handicapped space, blocking a bus stop, or parking in front of a fire hydrant, on the other hand, would be widely considered as icky behaviors totally irrespective of any difference in fines.

That's now what this is. They're breaking the law and willingly serving the penalty. You can argue that the penalty isn't strong enough, but then your issue is with the legislature, not the criminal.

What you're saying is tantamount to saying a thief who likes prison food is also above the law, because he actually enjoys the penalty for the laws he breaks.

That's great, but no. I can argue that they shouldn't break the law. The penalty is irrelevant.

>I can argue that they shouldn't break the law.

And if you had done that, I'd have never responded. What you said was:

>You're advocating for wealth being over the law.

Which no one has yet done, not even close. Justice, according to the law, is being served. You can argue that the penalty is unjust, which you have failed to do so far.

You can also argue that it's wrong to break the law, which is a new argument in the thread starting with your "over the law" comment.

Saying an entity isn't subject to the law because of wealth and saying that an entity shouldn't break the law are two completely different things. The first argument doesn't work because the companies in question are proving they are subject to the law by paying the fines. The second argument is new, nebulous, not particularly substantive, and otherwise better left ignored.

That's exactly what that is. Basically, if you're rich enough to where the fine doesn't matter, you don't have to follow the law.

It's not about being rich at all. Someone barely making ends meet running their own courier service could do the same thing. It's up to them to figure out if the increase in deliveries per day is worth the cost of the tickets.

There are fines that impact big companies and rich people less because of deep pocketbooks. But parking tickets on delivery trucks are not such a fine. They scale linearly with bad-parking activity. As mikeash said, this case is effectively a tax.

"Someone barely making ends meet running their own courier service could do the same thing."

This statement reeks of ignorance. That's like saying a poor person could easily afford chemo, while ignoring the fact that they won't be able to afford food or shelter at the same time.

Because it is a risk per delivery, it averages out over the work week to simply be a certain number of pennies per delivery. Rich and poor alike can survive a percentage cost like that. It's the exact opposite of a huge fixed cost like chemo.

I assume that you have a couple of things going on.

On the one hand, cities recognize that it's more or less impossible to make deliveries in a city without violating the law a decent portion of the time. But people want to get packages delivered.

On the other hand, they want to provide incentives to at least try to obey the law. (And they're almost certainly not averse to having the revenue stream either.)

UPS and Fedex pay New York millions in parking fines as a cost of doing business[1]. How come we don't really think of them as scofflaws, but we do with Uber? (I include myself when asking this question)

[1] - http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130526/ECONOMY/305269...

That happens a lot around here too. Actually, I know (by sight) both the UPS drivers and the parking enforcement people. The UPS drivers, at least that I can see, usually try to park somewhere slightly out of the way, so they're not blocking traffic or creating a dangerous diversion. Uber drivers generally seem to act like they're the only car on the road. That's more of a driver thing than a company thing, but culture comes from the top.

I feel like this behavior comes from the riders -- people give bad ratings if they don't get picked up exactly at their door, double parking be damned.

That's an interesting thing: in basketball, fouls are part of the game and used in the last minutes to get the ball back

In most other sports, doing that would be "breaking the rules."

Not sure how such a division arises. (Maybe if the authorities make no attempt to "close" said loophole?)

In general, in sports there's something of a distinction between fouls that are simply a violation of a game's rules and fouls that also cause or at least risk injuries. The former are generally regarded to be just part of the game and, presumably, penalties are commensurate with the foul. It's not uncommon for "dirty" play to have consequences in addition to the foul called at the time.

The basketball example is an interesting one. One assumes that if the league wanted to eliminate that type of play they'd change the rules to increase the penalty in some way by docking points or whatever.

Wouldn't a "scofflaw" be someone who got a ticket and did not pay it? Also parking citations are civil offenses not criminal ones. Most cities are actually quite dependent on revenue generated from parking tickets. I am sure New York City is quite happy with the relationship.

Where I'm from (in the EU), any profits from illegal activity are confiscated upon conviction, sometimes also including "the tools" used to commit the crime.

After several Uber drivers had to pay back all their earnings, lose their car and get a fine on top, there has been significantly less drivers willing to take the risk.

Outside of some peak hours (new years, etc) where the risk of getting caught is minimal, the only ones left are the really shady drivers with their crappy cars.

This is often true in the US when the illegal activity is a crime punishable by imprisonment. It usually isn't when the illegal activity is some form of doing business without the required license.

In Sarasota, FL, rather than trying to regulate Uber, the city removed regulation on taxis. This was more than a year ago. I wonder why more cities don't take this approach?

They violate the letter of the law regularly. For example, their driverless car experiment.

Uber is careful to violate local (civil) laws where it has popular backing, as opposed to state or federal laws that can carry criminal penalties. Think: Zenefits or Theranos versus Airbnb.

Richard Petty, the legendary Nascar driver, once said that the secret to winning at Nascar is knowing how to "cheat neat."

There's great art in knowing how to rejigger a car that must look like a Toyota Camry, but obviously is not the same Camry that you or I could buy from the local dealer for $30,000.

There's a blog post for someone to write about Silicon Valley's efforts to put the Petty Principle in action. Lots of gray in the middle on this one. I'd love to see someone's comprehensive take on what's forgivable these days vs. unforgivable.

Smokey Yunick's 7/8 '66 Chevelle is the classic NASCAR cheat story. It's on the Wikipedia page here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokey_Yunick

He basically scaled down a car's dimensions to make it lighter while still looking similarly to the full size version. This made NASCAR introduce jigs to measure the cars. A rule that is still very much in use.

I think you misinterpreted this article, the author claims that Uber is not violating the spirit of the law, since the spirit of the law is to promote safety, not a government run monopoly.

Given how popular Uber is, and how much people dislike the Taxi industry, it is enlightening to think about why taxi reform was never on anyone's agenda.

Then Uber disregarded the California Public Utilities Commission law designed purely for safety that does not promote the Taxi industry. It was actually made for the likes of Uber and Lyft to allow them to operate while providing the public with trust that the vehicles are safe, passengers with accessibility needs had access and to thwart racial discrimination.

Lyft had no issues with complying, but Uber did.

http://www.recode.net/2015/7/15/11614750/uber-fined-7-3-mill...

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