Things to Learn from Uber’s Implosion | Hacker News Reader

Things to Learn from Uber’s Implosion

eand.co

17 pointsPufflinJ21 comments

This statement may be nice to believe in, but it is wishful thinking:

"You should see bad eudaimonics as a deferred cost: every bit of well-being that you destroy will one day have to be repaid in some way."

There is no cosmic law of "karma." It is a type of logical fallacy, one that may make us feel good, but it is not real.

Despite all the crises, Uber the service seems to be running fine with no discernible impact. Maybe less is more, as far as headquarters is concerned. The more execs leave, the fewer management initiatives, and the greater the chance of profitability.

In essence the author seems to be arguing that Uber is experiencing bad karma.

As much as I want Uber to implode for all the negative things it has done, I don't believe that it is, just like I don't believe the big American banks will despite all the negative things they have done. If anything, I see companies that create garmonbozia, not eudaimonia, flourishing.

American banks didn't implode because they simply weren't prosecuted. Partially because the prosecutors know that they would implode if properly prosecuted and are morally opposed to the "innocent" employees and shareholders losing. Nevermind the actually innocent employees and shareholders at honest banks losing to the dishonest ones.

It's true, you get ahead in American business by cheating and playing the game right. There are revolving doors between prosecutors and big law firms, lawyers looking out for themselves don't make waves because it's bad for careers. If you do cheat and "get caught" it's in your favor to cut a no-fault deal with the government and take your profits with you. So long as you don't piss too many people off (just make sure your cheats are too complex to be easily understood), you get away by paying small fines that mostly just make lawyers rich with internal audits and such.

It's simply corruption, through and through, but it's not simple corruption. It's not a bribe or a cheat, but a system that's incentives line up in a way to maximize profits of cooperative cheats and the lawyers on both sides.

It would take a president and congress who don't spend their time arguing about vapid bullshit to correct the problem and an electorate that was either much more educated or respected and trusted those who were (were it they deserved trust).

If you think the constant cries about abortion and gay rights and such are about those actual issues, you're a fool. Everything but the details there is all figured out, but if people keep arguing about it, they won't have any attention left for the real problems facing the Republic. (and that is precisely the idea)

Isn't it a little early to be calling it an implosion? Did something happen that I'm not aware of?

The author's wishful thinking.

Losing the London license was not wishful thinking. That happened!

It isn't a trend, Uber has been banned and unbanned repeatedly.

True, but in my opinion, Uber isn't dead until it's not one of the leading choices in car sharing apps. In just about every metropolitan area in the US "Uber" already has household name recognition, and all it's disgressions haven't changed that.

Uber's in over 600 cities. It wins some and it loses some. But mostly it wins.

With the SoftBank negotiations Uber's big investors have a chance to sell and get off the Uber train before it goes off the rails, but they're not selling. They like it there. It's nice.

https://www.axios.com/softbanks-big-uber-deal-rests-on-gover...

That’s ok, London government has done the right thing and is better off for it. They win no matter whether Uber succeeds everywhere else!

Note that this has happened before -- Uber has left a city, then come back to it later, see Austin, TX (they returned in the last 2 months or so)

This is an idea that I _want_ to believe, but the piece lacks substance. The author seems insistent that this is universal truth, but doesn’t provide any examples outside of Uber and (barely) Facebook. What other companies are out there that have suffered consequences by acting antisocial?

Wow. I think that’s more of an anti-American article, rather than something to learn.

The thing to learn from Uber is that Uber is losing because it is unethical? As if companies that are succeeding or are avoiding sanctions are ethical. Here's the concluding paragraph of this essay if you want to preview its inane arguments:

> People like things that are bad for them. But in good ways. Staying out all night dancing till the sun comes up is fun. It might be harmful to your health, your job, and maybe even your relationship, but for precisely those reasons, it’s good for the soul. These things? They’re too often just bad in a bad way.

Here I thought it might be a good overview on corporate strategy and how things went wrong at Uber. But I open this only to read about Uber's bad "karma" is biting them. The problem is a similar article could be written for say Snapchat too but then they are doing moderately fine hence nothing to learn from them, at least for now.

Oracle is in massive trouble if the central thesis of this article is correct.

And oh brother, I hope they are right.

Uber has good karma. The writer of this article clearly had no post traction experience.

They have an investment thesis that isn't playing out as planned due to regional push back. Economics.

However, Kalanick should never have written a public apology as that gave journalists and their SJW counterparts grounds to stand on.

I thought this was good, unfortunate to see it flagged.

click-bait title, no support for claim.

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