Hacker News Reader

Comment by slim | Hacker News Reader

you'd be surprised. it seems he was getting death threats because of his business. disrupting established syndicates doing business transferring large amounts of cash everyday is risky. in France for example, taxi drivers burned Ubers in protest.

View on HN

Did they burn them with the drivers inside? If not, how is that comparable to killing and dismembering a human being?

It's comparable because usually you don't get these kinds of violent reactions when you disrupt a market

>you don't get these kinds of violent reactions when you disrupt a market

Only in developed countries, in a lot of the world that's actually exactly what you get when you disrupt someone's market.

I worked at a small US defense contractor for a couple of years. I was not in that loop, but my impression from those that were was that this sort of thing was to be expected if you entered into competition against the wrong incumbent.

Referring to that happening in the US too or just abroad?

In the US. But here we are better at keeping it down low.

Very true.

Not specifically in France, but at least in Pretoria, South Africa an Uber driver's car was set on fire with him inside and he died. That's the only one where someone was burned to death in a car that I remember hearing about but there may have been other similar incidents.

Arson may not be murder, but comparing one violent felony to another doesn't seem too unreasonable to me.

It's definitely in the same direction if not the same league.

In Korea, taxi drivers burned themselves to protest ride-sharing: https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/qvyzn5/south-korea-uber-k...

"If not, how is that comparable to killing and dismembering a human being?" The power differential isn't there either, the comparison would be 'head of Uber' not an 'Uber Driver'. Also, France is not Nigeria.

> how is that comparable to killing and dismembering a human being

It's comparable because it happened in France? :)

Ask Jimmy Hoffa.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com