Comment by thrw1211 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by thrw1211 | Hacker News Reader

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I work at Uber and have worked on the London project. I've yet to see such extensive compliance requirements asked from a regulator - that, in Uber's case, is successfully met, after a LOT of investment. Examples include listing every single change weeks ahead of time before launch for approval with the regulator, having a full internal audit of any changes that impact London, and many others that required building new workflows, systems and hiring dedicated London personel. Many of these are well beyond the things the public discusses and is aware of - like the driver verification (which Uber now does realtime, through the app, with some pretty neat technology).

For Uber to keep operating, a larger team dedicated just for compliance is in place, and large systems for these kinds of compliant tracing have been built. I am curious to see if TFL will make these asks public and roll out the same requirements that Uber has to fulfill for their operation as mandatory for all other operators. Or if these requirements remain private, between Uber and TFL, and other competitors get a pass on them. Kapten, Bolt, Ola and FreeNow currently do not have the same asks coming from TFL and I know that several of these services do not have the guardrails in place that Uber has already.

This is absolutely, 100% the consequence of Uber's own actions.

Uber have taught regulators that, if you're friendly to Uber and give them time to stop breaking the rules, they'll tool up for a fight with you instead of spending the time getting their house in order.

That may be a good approach in cities where the taxis are all run by the mob or something and the regulators are all corrupt - but there's no denying they're lying in the bed they chose to make.

I can't speak to London in particular, but what you say also holds for the US. And I wonder if they took the same approach because of a similar set of circumstances.

In the US, Uber's aggression was pretty clearly the only way to ever launch - they had to (1) break the rules, (1) delay in court, and (3) grow like crazy, so that by the time their law-breaking is proven, they're too popular to outlaw.

Now, their incentives are different because they're the incumbent. They WANT to work under heavy regulation (just like the taxis did!). So, if the same is true in the UK, I wonder if it still makes sense to layer it on, knowing that eventually the other players will have to overcome the same barriers.

> They WANT to work under heavy regulation

Well good, I hope they'll be appreciating my no vote on 22.

This reminds me of the mcdonalds vs scalding tea lady lawsuit (IIRC, the claim was the cup did not indicate the contents were hot, so now all such cups do).

The difference here though is that London is setting itself up to a situation where it can't deregulate without losing face, can't play favorites anymore (because regulations are "supposed to be fair") but the regulations are so demanding that it makes it significantly more difficult for competition to enter the market, ultimately strengthening Uber's position.

> IIRC, the claim was the cup did not indicate the contents were hot, so now all such cups do

The claim was that the coffee itself was too hot, hotter than served at other establishments. Hot enough to give her huge third-degree burns across both her legs which required skin grafts and two years of further medical treatment. I've seen the photos—they're horrific.

> This reminds me of the mcdonalds vs scalding tea lady lawsuit (IIRC, the claim was the cup did not indicate the contents were hot, so now all such cups do)

Nope.

Uber are the incumbent- they want regulation like this because it makes it harder for startups to compete.

I imagine the reaction from taxi drivers is "welcome to competing within the rulebook".

Edit: Not saying the rulebook is reasonable. Just that it's easy to dominate if you skirt around it.

Uber was a known bad actor (blackball system, lost sexual assault reports, Indian medical records and rape scandal), the others were not.

Indian medical records?

> A top Uber executive obtained medical records of a woman who had been raped during a ride in India, according to multiple sources.

> The executive in question, Eric Alexander, the president of business in the Asia Pacific, then showed the medical records to Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and SVP Emil Michael. In addition, numerous executives at the car-hailing company were either told about the records or shown them.

https://www.vox.com/2017/6/7/15754316/uber-executive-india-a...

I wish regulators would focus on Facebook and Google - but since they are a level of indirection away from physical impact, they get away with mass manipulation with terrible real world impact.

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