Hacker News Reader

Comment by michaelpb | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I think people have a very binary view of "criminal enterprises" vs "corporations", like they can only be people who dress in pin-stripe suits and carry tommy guns and say "lookee here, see" a lot, but a tech company can be a criminal enterprise just as much as anything else. Any company that makes money by violating the law, or encouraging it's habitual violation, is a criminal enterprise by definition (at least by the colloquial definition), even if a top boss keeps his "nose clean". Just like with any other criminal enterprise, going after the top is going to be the most effective. I hope with more research like this, maybe attitudes will change.

View on HN

yah, and i’ll just point out again[0] that firms try to get big to shield themselves from the consequences of their actions. we need regulations that aim to right-size organizations, rather than the grow-at-all-costs we have now.

[0]: a longer treatment i just posted as it relates to uber/lyft: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27914112

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation.

Howard Scott

Or to pay several retainers!

Tell one lawyer specifically what you will do, or did, and let them tell you what to do but that they cant represent you anymore, fire them. Go to the second lawyer and play dumb but using the rubric provided by the first lawyer.

> A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation.

That definition is much too kind to corporations.

You mean like Uber? They violated… and people would be pissed to see them go. So companies hope to be the rule breaker that gets too big to fail.

Yeah, though unfortunately some companies are big enough now to change the laws they violate [1]

[1] https://abc7.com/22-california-prop-2020-ca-what-is/7585005/

Uber seems to get a pass because taxi services were so utterly terrible and had no incentive to get better.

People like Uber because it's cheaper than taxis but I'm hearing complaints that prices are up. Seems the reason it's cheaper than taxis is Uber is subsidizing with investor money and they shifted costs to the drivers, many who are realizing it's not worth it. Seems to me Uber has always been unsustainable (they're billions in the red, spending to capture market share) but they were hoping to have self driving cars to eliminate drivers by now.

I hated taxis long before Uber showed up.

I think people take Uber because the price is known in advance. Taxis were considered the biggest theft profession of the world (excluding politicians) because they relied on extremely nasty techniques, such as threats, misconfiguring the counter, letting it run between clients, in Mexico abducting people as part of racket networks, using the wrong route, pretending there is a station charge and, last but not least, using law and local police against the customer. It’s sad that Uber has lower prices, because I would have liked to see a real match, I think everyone is happy to see taxis go bankrupt and another system with a reputation framework.

>Seems to me Uber has always been unsustainable (they're billions in the red, spending to capture market share) but they were hoping to have self driving cars to eliminate drivers by now.

I'm starting to think it is a rational strategy. Grow at a loss during a recession and make profits during the coming boom. Of course, the fact that they are still growing at a loss implies that we aren't out of the recession yet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com