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Comment by whittingtonaaon | Hacker News Reader

You can’t blame Uber for workers who make bad decisions, can you?

By that logic any employer could do anything because "working for a bad employer is a bad decision"

If Uber were holding guns to peoples’ heads and forcing them to work, then I would most definitely condemn them. But people work voluntarily for Uber. So I can’t see that as oppressing them.

I would normally agree with you, but the concern here is about information asymmetry. Workers can make bad decisions when they don't have a full picture of the costs of working for a company. I'm normally hesitant about regulation, but hat is something that regulation could help with to improve a worker's decision-making (similar to healthcare price transparency) without interfering with a company's operations.

Well I have to admit, I don’t know their business model very well. But, at least in my case, if I did it for a while and calculated my reimbursement after the costs of running the car—and found out I wasn’t making enough—I would quit.

A lot of people driving for Uber don’t have the skills to do tco calculations… it’s exploitive that Uber is taking advantage of these people. Whether Uber is culpable is arguable. I believe it’s more if an issue for government because they aren’t teaching people the skills they need to understand this.

Our societal system does hold proverbial guns to peoples heads to force them to work. We all need money to pay rent, eat, take care of our families and our health, etc. That money has to come from working (or inheritance if one’s lucky).

Our “societal system” does no such thing. If you wish to acquire something, you have to either trade for it (trade, for example, work), steal it, or acquire it from nature (as in hunting/gather thing). This is just nature, not a human system.

Your post does nothing to negate the fact than many, many people fall under the definition of a wage slave.

Private property doesn’t exist in nature.

Ask any dog if private property exists. Ownership is a very deeply ingrained, basic concept.

Who owns what, however, is not.

Why is it always "blame the victim for being exploited" rather than blaming the multi-billion dollar corporation doing the exploiting?

Uber doesn’t force anyone to work for them. If they feel exploited, they quit and do something else. That the company is making a lot of money shows that there is demand among their drivers. I just fail to see what’s wrong with that.

To me force—including reckless regulation—is the real exploitation.

Too many people live paycheck to paycheck to have the freedom to quit their jobs to find something else.

Also, Uber isn’t making a lot of money. They have been hemorrhaging VC for years and aren’t making any profits.

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