Comment by omgomgomgomg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by omgomgomgomg | Hacker News Reader

Oh my, oh my, how the tune has changed on hn and social media on this and uber.

Whereever people sense they can make a buck or save a buck, laws amd regulations be damned.

I have never swayed an inch off my view.

I knew first hand how this affects housing prices and wear, I live in a severly affected area and pay the price for it, literally.

Same for uber. Neither is cheaper than the previous thing, hotel offers better bang fpr the buck, uber has surges and exploits the drivers and isnt even cheaper. Nope, I dont qanna hear about these drivers wouldnt have a job at all without uber. Lol.

Just because some tech bros with sexist issues can make an app and a service without customer service does not mean jack shit.

Airheadbnb is being declared cosa non grata in more and more places, uber is literally outlawed in half of europe.

Theres your business, kalashnick and the other pajasos.

If I had my own country or my way, I would send these clowns to prison no questions asked, to, you know, disrupt them a bit.

Do not come have a shit in my place.

I am all for the strictest and heavy handed regulation on these matters.

Hotels expensive? Well, then stay at home or go to a motel or some cheaper destination. If its too expensive, your kin has no business being there, mate.

Taxi too expensive? Get a car, use public transport. Walk. Screw uber and the consumers of it.

I have sympathy for the drivers waiting in the dark on italian airports, but not uber, its a zero sum game to increase prices later on or to have a self driving fleet which then somehow makes this non viable business model good? Hell no, this is a deliberate scheme to burn through investor money.

Airbnb and Uber are the scum of the earth, its a shame the population let them get away with this stuff for a while. People are inherently and helplessly stupid on some things. In hindsight, its always easy to play the innocent one with a halo hovering over the head.

I wonder where the fierce hn defenders of these models are today.

> Whereever people sense they can make a buck or save a buck, laws amd regulations be damned.

A lot of us would like lower prices as long as nobody is negatively affected. Laws and regulations aren't automatically just by design because they're laws, sometimes they're outdated or the result of lobbying/regulatory capture. There's a lot wrong with Uber such as how they treat their drivers/customers, etc, but I doubt many of us would shed any tears to the taxi medallion cartel they disrupted.

However, in this case, it's clear that laws have been broken, but not even the typical laws you'd associated with Airbnb (those around short-term rentals), the law that has been broken is the one that outlaws fraud or misrepresentation of goods/services. The problem isn't even that Airbnb has "disrupted" the market by breaking the law around short-term rentals, it's just that Airbnb is now using its size to break basic laws around online commerce with total impunity by charging for goods/services that aren't rendered and fraudulently pitching an insurance policy/guarantee that doesn't actually exist.

I agree there are laws that need reviews, ammendments and I would even go as far and say it is not my laws, we are all born into the system and have to suck them up.

However, here nothing has been disrupted, rhe meddalions are stronger than ever in Europe. So all the little savings here by using uber will cost more in the long term now that the taxi cartell has been reinforced. Same for hotels.

At least taxi drivers know safety protocols, same for hotels.

So the fallout goes beyond of what people think.

If this stuff comes at the cost of pretend customer service or exploitation of work forces or customers, the regulatory hammer should be, swift and heavy hitting.

We are far from this as a society, the exploiters can use their ill gotten funds to pay for legal defense. The bit of damage done to society and people finds no representation. Try ripping of a bank or take from the rich and your life will be disrupted before you can do a ten count.

> Just because some tech bros with sexist issues can make an app and a service without customer service does not mean jack shit.

this is an ad hominem attack and not helpful -- Kalanick's personal problems are separate from Uber's product and services

It was not just him, it was on a wide scale, he was dismissed because it all hapoenednon his watch, unless I am grossly mistaken.Guy is not fit to run a business, if he is not in jail for breaching laws with his products, then somebody should be sent to the slammer for sexaul assault, wouldnt you agree this is crossing the last and final taboos in society and law? Sexual misconduct is punishable by prison in the us. I opine that this is morally worse than running a brothel, the women do not sign up for the sex part and the salary is worse than a strippers. If these men are desperate for sex, they should be looking for it elsewhere.

Top management of banks and such at least have the courtesy to simply pay for an escort not associated in any way with the business. Most of them even simply live a solid family life. You will be hard pressed to find such misconduct in the classic instututions.

In my own regional experience (southwest brazil) both uber and airbnb's are cheaper than taxis/hotels. As they say "price is king".

Sure thing, used to be like that in Europe, too, give it some time, they will come around.

Price is king is a relative palavra, if it were unconditionally true, then squatting and car theft would be the ultimate solutions.

I know, these are not very legal, but the same can be said for uber and airbnb, they carefully select to be just as illegal as they can before having to deal with some serious consequences.

They are not pure anarchist disruptors, they are calculating cowards and they calculated to waste investors money from the get go.

If history shows anything, the first and dominating self driving taxi fleet will not be teslas or ubers.

They have announced their visions harder than they are working on a solution, esp ueber.

>>"uber is literally outlawed in half of europe." Uber is banned or partially banned in UK, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, and Italy. Eight countries out of forty-four of the European countries.

Yes, but.

As far as I understand, in the US Uber is a dude with a car and a drivers license, who installs an app on their phone and starts driving people around. In European countries I know Uber is just another way to call a taxi.

Big difference. I'd say it's not too wrong to say that the "dude with a car who installed an app" model is mostly outlawed.

Indeed, in their defense, thet have bowed down to some regulators and are run like a business now in places. After being strong armed and forgetting to pay taxes, but props for that, fair enough and honorable. Just that its subsidised by pirating maneuvers in other places.

Sometimes, Americans and american businesses do not understand the social leaning eu countries, the people have worked hard for generations to keep people like uber(yes , people, we know behind companies are people) at bay and they know why. People want to be able to live off of one full time jons salary, no matter the sacrifice. They also want to their neigbors to have the same privilege, they dont want their neighbors to rob them. And if it does not work, then the social system shall serve as a fallback.

Nothing to do with lack of work morals, it is a different mind set.

Perhaps I should have said EU. Or market.

Either way, outside of madrid, you will have a hard time to find an uber in Spain, which is a complicated country.

Let us do the math. EU has 450 million people, Europe has 740, give or take.

Deduct the Russian market from that, they are out over there.

It was banned then unbanned in places, fe Turkey.

In switzerland, the owe 150million in taxes, not clean solution, is it. In other words, it is worth it to them to operate there having to pay that restrospectivelly, I dare you, try to steal 150m from the Swiss and see how that goes.

Your list leaves plenty to be desired, it does not contain Greece and the Netherlands and Finland, and Belgium.

So 740 m minus

RU has 140m population, of which 100 to 110 m live in the european part.

660m left

Minus Germany and Uk, this leaves us with

510 million, by now, we have excluded almost the entire us population and the countries with most purchasing power for sure.

France, italy and lets say half spain is Nother 130m, leaving us with 380m.

This is half of whole Europe and half of the european union and we are not through yet.

Next most populated country would be ukraine, I would say legal or not, their serives are currently disrupted there by ongoing events.

In other words, europes best economies do not wanna hear about uber and there was no popular uprising about it.

They should take the hint and stay away.

Theybare venditor non grata, that is a horrible business result after a decade of operations.

>Whereever people sense they can make a buck or save a buck, laws amd regulations be damned.

When has this not been the case at any point in human history under any government? There is nothing new here. Greed is a component of human nature, and capitalism (and other systems) can certainly bring it out.

There is truth to that, but these kind of companies have crossed all lines. Takes a lot before truly greedy politicians intervene, it is against their nature.

I fully agree with your historical point, I read about thensoutj sea company in the uk and the stake holders, i was shocked, but nor surprised. The wikipedia page actually makes for good reading if you have time.

People get the government they deserve; if they do not participate in the process. You can organize people around a common mission, but its hard to convince people of future harm, when they haven't yet been burned. The "help" is merely theoretical. Now that these companies are actually harming people - it will be easier, but the damage has already been done.

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