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Comment by clarkmoody | Hacker News Reader

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clarkmoody

> Uber needs some serious regulation

Too often our knee-jerk reaction is to want the government to get involved.

But based on your experience, you are probably

a) not going to trust Uber again, at least for this sort of ride

b) choose a competitor / traditional cab to get you to OAK

c) tell all of your friends / HN about your crappy experience, leading to reduced reputation for Uber

The end result is that Uber will no longer get your business and perhaps others' business will go elsewhere too. Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market. Getting the government involved would likely put Uber out of business (hence the article) or make rates way higher and essentially no different than a traditional cab.

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> Uber is being punished for its bad behavior by the market.

I love it how libertarians believe everything will be fixed by a mythical "market". I'm sorry, but if we had left it to the "market", we'd still have separate "white" and "colored" toilets. We'd have no gay marriage. We'd have no voting rights act.

The regulation I'm talking about is not being able to discriminate based on the type of passenger or destination.

I'm sorry but your destination is not the same as your race, sex or disability. If a business doesn't want to drive you somewhere, that's not discrimination, it's business.

Uber doesn't do the discriminating. Anyone who drives for uber technically is an Independent Contractor. I.E. They run their own business... separate but in partnership with Uber.

They can refuse based on Destination, but not anything that is forbidden by Law. Such as Race, Sexual Orientation, Religion, Handicap, etc... There was a notice to Uber drivers sent from Uber, stating that any driver that gets complaints about not accepting customers that have a service animal, they will end their partnership with that driver.

I agree, the Market can't fix anything, even in a Libertarian world, there is Government. But they should only be there to define the rules of the Game, not control the moves everyone decides to make.

I do agree, just the market would have not made everything all peachy, you do need to set some rules. But its just the limit and overreach of those rules is up for some debate.

KBI background checks, when Uber already does their own. (In a state that is VERY VERY VERY well armed) A State that doesn't support Gay Marriage, that up till 2006 had laws stating black people couldn't live in certain cities. (seriously...)

Just remember... its Governments that ban Gay Marriage, not markets, Governments decide who can and cannot vote, not markets.

It's also governments that require adherence to civil rights laws, not markets. Governments were required to step in to disallow landlords and service providers from discriminating based on race, sexuality, disability, etc when a free market otherwise allowed them to do so. There are two sides to the coin.

Completely agree. You do need a government to set the rules of the game.

>I'm sorry, but if we had left it to the "market", we'd still have separate "white" and "colored" toilets. We'd have no gay marriage. We'd have no voting rights act.

That's the most absurd thing I've read today. Literally all of these things are the result of oppressive laws passed by the government in the first place. What does marriage have to do with the markets?

Uber driver cannot see the destination precisely to avoid a situation like this.

Even when you enter it, it takes a while to transmit that information only after you get into the vehicle, which leads to these awkward stares "where are we going today?" - "oh, I thought I had it entered in the app" - "oh, hold on then, it takes a minute to update".

Arguably, destination disclosure is a boon to consumers in some situation - you might get a discount on a late night ride from SFO if you're heading towards San Jose, where the driver lives (and was going to drive to anyways) as opposed to Walnut Creek, etc.

I completely agree with your social justice agenda here. But as a historical matter, most forms of invidious discrimination have had to be be enforced by government regulations (for sure, that is the case for why gay marriage used to be illegal) rather than by the market. The market (as a historical matter) does tend to break down patterns of prejudice, because most producers would like to sell to as many customers as they can, and most buyers will shop for the producer who will treat them with respect. The former Jim Crow segregation laws in the south had to be vigorously enforced by the formal justice system and by terrorists like the Ku Klux Klan precisely because many businessmen there would have been happy to serve all their potential customers on an even-handed basis if the law had allowed them to do so.

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