>>51275402

Taxi drivers are cunts, sure, but Uber is literally (yes literally) an illegal organization in Australia. They're cheaper, but a large part of that is because they're straight-up ignoring the regulatory framework surrounding public use vehicles.

Willing to bet a large percentage of Uber drivers in Australia are ex-cabbies, btw.

>>51275936
Regulatory framework is outdated, cuz. Doesn't stop taxi drivers from raping passengers and getting their unlicensed, uninsured cousins to drive their taxi during the hours they're sleeping anyway. All taxi plates do now is provide a legal/financial barrier-to-entry against potential new competitors, which taxi companies are now pissed off about because it's failing. If I want to get in a guy's car and pay him to drive me somewhere at my own risk, why should I not be allowed to?

>>51275936
>its bad because its illegal (we made it illegal)
>this is what taxi-apologists actually believe

>>51276247
becuase you touch yourself while looking at illustrated women created in asia.

At this point I think it's possible that these posts are coordinated Uber astroturfing

>>51276289
Is it that hard to believe that people would rather be driven where they want to go by a polite university student/housewife/etc in a nice, clean, non-curry-smelling car than by Ahmed/Davo or their ex-con mate/brother, for a cheaper price because they don't have to cover regulatory costs that are no longer necessary thanks to user reviews?

>>51276289
>taxi service is filled with mudskins and shitskins who act like shit, try to scam you, and have really shitty rides
>GUYS GUYS, UBER IS ASTROTURFING

bite me, uber is better than taxies

>>51276289
IMO, you're gonna have a bad experience sooner or later in either case.
It's people driving, not the company.

>>51276315
The whole Uber thing works because they skirt around regulations and push external costs onto their contractors, which most don't give a shit about. How many of those uber students and housewives do have a commercial insurance?

>>51275936
>but Uber is literally (yes literally) an illegal organization in Australia.

Make it legal then.

>>51276272
Those laws aren't new. You can argue, like >>51276247 does, that they're outdated, but to claim that the majority of them were contrived to make uber illegal is just stupid.

An argument can reasonably be made that existing regulations are outdated, but when you corner someone with that argument, they end up confessing that they think all regulation is a bad idea. That's not a defensible position; we all benefit from regulation (not just customers, but workers as well).

This is all beside the point; Uber is a *particularly* malevolent company relative its workers, and one gets the sense that they would stab customers in the back if they didn't want your money (we know that they do creepy shit like make embarrassing maps of people hooking up based on usage patterns, etc..., suggesting they don't care about passengers beyond their ability/willingness to give Uber money).

>>51276332
Some of the regulations that Uber doesn't follow are worth having. More worth-having than having Uber, even. It's just a long-run argument and most people don't think in those terms.

>Uber
Do you even lyft?

I don't give a fuck who takes me home after a night out, so long as they take me home without touching me or shafting me with a long route home on purpose, which has happened before and reported, granting me nice grace coupons.

>>51276377
Uber driver here

post tits.

>>51276377
Presumably you also care about the rate and availability though. A service where someone's always 2 minutes away is better than one that's always 15 minutes away (and that's better than one that's unpredictably somewhere between 2 and 30 minutes away).

>>51275936
It's legal in ACT though

>>51276357
>Those laws aren't new. You can argue, like ... does, that they're outdated, but to claim that the majority of them were contrived to make uber illegal is just stupid.
Show me an article that shows that uber is illegal, and not in the technical sense

>An argument can reasonably be made that existing regulations are outdated, but when you corner someone with that argument, they end up confessing that they think all regulation is a bad idea. That's not a defensible position; we all benefit from regulation (not just customers, but workers as well).

Regulation is outdated, and needs to be updated. there needs to be regulation to prevent dick uber drivers, but no regulation is worse.

we do NOT benifit as a public from outdated regulation, only those in a minority, typically the minority is those who got in first or payed to get into the minority.


This is all beside the point; Uber is a *particularly* malevolent company relative its workers, and one gets the sense that they would stab customers in the back if they didn't want your money (we know that they do creepy shit like make embarrassing maps of people hooking up based on usage patterns, etc..., suggesting they don't care about passengers beyond their ability/willingness to give Uber money).

proof pls

>>51276427
>show me an article...
would it suffice to point to a guideline document saying that mislabeling workers as contractors while controlling them as employees (as Uber does, which fundamentally defines their business) suffice?
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/watch-out-sharing-economy-the-feds-are-watching-this-whole-contractor-thing/

The "contractor" designation is core to how Uber operates. HomeJoy had a ruling against them for this practice and that shut them down. The advantages of labeling a worker as a contractor are so numerous and far-reaching that it really does matter that much.

As for the rest of your post, I don't disagree that outdated regulation is harmful, but Uber's approach of violating the law to press the advocacy (something they did very tangibly in Portland and then NYC) is not just illegal, but not even goodfaith "technically illegal" protest in the sense of civil rights protests and whatnot. Uber just forces itself into a market and mobilizes their users to inundate lawmakers so public pressure forces them to capitulate.

It's essentially using a vector for attack inherent to democratic systems (which is probably a small part of why Uber is struggling so much against Didi Kuaidi in China - because if they hit a brick wall they wouldn't gain any benefit from blitzing the market and using customers to pressure officials).

As for the misquoted stuff about being creeps:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view-uber-allegedly-stalked-users-for-party-goers-viewing-pleasure/
http://money.cnn.com/2014/11/25/technology/uber-prostitutes/

>>51276383
I do, but if I need immediate pickup etc I plan for that and bring my own transport or tell them to toot as I'll be behind the counter, drinking.

>>51276289
Nah, a lot of people have had really shit experiences with taxis. When I've brought up Uber with coworkers etc the conversation comes to bitching about taxis pretty fast

>>51276368
Lyft hasn't launched in Australia yet. Supposed to be soon, maybe they're letting Uber take the flak / try the legal waters first.

>>51276498
>The advantages of labeling a worker as a contractor are so numerous and far-reaching that it really does matter that much.
True. Auspost was in trouble recently for some bullshit involving 'contractors' who are basically employees with none of the benefits / protections

>>51276498
>would it suffice to point to a guideline document saying that mislabeling workers as contractors while controlling them as employees (as Uber does, which fundamentally defines their business) suffice?

no, because they ARE contractors. they can choose to work elsewhere, and are free to work as much or as little as they want.
>HURR DURR, CANT FIND AN ARTICLE, SO LETS DO A GOOGLE SEARCH AND PULL THE FIRST ARTICLE

> Uber just forces itself into a market and mobilizes their users to inundate lawmakers so public pressure forces them to capitulate.

I could argue about how civil disobedience is the same thing, but this is a company getting into the market we are talking about, not some noble goal of stopping gov discrim. but when you as a company see a legal market, and your compititoin made it illegal for only you to enter the market, you are left with few options.

>It's essentially using a vector for attack inherent to democratic systems (which is probably a small part of why Uber is struggling so much against Didi Kuaidi in China - because if they hit a brick wall they wouldn't gain any benefit from blitzing the market and using customers to pressure officials).

capitalisim is an attack vector to democracy?

>As for the misquoted stuff about being creeps:
Ctrl + C, Ctrl + V, oh no, forgot the meme arrows.
this just reinforces the need for MODERN regulation. Uber didnt just say "hey toots, you need to go out there, and fuck some guy for money". it was the contractor, and only the contractor

>>51275402
Not yet, we now need to kill the taxi industry. I can't wait for the day all taxi companies go out of business and their shitty fucking yellow cars are gone from the streets.

Uber is the future, taxis should die.

>>51276594
>no, because they ARE contractors.
This isn't the perspective of rulings so far. I don't even know of a ruling that firmly says uber drivers *are* contractors. Do you want me to find my sources and you find yours (ostensibly ruling that they are) and we'll compare?

The rest of your post makes a pretty circumstantial argument. You're claiming that Uber is facing a conspiracy between taxis and the government, and that this justifies their behavior. This isn't an acceptable legal precedent; we simply can't allow companies to break laws and then retrospectively decide whether they had a point. But even if we're going down that road, are we not in agreement that under the status quo Uber is operating illegally?

The attack vector I was talking about wasn't capitalism and I'm a little annoyed that you're either willfully misreading or honestly this thick; Uber is giving its users as little information as possible - and as much firepower as possible from within an app - to inundate a democratically elected official and threaten their position as government officials. It's basically rallying a digital mob.

Your last part seems to get really testy. I'm not digging at you for misquoting. I'm just using that characteristic as a reference point. Chill out.

I also have no idea what you're saying about prostitution. The article only mentions prostitution tangentially and it's primarily about how they pulled a blog post where they dug into users' habits and embarrassingly mapped out user behavior on a very public blog post. The only saving grace (maybe?) is that they didn't name users,

>>51276594
>>HURR DURR, CANT FIND AN ARTICLE, SO LETS DO A GOOGLE SEARCH AND PULL THE FIRST ARTICLE
is your problem that his source is too mainstream, or is there some underlying issue with sources being too easy to find that you find objectionable? are you some kind of hipster about sources?

No complaints here. I've traveled quite a bit, and taxi drivers are fucking scum in every country I've ever been to.

>>51276681
It does not outright say that uber, or what its customer model is, is illegal. just its employee practices, which uber is NOT alone in.

>>51275402
No, owning a car is king as it has been for the last one hundred years.

>>51276730
Wait, are you asking for evidence that Uber is guilty of doing something illegal AND unique? I don't have anything like that, I'm sorry.

These companies are getting away with contractor mislabeling for a lot of the same reason that a lot of torrenters get away with copyright violations; there are too many to go after, and making the legal case for any individual violator is a time-consuming process (even for the open-and-shut cases; there are ambiguous cases which would prove way more complicated).

>>51276744
>get fucked up at bar
>drive home
smart

>>51276730
you asked him for an article that showed "that uber is illegal, and not in the technical sense". you even asked it in response to regulations that uber's shirking. if you're saying that uber isn't doing anything illegal with regard to their customers, you didn't make that clear at all

>>51276763
First;
>going to a bar
>being a normal
>getting fucked up in an environment that you may not be able to piss on your own plants
I own a wagon anon, if I want to go drinking, I throw an air mattress in the back incase I get fucked up. Comfy rolling tent.

>>51276808
wow, so that's how autistic people drink

File: 1400084863723.jpg (89 KB, 594x395) Image search: [Google]

89 KB, 594x395

>>51276808
pic related

also
>being a normal
I'm not, i'm just an alcoholic

>>51276762
>>51276787
uber hiring practice is scummy, they call them contractors when they should be employees. ok, but that still doesnt define the core of their service.

its the CUSTOMER who hires/rents/whatever-you-call-it an uber driver. thats what defines the service, and thats where the conflict arisies. Taxies say its ilegal, uber says its not. Uber has been leaning on local governments to fix their regulation on taxies.

To say that its all about a labor/employment issue is being willfully ignorant, and just dodging the issue. even if uber fixed their employee contract tomorrow, we would still be talking about uber. if another competitor who is fully legal in its hiring practices took over tomorrow, we would still be talking about uber vs taxis.

I agree, its scummy, but its not the topic at hand, and at best its a legal grey area loophole. But that is not relevent to the topic at hand

>Ctrl-f "medallion"
>0 hits
Ok faggots, here's a history lesson.
I can't speak for anywhere but The States but here, cabs get a "medallion"
Every cab medallion HERE (boston) is ~$300k
The city dictactes medallions... Just like (surprise surprise!) liquor licenses.
Uber shows up, basically undercuts cabs, but with NO oversight (look into "Uber insurance")
This might as well be /cpg/ because while cabs and hackney licenses are an oldschool idea, Uber is corporations circumventing local laws