Horribly written, meandering article that a) doesn't argue nearly as strongly as the title implies and b) doesn't get to the real argument til nearly the last sentence which is:
TL;DR - When we allow capitalism to play out without rules, and learn anew how labor gets exploited under that scenario, we may recall why we had rules in the first place.
Maybe, but the author doesn't examine this issue with any depth at all.
As far as I'm concerned, when there are more downvotes than comments attached to a given post, something's fishy -- it could mean an attempt to suppress a particular outlook by underhanded means, like multiple HN accounts controlled by one person, each account with enough karma to begin downvoting in earnest.
EDIT: boys and girls, it's another example of self-reference!
This is almost certainly not what's going to happen; what's going to happen (assuming Uber succeeds, which is less than certain) is that Uber will attempt to kick the ladder out from behind them by bribing policymakers to enforce custom-crafted regulation that makes being anything but exactly Uber illegal and being smaller than Uber unprofitable.
Which is, of course, why we have rules in the first place.
It may be an example of unbridled capitalism, but it also seems to me to be an example of bad capitalism.
The tactics that Uber is accused of are the kind of tactics that make sense when you're trying to take a larger share of an established market. But Uber and it's competitors are creating a new market.
Uber would be much better off trying to grow the market rather than steal market share from its competitors. It should be partnering with Lyft to ensure a favorable regulatory climate world wide. Regulators are going to be much more willing to open up to a competitive market than to a monopolistic one.
It's better to have a steady share of a rapidly growing pie than a growing share of a constant pie. Even their advertising should reflect that: Uber's main competitors are cabs, buses, private cars, et cetera. Somebody who learns about car-sharing through a Lyft advertisement is much more likely to use Uber in the future than somebody whose never tried it.
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[ 0.30 ms ] story [ 40.1 ms ] threadTL;DR - When we allow capitalism to play out without rules, and learn anew how labor gets exploited under that scenario, we may recall why we had rules in the first place.
Maybe, but the author doesn't examine this issue with any depth at all.
EDIT: boys and girls, it's another example of self-reference!
Which is, of course, why we have rules in the first place.
The tactics that Uber is accused of are the kind of tactics that make sense when you're trying to take a larger share of an established market. But Uber and it's competitors are creating a new market.
Uber would be much better off trying to grow the market rather than steal market share from its competitors. It should be partnering with Lyft to ensure a favorable regulatory climate world wide. Regulators are going to be much more willing to open up to a competitive market than to a monopolistic one.
It's better to have a steady share of a rapidly growing pie than a growing share of a constant pie. Even their advertising should reflect that: Uber's main competitors are cabs, buses, private cars, et cetera. Somebody who learns about car-sharing through a Lyft advertisement is much more likely to use Uber in the future than somebody whose never tried it.