Post: #1

I am surprised this has not been posted. Notable for two reasons.

1. Driver has the balls to confront Kalanick on Uber's pressure on drivers in its quest to drive all the taxis in the world out of business. I use Uber a lot, like the service. I also talk to the drivers around the world, and there is no doubt that they don't make shit anywhere there is any competition. I often leave a cash tip because I feel bad riding 5 miles/30 minutes in traffic and paying the equivalent of $2.

I know the Ayn Rand cultists will take Kalanick's side, but the guy who stands up for himself gets credit from me. It seemed like Kalanick didn't know the reality of being a driver in a service where prices and policies are set by algos to crush the competition. I also give Kalanick a pass for going off on the guy, probably tired, boozed up a little.

2. Kalanick is with two women, faces blurred but apparently slender and from the voices sound young. Kalanick is at least a fame/money Alpha, appears to have some game in being reserved, body language (bouncing his body into theirs).

The two girls combined don't have his IQ, he is bored as shit listening to them babble non-stop about astrological signs and trying hard to qualify for him.

Too bad there's no video from when the three of them got into the apartment.

Post: #2

He's probably not bankrupt anymore after selling that video to Bloomberg.

Post: #3

The universal struggle of facilitating a threesome with two women approaching their 40s - enduring commentary about astrology.

Post: #4

(03-02-2017 01:40 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  I know the Ayn Rand cultists will take Kalanick's side,

Political statement bro! You're pledged...

Post: #5

Surprise no one has made a 'UBER game' threat yet! I hear every now and than about friends that are UBER drivers, getting laid on Friday/Saturday nights!

Best to ALWAYS make sure you get her consent recorded first!

Post: #6

I am surprised that this guy who is supposed to be ultra rich don't have a personnal driver / bodyguard if he don't like to drive himself

Post: #7

(03-02-2017 08:15 AM)balybary Wrote:  I am surprised that this guy who is supposed to be ultra rich don't have a personnal driver / bodyguard if he don't like to drive himself

He uses Uber on principle, to eat his own cooking. I respect that.

Post: #8

Uber sucks but he continues to drive Uber to the point of bankruptcy, if in fact his Ubering "caused" his bankruptcy. What does that say about the driver.

He has the "balls" to complain to the CEO on a hidden video but doesn't have the "balls" to do something better in life when he knows it pays shit.

The reality is he is ballless and spineless. This has nothing to do with Uber, its CEO, or Ayn Rand. It has to do with a guy who is not a man and cannot deal with the choices he has made in life.

Post: #9

I don't know for other countries, but Croatian taxi drivers are generally scum who live from ripping off tourists and will easily charge you $20 for a 10-minute 4-km ride over a small town. I will shed no tears for Uber forcing them to get off their fat chain-smoking asses in the city centre and do some honest work for a change.

Post: #10

(03-02-2017 01:40 AM)Sp5 Wrote:  Driver has the balls to confront Kalanick on Uber's pressure on drivers in its quest to drive all the taxis in the world out of business.

The taxi industry in a lot of places has monopoly-like status.

So the fares we pay are inflated to begin with.

Services like Uber and Grab and all the rest are bringing disruptive competition into a market that has badly needed it for some time.

I empathize with the taxi drivers who are thrown for a loop by this situation.

But they've got to adapt, that's life.

Quote:I use Uber a lot, like the service. I also talk to the drivers around the world, and there is no doubt that they don't make shit anywhere there is any competition. I often leave a cash tip because I feel bad riding 5 miles/30 minutes in traffic and paying the equivalent of $2.

They earn what they earn given the dynamics of this market.

If they want to earn more they have to find a way to provide unique value or change careers.

Are the drivers featured below complaining to the CEO of Uber that he's responsible for bankrupting them?





https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonyoushaei...3b1a974e8e

Quote:I know the Ayn Rand cultists will take Kalanick's side, but the guy who stands up for himself gets credit from me.

Translation:

I know the people who champion a free market economy and personal responsibility will disagree, but I respect this guy for impotently bemoaning his hard luck because he has to compete where before he didn't.

Meanwhile: Kalanick gives zero fucks and bangs 2 chicks at the same time.

CEO game recognized.

Quote:It seemed like Kalanick didn't know the reality of being a driver in a service where prices and policies are set by algos to crush the competition.

Are you familiar with the way capitalism works?

It's based on this thing called competition and this idea that shit changes all the time and nobody owes you anything so you better stay on your toes and get after it by selling jewelry or whatever it takes, or you'll wind up a pissed off Uber driver trying to throw his problems on other people.

By the way, was this guy as grateful for the opportunity to earn money when Uber came on the scene to the same degree that he's now bitter that the market changed, as markets do? Hmm

Quote:I also give Kalanick a pass for going off on the guy, probably tired, boozed up a little.

He shouldn't have even let this guy drag him into his "woe is me and it's your fault" frame.

There's no reasoning with somebody who has no understanding of economics, and feels entitled to a living, unchanging markets, and who knows what else.

I bet that guy voted for uncle Bernie while envisioning a world where the government guarantees 6 figure wages for those poor, disenfranchised taxi drivers who heroically ferry rich crooks like Kalanick - and his soon-to-be ravaged comfort girls - hither and thither.

Quote:Kalanick is with two women, faces blurred but apparently slender and from the voices sound young. Kalanick is at least a fame/money Alpha, appears to have some game in being reserved, body language (bouncing his body into theirs).

The two girls combined don't have his IQ, he is bored as shit listening to them babble non-stop about astrological signs and trying hard to qualify for him.

Too bad there's no video from when the three of them got into the apartment.

On that my friend we can agree.

Post: #11

(03-02-2017 09:29 AM)Off The Reservation Wrote:  Uber sucks but he continues to drive Uber to the point of bankruptcy, if in fact his Ubering "caused" his bankruptcy. What does that say about the driver.

He has the "balls" to complain to the CEO on a hidden video but doesn't have the "balls" to do something better in life when he knows it pays shit.

The reality is he is ballless and spineless. This has nothing to do with Uber, its CEO, or Ayn Rand. It has to do with a guy who is not a man and cannot deal with the choices he has made in life.

Damn bro, way to say what I was trying to say but with way fewer words.

Post: #12

Knew guys would jump on the CEO's dick.

It's possible to support self-initiative, and criticise exploitative labour practices. Don't know why people struggle to reconcile these two perspectives.

Post: #13

^^^
They struggle to reconcile the two because in a free economy (or in the case of the US a mixed and far from free, but freer than many others, economy), people for the most part have the option to go work for whomever they want.

If they don't earn the kind of wage they feel they should get, they can go offer their services to a competitor who will either recognize the value of their labor or apprise them of the fact that their labor isn't worth as much as they think it ought to be worth.

Or alternatively, they can improve their skills or acquire new skills that make them valuable to prospective employers.

OR, even better, they can start their own businesses so they can acquire a first hand understanding of just how much balls it takes to run your own shit, and how much harder and riskier it is than any "job".

Anyway, if an industry changes, as industries inevitably do, and as the taxi industry so quickly has, and your wage plummets as a result of competition, then that sucks and you have to struggle to adapt.

But it doesn't mean that you're being exploited by your employer because you no longer earn what you used to, or what you think you should.

Your employer now has to spend considerable resources to compete with upstarts.

Your wages drop as a result of competition, not because the CEO of uber is a malicious prick who fucks 2 chicks at once while laughing at his peon drivers.

I may be wrong but I don't see that anybody is being exploited here.

This seems to me like a case of competition changing an industry, wages dropping, mixed with people who don't fully understand that their entire amazing way of life is based on the very system they're now decrying.

Post: #14

(03-02-2017 10:27 AM)churros Wrote:  Knew guys would jump on the CEO's dick.

It's possible to support self-initiative, and criticise exploitative labour practices. Don't know why people struggle to reconcile these two perspectives.

The thing is is that it is not Kalanick's job to make sure that his employees on the bottom end are paid a livable wage. Kalanick's job as CEO is to ensure that his business is providing a competitive price for its service while getting enough revenue to fund growth.

On top of this Uber is competing with Lyft for this new taxi market, which was what drove prices down in the first place. When Travis said he had to create UberX (lower cost service), he really did because Lyft's lower cost was eating up the market and Kalanick had to make a business decision to stay competitive.

Also, this is what I have been talking about guys. This latest wave of technology is going to be driving millions out of the workforce. You know what is next on the plate, self-driving cars. Within a decade or so, there will be no taxi drivers. We won't be talking about depressing wages for taxi drivers, we will be talking about how that job is dead due to the proliferation of artificial intelligence. Same could be said of cashiers at fast food joints.

This taxi driver is pointing his ire at the wrong person. Kalanick is doing his job properly by making business decisions to ensure his company's survival. Our government is the one who is at blame here. Our government is failing to respond properly to these new market forces (artificial intelligence and Web 2.0) that are eating up our ability to find jobs and survive.

Post: #15

Even if the technology is there for self driving cars that are statistically as safe or safer than humans that doesn't mean it will make it to the marketplace.

See cloning.

Post: #16

(03-02-2017 10:27 AM)churros Wrote:  It's possible to support self-initiative, and criticise exploitative labour practices. Don't know why people struggle to reconcile these two perspectives.

its not a labor practice, its a business practice. Uber provides the guy with customers. If he doesn't want the customers Uber provides, he can get them from Lyft, a taxi license, or on his own.

fundamentally, there are low barriers to entry to driving a car. its supply and demand. Uber didn't cause this guy's bankruptcy, it forestalled it.

the guys who really should be pissed at Uber are the former monopolists at city hall and behind the wheels of cabs

unrelated, but one thing you can say about Uber is they did more to solve drunk driving than government ever did.

Post: #17

Why don´t the idiot complaining starts his own company. At the same time this dipshit is making a hidden video of the person who will pay him. If he´s not happy find another job.

"Gratitude is a sickness suffered by dogs" Estaline

Post: #18

(03-02-2017 09:29 AM)Off The Reservation Wrote:  Uber sucks but he continues to drive Uber to the point of bankruptcy, if in fact his Ubering "caused" his bankruptcy. What does that say about the driver.

He has the "balls" to complain to the CEO on a hidden video but doesn't have the "balls" to do something better in life when he knows it pays shit.

The reality is he is ballless and spineless. This has nothing to do with Uber, its CEO, or Ayn Rand. It has to do with a guy who is not a man and cannot deal with the choices he has made in life.

^^^



Also, is anyone else concerned that a man worth six fucking billion dollars is riding an uber? Shouldn't he have an actual driver with security?

Post: #19

I don't use Uber. I never have. And I doubt I ever will.

Uber is just one of many of these "new millenium" platform businesses that's designed to undercut everyone else out there and monopolize the business. It's the same story: low-ball everyone, drive everyone else out of the market, maximize profits that are then funneled back up to the top so that fat-ass rich CEOs can live lives of irresponsible luxury and indolence.

It's the plutocratic insurgency: concentrate all money in fewer and fewer hands, and have no sense of social responsibility.

I support taxi drivers and small business couriers of all types. It takes a lot of money to get a chauffeur license, and a lot of money to maintain them. These guys have families to support. And what does this CEO do? Plays the standard game of tossing platitudes out there: "Some people don't want to take responsibility for their actions" and all the standard bilge spewed by the fatcats as they rob us all blind.

I don't know...something just doesn't sit well with me about Uber. I freely admit that I use Airbnb, and maybe that makes my views inconsistent. But to me the hotel business has just gotten too expensive for the average guy. For rides, I don't see regular cabs as overpriced. Maybe that's the difference.

I just don't believe in this "free market" propaganda. It sounds great in theory, and works sometimes, but much of the time it ends up as the rich getting richer, and screwing over the average guy. Look the entire US economy in the past 50 years: total destruction of the middle class in order to aggrandize the plutocrats.

Same thing here.

Further reading:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/plu...est-half-o

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/plu...in-savings

Post: #20

Ah, so you believe in the Taxi medallion propaganda, where the market is artificially restricted to make prices inaccurate and service abysmal.

Taxis are loathsome; Uber is like a miracle, the modern and much improved version that lets us travel via a service that employs modern technology.

Post: #21

(03-02-2017 12:41 PM)scrambled Wrote:  Ah, so you believe in the Taxi medallion propaganda, where the market is artificially restricted to make prices inaccurate and service abysmal.

Taxis are loathsome; Uber is like a miracle, the modern and much improved version that lets us travel via a service that employs modern technology.

That may be so, if you're only looking at price. But look at what the consequences are. They've convinced people to work for less than minimum wage. They've turned a whole class of people into wage slaves.

Is that good? Is that about being a responsible member of society?

There's more to life than just your temporary cost of a ride. All predatory businesses like Uber do is enrich the bosses at the expense of all of us.

By buying into the plutocrat propaganda about "free market" bullshit, you're putting nails in your own coffin. Today it's the taxi industry they are targeting: tomorrow it will be your job when they outsource it to Dorkistan. Everyone is vulnerable. Anyone can be made irrelevant. Only by standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our fellow man can we resist the forces of greed.

Let's see what happens when you are made irrelevant. When your job gets marginalized. And then let's see how much you love the "free market." Let's see how much you mouth the corporatist propaganda about "taking responsibility" for your actions.

You can't see that because it's maybe not part of your life experiences yet.

Post: #22

You really should try Uber, Quintus. It's fantastic.

Post: #23

(03-02-2017 12:41 PM)scrambled Wrote:  Ah, so you believe in the Taxi medallion propaganda, where the market is artificially restricted to make prices inaccurate and service abysmal.

Taxis are loathsome; Uber is like a miracle, the modern and much improved version that lets us travel via a service that employs modern technology.

Taxis are at least regulated or standardized. There are shit taxi companies and there are professional ones, and then there are car services. It doesn't take long to learn what the good and crap taxi services are in a city.

I take taxis because I don't trust that Uber is actually going to back up a driver if they crash and an insurance company sues them. Then what? They can't get blood from the stone of a poor uber driver to pay my payout.

I have yet to try it, but I'd like to try some uber scams. Would it be possible to call an uber, have them show up, offer them cash, and then have them claim that you were a 'no show' on the uber app?

Post: #24

(03-02-2017 12:54 PM)Phoenix Wrote:  You really should try Uber, Quintus. It's fantastic.

They may very well be fantastic when it comes to price and convenience, at least for now. But for me that's just my point: that's how the US consumer has gotten seduced and conned for the past 30 years.

The plutocrats dangle out the short-term gain for you, the consumer. "Look at how much you'll save!"

But the consumer never thinks about the long-term costs. And there always are costs to things. That's how the elites conned us into giving up our privacy: they offered "convenience" as an opiate.

Convenience is just that: an opiate to lull you into forgetting that you are giving up something else. Externalities can be outsourced for a certain amount of time. And then you pay on the back end.

That's all I'm saying. I'm protesting this mentality that we have in the US now. It's all about the short-term gain or short-term "feel good" with no thought to social consequences, social responsibility, or long-term effects.

I freely admit that I use Airbnb. And maybe that makes my argument contradictory, to some extent. I'm not sure.

Post: #25

I drove for Uber for a few months until they slashed rates and I calculated that my net profit was zero. After gas, insurance, maintenance, depreciation...most Uber drivers don't factor this in but at the end of the day I'd say Uber drivers make less than minimum wage. I jumped on board a couple months after Uber came to Vegas and I could clear $300 on weekends...not including cash tips and kickbacks from strip clubs. Besides, it was fun. I liked playing chauffeur and meeting all these visitors and hearing some crazy stories.

After the rate cuts, the quality of Uber drivers took a major nosedive. These really are bottom dwellers, and I RARELY use ridesharing anymore. I've just had too many nitwits that don't know their way around town, or have fucked up rides to the airport. Not worth my time. On top of it, you've got a huge amount of immigrants that drive cars that barely meet Uber's standards...how some of these drivers are able to keep a 4+ star rating is beyond me, but it leads me to believe that Uber's customers have dropped in quality as well.

I understand this driver feels like he had the rug pulled from underneath him. Most people have the expectation that longevity with a company is rewarded with increased wages, but this isn't always the case. I've got older dishwashers that feel entitled to a few dollars more per hour simply because they've been there for 10 years. The cold, harsh reality is they don't deserve shit, because they're pricing themselves out of their position, when I could hire someone younger and more energetic than them for less.

The way it works in my book, and in my experience, is if you want more, do more. If that means you have to break some rules or hustle a little bit, so be it. Being nice and playing by the rules doesn't get you shit in life. If I was still driving for Uber, I'd be dealing coke and working on maximizing kickbacks. Not suggesting everyone break the law or deal drugs, but being a true, old school cabbie means that you knew how to get anything your passengers wanted. They want a handjob from some Cambodian girl? You got just the spot, and after you drop off your passenger you get a nice kickback from Mama-san. Maybe you have one Italian restaurant in particular that you recommend to all your passengers, so that restaurant either feeds you for free or kicks you back a percentage of the business you bring them.

My buddy here was making $1000 per week for driving around a stripper. He was pretty much on call 24/7 but she kept a regular schedule and in his off time he was doing other side jobs. They all started with fares he picked up on Uber. But that's the difference. He's a hustler, and the guy in this video isn't. Instead of bitching to the CEO like a bitch, he should be making contacts with his passengers and sniffing out if any of them need any extra services. He is driving for Uber Black after all, most of his passengers should be pretty well-off. Free market capitalism to me means that if you want more, do more.