I can't confirm or deny any specific claims of **** by specific individuals, but I have noticed a trend in media of associating sexual assault or harassment with institutions instead of individuals in order to hold the institutions accountable for 'allowing' individuals working within their network to perpetrate such actions.

The issue raised is really about whether victims can file civil lawsuits against a wealthy organization in order to get a more lucrative settlement than they could from the individual perpetrator. On a less cynical level, it is about whether institutions can be pushed to do more to protect potential victims from assault.

At the level of business competition, publishing instances of sexual assault and other terrifying prospects can be used to deter the public from patronizing a demonized business. While sexual assault in itself is a horrendous problem worth taking action against in every way, it is worth questioning when certain interests are using the severity, offensiveness, and potential to terrorize as an instrument for manipulating public opinion, which would be extremely disrespectful toward those who are more concerned with sexual assault than with business competition tactics.

Those are very serious accusations, or are they just speculations? Do you have any evidence that people are using false accusations to damage Uber? You don't mention any evidence, so I'm going to call BS.

Companies that place employees in intimate contact with the public should require reference checks and criminal background checks. They should also be required to follow up complaints and have insurance to cover judgments and claims. Unfortunately, Uber says it's drivers are free agents or indpendent contractors, so they deny any responsibility whatsoever.

The "independent contractor" "defense" gets used way too much, there was a construction company here in NC that got their ass handed to them by the courts over just that.

As far as background checks... there is always the first time...

The original concept of Uber was good, but it has grown into something other than a ride share.

Aaron

There were actually no accusations. I was only pointing out that there are reasons to employ such accusations for business purposes, whether against Uber, the Catholic Church, Bill Cosby, or any other deep-pocketed corporate entity.

What about creating a networking service where your only interest is connecting clients with providers in an effective way? Why should uber or any ride-sharing app be held responsible for the actions of its users? Whose fault is it if two people meet via a social network and one ends up perpetrating some crime against the other?

I'm sorry but there are business scams designed to create unnecessary jobs and expenditures simply for the sake of redistributing money. I have heard of lawsuits where landlords are held responsible for not having posted security guards at residential areas, for example. If hiring a security guard becomes a requirement for renting an apartment, what does that do to rent prices and the ability of small-scale property owners to rent out property? Similarly, if Uber gets saddled with all sorts of corporate costs that drive up its fees to riders and drive down the cut drivers get, who will that benefit except competitors?

Don't you get tired of these economic politics where taxes and fees get driven up by all sorts of governmental and non-governmental middle-men with the result of raising consumer costs and making it ever more difficult to conduct any sort of business except as a corporate entity with all sorts of consultants, attorneys, etc.?

To me, the whole idea of a ride-sharing app like Uber is to give people a simple way of connecting and negotiating a shared-ride while reducing the intermediary costs as much as possible .

You don't understand what Uber is.

Uber is not a social networking site, at least not any more. They are making enormous profits on a per ride basis. As with any profit-making business, they have a responsibility to provide their customers with a safe experience, and a duty to compensate anybody who is harmed while using their services.

Have you read any of the links in this thread?

I don't really care what Uber is. As far as I'm concerned it's just part of a broader market for ride sharing that includes other facilitators as well as drivers and riders.

As far as making profits are concerned. My question is purely economic, relating to supply and demand. I.e. why is supply scare and demand great? It seems that the shortage of rides relative to drivers is the general economic mechanism by which revenues of not only taxis but the entire driving industry are kept artificially high. I.e. if it's hard to get a ride, people will either have to pay more for a taxi OR they will just get a car because it doesn't cost that much more. If it was easy to get rides, for example because there was ample competition between taxi drivers, prices would be low and there wouldn't be much of a profit in it. By extension, there would be less incentive to own and drive a personal vehicle because the alternative, ride-sharing, would be easy and cheap.

Now think about why ride-sharing and carpooling were never very popular before Uber or any other ride-sharing app:
1) there wasn't sufficient interest among drivers to spend extra time picking up others for the money it pays to do so.
2) fear of interpersonal conflicts and violence riding in the same vehicle with a stranger.

The taxi industry has traditionally exploited both of these deterrents to keep fares high. So for Uber to come along and beat the taxi industry at its own game seems like 'turnabout is fair play' to me. The irony is that the media is now demonizing Uber for the things that drive up taxi fares to begin with, i.e. 1) fear of sharing a ride in an undesirable social situation and 2) the desire to exploit scarcity of supply to get higher fares.

Uber is gaining market share through some pretty dirty dealings that harm their customers, drivers and competitors. I don't think that's OK. That is all.

This sounds like my kind of ride-sharing app:


https://www.spinlister.com/

It is inevitable that some cunning lunatic out there will use it as a tool to serially kill or ****. Then there will be a massive outcry to scrutinize every Uber driver - which is the cue for the government to step in and license the crap out of it.

Henceforth, the services offered by companies like Uber and Lyft are not to be referred to as “ride-sharing,” because that is a load of crap, according to a new update to the AP Stylebook, a.k.a. the journalist’s bible.

Don?t call Uber and Lyft ?ride-sharing,? says*AP | Grist

How are carpooling and hitch-hiking different from 'ride-hailing' apps? The question is whether you can 'share' something while charging for it. If you're driving somewhere, you're paying for fuel, etc. so it helps if someone sharing the ride chips in. On the other hand, a taxi service is not sharing a ride because the driver wouldn't be going that way except to get the fare.

Logically, then, to avoid abuse of ride-sharing as ride-hailing, the monetary incentive has to be insufficient to bait taxi-drivers to drive routes where they wouldn't otherwise be going. BUT if you take away the money incentive, they complain that they're underpaid as drivers. So which do you do? 1) allow ride-sharing and limit the monetary incentive or 2) regulate taxi-services to uphold significant monetary incentives by restricting competition (i.e. ride-sharing)?

The one million dollar taxi medallion is really the root of the problem in the industry. First, the city never receives money when a medallion is sold since they are traded on a speculative market. This secondary market that owns them wants to see their investment skyrocket and they prevent more taxis from entering the streets though political pressure. This type of corruption keeps fares high while providing no additional value for the service. The city has no say in this speculative market and those who own the medallion are similar to stock holders.

Also, since the owners of the medallion often do not drive the vehicles, they are absentee owners who are not concerned about cleanliness or conditions of the cars or the drivers themselves. It’s time for a change and if Urber can provide cleaner cars and better service at a lower cost, they deserve to succeed. The medallion owners for the first time are seeing their investment drop 20% as more competition enter the market.

This is basically a New York corruption issue, unrelated to Uber. The city is losing out on revenue but making it possible for speculators to make a lot of money. In other cities, taxi licenses are typically owned by the cab drivers, not by third party speculators. In my city, a cab license is only a couple hundred bucks.

That was a great post!

You should have created a thread with this because it deserves one! Renting a bicycle is very expensive and costs about as much as taking a taxi for five miles! There really is a need for an inexpensive business model where one could rent a bicycle all day for $10.00 dollars or less.

Done: https://www.bikeforums.net/living-car...l#post17486725

Honestly I have no problems with the taxi companies here. Normally on time, and the drivers are mostly friendly. Though most years I don't use a taxi.

In my city Uber and Lyft are still illegal and have faced fines because they don't think they need to licence themselves like other taxi services. That alone makes me say no to ever trying them. The fact they don't want to follow safety regulations other forms of public transit has to is a red flag.