People definitely want to watch Uber burn as some have forever, but something seems to have shifted. I've been seeing facebook ads for Uber engineering for the last 1-2 years but recently looking at the comments on them they're 100% negative. A sampling:
"This is one of those times when steering into the skid might have been the wrong move."
"I think Uber needs to post an ad for a new President more than a Senior Software Engineer..."
"How about UberEatsDicks? Can we work on that product together? It sounds pretty good for you guys. Right up your alley."
I think the big change happened now is because for years Uber has been doing legally dubious things, that were morally defensible from certain perspectives.
IE, They mostly screwed over corrupt taxi monopolies.
Similar to a sort of Tony Stark character, Uber was an asshole, but they were OUR asshole. Fighting for insanely low customer prices and fighting against a bigger enemy, which is the terrible existing taxi industry.
The stuff that has happened recently is about having an awful company/engineering culture, and isn't in any way morally defensible.
First they screwed over taxi drivers, and that was OK. Then they screwed over their own drivers, and that was OK. Then they started screwing over their tech employees, but that's not OK.
I don't agree that they screwed over taxi drivers. In a lot of places (like SF, often cited as the original motivation for Uber) the taxi drivers actively screwed over their customers, and got away with it all the time:
1. Taxis would not come outside of the city core to pick you up. Or if you booked a ride they would find a more convenient fare, take that and never show
2. The card machine was always "broken" and they would insist on cash, maybe make you go to an ATM
3. They would drive people on poor routes to drive up fares. Especially foreigners. I had this tried on me.
4. They wouldn't take you to destinations they didn't want to go to. Try getting out to Yerba Buena Island (I used to
live there)
I'm generally for worker solidarity, and in fact I wish we had more of it in software engineering, but do I feel bad for the taxi drivers in SF? No, they had it coming.
Whereas the city I live in in the U.K. had excellent taxi services - both licenced and private hire. Now the private hire is shit as they barely have any drivers and the licences is still expensive.
London is shit though. Last night I booked an Uber, if I'd been asked to imagine a reasonable price for the trip I would have come up with something a lot like the price I was charged. If it was a normal taxi I'd have been charged at least £20. I don't have any sympathy.
I expect licensed taxis to be expensive. The problem is now I have no choice but to get an Uber because the private hire firms don't have enough drivers and don't show up. And from speaking to the drivers it's because Uber is paying them way above market rates for their first year.
So the private hire drivers moved over to Uber? Is that because they made more money under Uber, or had better conditions (maybe more flexibility?)? And, if so, does that mean that effectively Uber is a replacement for the old private hire system?
A while back I asked a few and they said Uber paid them extra for their first year - basically all the time they were working whether they had a fare or not.
uber offers a way better set of coverage than any single private hire company could, and without any real costs as no "staff" to pay. I suspect the drivers make more because they get more consistent fares?
In some countries (European south) the normality is that taxi drivers will rip off EVERYONE with their meters running anything from +10% to +50% of the fare. In that sense Uber is doing the right think by taking away a big portion of their income.
BUT that doesn't justify all the nasty things they've been doing.
Yes Uber is a game changer but they are not here to serve us, they are here to take over the taxi industry globally and make billions out of it (you need to spend money to make money).
From an economics standpoint it would be best to have an app that showed fares from multiple different companies and they let the consumers pick what they wanted. Hopefully this model would win eventually as it encourages robust competition but currently all the players (taxis and Uber especially) seem invested in creating monopolies
and it was never possible to know the price beforehand.
Unfortunately startups try to cut down prices and screw the providers (see Spotify, Uber, Netflix which clearly aren't expensive enough), but the simple new way of offering a service is already a revolution. Booking a taxi by credit card and without negociating, paying for PopcornTime service, etc.
No, they didn't play us. They did exactly what they promised. Thanks to Uber, I don't get racially discriminated against on a daily basis. Before Uber I did.
Some folks may hate them because of Susan Fowler, but that doesn't change the fact that they've drastically improved the world for consumers.
They're still giving us exactly what they promised - promised not by just words, but actions.
Initially, Uber set itself out as the hero of the day, riding on a shining horse to fight the Evil Taxi Mafia. Anyone who looked closely at how they did that could easily predict that what they want to become is the new, but worse, Taxi Mafia. They've been assholes almost from the start, they continue to be assholes now. That so many people only got angry after sexism accusations, of all the things, only makes me sad about the state of humanity.
As a homo economicus blindfoldus - nothing. Cheaper and better service here right now? Yay, party time!
As a responsible citizen of a civilized society however, one should be interested in how such a service comes to be, and what it means to people involved and the society at large.
--
BTW. I'm founding a biotech startup now; we provide personalized medication for free, OTC, ordered through our mobile app. We can do that because of our innovative manufacturing model, which involves doing BSL-4 level work with pathogens in our garage. I.e. we're disrupting the corrupt dinosaur regulations to provide a cheaper and better service.
You're a HN regular, so you've probably seen pretty much every single Uber misbehaviour over the last few years. I don't think there's more to be added.
I found that to be true at the beginning. But now, Uber drivers are Lyft drivers are taxi drivers. They all use apps now. And evidence suggests drivers adapted and found new ways to discriminate. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/uber-ly... The only difference now is who is taking how much out of the driver's paycheck--and whether or not that company is paying taxes or just extracting wealth from any given city.
I have read the study; there is just no longer a difference. "Traditional" taxis now use apps & drivers now drive for Uber, Lyft and local taxi companies.
In a taxi you can rip off a firangi or fail to pick up a black passenger at your leisure. With Uber, this will cause your ratings to drop below 4.3, or your acceptance rate/cancellation rate to drop below/above whatever threshold they use. Then you get kicked off the platform.
Uber is providing the necessary regulation of the system that governments fail to provide.
Since taxis also operate via apps & the drivers are the same people, this is simply no longer true.
While I'll agree that Uber used to provide a higher quality experience (nicer cars etc), this is no longer the case. The rating system is also broken-eg it now offers too much power to drunk customers. Uber now operates only to benefit itself-not its customers, not the drivers and certainly not the public. Perhaps you'd prefer to be regulated by the whims of a corporation & their pursuit of profit extraction rather than the democratic legitimacy of government, but thankfully, most of us would not. Hence, even if its taken some time for local & national governments to get up to speed, Uber is being banned, taxed, and forced to abide by the public & workplace safety rules every other company must follow.
Perhaps you'd prefer to be regulated by the whims of a corporation & their pursuit of profit extraction rather than the democratic legitimacy of government, but thankfully, most of us would not.
On the contrary, most of us would prefer this. That's why yellow cabs are losing market share everywhere that men with guns don't take away their right to choose.
>"Racism at Uber is vastly smaller than racism via traditional taxis."
And that makes racism more acceptable?
Also I guess you are not familiar with The Atlantic.
It is a 160 year old institution, it is very well-respected. Past writers include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Harriet Beacher Stowe. It does not trade in Clickbait.
They in no way said it was more acceptable. Just that to the individual, it is more pleasant to have to deal with a company which is less explicitly racist. Certainly there is still room for improvement.
The comment two levels above said that Uber reduces my daily dose of racism to levels far lower than "daily". The comment one level up says that the study your clickbait article cites supports this point.
Yes, a small amount of racism that I don't even notice is far more acceptable than a large amount which inconveniences me daily.
Racism isn't like homeopathy, where any quantity at all has the same effect. More is worse, less is better.
In that study, the median black taxi rider is passed by 2 taxis before being picked up, vs 0 for the median white (see fig A.6). The difference for Uber is not remotely as large.
Oh the tired old accusation of "that's just a ______ fallacy", the rest of my comment is simply pointing to that fact that the publication is not one whose business model is clickbait a la Buzzfeed. There is no claim of "authority" in that.
A venerable institution can fall on hard times and make decisions that reflect poorly on it, but generate revenue. And even in the best of times, a dud can slip through the editorial cracks.
How did you come to the conclusion that the Atlantic has fallen on hard times?
An article being a "dud" is highly subjective, even if you yourself haven't found an article to be a worthwhile read does not qualify qualify an article as "clickbait".
There is nothing sensational in the article, it is simply discussing findings in a study.
The Atlantic has actually fared pretty well:
[1] "The Atlantic saw the highest increase in circulation, expanding slightly by 2% in 2015."
>How did you come to the conclusion that the Atlantic has fallen on hard times?
I haven't. I'm simply pointing out that their venerability doesn't guarantee that everything they put out is of the highest caliber. The bevy of think (or whine) pieces it has published about millennials and safe spaces speaks to that, I feel.
>There is nothing sensational in the article, it is simply discussing findings in a study.
Which is sufficient as a rebuttal to the claim that it is clickbait.
Any revolutionary, disruptor or change agent will be perceived as an asshole. They're looking at the state of things, saying that doesn't do, and then launching into the machinations necessary to replace it. Rooting for "your asshole" is perfectly rational.
"Revolutionary, disruptor or change agent" also matches Genghis Khan, Joseph Stalin, and various other assholes throughout history.
Disruption is all fun and games when it stays within business context. When all you play with are abstract spending points on your bank account. When you breach that, when you start to disrupt law and social order, that pretty much always end in tears and blood for many, many people. You don't do that unless you're very, very careful or the goal is extremely important. You definitely don't root for assholes who don't give a flying fuck about society, and want to mess things up only to line up their pockets.
Uber is literally behaving like evil megacorp since almost day one. Why people would root for that is something I can't really comprehend. You don't cheer the plunderers that came to the village just because they just slaughtered the neighbour you didn't particularly like - because when they're done with him, they'll come for you.
The problem with 50% savings on transportation prices is that it might only be temporary. Uber might have a _worse_ business model than a traditional taxi company albeit with a better app. There's a pretty long series of articles about this, here's the first one if you're interested: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver...
Uber is profitable in "some" of its top markets, i.e. "New York City, DC, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles" [1]. Those are also markets with competition at both the national, e.g. Lyft, and local, e.g. Juno, Via, et cetera, scales.
Well Uber has been raising more money at higher valuations as a premier unicorn but now they're headed to down round central and the pressure will be on to make money sooner rather than later. Especially with the revelation that the self driving technology that they were counting on was stolen...
Certainly, I agree that there's a savings in not being beholden to the same regulatory fees as a traditional car/taxi service. I guess I see that as also part of a subsidy. I think one reason they feel emboldened is because they know they have a huge pile of VC cash at their disposal form which they can pay legal representation.
I think that's exactly right. A lot of people were caught up by the PR and convenience of calling a cab from their phone.
Tech is full of endless praise of companies including Uber as if they could never do anything wrong. Most people never really stopped to think about the implications of how Uber worked, how it treated drivers, and how it responded to various issues (sexual assault during rides for example). Now there are widening cracks in that facade and people see through.
Started for me when they updated the app to ask for location information 100% of the time a few months back. I remember seeing the notification and thinking to myself "do I really trust Uber with all my location data?" and realizing the answer was no. They made the app much more frustrating to use if you didn't provide that level of location so I deleted it shortly after.
> Most people never really stopped to think about the implications
You seem to suggest that Uber's toxic culture gave them a business advantage. Like, riders got some benefit that a conscientious person ought to have guessed was derived from the suffering of others.
I think what really happened is that Uber successfully assailed a bunch of stodgy monopolies just by taking a modern approach to dispatching. Then others saw the opportunity and there was a goldrush. Today Uber and everyone else are squeezing the drivers (same is true for all the "Uber of X" sharing economy variants). But the crappy backoffice culture surely didn't make it more convenient or cheap to get a ride.
It's not the "crappy backoffice culture" that made them win on the market[0]. It's their decision to just ignore local regulations that made them win. Not the "modern approach to dispatching", because - maybe except the US - that wasn't really innovative (taxis in Europe have been doing apps for years now, crappy as they are). Uber could simply afford to be cheaper because they sidestepped or broke every regulation they could. Taxis can't compete if the other guy is not playing by the rules.
--
[0] - I really, really don't get why people only started caring after information about back-office sexism came to light, like if this was the worst thing Uber is doing; it isn't even remotely.
For my part, I still don't care if they broke laws protecting taxi monopolies in some places. They haven't as far as I know broken any laws in my neighborhood so my opinion is somewhat abstract. But if we did have laws here to draw a special distinction between giving someone a ride and giving someone a ride in exchange for money, then I would be annoyed with the legislators rather than the civil disobedients.
I do think it's stupid we had and continue to have laws that say it's illegal to offer someone a paid ride if you notice that they need one with your own senses ("hailing"), as opposed to via a phone call or app notification.
Maybe many people share this view, and that solves the mystery: people haven't only started caring recently about the local regulations; they started caring about the completely different issues that only recently came to light: backoffice culture problems, reckless administration of the self-driving car project, worsening conditions for unskilled freelancers generally, etc. That explains how it could be that suddenly lots more people are averse to Uber, and yet no more people care about taxi businesses or their legal moats than before.
I think so too. But also, the seeming uptick in negative views voiced with regard to Uber is due to the shifting Overton window. Previously, critics were less numerous and the public was less outspoken; for most people Uber brought low fares and on-demand cab hailing, so critics of Uber's approach were seen as curmudgeonly defenders of antiquated business structures, or people with specific axes to grind.
But a quick succession of PR disasters has made the narrative difficult to control:
November 28, TechCrunch: Uber begins background collection of rider location data [1]
December 1, NPR: Uber Now Tracks Passengers' Locations Even After They're Dropped Off [2]
December 14, TechCrunch: Uber's self-driving cars start picking up passengers in San Francisco [3]
December 14, Video: Driverless Uber runs red light in downtown San Francisco [4]
December 14, TheHill: Trump Names Elon Musk, Uber CEO to Advisory Team [5]
December 16, The Verge: Uber is stubbornly refusing to apply for a $150 permit for its self-driving cars [6]
December 21: ReCode: Uber has stopped its self-driving pilot in SF after the DMV revoked its cars' registrations [7]
January 30, TechCrunch: Lyft surges to the top 10 on Apple's App Store following the #DeleteUber campaign [8]
February 19, Susan J. Fowler: Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber [9]
February 19, The New York Times: Uber Investigating Sexual Harassment Claims by Ex-Employee [10]
February 24, "Amy Vertino": I am an Uber survivor [12]
March 3, The New York Times: How Uber Used Secret "Greyball" Tool to Deceive Authorities Worldwide [13]
Specifically, the #deleteUber affair stemmed from a series of misunderstandings, but generated more public ire than most of Uber's unambiguously overt actions. This widespread public upset made further revelations about Uber's culture more repulsive, even if they were upsetting enough in their own right. This also makes it easier to pile on less consequential pieces of bad press, like the few we've had in recent weeks about other high-ranking executives leaving for unrelated reasons.
I think the people who wake up every day trolling / hating Uber are not the people riding it. I also sense people are getting increasingly immune to the negative PR because it is becoming clear that someone in media has an axe to grind.
Living in NYC, I've been asking friends and friends of friends (it makes for good social fodder) about whether or not they plan to change and I have yet to hear anyone who actually cares and has changed their behavior (ie shifted to cabs or lyft). Not a statistically significant sample size but NYC is as liberal as it gets when it comes to issues like these.
There is the Uber customers, and then there is the software engineers who might consider working for Uber. I can tell you that after the recent revelations, before which I had no idea about their internal culture, I would absolutely not want to. This may or may not be a problem for their hiring pipeline.
Really? I've talked to multiple Lyft drivers who've told me they recently switched over to Lyft because they've noticed the volume of fares go down driving for Uber.
Also, anecdotally, I can say that in my group of friends a lot of people have switched.
Anecdotally I just switched. The fares were always the tiniest bit cheaper at Uber. Recently it was the sexual harassment + the video of Travis yelling at a driver that made me switch.
It was unprofessional. Once I saw it, I couldn't un-see it. I would understand if it was a personal interaction but if you're leading a company, take feedback and do not respond like that. It was incredibly immature and I couldn't imagine what things look like behind closed doors if that is how he'd be willing to look on camera (he must have known it was a possibility he was on camera)
I actually don't think it was so bad, in fact I kind of credit Kalanick on engaging with the driver, he could have just asked him to STFU and drive.
The worst part about that situation is that the driver made an excellent point: "You have the business model in your hands, but you chose to buy everybody a free ride!"
>in fact I kind of credit Kalanick on engaging with the driver, he could have just asked him to STFU and drive.
We're giving people credit for a minimum of human decency now? I'm worried that we're edging back toward the feudal system. You're talking about relations between serfs and their liege lords here, not between people in a free society.
Honest hypothetical situation: Let's assume for a moment the answer is no (maybe it is, maybe it isn't) would you honestly stay with Lyft long term knowing you would make less? This is the key question really...
NYC is nowhere near "as liberal as it gets" when it comes to these issues. I would say that, anecdotally, I find that "NYC culture" and "Uber culture" have a lot in common.
NYC has huge finance/business/old rich contingents along with 1st generation immigrants from conservative cultures. I find it hard to call the city as a whole liberal.
I signed up long ago and forgot(used it indirectly thought it was cool and my best friend started driving as a 2nd job; also cool) about my account. One day that same Uber account is hacked and 1k is stolen from me.
Immediately I try to cancel my Uber account. Nope your locked in there is no cancel button. Have to wait days to cancel. Uber knows about this hack and their response is it's the customers fault for not using an uber strong password. Then my best friend leases a car from Uber and in the long run he finds out he has leased his car from what it feels like the mafia.. except it's the Uber mafia.
Burn Uber burn.. I will never use your filth again!
They should get in while the getting's good. Uber's settling left and right while their coffers are still full; once things tighten ship it'll be blood from a stone.
Hmm, unless waiting till later makes them feel like they can't afford the legal battle and leads to an easier settlement? Gonna have to brush up on my corporate extortion
I've asked my lyft drivers in san francisco if they've noticed any difference in ridership lately (they almost all drive for both uber and lyft), and heard things like 'yeah, all the women are taking lyft now.'
> People definitely want to watch Uber burn as some have forever, but something seems to have shifted
Is it really as dramatic as all that? Just seems like ragging on uber is 'a viral topic' right now. Likely thanks to the couple of articles this past while that've no doubt made the rounds on FB/etc.
Once it's "old hat" people will go back to business as usual, albeit uber's steadily increasing prices and myriad other issues mean people'll always have that negative aftertaste (and possibly switch to other services or cutting back on ridesharing for a while)
Waves of hate for companies are nothing new; not saying Uber's not going to have enduring hate too but I don't think this is anything "different" than what I'd've expected. Just look at United right now.
I for one am waiting for Uber to finally die, and have been for the past 3 years or so. This is a shitty company led by sociopaths, that has no place in a modern, civilized society. It leaves bad example to follow for future entrepreneurs.
Why Uber is still alive is something that makes me worry about what chances the rule of law has vs. VC money.
I belong to a networking group for CTO's. Pretty much everyone has reported that Facebook ads are basically the best way to find developers right now. Extremely cost effective with lots of excellent results.
I have some concerns about the effect they have on diversity (given how tightly you can target them). But the results seems to be really good.
That's...bizarre. In past surveys over 80% of HN users report using adblock. Anecdotally that's very true of devs I know personally, and of the rest, there are 0% I'd want to hire.
I'm very curious who these developers are that (1) let Facebook show them ads and (2) god forbid, actually click on them
Logically no one. People go to LinkedIn and other work-related sites. BUT facebook being who they are and tracking you in (almost) each and every website on the planet (that silly like/share button) they "know" that you are job hunting and leverage on that knowledge.
Ok, more to the point, do they really expect prospective, quality engineers to click on facebook ads? Especially for someone with the brand recognition (for better or worse) of uber.
My guess: You're targeting people who waste their precious time on Facebook. And if they don't value their own time, they probably won't value yours either.
I have a mother and a sister and a wife and a daughter. OF COURSE I want companies like Uber to burn when sexual harassment is a standard practice and "bosses" either look the other way or chip in.
Good sentiment, but just want to highlight that one ought to be against sexual harassment even when one doesn't have a sister or wife or daughter, just as one ought to be against racism or sexual discrimination even if one doesn't have people of other races or sexual orientations in the immediate family.
Standard practice? That's a big claim substantiated by nothing. Uber has thousands of employees, the ancedontal account that came out looked credible but there's nothing that says it is pervasive. Does Uber even skew from the mean when it comes to harrassment compared to other tech companies or companies in general?
It looks to me that people are piling on, just because.
>the ancedontal account that came out looked credible but there's nothing that says it is pervasive
Other than the fact that corporate HR "investigated" the literal screenshots of Susan being sexually propositioned by her supervisor the day she joined the company and determined there was nothing wrong, right? I sure fucking hope that skews form the mean when it comes to harassment.
Your words are chosen so carefully. "Anecdotal...looked credible..." The same words I'm sure HR had in their oops-we-got-caught presentation for Travis.
If they look carefully chosen it's because I'm trying to keep an objective perspective on this. Susan's account looks credible, and as far as I can tell Uber messed up, but how do you extrapolate that to a systemic problem?
This whole thing looks like a typical internet pile-up. Uber screwed up in a specific instance, and now everybody wants to take a free hit.
>I sure fucking hope that skews form the mean when it comes to harassment.
Well does it? Out of the countless shrill blog posts and news articles on this, did anybody investigate if this is really a systemic problem at Uber?
A systemic problem - Yes. A frequent problem - Maybe.
Let's be clear on what a systemic problem is. The organization has many levels of controls, with employees in different departments to independently ensure that as the organization functions and moves forward, it is doing so in the right way. In this case, the HR, the Line Managers and others have individual responsibilities to ensure that sexual harassment is not tolerated. But each of these controls failed. Worse, it seems like they collaborated to undermine this. This is a systemic problem, as many parts of the system are functioning incorrectly. Now, is this a frequent problem or one off? Usually, systemic problems are frequent as there is reason to believe these controls will be violated / broken again.
>In this case, the HR, the Line Managers and others have individual responsibilities to ensure that sexual harassment is not tolerated.
And at the end of it all, you're still just using a sample of one to justify a conclusion. Not only a sample one, but biased sample of one giving one side of the story. Again, she seems very credible, but because you weren't there, and you don't know the full-story you really have to refrain from asserting strong conclusions.
What is happening here looks like typical behaviour of an internet mob on a righteous crusade and it makes me uncomfortable, because I've seen this countless times. Inevitably real people end up getting hurt because you want to virtue signal to others and take some cheap shots..
>When I joined Uber, the organization I was part of was over 25% women. By the time I was trying to transfer to another eng organization, this number had dropped down to less than 6%. Women were transferring out of the organization, and those who couldn't transfer were quitting or preparing to quit.
My problem with conspiracy theories is that they always take the following form:
1) Event X occurred.
2) I can't imagine how X could have happened other than if Y is true.
3) Therefore Y is true.
Here's how it looks like with UFOs:
1) I saw a streak of light travelling very quickly across the night sky.
2) I cannot imagine what terrestrial phenomenon could have caused it.
3) Therefore Aliens.
I don't know why the proportion of women in that specific organization fell. Was it because sexism or sexual harassment caused them to quit? Was it because of differential hiring, where over a period of time more men were hired? Was it because more women got promoted out of the 'organization'? Was it just a statistical glitch? I don't even know what an 'organization' is in that context.
Good evidence might be that sexual harassment is happening more frequently at uber, that uber is missing processes to deter or detect sexual harassment, or that employees feel subject to harassment moreso than at other companies.
The metrics I'd like to look at would be harassment complaints, harassment claims on anonymous survey for witnessing, being a victim of, or participating in harassing behavior, and reports from HR outlining frequency of complaints and the results of those complaints.
If you could compare these metrics to industry standards I think you could make a credible case one way or the other. Eg Uber employees report harassment more frequently on anonymous surveys than to HR. This suggests Uber culture does not sufficiently encourage reporting harassment. Or, uber HR rejects sexual harassment claims more frequently than similar companies, suggesting they have problems investigating such complaints, etc.
I also found the story of sexual harassment at uber believable and outrageous, but that doesn't mean it's a systemic problem.
So basically you want a peer-reviewed scientific paper coming out of Uber exploring their culture specifically about sexual harassment?
What kind of world do you live in? Because the real world doesn't provide you any of these metrics or statistics so you will very likely never see this kind of "proof" coming out from any workplace that's been accused of not fighting against sexual harassment.
Science is beautiful but there are places where you can't gather the data to do it, this is probably one of these cases.
>So basically you want a peer-reviewed scientific paper coming out of Uber exploring their culture specifically about sexual harassment?
How about more evidence than the anecdotal experience of one person. Like I said - she seems credible, but it is only one side of the story and one singular instance.
>Science is beautiful but there are places where you can't gather the data to do it, this is probably one of these cases.
So the alternative is you just make up your own conclusion?
If you can't gather the data, I'd suggest you shouldn't assert the conclusion. In this instance, is Uber a systemically bad company for sexual harassment? I haven't seen the data to suggest so. One woman reporting sexual harassment is bad, of course, but it isn't conclusive on the question of systemic sexual harassment.
Your wife, mother, or sister could depend on their job at Uber. Some of them might have picked up their whole family and moved across the country to work there. Your reasoning is ignorant and I'm happy it is just the vocal minority that want a company to burn down because of mistakes in their leadership.
Maybe? It's also significant that Rachel had to handle a lot of huge fires while at Google, all over the globe: China, the Street View Wi-Fi incident, the European reception of privacy policy changes, the Books lawsuits, antitrust actions and a lot more. Yet, she couldn't survive two years at Uber.
I don't know about "wanting" anything like that, but it's a pretty sad statement about our society that Kalanick is going to walk away from this basically without any real negative consequences. The fact that he isn't already gone is terrible, in my opinion.
Um, "In total, the bank has fired five senior retail bank executives, including Tolstedt, over the scandal and has imposed forfeitures, clawbacks and compensation adjustments on senior leaders totaling more than $180 million, including $69 million from Stumpf and $67 million from Tolstedt."
Run by frats bros who are blind to their luck and lack all humility. Who treat everyone whose not their bro like trash including customers, employees, contracted workers, other tech companies, etc...
Those who loathe Uber can only wish to witness Kalanick learn humility by holding only the ashes of Uber he ignited and then burned!
Yes, I do want to watch Uber burn. I've been waiting for that many years now. The whole sexual harassment is frankly just a tip of the iceberg with them, and not particularly the important one. Breaking laws and abusing people is their business model, and this needs to stop.
HN consists of mostly humans. Unfortunately, even the smartest and most unbiased ones amongst us aren't entirely immune to sensationalism, so some of us might have voted for reasons other than hate.
Human nature!
.edit: down-vote city for calling HNers human? Or what? Just curious. Don't really care about the points.
.edit²: removed a bit of the blanket from that statement. Pardon the initial poor wording!
People downvoted you because you're saying they want Uber to burn due to sensationalism and not because it's a genuinely bad company. It sounds condescending and probably pissed people off.
Since the head of communications is definitely to blame for all the negative press recently, I think this is a great move that shows Uber is committed to fixing its problems. Really impressed by Travis Kalanick's bold leadership here and I predict smooth sailing from here on out.
Between Google investing $258M in Uber and then getting their IP ripped off by an ex-employee (now at Uber) whose company Google had bought, Levandowski and Uber pissed off the wrong deep pocketed company.
> “Anthony Levandowski is not a defendant in this case. Nor is this an employment dispute between Waymo and Mr. Levandowski,” reads the opposition. “Uber is the defendant in this case, and Uber is responsible for its own misconduct.”
Wait, so... They're implying that Levandowski didn't violate his agreement, but that Uber is liable for using trade secrets...?
Unless those files were marked as theirs (which you'd think Levandowski would have scrubbed if he made them part of Otto's docs), I can't see how that'd be a winning strategy for them. hmm
Disclaimer: I don't know anything about the case and am not a lawyer
No. There are two disputes - Levandowski wrongfully took the documents (which Google may or may not pursue - I don't know what's happening there), and Uber wrongfully used them. They're saying that the arbitration agreement only applies to the dispute Google has with Levandowski directly, not to the separate dispute they have with Uber.
Under Section 12(g), they probably should have had to report this information anyway, even without going public. However, it seems they've found an "innovative" way to skirt that part of the law: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2016/01/uber-a...
Figured as much, but I'm wondering if there's a proxy out there that could at least give us insight -- weekly app store downloads perhaps? Also not sure how available those metrics are.
Humorously, I did not know it was bated until maybe two or three years ago. I always imagined it was something like a cat who just ate cheese to lure the mouse to its trap.
(Yes, I have all kinds of college and good grades and yadda. This word is a tad obscure.)
Recently, they started spamming me with lots of %-off offers[1]. Just a datapoint; it could be unrelated marketing efforts. Or it could be that they're feeling it.
[1] Their mailing list was also broken and ignored my unsubscribe request, so given that they seem too incompetent to run a mail server, now anything they send me bounces.
Ya'll are seriously over estimating the influence hacker news has on regular people. Uber unfortunately still has brand recognition and home field advantage. Most people have no idea about the sexual harassment issues and for now their bottom line is hardly taking a hit. Here in Philly people are still using Uber for the most part.
> Uber unfortunately still has brand recognition and home field advantage.
I'm in the middle of a two week trip in San Francisco staying with people who live here. Out of about a dozen people who've called rides for themselves or the group while I've been around, 100% were Lyft. Out of all the ridesharing vehicles I've seen in the city, less than one in five had Uber logos, and maybe less than one in ten. No drivers we talked to complained about Uber, some were even very complimentary, but I get the feeling the tide has completely turned in the Bay Area and there's no home field advantage at home.
And FWIW, everyone I know is aware of the Uber issue, while almost none read Hacker News. This story is definitely not primarily fueled by HN at this point, if it ever was.
Surprising to me is how often it gets brought up by drivers.
Personally, I've had the "how do you like Uber/lyft" conversation during a ride enough times to never bring it up directly, but regardless it comes up frequently.
I don't think drivers are looking to badmouth the company, but drivers everywhere in the world are at least slightly aware of what's going on and often in need of a shared subject to talk about with passengers.
Hacker News was the initial seed, but it went viral through multiple other social media and traditional press outlets. Non-techies in my social circles (including ones outside of California) noticed, they just don't always see Lyft as a decent option in their local markets.
I love the idea of Uber and what it did to urban commuting, around the world and especially where I live (South India, where private transport for hire was monopolised by auto-rickshaws).
But, I definitely think the execution could've been a lot better. Sure, be aggressive with pricing, influencing public policy and marketing but to persist with it and taking it beyond subtlety is a silly, distracting move. By going the other extreme in curbing monopolies, they have alienated hard-working drivers who are feeling the heat now. Drivers tell me they work longer hours for lower payouts. Many of them are unable to make enough to pay back loans taken out to purchase their cars.
I'm not sure if this was due to demands imposed by investors on aggressive expansion and growth or if it's something that Uber consciously chose to do. Either way, I fear the worst and that this will be an another short-lived experiment.
It confuses, sickens, and amuses me that people could get the world so twisted in their heads that "social justice" could become a phrase applied negatively to people, movements and feelings.
I probably shouldn't have posted that, but "social justice warrior" is a pejorative for actual good reason. It refers specifically to people who don't genuinely care about justice, and are rather interested in shoving everyone in society into categories at the expense of individuality, policing language with offense and outrage, and creating a culture where name-calling with labels like bigot, racist, etc. are treated as compelling arguments by appealing to a sense of tribal identity—all in the name of justice.
Regardless, it's still name-calling. It doesn't further any real argument, and comes across as immature. From my perspective, calling someone a "SJW" is the same as calling them a "libtard".
Our purpose is not to impugn the courts, but to emancipate them from a position where they stand in the way of social justice, and to emancipate the people in an orderly way from the inequity of enforced submission to a doctrine which would turn constitutional provisions, which were intended to favor social justice and advancement, into prohibitions against such justice and advancement."
I think it's needlessly mocking, but it is not a label: it has an actual definition, and I'd consider anyone who used the word outside that definition to be using it incorrectly. It refers to a specific set of behaviors. Bigot and racist used to not be labels, until people started applying the terms to everything.
You're trying to be pedantic and failing. "labels like bigot, racist, etc." have actual definitions, too. Your use of the term "sjw" is just hypocritical. It has no more of a clear definition than "racist". It just happens to suit your narrative.
Well, fair enough, you're right that SJW can be used as a label too.
My original flagged comment was actually "The invigorating fervor of social justice"; I didn't use the term "SJW." It was a sassy thing I wrote because I thought it was funny how the obvious comment that took no courage to write was shooting to the top as usual. I was making fun of people with who post passionate, rallying cries in the spirit of "we must stand our ground," knowing full well they're on a message board that will congratulate them for it, and, while they're at it, being rather boring.
As for my SJW comment, I was explaining to tomlock why people use "social justice" negatively. I should've added "e.g." before "social justice warrior."
The earliest reference I could find to the term was a fiction novel from the 90s that described people who chose causes based on how it would benefit their social standing.
The problem is that an awful lot of people who claim they want people to treat each other with respect and kindness are on the rampage about it and ready to behead anyone being inadequately (whatever their criteria). They frequently are not at all kind, respectful individuals themselves. They are frequently just assholes who like having justification for riding around on their high horse.
Real justice involves justice for both sides. SJWs tend to not have that in mind at all.
I've come to associate the term with individuals who have undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder. It's the only good explanation I've seen for why they're so easily offended, and also why they have practically no bounds when it comes to punishing people they've determined to be on the "wrong" side.
"Patriot", "Feminist", "Fundamentalist", and many other terms speak for positive things, but because of people acting under that label, the label becomes tainted and turns into a pejorative depending on the perspective. Heck, even "Liberal" and "Conservative" barely mean anything anymore than name-calling at Those Others with an insinuation of the worst caricatures possible.
It's just the way language and societal labeling works, combined with the hyper-reactionary tribalism of the last decade or so.
It does go in all directions, as I've hopefully made apparent in my above post.
But, just because that blanket label is overapplied doesn't mean that there isn't a ton of ill-informed bandwagon outrage against Uber, nor that the opposing pejorative SJW labeling of said outrage against Uber is ill-informed bandwagon outrage either, ad infinitum. (assuming all those stacked negatives parse correctly)
There's tons of terrible reacting to both real and contrived issues, recursive through reacting to those reactions. At some point, the reactions cause more issues than the initial issues.
Yeah, I mean, saying its ill-informed (removing bandwagon) outrage is slightly better. Then we get at the real core of the argument - like, what do people feel others are ill-informed about?
I feel we're speaking different languages here. It doesn't matter what others are ill-informed about, what matters is how informed we are before hopping on the OutrageMobile.
People hear mention of some trigger phrase, like "There's sexism there!" or "They're shoving Islam down our children's throat!" or "Against|For [gay marriage|abortion|etc]!" or "Racist!", and grab the pitchfork and torches to go wreck a company, a person's employment, a conference, an open source project, or whatever, using the power of the mob. How different is this from witch hunts or whatever hundreds of years old nutty rumors people mobbed & destroyed over? How much do you think such rumors are inflated by somebody who was slighted and has a bone to pick, or is otherwise interested in conjuring vengeance?
People are replacing rule of law with rule by mob & rumor, and that's simply not a civil or free society. Even if someone's thrust is "People need to be as informed as I believe I am", civility requires that be addressed ... civilly, not lashing out destructively. Plus, "informed" in that sense is often just a cover for "carries my preferential social/political/economic beliefs", which people in a free society are absolute free to differ at the belief level (the action level is where the law resides).
> Do you feel like the rule of law is being violated here by the negative reactions people are having to uber?
I'm not sure exactly how that statement is intended to be parsed.
In this situation, unlike other worse reactions, I think little actual action by the mob is being taken, which is a good thing. It's just a bunch of mudslinging and eye-rolling between the outrage camps as far as I've seen.
But certainly some of the uninformed bandwagon outrage against Uber, and similar backlash against that outrage, stems from the root issues I brought up. People are believing more and more that freedom is a hindrance, society should force others into belief patterns (and even stating such things blanketly), and it's their duty to force those changes because they're just so self-evidently right; instead of allowing civil freedoms to others as long as the law is upheld, and letting due process determine what sort of infractions actually happened. We really don't know what's going on inside Uber. There's certainly enough to believe that there is a real sexism issue, but who knows if it's from the top, or some localized manager who's allowing or encouraging such behavior in his subdomain, or just interpersonal, or inflated by people who didn't like the situation they're in.
Looking back at all your questions to me in total, beyond my initial confusion as to which thrust you're going for (with inclusion of benefit of the doubt), the wording of all of your statements seems to be very leading, trying to point away from what I'm talking about and towards an accusatory pigeonholed tone. This is a broad discussion about social sentiment and changes of public discourse which is obviously a chaotic system and not a testable experiment, and one which I posit is being mirrored in situations discussed in this thread about the Uber situation.
I feel enough descriptors about the fundamental concerns I have have already been made. I think both "sides" in this mess are two sides of the same coin of wrong. If you're simply looking for affirmation of one of the 2 sides, and not looking at the societal situation at large, then my point hasn't come across.
- You are horrified that "social justice", being a positive concept, has become a derisive term.
- I point out that this is common linguistic drift, not a special case, and happens to all sides.
- You link it to one side of the Uber reaction debate.
- I say it easily applies to both sides, using the same predicates.
- You focus on one term from my reply, in different usage than mine
- I try to correct that and re-center what I said about it being both sides
(which was from your interjection about one-sidedness)
- You ask for evidence
- I get too suspicious to continue, about you wanting to go only in a partisan direction.
My responses are simply intended to link to the post above them, and step back to see the broader issues, not side-picking squabbling which serves only to exacerbate things.
- You suggest there are even parts ill-informed SJW bandwagoning and blanket label application in regards to the uber issue.
- I ask why people would assume people are ill-informed about this uber situation.
- You talk broadly about society but don't address the question about uber.
- I ask if you feel like your views about society apply to the current uber situation.
- You claim people are uninformed again.
- I ask you why you think your views about society are linked to the situation surrounding uber.
- You state I'm trying to lead away from your point (which being on a post about uber is presumably somehow linked to uber).
- I say I'm trying to figure out how you think your view links to Uber.
- You recap the situation without mention of uber.
I'm just going down the pedantic rabbit hole because hey, many of us are technical people, and it's fun to be precise. :-)
--
- You suggest there are even parts ill-informed SJW bandwagoning and blanket label application in regards to the uber issue.
I made no claim about the evenness of the parts at all, just presence. The initial equivalence of positive descriptors becoming pejorative has no real quantifier when it comes to people. In a later post, a "ton" is of course vernacular, not a countably precise equivalence, if that's what you're referring to instead of listing the posts in order.
Plus, you can see this started off talking about addressing anti-SJW sentiment, not Uber specifically. The Uber situation was just the godwin-esque trigger that brought it up as a related topic.
--
- I ask why people would assume people are ill-informed about this uber situation.
- You talk broadly about society but don't address the question about uber.
Your question as stated is open-ended about what people feel about others, not about uber in particular. The wording seems to be stepping back and looking at the broader context of where these dichotomies come from. So I answered broadly as warranted. Quoting:
"Then we get at the real core of the argument - like, what do people feel others are ill-informed about?"
--
- I ask if you feel like your views about society apply to the current uber situation.
That's not quite what this question asks:
Do you feel like the rule of law is being violated here by the negative reactions people are having to uber?
and I noted that I couldn't understand what you were getting at with "rule of law is being violated". I explained the relationship between the reactions and the rule of law as per the wording of your question.
Plus, there was an "in this situation..." sentence starting it off by relating the uber situation.
--
- You claim people are uninformed again.
There is plenty of discussion even in this HN page on what we do and don't know about what Uber did and to what scale. Perceivable uncertainty of information literally is being uninformed, regardless of which "side" is taken, and especially when information is relatively new and broader information could be expected to come later. Acting on uncertainty is not allowing due process to proceed and be the final arbiter. In the broad sense, many other examples of action from outrage and counter-outrage (and counter^n-outrage) have escalated on rumor, cherry picking, and stereotyping, more than on complete information.
--
- I ask you why you think your views about society are linked to the situation surrounding uber.
- You state I'm trying to lead away from your point (which being on a post about uber is presumably somehow linked to uber).
You wanted me to link it _only to the reaction against uber_ and omitted the counter-reaction. That's what I find leading & one-sided about those sorts of statements, especially in the context of a thread on comments on anti-SJW labeling, which further linked from negative comments about anti-Uber sentiment. It is very reminiscent of the "Are you pro-gamergate or anti-gamergate" malarkey where everything was worded from and intended to signal allegiance to some chosen side, and also revolved around social justice issues.
The starting comment where you made your primary issue was the negative backlash to the backlashers, which is a level removed from the Uber issue itself.
[Edit: Reading your line again, "What evidence have you seen that suggests this is _THE_ cause of the negative sentiment surrounding Uber?" (emphasis mine), instead of just a suspicion of one-sidedness, I take that as another false accusation of what I said. This multiplicity has really gone beyond reasonable discourse, and beyond any assumption of good-naturedness of discussion. I spent this entire post breaking down my understanding of your words, which you might argue has some misunderstandings in direction of topic, which is fine, but that post of yours is purely a strawman that was overlooked by me in benefit of the doubt and interest in a proper discussion on these important issues.]
--
- I say I'm trying to figure out how you think your view links to Uber.
- You recap the situation without mention of uber.
The issues around the negative reaction using "SJW" pejoratives in general and not about Uber is what your starting comment was, and is what was replied to, and your further questions were asking at face wording about the backlash issues, not about the improprieties at Uber.
I could just as easily ask, "What does your complaining about the term "SJW" being a pejorative have to do with Uber?" Technically, nothing. But it spawns discussion, this is a discussion board, and you brought up the standalone anti-SJW sentiment issue that certainly brought up further discussion about your particular point.
"It confuses, sickens, and amuses me that people could get the world so twisted in their heads that "social justice" could become a phrase applied negatively to people, movements and feelings." <- no Uber in there, just issues of labels arisen from outrage/anti-outrage culture. The Uber issues are about sexual harassment, racism, and other particular actions & accusations, including significant people leaving; not about how social justice is labeled. You were already talking only about the latter.
--
(yes, I'm enjoying the pedantry of all of this. Hopefully you are, too. :-) )
You've made some very broad claims about society in your discussion.
You have for instance suggested that some people are ill-informed about this uber situation. I wonder who you mean? Is it the wider community, is it the commenters on hackernews?
I'm only asking for any evidence of those very qualitative claims.
Are you making any claim that there are zero instances of such? Are you making any claim that the concept of people reacting with potentially actionable outrage to rumors is somehow novel and without precedent? Are you insinuating that I'm implicating every member of society at large, instead of my specific wording about "some" people? I would like direct responses to these 3 questions.
I'm not going to go round up social media statements I've seen, search for arbitrary postings on public boards I've come across and scoffedly moved past, make audio recordings of discussions I have been around, and the like. Heck, just search the word "fact" on the full comment page for this article. If you claim there is unbelievability leading to burden of proof, that's pretty wild. If you're looking for a stereotype of a group of people that uniformly hold disagreeable positions ("is it commenters on $X?") then that's seeking bigotry, not working against bigotry. Or, it's another leading question, which I must be suspicious of given the track record so far. "Oh, you really mean this group? Hah, you're a bigot!" type of wording.
You're purposefully avoiding acknowledgement of common precedent in human group behavior, and asking for either scapegoats or for me to be a scapegoat, instead of addressing the topic of the presence and incivility of uninformed outrage in general, from multiple directions.
1. I believe there are probably not zero instances of people believing aliens are involved in this situation. I would not make the claim that there are zero instances of a belief for any claim because I don't have that information.
2. Could you restate the question?
3. I don't know, which is why I ask who you're making the claim about - what magnitude do you believe the problem is - and why?
Everything you're saying sounds incredibly anecdotal - which is why I'm confused and seeking clarification on your broad claims about society and their relationship with uber, a company which you've directly mentioned several times.
When you say "common" what do you mean? Do you mean that you personally have commonly seen these precedents? Who? When? How many?
The only explanation for your position that I can muster is that you're being intentionally obtuse to try to claim ignorance of behavior that would work against your arguments.
Consider the sports team that was accused of raping a girl, which was then found out to be false. Consider the case of the kid who brought that disassembled clock to school, and the initial outrage against how he was treated, before all the facts came out. Consider the violence committed against Sikhs by people who don't know what Muslims dress like. Consider the outrage against the woman who sued McDonald's when she spilled hot coffee on herself. You simply cannot be on the internet and not have seen such examples setting precedent for uninformed outrage, the media benefiting from it, and fringe sites claiming whatever to drum up their own counter-outrage to grab new niche audiences.
These situations are "common" as in commonly occurring, and even a subset around them related to social issues have been common enough to form the well-traveled "SJW" moniker, in both positive and negative lights.
Your complaint was against "social justice" becoming a pejorative, which has nothing to do with Uber. You weren't talking about Uber in what spawned the conversation. It's an obvious red herring.
I also have no idea why you're so defensive to the initial statements, which are pretty cut and dry, expanding the targeted situations to more common behaviors for greater understanding and less vilification.
As shown before, the red herrings are shown pointless by how easily the tables can be turned with them:
"What does "social justice" being pejorative have to do with Uber?"
"What evidence can you bring that "social justice" is even used as a pejorative in the first place, while I feign ignorance of having any exposure to the term at all?"
Terms relating to "outrage" yields tons of absolutely related hits on Google that you can research yourself, if you're so removed from social reality (which strangely enough, you seemed to be arguing from a supposedly informed stance before). 4 major media outrage incidents (and one being an entire classification of incidents) that were backed off because of outrage before information coming that quickly to mind are reinforced by the many others available at your fingertips to bring you back up to familiarity.
Tracing it back to behavior during the witch hunts, religious inquisitors (which much of outrage culture directly mimics), any lynching/mob style situation, kangaroo courts of various forms, and even modern propaganda of war efforts point to the same human reactionary behavior as a steady theme throughout history.
The resistance to change and make things right is sooooo big that all else will quit except the ones who have the real power to make that change.. while pushing all others overboard.
Even United CEO apologized, but sexual harassment is no biggie I guess for Uber.
He shouldn't have apologised (the immature belligerent dude on the plane should). However, he has apologised now, bowing to the relentless social media pressure, which appears to come mostly from people that don't know much about aviation law, airline operation, or anything related to this incident, from what I can see.
I'm curious: what makes you believe that the man was "immature" and "belligerent"? Eyewitness accounts and videos seem to imply that he was not, and as more facts have come out, I'm becoming more and more convinced that what United did may was a violation of their own policies, and perhaps the law.
2. It is, indeed, hard to judge without having established the facts. But resisting a captain's (or, by extension, flight crew's) order, or the orders of the owner of the airplane, is in itself illegal and, frankly, immature. Running onto the plane again after having been "dragged off" and muttering "Just kill me" seems to point to possible mental issues, but again, it's hard to tell without further information.
More measured pieces, such as this one [1], state "It appears from the evidence that the law was broken – by him, not by the airline."
So, I'm a nonexpert, not going to source this, and am repeating hearsay. Salt this comment to taste, but:
While I won't dispute that the moment he refused to deplane, he violated the law (you're required to follow the instructions of flight crew), the request that he be removed was also a violation of UA policy from what I've seen.
Here's some things that I've read
- He had previously volunteered to deboard, until he learned that it would be such a long delay
- This was not a case of overbooking, the 4 people added to the flight were United Employees, not overbooked passengers.
- UA policy states that airline employees will be the first people bumped from a flight in the case that it is overbooked
- (According to someone on reddit, so extra salt:) All of the overbooking regulations have to do with seat assignments. You shouldn't get bumped once you're assigned a seat, much less seated, and doing so may be a breach of regulations by United.
If that's the case, then the crew were absolutely breaching UA policy when he was removed, and they may have been breaching federal regulations when they asked him to deplane. To be clear, that's no excuse for refusing to deplane (even if he knew he was in the right), but it's not as simple as "he was disruptive" if the request for him to leave was illegal.
As for the 4 employees - there is staff travel for personal reasons (ID travel, interline discount, heavily discounted, stand-by), where you have lower priority than paying pax. There is booked staff travel, where you have intermediate priority. But then there is travel for operational reasons (positioning), where you have higher priority, because if you don't get there, a whole planeload of pax (and more, due to knock-on effects) won't fly. So, the number of available seats was reduced, and insofar it was overbooking.
And certainly all this should have been sorted out before boarding, no doubt, and normally is. (Apparently only 6 in 100,000 pax or so are IDB, by the way.)
But imagine a seatbelt turns out to be broken, or the wind is so strong that they have to load more fuel and reduce weight, or whatever. Then there's a seat less, for operational reasons, and someone has to leave, even if they had boarded already.
> Running onto the plane again after having been "dragged off" and muttering "Just kill me" seems to point to possible mental issues,
You realize this could be because of the concussion he might have suffered earlier, don't you? Rather cruel thing to throw out there as an accusation after reviewing the video of the incident.
Haha. And everyone who ever got their ass beat by the police should have just did as they were told. Even if they were in the legal right, or racially profiled, or whatever.
But the crew was legally right. And at any rate, the airplane is not the place to have that dispute, legal or otherwise - you follow the captain's (and by extension, crew's) orders, and then you review it later.
The crew was legally right only inasmuch so as the captain can order anyone off his/her plane, legally. If you're brown and a passenger doesn't like you, they can report you to the crew with some trumped up reason and the captain will order you off (which has happened).
In a similar situation, if someone is pointing at you with a gun in a dark alley and ask nicely for you wallet, then the more sensible reaction is to give your wallet.
Sometimes it's not the same sensible, legal and right.
According to witnesses, he said he was a doctor who had patients he had to see the following day, and there wasn't another flight to Louisville for 36 hours. The crew is supposed to make an informed decision about these things, and clearly made a random and arbitrary choice and refused to back down. They may have been in the right legally, but certainly not morally.
The whole point was that the decision is random, in the name of justice.
They have some criteria to exclude people from the bad lottery (disabled people and their care takers, unaccompanied minors), and then may apply a ranking based on booking class, frequent flyer status, and check-in time.
But here, the claim is that pax were chosen randomly.
Many people have good reasons to be on a plane, and this passenger being a doctor should not have any bearing on the resolution of the problem at hand (except insofar as it should've compelled other pax to take the 800 USD and hotel room and volunteer for disembarkation).
Why shouldn't the passenger's role as a doctor have any bearing? If an airline must choose passengers to disembark, shouldn't doctors (& nurses) be the last people you'd remove?
Because the check-in area or airplane is not the place to argue about the relative merits of different professions or importance of appointments. The airline has its criteria (which might include random choice) and is entitled to use them.
Even if most of us think our needs (/convenience) is more important than everyone else, most of us also appreciate the role that doctors & nurses play.
Plus, airlines have rules about literally everything-including wearing leggings. From both a business and a public safety perspective, it would hardly be shocking if an airline mandated that doctors and nurses should be either exempt from removal or the last to be removed. Not sure if you've ever been on a plane where someone has had a serious medical issue when there hasn't been a doctor or nurse on board, but its hardly uncommon. Having a doctor on board decreases risk for an airline--keeping doctors & nurses aboard certainly makes more senses than random choice does or choosing whomever paid the least.
Muttering "Just kill me" does not immediately mean a conclusion of possible mental issues. After all, the guy just had his face smashed against an armrest so it's not beyond the realm of imagination that he would a) be traumatized and b) have a concussion.
So rather than us armchair quarterbacking it, why not let more of the facts solidify before passing judgement?
Agreed, we need more facts. But until then the uncritical condemnation of United is as unjustified as condemnation of the passenger (which I might have engaged in, to an extent - but for now I still think he should have just disembarked, or possibly pleaded with the other pax to volunteer, but not refuse).
In my view, the Independent article gives the "received wisdom", while the article you linked is from a (self-professed) non-expert reading the conditions of carriage and doing some hairsplitting there.
From what I can tell, The Independent article was not sourced from an expert either so your attempt to show that the Independent article has more "weight" does not back things up.
"Under certain conditions, airlines can bar passengers from boarding - if the passenger is unruly or intoxicated or on a terrorist watch list - but United had no right to remove Dao, says aviation law expert Arthur Wolk, a Center City attorney who read the 45-page “contract of carriage.”
Wolk says Dao “absolutely” had the right to the seat, and this was not a case of “overbooking,” he says, because all the passengers had seats. What happened to Dao was “assault and battery,” he says.
“There’s absolutely no humanity left in the airline business,” Wolk says, adding that United routinely finishes low in surveys of passenger satisfaction. “I would sue their asses off.”
Is there any question that Dao is going to sue? John Banzhaf, a professor at the George Washington University Law School, agrees with Wolk’s analysis. He says United is “citing the wrong federal rule to justify its illegal request to force a passenger already boarded and seated to disembark.”"
Regardless of the outcome, I would hope that people will agree that injury in a case like this is not deserved and not just "too bad, he didn't behave himself".
I think the contention that Dao "absolutely" had the right to the seat is too strong. Wolk seems to know his stuff, and his contention that he "would sue their asses off" might well be true (he has sued Piper, USAir, the NTSB, AVweb.com, and threatened to sue TechDirt, who wrote "We have heard of multiple other bloggers who have decided that they simply will not write anything about Arthur Alan Wolk out of fear of being sued by him.").
Let me cite another source though, Bloomberg, which, again, echoes the received wisdom as far as I can tell:
1. Can airlines just throw seated passengers off planes?
Yes. When you purchase an airline ticket you’re also entering into a detailed contract that specifies the many rights an airline has related to the trip. One of them allows the carrier to seize your seat in return for compensation and an alternate means of transport, usually on a later flight. Airlines also can determine that when their employees must be somewhere for duty -- a status that, yes, may place them ahead of paying customers -- a passenger’s seat can be taken. That’s because not positioning a crew member can lead to a future flight cancellation or delay.
> Thatcher Stone, a lawyer who has successfully sued airlines over bumping incidents, advises that passengers should always follow instructions of airline crew, no matter how strongly they may feel.
Agreed that injury was not deserved, but what do you suggest should be done if people don't follow a lawful order to vacate the premises?
When did he say "Just kill me" must have missed that clip. The one of him running back on to the plane clearly concussed and not in a normal state of mind has him saying "I need to go home".
No, no evidence beyond what the United CEO said, plus the fact that he did not disembark when asked to.
(That in itself is some immaturity. I'm all for political action and power to the citizen and consumers and so forth, but I don't fight that fight while in some country's immigration and customs queue, or with the crew of an aircraft while in the aircraft.)
Most people would not defy authority, but that doesn't mean that authority is in the right. Whether or not United technically acted in accordance with the law does also does not mean they are in the right. Where and when you personally would (or would not) choose to defy authority is also not a reliable barometer of whether that authority is worthy of defiance.
This was a logistical problem that resulted from United's own negligence. The personality traits that the passenger displayed after being lottery-selected for ejection are immaterial : the airline screwed up, the airline treated its customers like shit, the airline refused to provide suitable incentives, the airline refused to address the problem in a reasonable manner, and finally the airline went straight for the nuclear option. It was a colossal failure from start to finish, and the fault lies entirely with them.
Regardless of legality, or if the passenger's response was warranted or not, he should have apologised IMO. A paying passenger was unwillingly removed from a flight to make room for employees. I think most people in that situation would be rather angry with the company.
He should apologise for thwarting someone's travel plans, that's true. It happens - aviation is complicated, sometimes planes are overbooked, sometimes not all seats are available. Then passengers are IDB and get the legal compensation (and frequently more). And the CEO's initial (and much ridiculed) reference to re-accommodation was an apology for that, wasn't it?
The fact that the passenger had to be dragged out was due to the passenger, though.
Interesting. I am not convinced that 91.3 and 91.11 CFR 14 (authority of the pilot in command, no interference with crew members) is suspended once the airplane is stationary on the ground, but at least it's a somewhat informed argument (which, as I've said, is very rare in the whole media bedlam).
There is the question as to when something counts as an aviation accident (because you do not want something to count as an aviation accident when the cockpit window cleaner falls of the ladder, but you do want to count something as an aviation accident when, say, something happens during taxi - even if you're not flying yet. But where do you draw the line?)
So, ICAO defines an accident to be "An occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight until such time as all such persons have disembarked" and fulfilling various further criteria.
So, according to that definition the airplane was "in operation".
Legal hair splitting aside: there is a line that a company can not and should not cross, which is to alienate its paying customers. Once you pass that point it stops to matter whether or not you were legally in your right, you've lost in the one court that matters: the court of commerce.
If customers can no longer trust you to treat them with even the lowest degree of respect (and bodily integrity, already a sore point with air travelers is undeniably a part of that) then you're in trouble.
Witness the stock markets response today, no amount of legal wrangling will make that kind of beating right, besides the obvious ethical angles.
UA failed, then failed again during their initial apology and now may be able to put this behind them but it will be a very costly lesson.
1. Paradoxically, I'm not sure they'll have significant commercial losses. Discriminating flyers weren't flying United before, I'd think, and most of those screaming now might well book United a week hence if it's $3.50 cheaper than the alternatives.
2. Companies (or any entity, really) should resist attempts to circumvent rules by cheating, e.g. by throwing a tantrum at the check-in counter when you don't get an upgrade. So, when the Involuntary Denied Boarding lottery comes up, and you don't get a seat, do you think it would be ok to force your way onto the plane and refuse to get off, in the hope that they might chose someone else? If not, how would you deal with such a case?
2 is incorrect. The people were already on the plane, it was not overbooked (but booked to capacity) and the people replacing the paying passengers were deadheading crew.
So there was absolutely no 'cheating' on the part of the passengers but plenty on the side of the airline, starting with claiming they were overbooked which they really weren't.
Deadheading crew has higher priority than pax, because without crew planeloads of other pax don't fly. The airline had, for operational reasons, fewer seats than pax with confirmed reservations. Do you call it overbooked or not, who cares: something has to give, as is anticipated in the conditions of carriage, an entirely normal thing: sometimes you might not get on a flight, or even be bumped off a flight.
Well, you may not care but that seems to be a major point. As is the fact that the airline had other options than to use violence such as offering passengers more than $800 to leave (which for sure would have been a more cost efficient solution) or to realize that such a situation should have been avoided in the first place.
Having the right to do something does not automatically translate into always being right to exercise that right, especially given the bigger picture. Even the CEO of United Airlines seems to disagree with you now. Also: first offering $800 and if refused categorically, then deciding to exercise your right to initiate a lottery to find 'volunteers' is dumb, either you have the right and exercise it or you hold an impromptu auction but to first offer a bit of money (usually in $50 vouchers each of which is valid as a discount on a single future flight and which can't be combined) and if that doesn't work to resort to violence is not going to go down well.
Given the ways in which this could have played out (I don't think it is a stretch to imagine that other passengers could have come to the defense of the old man) they got lucky.
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