I drove for Uber 20-30 hours/week for 3 years. It was super super rare for someone to try and fuck with me by threatening a low rating. At first, when they did, I told them to go ahead and just give me the 1 star. It really didn't matter. A few 1 star ratings barely puts a dent into thousands of 5 star ratings. Eventually I developed the customer service skills to prevent this from happening while still saying no. If you're a good driver you have nothing to worry about.
In my city, I remember when the news came out that drivers also rate passengers. The quality of passenger behavior skyrocketed.
I think most of the bad views of Uber come from disgruntled drivers and passengers with poor people skills. I know many many drivers and passengers who are happy with the product.
Also, ever since Travis Kalanick left the quality of driver support has tanked badly. It's very difficult to get issues fixed. The level of crippling bureaucracy within Uber is clearly growing. Not sure if that's a coincidence or indicative of his leadership.
The absence of evidence does not indicate evidence of absence.
Physical harm is rare in psychedelic experiences. Psychological harm is very, very real and has destroyed peoples lives when they get too carried away using psychedelics. I agree that these compounds should be legal, but to say they are 100% safe is ridiculous.
I don't see how a company that uses the legal system to get their way is a free market capitalist company. Sounds like an oligarchy enabled by convoluted laws.
I'm not trying to get rich. I'm just trying to survive. Making money in finance is not about luck. It takes hard, consistent, painstaking work.
I have a serious disability that is not recognized as such by the government. No one will hire me. I am completely isolated from civil society. The only way I can make money and pay for my medical expenses is to start my own businesses. I can only start businesses in unregulated markets because the barrier to entry is impossibly high elsewhere.
Without Uber/Lyft or cryptocurrency I would probably be dead. Like seriously not alive. Gone. Not existing anymore as a human. So when people whine about how they've been scammed because they made ignorant decisions and got involved with things that they shouldn't have, I do not feel sorry for them. They got greedy, gambled, and lost. That's on them. I am not gambling. I am making legitimate transactions with people who need my services. Just because some people scam does not mean that I am.
What has happened to me just happened through no choice of my own, and it feels like regulators are doing everything they can to keep me down, all in the name of protecting people who refuse to put in the work to make wise decisions. People who have more than me. People who are healthier than me.
This is a condescending attitude that keeps people outside the financial class on the fringe and destroys their ability to take control of their lives. If you treat people like children they will forever remain children.
As a struggling low-income millennial, FATCA and accredited investor requirements have easily set me back a decade.
I wonder why we don't have GPS transmitters installed at the top corners of every tall building. Seems to me like this would be a pretty straightforward solution in urban areas.
I've been an Uber driver for 2-years in a metro-area of about 1-million people. The first year was rough, as Uber aggressively lowered rates and royally screwed me over income-wise. But now, I'm making more than ever thanks to the service scaling.
The author of this blog post admits that he hasn't run any numbers, and his conclusions make that obvious. I've run the numbers, and I make part of my living as an Uber driver (it's not busy enough in my city to do this full-time). Uber doesn't worry about my expenses because it's not their job to worry about my expenses. Their job is to run their servers and make an app that customers want to use, and they've been doing a great job at that IMO. My job is to worry about my expenses, and yes, I've accounted for fuel, maintenance, and depreciation of my vehicle, and I am making enough profit to make it worth doing.
As for self-driving cars, Travis has publicly stated that Uber does not intend to own and maintain them, they are going to look to their former drivers to do that. I doubt Uber is planning on having a monopoly for self-driving cars, they just want to be in on a part of the action, but their main focus will probably always be the software of their core app.
Uber has created more jobs faster than any company in history, and this is something our economy sorely needs. They literally let everyone who passes a background check on their platform. That means no discrimination can even take place at the company level, which I think is something very very cool, especially since I have a serious health condition that has riddled my resume with holes. (Discrimination can still take place from riders however, as the ratings are what determine whether a driver stays as a driver or not.) Also, since I am my own boss, I can rest when I need to, which is essential for coping with my condition.
In my city, I remember when the news came out that drivers also rate passengers. The quality of passenger behavior skyrocketed.
I think most of the bad views of Uber come from disgruntled drivers and passengers with poor people skills. I know many many drivers and passengers who are happy with the product.
Also, ever since Travis Kalanick left the quality of driver support has tanked badly. It's very difficult to get issues fixed. The level of crippling bureaucracy within Uber is clearly growing. Not sure if that's a coincidence or indicative of his leadership.