# Tell me about Uber **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 29, 2014, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829 "2014-08-29T02:45:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/62 "2014-12-10T08:29:49Z")
[Here](http://fortune.com/2014/12/09/uber-slapped-with-civil-suit-by-san-francisco-and-l-a/) is an interesting cite which was on the news this evening. > [@](#): > > San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón and L.A. District Attorney Jackie Lacey said in a joint press release that they had sued Uber for a number of alleged misdeeds including misrepresenting the quality of background checks it conducts on its drivers and illegally servicing airports. SF taxi drivers get fingerprinted before being allowed to drive. The cites don’t say this, but the item on the news gave me the impression that the Uber background check is self reporting. The ads for Uber drivers now running don’t mention any. Plus, Uber cars are not allowed in airports, since they don’t pay the fees. So charging passengers airport fees is a ripoff, pure and simple. Uber’s million dollar insurance is backup - they expect drivers to use their regular insurance, but being an Uber driver probably violates its terms. We’ll see how this plays out. An Uber driver in SF killed a six year old kid. The mother said the driver was looking at his smartphone. Nice. Uber is just an example of the new “sharing” method of ignoring the reasons for regulations because they are inconvenient. I say let’s have Uber buses. None of that commercial license shit. Just let a guy buy or rent a bus and grab a bunch of passengers for city to city trips. What could go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2014, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/63 "2014-12-10T11:45:48Z")
If I don’t feel either safe or comfortable discussing them; [here’s why.](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/18/emil-michael-of-uber-proposes-digging-into-journalists-private-lives/?_r=0) Wiki lists [a pretty steady and consistent pattern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uber_%28company%29#Controversy) of business practices in use by them that makes Michael’s back-peddle seem consistent with prior strategies. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2014, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/64 "2014-12-11T16:28:47Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Isn’t that pretty much what he’s saying? Before we go out of our way to include the name Uber in every headline, why don’t we figure out if they’re any worse than any other cab company. > > That’s what I took away from his comments, yet there are posters above who ignored the general sentiment, instead rushing in to scream “CITE! CITE! You have no cite!” I don’t see the “why don’t we figure out if they’re any worse than any other cab company”, I see “they are no worse than any other cab company” in his posts. That’s an assertion, and yet he cannot offer anything to back up that assertion. I’d have no problem accepting it as fact if it is true, but thus far it’s an unsupported assertion, one that seems to have been made in some sort of attempt to mitigate the perception of things that have happened to people using Uber’s services. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2014, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/65 "2014-12-12T20:51:02Z")
[Now they have trouble in France. > [@](#): > > PARIS (AP) – A French court ruled Friday that Uber’s ride-hailing service may infringe French law and ordered the company to make changes to its popular mobile app-based service. ]([http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU\_FRANCE\_BANNING\_UBER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-12-12-39-35](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_FRANCE_BANNING_UBER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-12-12-12-39-35)) The court didn’t shut Uber down, but they did order them to make changes to their software, which means they have ordered them to make changes to the way they do business in general. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/66 "2014-12-13T13:53:04Z")
What’s to stop other taxi companies from creating apps that will call one of their cabs? Uber is touted as some new and improved thing, but the only real difference that I can see is the app. They may cost less (is that always true?) but that seems to be because they ignore laws. The drivers may be contractors rather than employees and they sometimes may own their cars, but those things may be true of some existing cab companies. The whole “ride sharing” meme strikes me as simply an attempt to run a cab company without being subject to the same regulations as other cab companies. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/67 "2014-12-13T15:40:20Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > The whole “ride sharing” meme strikes me as simply an attempt to run a cab company without being subject to the same regulations as other cab companies. Aye, that’s their business model: call what we do by another name and pretend that makes it different from what other people are doing. There’s nothing preventing cab companies from making similar apps and I have no doubt that big cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, London, etc. have cab companies that would benefit greatly from making one. When they do, I’ll bet that Uber tries to sue them over it. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/68 "2014-12-13T16:07:31Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Aye, that’s their business model: call what we do by another name and pretend that makes it different from what other people are doing. > … And they act like it’s some new hip “crowd-sourcing” way of doing things that’s a strike against “the man”. I have very liberal friends who are big on government regulations and employee protections and benefits but think Uber is a wonderful thing. I have to admit that the marketing is brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![lel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8797f3/32.png) [@lel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lel)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/69 "2014-12-14T19:55:09Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Aye, that’s their business model: call what we do by another name and pretend that makes it different from what other people are doing. > > There’s nothing preventing cab companies from making similar apps and I have no doubt that big cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris, London, etc. have cab companies that would benefit greatly from making one. When they do, I’ll bet that Uber tries to sue them over it. Cab company apps already exist and in much smaller cities than New York and Paris. It took me about thirty seconds to find taxi hailing apps for Tampa, Oklahoma City, Lexington KY, and Dallas. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/70 "2014-12-14T20:26:51Z")
> [@lel](#): > > Cab company apps already exist and in much smaller cities than New York and Paris. It took me about thirty seconds to find taxi hailing apps for Tampa, Oklahoma City, Lexington KY, and Dallas. So there you go. What’s so different between them and Uber, other than that it claims to be something different and uses that as an excuse to ignore regulations and screw it’s “contractors”? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/71 "2014-12-14T20:38:07Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Uber has recently bullied their way into the Portland market, despite the rigid rules for running a taxi service here. Uber has basically just said “fuck it, we’re gonna do what we want”. Portland has responded by saying “Okay, but we will fine any driver we catch $1,000 and we will prosecute”. Uber has said they will support their drivers with cash. Should be an interesting sideshow. > [@Taber](#): > > What happened to Lyft? It seems like you hear about Uber a lot more these days. To be fair, I haven’t really used either, but preferred Lyft because of Uber’s unfair business practices re calling Lyfts and cancelling them en mass, and threatening that one journalist. > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Uber’s executives appear to be a bunch of criminal, thieving dickwads, IMO. > > [http://uberlawsuit.com](http://uberlawsuit.com) > > They aren’t a “ride sharing” business at all; they’re a fucking taxi/limo/bus service that doesn’t want to have to pay attention to laws or regulations. > > **Smapti** also mentioned that they break the law at times, like, oh every fucking second they were doing business in Nevada. Good riddance, asshats. The fact that the RICO Act hasn’t been brought to bear against these assholes yet boggles the mind. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2014, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/72 "2014-12-14T21:27:15Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I don’t see the “why don’t we figure out if they’re any worse than any other cab company”, I see “they are no worse than any other cab company” in his posts. That’s an assertion, and yet he cannot offer anything to back up that assertion. I’d have no problem accepting it as fact if it is true, but thus far it’s an unsupported assertion, one that seems to have been made in some sort of attempt to mitigate the perception of things that have happened to people using Uber’s services. I don’t see that assertion. If you do, then you also have to say that other posters in this thread are asserting that Uber is worse, yet those posters aren’t being badgered for a cite. ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2014, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/73 "2014-12-15T00:53:09Z")
> [@davidm](#): > > So there you go. What’s so different between them and Uber, other than that it claims to be something different and uses that as an excuse to ignore regulations and screw it’s “contractors”? Really great promo. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/74 "2015-05-01T14:05:12Z")
[China has declared Uber an illegal taxi service and raided their local offices.](http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-offices-in-guangzhou-china-raided-by-police-2015-5) ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/75 "2015-05-01T14:53:31Z")
I went to the dark side last night and used Uber to get from my hotel to a concert venue and back during a stay in Seattle last night. (I did do my homework first and verified that Seattle has in fact licensed Uber to operate here legally and they do adhere to city laws regarding fares and taxes.) It was OK. I wouldn’t rate it any better or any worse than any regular taxi I’ve ever been in. The cars were clean and the drivers knew where they were going, and at $6 each way it was cheaper than finding a parking spot in this town. I’m not sure if Uber lets its drivers go by nicknames or if I just happened to get people whose mothers named them “Osama” and “Daud”, so that was a little odd. It doesn’t change my opinion of the corporate entity as a bully that undercuts local businesses, ignores the law whenever it can, and bribes its way into getting the law rewritten to its benefit, but I lived to tell the tale. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/76 "2015-05-01T16:31:18Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > [China has declared Uber an illegal taxi service and raided their local offices.](http://www.businessinsider.com/uber-offices-in-guangzhou-china-raided-by-police-2015-5) Of course it’s not a “ride share” service. It absolutely is a taxi service with unlicensed taxis and drivers without taxi licenses, and as such it violates Chinese law. There are a few rather worrying things about Uber/Lyft/other [del]illegal taxi[/del] so-called ride share services, near the top of the list is the drivers are not registered as taxi drivers. Of course, there are also “black taxis” in China. Those are the private cars which you flag down or walk up to and negotiate a ride in. The way to know if a car is a black taxi is to look for the lit up string of Christmas tree lights hanging off the rear-view mirror. These black taxis are illegal and for the same reasons as the Uber/etc. [del]taxis[/del] ride shares are. I can see why the authorities here raided Uber’s office. What I don’t understand is why they can’t manage to find the black taxis. It’s not that hard. Shortly before midnight, almost every bus stop has a herd of them big enough to rival the American buffalo of yore. There are legal taxi-call service apps here. At the moment, I can’t recall the name of any of them, but two of the more popular ones combined. They’re legal because they connect customers with real taxis ---
**Author:** ![Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/6bbea6/32.png) [@Living\_Well\_Is\_Best\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Living_Well_Is_Best_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2015, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/77 "2015-05-01T19:02:34Z")
I love Uber. In my city cabs are slow and unreliable. Uber is cheap, readily available, and fast. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/78 "2015-05-02T13:17:36Z")
I’ve used Uber once so far, in Kansas City, MO. The cabs in Kansas City are few, expensive and slow. The best info you’ll get from a cab company is “between 5 and 30 minutes” which makes planning difficult. With Uber, I got “Your UberX car will be there in six minutes.” There was a button to call the driver, a picture of the car and a picture of the driver. I was waiting at a bus stop and could only give my location as “3rd and Grand” so I called him when he showed up and circled the block. The cost was half what the taxi company would have charged for the same trip, the driver was professional and friendly, the car was far cleaner than any cab I have ever been in. Very positive experience. ---
**Author:** ![JustinC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justinc/32/8083_2.png) [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829/79 "2015-05-02T15:20:23Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > \ > > I can see why the authorities here raided Uber’s office. What I don’t understand is why they can’t manage to find the black taxis. It’s not that hard. Shortly before midnight, almost every bus stop has a herd of them big enough to rival the American buffalo of yore. > > There are legal taxi-call service apps here. At the moment, I can’t recall the name of any of them, but two of the more popular ones combined. They’re legal because they connect customers with real taxis I’d guess it’s because the black cab drivers grease the right palms, Uber’s a new kid on the block and so has no guanxi. It’s almost impossible to be successful without it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-about-uber/696829.md?page=3)