Techbrodudes reinvent something that's been around for ages, only making it worse.
You know, public transit has been around for AGES before you got your grubby little rent-seeking mitts on it and tore it down, you festering horde of goblins!
You know how I get to the airport in Wuhan? I take the subway. ALL THE WAY THERE.
You know how I get to the three train stations in Wuhan? I take the subway. ALL THE WAY THERE for two of them. (For the third I have a half-block's walk because of some geographical issues.)
You know how I get to pretty much any concert venue? I TAKE THE SUBWAY AND/OR THE BUS. All the way there.
This is what public transit does for you: stops rent-seeking assholes from making your life shitty.
The list continues with public parks, temples, various markets (wet, dry, or super), shopping malls, university campuses, etc. etc. etc.
I haven't even owned a car in 20 years because it's a waste of money and time: public transit gets me where I need to be and, upon delivery of the subway, often faster than taking a car anyway.
And for those rare circumstances where I absolutely need a vehicle: the money I save from not owning one lets me hire at need for a net profit.
#Uber#RideHailing#GigEconomy#BigTech#Lobbying#SiliconValley: "Meanwhile, Uber has a long record of using deceptive actions to avoid regulatory oversight, most notably through a program called Greyball. In Boston, Las Vegas, and a host of European cities, it deployed a mock version of its app on the phones of unfriendly city officials to make it falsely appear that the service was not available. In some cities, it investigated passengers’ credit card accounts to help determine if they were government officials.
Where state legislatures or courts do not deliver for Uber, it turns to the ballot box. In 2019 California passed a law making companies responsible for proving that their workers were independent contractors, which opened the door to reclassifying them as employees. Uber and other gig economy companies responded by pouring $220 million into a ballot initiative, Proposition 22, which it billed as a defense of drivers’ rights. “Protecting the ability of Californians to work as independent contractors throughout the state using app-based rideshare and delivery platforms,” it stressed, “is necessary so people can continue to choose which jobs they take, to work as often or as little as they like, and to work with multiple platforms or companies.” In fact the proposition would exempt app-based workers from nearly all labor protections, including paid sick leave, retirement benefits, and workers compensation. It passed, though a group of drivers have contested its legality in the California Supreme Court. Its success is still a troubling sign of Uber’s political clout. In Massachusetts, Uber, Instacart, and Lyft raised $43 million in 2022—and $7 million so far this year—for copycat ballot initiatives."