[jdrock]

The consensus is that U/L's aggressive political campaigning prior to the vote backfired big time. They really screwed up on messaging by not understanding their audience. Had they made it about losing 10,000 jobs, they might have won. Hell, if they had just not called people multiple times without consent, they might have won.

There are multiple efforts going on as a result of the vote. Former U/L drivers are trying to put together a rally. A non-profit group (Ride Austin) has sprung up to replace U/L. Certain council members are trying to fight the rest of the council. The state legislature is consider a bill that would pre-empt city legislation.

[tn13]

That is absolutely right. Uber most certainly needs to fire their PR people. If I had to design a campaign to ensure Uber loses the vote, that is how I would designed the PR. It was unbelievably bad.

Asking for votes is essentially an emotional argument and you need to play on people's emotions just the way Coke sells their soda or Axe sells deodorants. Uber should have shown "we are creating well paying jobs". "We are helping women", "we are helping environment" type of emotional arguments showing babies, blondes, mothers and cats.

Just to give an example how horrible Uber is at PR:

Uber's surge pricing is an excellent feature. But why on earth would you name it "surge pricing"? It is like BMW calling its cars "Overpriced Metal". Both "surge" and "pricing" are bad words and combined they are the worst possible naming for a feature.

The correct naming for surge pricing should have been "Uber Urgent" or "Uber VIP". The way it should have been designed is that: 1. Drivers opt in for Uber Urgent. Whenever there is a surge in demand driver goes into Urgent Only mode. 2. Let the passengers wait for the usual low fares or select Uber Urgent and get their rides quickly. In fact asking passengers to bid in 3-4 levels would make a lot of sense.

Uber Urgent could have been advertised as: 1. Empowers drivers to earn more by helping those in urgent need. 2. Helps people in need get the cars faster 3. Reduces traffic on road during rush hour. 4. Skip the line as if you are VIP. No more waiting.

[zaidf]

You're underestimating the value of being a company that always has a cab for you within minutes. With your approach, the default in the public's mind would be "there is no uber till 3am!" vs. "Uber is the on the way...btw it's 25% extra due to the rush."

A name like VIP is bad because it discourages regular use. It sounds like something you use once a year on special occasions.

[tn13]

You are correct. VIP might be not the right word but there could be better wording than the official "surge pricing". If you are charging someone 25% more clearly tell why and what the user is getting more than those who are not willing to pay 25% extra.

Or simply don't tell anything about increased prices. Just show the estimated price and let the user decide if he wants it or not.

In fact you can on-board the user into app to simply be blind to price increases up-to 75% or something.

[eric_h]

Not to mention that Uber already has a VIP concept in their product that's quite interesting. Pairs frequent customers with the highest rated drivers.

Amusingly, in less Uber dense neighborhoods in NYC (i.e. anything that's not Manhattan) Uber VIP is a worse option for getting a quick ride. For me, when I'm in the outer boroughs I opt for regular uber x, but when I'm in Manhattan I do Uber VIP.

[CamperBob2]

If I had to design a campaign to ensure Uber loses the vote, that is how I would designed the PR.

Is it possible that's exactly what Uber's opposition did?

[pc86]

It's possible Uber is run by lizardmen and the Illuminati. But without any evidence actually pointing to that it doesn't really make sense to just throw accusations out into the air.

[CamperBob2]

This isn't a random idea I made up just to dissipate some extra karma on Hacker News, you know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_job

Edit: Also, who's accusing anyone of anything (besides you)? I'm just asking questions here.

[joeblau]

Thanks for the summary of what's going on. I remember when the news broke, but I haven't seen much about what's going on since then.

[jellicle]

What jobs? Uber insists they don't employ anyone.

[Cookingboy]

Self-employed jobs are still jobs.

[hawkice]

I know we are pretty far through the looking glass as far as the semantics here, but surely if someone is self-employed, they would be the business entity that created their job? "Job creation" is kinda a nonsense thing to brag about, so I have no idea what the standards are, but just linguistically speaking I'd assume self-employed=self-job-created.

[snowwrestler]

Any given job has many parents.

Yes, it takes someone to sign the contract to do the work (for self-employed), or post the opening and hire someone (for an employee).

But it also takes investment. Many self-employed jobs sit on a platform that someone else is investing in. For example many construction workers are self-employed, but there needs to be a construction project for them to work on. Many folks in the film industry are self-employed, but there need to be movies for them to work on.

And in the case of Uber and Lyft, even if we call the drivers self-employed, they can't employ themselves in that particular way without the platforms that Uber and Lyft provide. The software is a big part of it, but so is the customer base (an asset in its own right), and the marketing that keeps and grows the customer base.

That's the extent to which Uber and Lyft can claim to create jobs. It's more like they create an environment or platform that enables other people to create their own jobs, but that is hard to fit into a soundbite.

[Sacho]

So they're investing in local businesses!

[ufo]

What message were they using before the vote?

[theli0nheart]

Their big message was that fingerprinting does a worse job of filtering out dangerous drivers than Uber or Lyft's internally-used background checks.

[vkou]

What background checks? [1] [2]

[1] http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/nenshi-not-very-goo...

[2] http://observer.com/2016/05/uber-driver-charged-with-attempt...

[icebraining]

In your first link the mayor later said “I am not aware of anyone convicted of a sexual offence clearing the background check used by Uber in Calgary. Watching the video, I realize that I did not explain myself clearly at all. I apologize for any confusion that I have caused.”