Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by hourago 1436 days ago
News about a whistleblower. HN comments only about how taxis are bad. I see a problem here.

Uber has broken the law to incredible extends, and it has corrupted many politicians. That's the truth, that are the news.

3 comments

Plus the whistleblower was at the head of Uber's push into Europe, the Middle East and Africa. All the horrible stories I've read are about those markets.

But the comments here seem to be about American taxis!

Lesson of life, most people don't really care about anything as long it doesn't inconvenience them (directly)
Shocking stuff like this, weaponising drivers against city governments:

> MacGann insists that Uber drivers were seen by some at the company as pawns who could be used to put pressure on governments. “And if that meant Uber drivers going on strike, Uber drivers doing a demo in the streets, Uber drivers blocking Barcelona, blocking Berlin, blocking Paris, then that was the way to go,” he said. “In a sense, it was considered beneficial to weaponise Uber drivers in this way.”

> The files show MacGann’s fingerprints on this strategy, too. In one email, he praised staffers in Amsterdam who leaked stories to the press about attacks on drivers to “keep the violence narrative” and pressure the Dutch government.

And most comments are quasi-whataboutism on the taxi industry vs Uber. Yes, the taxi industry is bad, in lots of places ran by some kind of mob, etc. Still, Uber was weaponising their workers (while fighting as hard as possible to not call them workers and pay for workers' benefits) against local governments, they were behaving like a tech-mafia.