#Uber wars New York City Third Update Thursday, October 8, 2015

One thing you can count on is that Travis Kalanick, boss of Uber, doesn't cancel or postpone his war against taxis, buses, the automobile industry and just about anyone who works for a living. So the New York taxi driver march is set for last week got canceled, but then reset.That's good. Truly I don't think it will change things much.

The new taxi app called Arro has been on the road for a few weeks. Honestly I don't think it's going to change much either. It's set up better for safety than Uber and than the old dead app called Hailo that completely failed. I knew it would fail.Taxi apps like Hailo create danger to the public Arro is not nearly as bad, but I just don't think apps and New York Yellows mix.

Still we should be fighting Uber / Goldman Sachs

UBER DRIVERS ARE ORGANIZING A STRIKE FOR OCTOBER 16 TO 1

That is good for yellow taxi drivers and green too. Even if only a small number of Uber X drivers strike it will mean a little less competition on those days. And if they make any progress in forcing Uber to give them more money it will be good for everyone who drives for a living.

There is a free app that shows us where Uber will probably charge extra for its rides. The public hates it when Uber raises its fares and Uber drivers need these raises, because the ordinary fare after all the expenses leaves them with not much to put aside to take care of their cars and replace them when they are all worn out. 

Sherpa Share Heat Map

We can use this map. It tells us where there is probably more business. It's free from Google Play and i Store and it's easy to use the map.

Sarah Lacy Doesn't Seem To Get It -'Drivers Want To.Get Paid

Sarah Lacy's publication, Pando, charges readers to read. Makes sense. They write about technology to make their livings over at Pando, but to bring readers/customers in they offer free samples, that's to say they unlock articles for limited time frames. The idea's not so freeloaders (such as I could be called,) get to take advantage of their work without paying. The idea's that people who find the articles interesting, or useful will decide to pay their fair share. After all the writers and other people at Pando have bills to pay. So do taxi drivers and Uber drivers too.

Now Uber drivers face serious problems in earning enough to pay their bills and keep their cars in running condition, since the base fares are lower than taxi fares are in most markets. Uber exempts itself from the legal and financial obligations of a taxi owner, pushing all costs and downside problems and obligations onto the drivers, who don't get to set the fares they can charge their customers , except for one loophole. Surge prices.



Surge prices are multiples of the rock bottom base prices set by Uber, and with which the drivers either eat or take care of their cars, rather than do both. Sarah Lacy knows this on an.intellectual level I don't doubt, but it seems that in her heart of hearts the drivers appear at her beck and call just to serve, and serve selflessly.

It isn't so! And so when Uber drivers (half of whom are college graduates,) discovered how to "rainmake" surge prices, and someone among them developed an app that helps them make rain more certainly, the app and the practice of rain making started to spread. In Lacy's heart of hearts this has to be simply a reflection of drivers hostility to Travis Kalanick and an adaptation of Kalanick's ethical and moral standards. It might be so, but it's safe to say that the "false surges" that so trouble Ms Lacy are a survival tactic and that they have to do this does say that Uber (and Lyft) customers are exploiters who the drivers are resisting by their wits and their obvious growing solidarity.

An Uber driver who goes by the monicker Uber Man makes YouTube videos about the ins and outs of Uber. He's saying that in recent days Uber passengers have been charged surge pricing but the drivers are not getting their contractually due share of this money they've worked for and earned. More to come.

Black shirt economics - how Uber drivers scam themselves.

Travis Kalanick reminds me of the fictional character Don Circunstanza from Ignazio Silone's 1930 anti-fascist novel Fontamara . To make a very long story short Circunstanza is a fascist lawyer who convinced a village of illterate peasants to accept a three quarters - three quarters split of the village's water with a rich fascist big shot. Fascist economics depend on the disempowerment and ignorance of the common people.

 

The symbolic color of fascism has historically been black, black shirts in particular. Here black shirted Uber drivers are demanding special privileges for Uber in New York City.

Here is a days  income of a per shift New York City yellow taxi driver. Ask him how much money he made that day and he'd give you an answer after subtracting his costs. Uber drivers typically would quote the gross figure, ignoring the fact that they have costs operating and maintaining a car, at least 47¢ a mile. To my mind they have a three quarters - three quarters split with Travis Kalanick.

The original Black Shirt fascists.

#Ubered Grand theft #Uber. How Travis Kalanick and friends ripped off the intellectual property of the true pioneer of e hail apps.And why I can't shed a tear.

Kevin Halpern has a case against Travis Kalanick, it seems Travis and friends ripped off his ideas. Why do I not give a tinkers damn?

Apparently Halpern pioneered the e hail app, then confided in Kalanick and friends, who proceeded to rip off Halpern's intellectual property. Sounds like he should sue the S.O.B.'s, and so he is.

Supposedly the app has introduced a cheap, new and better way for people to get around, and incidentally for people to make themselves some money by driving, while they "disrupt" the livelihoods of other people. Halpern says that he invented the thing and has been cheated. What he's been cheated out of is an opportunity to super exploit financially desperate unsophisticated people while putting public safety at risk.

Uber drivers often don't take in enough money to properly maintain their own cars. Operating an automobile as a business requires you to take in 57.5 cents per mile on the road. Not per mile with customers, this is the cost of driving from a drop - off to an area where the next fare can be found.

For many Uber X drivers the fixed costs are higher than the government declared 57.5 cents per mile because the driver is paying off a car loan, arranged by Uber with a usurious interest rate of 22%! The driver must make his payment or have the car repossessed and credit further destroyed. What happens is the UberX driver becomes an indentured slave. This is at the heart of the "innovative and disruptive" New Big Thing. Not only taxi drivers are targets of the "innovative solutions" (deception and servitude) . Public transportation is in the bullseye too. Recently Uber have rides from.the clubs and fancy restaurants of New York's meatpacking district to the mostly white and well off hipster enclaves of Brooklyn, where Black and Hispanic people of modest means once predominated, at the price of a bus or subway ride. There's no such offer in the low-rent Bronx. Public Transportation advocates and unions need to start paying attention to the threat.

Due to rampant insurance fraud coupled with casual police investigation practices the true numbers of people

 and property damage and death caused by distracted Uber drivers can't be known, but many Uber drivers themselves will admit that they must be app distracted drivers in order to be Uber drivers.

#Ubered #Ubered #Ubered

"Over my time driving for Uber, I find looking at my phone while I'm actually driving - something I almost never do - to be an essential part of success,...

Emily Guendelsberger, senior staff writer at Philadelphia City Paper and undercover Uber driver.