The best thing I’ve seen about Uber recently comes from about a month ago. The Wall Street Journal wrote up a perfunctory story about the company’s $50 billion valuation, and it included a very truthful passage. So truthful, in fact, that presumably some PR flak got on the horn and made them change it for the online edition. @NeilAnAlien captured it on Twitter.

Online edition: “The company hopes to attract enough drivers and passengers that its business model becomes profitable.”

Print: “The company hopes to build enough loyalty that it can charge customers more and pay drivers less.”

At this point I should mention that attempted monopolization is a criminal action under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

b_b:

That’s why you can expect Uber to appeal, and the same Supreme Court that backed up big business and closed the courthouse door to workers in the Walmart case might get a shot to do that for Uber. However, the rank stupidity of their argument – that everyone’s a contractor but nobody’s the same – might be too much even for the Roberts Court.

C'mon. Nothing is too much for the Roberts Court. See also.

I hope that the courts have the stones to back up the NLRB on the subject of contractors. Fuck Uber, but also fuck all the many, many other companies, tech, fast food, etc, who treat their employees the same way.

posted 3151 days ago