Right - they've dropped the franchise cost to zero. Look - taxis suck. They suck a lot. And they're vampires. But Uber makes money by breaking the law, and for the stuff I need taxis for (getting to and from the airport) Uber doesn't show up because they know they'll be ticketed thousands of dollars. Taxi medallions are expensive. Taxi services also pay a lot in fees that I end up not paying in taxes. Which Uber doesn't pay. Which will, eventually, raise my taxes. It doesn't take a genius to notice that Uber succeeds because taxis suck. That doesn't mean they get to raise my taxes, ride around without insurance, hire criminals and generally be bad operators. Know who sucks less than Uber? Lyft. Know who's losing the illegal taxi battle? Lyft. Know why? Because when your business model is illegal, scruples are a liability.
From the scruples link: "I still can’t believe that an office of Uber — a company valued at $18 billion and held up as a bastion of modern entrepreneurship — posted an ad that encouraged, played on, and celebrated treating women who may choose to drive cars to make extra money like hookers." What ad is this? I can't find it.
Having done several hundred thousand dollars of design work for Hooters, I can assure you that they are a chauvinist, misogynist organization of the first order. And that "Hooters did it" is possibly the worst rhetorical ploy I have ever encountered.
I'm not saying it's something that I would pay for. I'm saying that if women want to make money from stupid men who want to ogle them while they provide another service that the business model for that has been well established and treating women like hookers is not the same as paying extra to look at their bodies.
Just to be clear: You think: 1) The women pictured are Uber drivers. 2) The women pictured came up with this promotion. 3) Uber is accommodating the initiative of these self-starting entrepreneurs. 'cuz I think it's more likely that Uber got some cheesecake stock photos in response to a sexist idea from a sexist company looking to advance a sexist agenda for profit.
No. And I never said anything of that nature. Assuming that women in an ad copy are the same women doing the driving is not reasonable. But assuming that the women who do drive in that program are paid more is reasonable. All I said was that it's a well established business model to charge more for a service simply because attractive women are performing said service. Clearly you don't like that model. That's fine. But you're just putting words in my mouth and it's silly.