Justin Stuart Blog #5

In “Uber has an asshole problem,” reporter Matthew Yglesias talks about the recent growing pains happening inside of the world’s largest start-up. He categorizes the company as one created on “violating the letter of the law” and thriving on “violating the spirit of the law.” But Yglesias was not bashing the company based on its disruptive ideas but on its disregard beyond that. Uber has become a representative of modern day technologies that when introduced to impulsive people creates issues that can become worse than before. 

The problem with Uber is not that it may have forced taxis out of business or broken laws in the cities that it operates, but that it did so in a way with little or no recourse. This, to me seems to be the authors main issue with the company. The founder Travis Kalanick wanted to “destroy the value of [taxi] licenses” without any permission. This way of taking certain actions is very representative of what is going on in government itself.

The modernization of intelligence collection and unmanned drones has experienced the same type of distaste. Many feel, just like in Uber’s case, that these methods are only to skirt around certain laws and regulations for the possibility of greater efficiency. There is no feeling of responsibility as the end users feel the power to rewrite rules leaving people on the outside feeling vulnerable. Unfortunately these regular people have no way to veto these uses there is also no ultimate way to measure the net positive impact these data collections may have.

Another reason that made Yglesias write this article and makes Uber controversial, are the recent threats by a high-ranking executive that the company has and will use customer’s data at its disposal. Uber has become an intelligence company in it own right. Keeping track of customers pick-up and drop-off and where they are in real-time without them actually using the app. The company prides itself on being liberalizing to the customer, but what Yglesias is trying to show is that under that veil, the company may be breaching basic rights.

He then relates Uber to other serious companies such as Google to prove is overall point on data and the misuse of it. Google built trust with users by no matter how much they hated one, they would not use it against them. They respected the basic rights even in an innovative way of business. Uber on the other hand has the ability to ruin its reputation just to outweigh certain people that may have hurt its feeling, without any due process its willing to release any information to ruin such people. 

Again, this heavily relates to government today. The collection of detailed information either on computers or phones has led to citizens to distrust officials. These technologies are integral in our everyday lives and any information not relatable to certain cases could cause harm when made public. To the government, all this data is fair game while many others see it differently. There is no concrete way to use information for digital sources and there is also a belief that if there was, a new technology would be able to walk around it. Like in Uber’s case, customers have the right to trust a company with its personal data but assume such regulations internally will be there so that trust will not be broken. When it is, like in government, there becomes too many cons that outweigh any real benefits. 

Overall, I thought that the story was interesting. Uber has become an important part in my life no doubt and has increased choice. But there were some issues I had with the story and also some agreements. I did agree that Uber has acted in ways not commendable. A company of such innovation needs to protect it brand from certain bad actors. I also though that the author took a very sharp slant from the beginning. Vox has had issues with deep spin and misuse of facts so I had a hard time believing from the beginning. 

The story was also too short to lay out a trustworthy opinion and felt like a notecard. It had an opportunity to relate Uber to NSA or the CIA but it didn’t. If it did this, I think it could hit on the much larger issue of data collection and the one-sidedness that it gives it collectors. Without it, it just became a wikipedia page. But what was interesting was the Uber ads on the side of the Vox webpage, which showed real-time data at work and further diminishing the credibility of the work.