Uber Fined $7.6M in California
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
What kind of message do you send by only fining them a tiny portion of what they were only able to make by breaking your laws? I'm 24 and I know my peers already justify their potentially unethical business decisions by citing Uber. Really all I've taken away from this is to not really worry about state laws.
Let's think of the other companies that tried fucking with CPUC and evaluating their ethics as well. We can start with Enron. Travis is a smart guy but probably not as smart as those guys and even they got fucked. Even with their attachment to the hip to the federal government. Even with their company that was effectively many times bigger and more influential than a ride sharing app.
1. Uber has a track record of noncompliance
2. You don't want to invest in them because of #1
3. Enron also picked a fight with CPUC
So responding to each point:
1. True, and they probably should be fined for the late report, but as a public entity you can't go fining people exorbitant fees due to unrelated actions. For example, if I made some public bigoted remarks and then a police officer caught me littering they can't just go fining me 20x the normal fee because of what I said. CPUC should evaluate the fee solely on the basis of the infraction that caused the fine in the first place.
2. While I don't disagree with you, this is irrelevant to this discussion. Perhaps it belongs it its own comment thread?
3. This seems similarly irrelevant to this comment thread. A better comparison would be how much Enron got fined for a similar offense against the CPUC.
2. Fair
3. I disagree. I think looking at the ethics of companies who have historically picked fights with CPUC is quite telling, and cited an example.
If you want to change an entire industry, then yes. Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Uber has opened up the ride-sharing market to many more people. You don't need a $1,000,000 medallion to make money as a driver any longer.
Since the monopoly has been forcibly broken, it also created competition, which in turn lowers the price for the consumer.
It's a win-win. They are only breaking laws protecting unethical business practices of the taxi cab companies.
That, and also laws protecting ethical business practices of the taxi cab companies, which are often unprofitable but desirable for the city population. And also laws protecting employees. And tax codes.
It's true that Uber managed to stir the pot, and definitely helped in fixing the stagnation of taxi services sooner. But that doesn't excuse their flippant attitude towards law and society, or corrupt example they give to the future startup founders.
That's one of the biggest reasons that laws have publicly disclosed punishments associated with breaking them: they dissuade other people from breaking the law. If the penalty is low, and not because the people of California said that Uber should not be penalized (which presumably they can easily do), that communicates to everyone else who might want to break similar laws that the penalty will be equally low for them.