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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

Seems a reasonable decision by Uber to pull out..."mandatory fare meters" is a bit over the top. But, given the current PR tide, they can hardly afford any more headlines that even sound negative on the surface. They must be dying for a positive piece to be written.

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Grocery stores are required to have validated scales to measure produce, how is it "over the top" for taxis to have validated meters to measure distance?

I assume the purpose is to keep passengers from being overcharged. These days, it's trivally easy to punch the route Uber calculated into Google maps, so I just don't see the purpose.

I don't think Uber is above bad behavior, but it would just be stupid of them to cheat in this area...too easy to be called out. You can audit past trips with ease. The app stores them. Denmark is also requiring in-vehicle video monitoring, which I also find over the top, but for different reasons.

For one, I think the intent of the requirement can be satisfied by alternate means. For example, like the google map that is recorded and displayed to me of every Uber trip I've taken.

How do you know the map is correct and immutable? You're essentially trusting Uber itself to keep a good record, whereas the law is designed to avoid trusting the taxi companies at all, by mandating sealed meters.

It's free and easy to use other tools to verify, and you have a past trips history. They could fiddle with maps, but changing the origin or destination points would be noticed.

Sealed meters don't force the driver to take the most efficient route either. Nor do they show the full price before you commit to the trip. Map based apps are just better than meters all around.

That's a nice thought, but tampered taximeters 100% do exist, it's not a hypothetical. On the other hand, Uber faking or altering a receipt is hypothetical.

Update: Also, if Uber is found to be cheating at some point there is a record of every ride so you can bet they will be forced to make everyone whole. Good luck getting a settlement on your random taxi ride.

Uber uses Google Maps. You can 100% trust that.

Even if Uber changed to their own proprietary map system you could still use your receipt and validate that the trip was the best route by using Google Maps yourself.

The system is very open. Taxi meters are not. I have no way of verifying that my taxi driver is charging me the correct price since meters can be gamed. Also the meter only judges distance. It can't tell when the driver takes a long route to pad out the fare. Uber will refund your money in that case but with a taxi meter you are stuck paying for a bad fare.

In addition to the good points by the sibling comments, one more I'll add: I frequently take trips in parts of Chicago that I know extremely well, and thus can vet the sanity of the routes posted, as well as sanity-check the route while en route: if something looks fishy to me on the map, I will most likely have noticed it at the time.

While this doesn't cover all rides I may take, repeated experiences with it performing correctly does build my faith that the system is working correctly and is free of guile.

Plus, all this convo overlooks that this would be an incredibly stupid place to try to systematically bilk customers: it would be very easy to spot and plausible deniability would be difficult to establish and believe, especially since it has worked for years with more or less no problems. And it has a very high virality potential when everyone would want to be checking their own trip records to see if they were scammed too.

You have this information while using Uber, in real-time, on your phone.

Since you are charged based on distance and see the price before calling the ride, it's arguably better than a "fare meter".

it is over the top. when I go to a store and buy 2 bananas, i dont really give a shit about whether the scale is validated. I want those two bananas and if the scale says its 2.19, and im fine with that, do I really care whether the scale showed the correct weight? Seriously?

With uber, its the same thing. I want to go a place. The app says it'll be X. Do I give a shit about a meter? Probably not.

This kind of regulation is retarded.

Its about "fraud". I cant be defrauded by a scale. Maybe that was different 100 years ago when this kind of regulation came up. I don't know. I wasn't there. But when Im in a supermarket looking at a piece of produce that I want to purchase and the device that figures out the price says its X dollars, I don't really care how it arrived at that price. I want to buy the thing, or I don't. God forbid it fucks me out of the 2 cents 10 extra grams would cost. Oh lord.

I'd certainly pay a premium to be able to actually get a ride instead of waiting for a fucking taxi with a pissed off driver for an hour.

> I want those two bananas and if the scale says its 2.19, and im fine with that, do I really care whether the scale showed the correct weight? Seriously?

You might not care for that individual transaction, but you're benefiting from the scale having been validated nonetheless.

If scales weren't validated, stores would be in an armageddon about how far they can cheat you in order to appear cheaper than other stores. The grocery market wouldn't be functional. Rather than competing on giving buyers value, they'd be competing on how far they can cheat buyers instead. Honest grocers wouldn't be able to compete. You'd effectively be paying a corruption tax on all your groceries; not just those two bananas.

I think that's less of a risk these days than it used to be. In this day of ubiquitous communications, camera phones, online reviews, and so forth, it would be easy to get caught and suffer a wave a bad PR that won't go away.

Also, a fair amount of the produce in my area is sold by piece now, instead of weight. Oranges are 50 cents a piece for example. Or pre-bagged and/or packaged for a fixed price.

Scales mattered when almost all of the products at the grocery store were weighed, but now 90% or more of the typical grocery cart is prepackaged or pre-bundled in someway, including produce. Regulating scales are an anachronism.

I'd be paying a corruption tax, instead of an actual absurd amount of taxes. The horror.

I'm being facetious but seriously. A world in which people believe that a supermarket scale has to be regulated by federal government or else - is a weird world.

Life as we know it would NOT break down just because government doesnt dabble in one tiny stupid little thing.

would you care if every transaction you did on your bank account also fucked you out of 2 cents?

We (me in Portugal but a lot of Europe as well) have laws to prevent this kind of fraud. Gas stations, scales in supermarkets, etc all have to be 'validated' every year to make sure no funny business is going on. If you end up fucking up, the fines can/will probably make you close shop.

You may not care, but if for each litre of petrol the station sells, it pocketed one cent, we are talking thousands of euros fraud per day. If most shops do this, the customers are being defrauded of millions.

You still think it is ok?

I think it's okay in this case, with taxi meters. The Uber app shows you the route and cost before you commit to it. And, you can verify the calculation with other free tools if you want. A meter in the taxi is actually less useful. It accurately measures distance, but doesn't tell you if the driver took the shortest route.

Taxi charges continue while the car is at rest. So the shortest route doesn't mean much if the traffic is barely moving.

The difference here is with Uber, you see the route and the fare before you accept it. So, if we're trying to pull your example away from hypothetical and more towards practical, it's like getting fucked out of ATM fees every time they wish to withdraw money.

To put it simply, as we've seen, many people are happy to be screwed out of amounts well in excess of 2 cents per withdrawal.

if every transaction on my bank account cheated me out of 2 cents, that would amount to a low single digit sum. Yes, I'd probably be cool with that.

Do you guys realize that the armageddon you are trying to paint isnt all that armageddon-y?

I mean, fraud isn't cool. But if you want to scare me, you may at least try to scare me. Losing 5 dollars in a year to "fraud" sounds more enticing than losing 70% of my income to - taxes which are totally not theft because the law says so - theft.

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