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Comment by effingwewt | Hacker News Reader

Uber Eats just started allowing for alcohol delivery. In the opt-in, Uber indemnifies itself while notifying you that you are responsible for age verification, whether the ID is legit, whether the person is 'too intoxicated to serve' etc and you can be criminally liable for any- and everything.

Un. Fucking. Believable.

As long as companies can use legalese to indemnify themselves this shit will continue ad infinitum.

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Like many things from companies this size, clear legality has little bearing on their plans.

Uber’s business model has been to cheat the system since day one, sidestepping the established laws covering commercial taxi and transportation services. They had enough time to establish their turf and revenues to fund their needed war chest, when they finally got sued by assorted municipality and governments. Then they drag things through the courts for as long as they can, lengthening their runway.

I would bet they are planning a similar strategy here. They likely have already done the math to show that it will be profitable any which way the wind blows.

At their scale of capitalization, legality is either entirely irrelevant or can be bought as a minor cost of doing business.

During the pandemic last year another delivery service (I don't think it was Uber Eats, I want to say it was Favor, not sure) made the same requirements of the driver, except it was for contactless delivery. Somehow the driver was supposed to know if the person in the house matched the ID, and was not too intoxicated, without ever seeing them. It was the pinnacle of absurdity.

My jaw literally dropped when O read that,here I was thinking we had reached peak 'Idiocracy'.

Ridiculous of them. How could that possibly fly without requiring that drivers have liquor licenses? Either they're individually culpable and need licenses or it's not their responsibility, no?

I suspect that wouldn't be allowed in Australia.

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