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Comment by pbreit | Hacker News Reader

This is a dumb sentiment and the article is actually one of the few that ignores the bogus culprit of employee classification in Homejoy's demise.

It really makes very little sense to forbid a person from driving a passenger for money. The AirBnB situation is actually grayer since zoning does make sense (who wants a revolving door of random tourists in their apartment building or even residential neighborhood?).

Uber and AirBnB are succeeding because they are delighting customers in a rather visceral way.

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It really makes very little sense to forbid a person from driving a passenger for money

No one is suggesting people shouldn't be allowed to drive for money, nor that Uber shouldn't be allowed to run their service, but simply that if Uber drivers are doing the work of employees they should get the benefits of being employees.

The only real difference that would make is that Uber would be a little more expensive to use. It'd still be cheaper that a taxi. I think that's quite reasonable if it means Uber drivers have a happier, more stable life.

Yeah. And maybe we should make taxi drivers employees too, since currently they are (for the most part) actually contractors with no benefits.

A survey of the drivers found that 70%+ didn't want to be employees. But no, you should decide for them right?

Any reason for why 70% said they didn't want to be employees?

I apologise, it was 87%. http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202731784422/Lawyer-Uber-Driv...

Oh, the employee thing. First, I think the contractor classification is totally appropriate for Uber drivers. But if you really want to classify them as employees, I wouldn't be surprised if Uber makes even more money paying min wage and keeping the surge.

There is also the slight problems of inadequate insurance and tax evasion.

The reason the taxi industry was originally regulated was the competition between drivers and taxi firms was literally cut-throat. While it might be good for consumers in the short run it won't be so good when we end up in a race to the bottom on the back of extreme competition.

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