1,838 karma · joined August 19, 2015
There's no real appetite for regulation of commercial data use in the US on either end of the political spectrum. And this is a good thing, because GDPR-style regulation would do nothing but further entrench the big players and crowd out innovation.
Security is hard. There are many, many more compromises of small firms and self-maintained servers than of these big players, it's just that they don't get major media coverage in 99% of cases.
That's not to mention the countless expats/second language speakers around the world.
Having a German language version of your website/product is by no means equivalent to being subject to the jurisdiction of Germany the country.
Really? Payment processor troubles and an increase in complaints, especially amidst rapid growth and volatility combined with growing interest in cryptocurrencies from largely uniformed consumers, doesn't obviously strike me as a sign of malicious behaviour. Lots of weighty allegations, but no real evidence. All legitimate signs I've seen point to Coinbase being one of the only reputable and law-abiding exchanges in the business, with recent backing from major VCs and banks who would not abide by the type of shadiness this blogger suggests.
(I say this as someone with no skin in the game: I have no ties to any cryptocurrency businesses, and possess a grand total of 0.073 BTC.)
Actually, it's more like a giant gift to Google and Facebook: GDPR borders on regulatory capture, with only the giants really having the resources to comply properly. This will hurt startups and smaller firms far more than it will the big dogs with their armies of compliance lawyers.
Absolutely—at some point, the drivers all wise up, there aren't any new gullible people to replace them, the supply of drivers falls, and Uber and Lyft and their ilk have to raise fares. The only real question is whether this happens before autonomous vehicles can replace the drivers entirely. Uber, at least, is betting that it doesn't, and I think they're right.
Some driving definitely requires specialized skills, but driving a Prius around SF or $random_american_city isn't it. Autonomous vehicles have gotten quite good, and I can easily see them filling the taxi/Uber use case by 2022.
I think we've reached the point where ridesharing apps are 100% a commodity: there's no real product differentiation, so I'll choose based on price and how long it'll take the car to arrive. Lyft drivers seem 'happier,' but that hasn't translated into anything significantly different for me in terms of ride quality.
This won't be a popular opinion, but I think most drivers—on both services—are too entitled and have unrealistic expectations. Having a driver's license and a car is not rare in the US: it's a job that requires less specialized training/skill than being a fry cook at McDonald's, and should be compensated accordingly.
The drivers who are happy are the ones who recognize this and do it to make some extra cash in their spare time after a 'real' job; the ones who are upset are trying to make their living driving. While I sympathize with the latter breed, they're in a dying occupation that's about to be automated out of existence within the next ~5 years.
At least in DC, the Amazon Fresh (and Prime Now) drivers are definitely just random people in their own car, the same as Instacart.
As a passenger, I think I'd be happy to have an example made of a driver who recorded and then published video and audio of a private conversation without consent. I've said and done plenty of things in the back of an Uber/Lyft/taxi that I wouldn't want the whole world to see.
Having issues with Uber's practices is fine, and talking about them publicly is fine—but a driver who makes and leaks illegal recordings is not someone I want to ride with. Throw the book at him, IMO, and frame it as standing up for riders' privacy.
Different standards do (and, IMO, should) apply to leakers who are government employees or members of the armed forces with a security clearance and to private citizens who are not 'leaking' something but rather sharing something they did not explicitly and voluntarily (through a contract or NDA) agree not to disclose.
I suspect that, when you're dealing with what must amount to tens of millions of reports a day from users, mistakes are made. Thankfully, it seems like this one was corrected.
Date: October 2015
Content: A page protesting a county animal control agency.
Request: We received a request from a county prosecutor's office to remove a page opposing a county animal control agency, alleging that the page made threatening comments about the director of the agency and violated laws against menacing.
Result: We reviewed the content and determined that the page did not contain credible threats and therefore did not violate our Community Standards. We took no other action on the page for reasons of the public interest.
Source: https://govtrequests.facebook.com/faq/, all the way at the bottom
But, unlike the usual response of blocking WhatsApp for hundreds of millions of entirely innocent people, this at least keeps this silly little war between the lawyers, where it belongs. If nothing else, a step in the right direction.
Facebook have added contextual ride-share ordering, person-to-person payments, bots, etc. Unlike WhatsApp or Signal, Messenger also still works over the Web without an app or a smartphone-based login: how do you implement credible E2E over the Web, without using the phone as a crutch? How do you allow multi-device support, with a message history, and do E2E on all conversations?
I think they've (rightly, IMO) assessed that most people value those features and convenience over 100% E2E conversations, but want to offer the option to those who don't. Besides, if Facebook were really completely in bed with the surveillance state, why would they have just rolled out full E2E on WhatsApp?