The Uber Files confirmed what had long been reported: top executives knowingly flouted the law to run a venture capital-fuelled war against workers’ rights, public transport and government itself.
On Monday, a coalition of media outlets across the world published revelations about the inner workings of the Silicon Valley technology company based on 124,000 leaked emails, texts, invoices and internal documents from 2013-2017.
These, combined with a corpus of reporting about the company under the leadership of founder Travis Kalanick, who resigned as CEO in 2017, show that Uber’s real success was using billions of dollars of investors’ money to convince the world it was “innovative” rather than just “illegal”. Actually, that’s not entirely fair — the company did pioneer new ways to evade and break the law, too.
At the core of Uber’s business was an exploitative business model that relied on a new class of underpaid, insecure workers now accessible due to the invention of the smartphone. Combined with access to a flood of cash from investors desperate to park their money somewhere useful in a global low-growth environment, this allowed the tech company to rapidly receive a multibillion-dollar valuation with tens of millions of users in dozens of countries across the world.
The company courted a generation of users who were lured in by a useful product with a seamless user experience at an unbelievable price. People based life decisions around where to live and whether to buy a car around a heavily subsidised product that relied on a supply of cheap labour willing to work in difficult and sometimes dangerous conditions. This, of course, didn’t last.
It wasn’t just individuals who were bought off. Governments who had once fought against the insurgent tech company soon embraced them even though Uber’s long-term goal was always to kill off its competition — which included public transport.
When the company went public in the US, it earmarked public transport as a market it could steal. Cities across the US began to subsidise Ubers instead of expanding public transport — something that NSW was seriously considering, too. Other state governments allowed Uber to enter into government programs that would allow them to get subsidies. After waging war on governments for being out-of-touch dinosaurs, the company was all too happy to partner with them when it suited.
Fast forward to 2022. Uber and the Transport Workers Union have just agreed to a landmark agreement that gives them a minimum earnings “safety net” and other protections not previously granted to them. Costs on the ridesharing app have skyrocketed as the company tries to turn a profit. Low unemployment and rising petrol prices mean that the company is facing a shortfall of people willing to drive for the service. In effect, the literal subsidies by venture capitalists and the effective subsidies by drivers working for below minimum wages have ended. What the company has to show for it is a single quarter of profit in the last quarter of 2021 and a goal of “meaningful positive cash flows” for all of 2022.
The Uber Files show how the company used its near-infinite war chest to fight a dirty guerilla war against unions, regulators and governments. While touting itself as a technological innovator, Uber’s true innovation was convincing customers, workers and governments that it was building rather than destroying.
The USA was built on acquision, murder, occupation, slavery, suremacist aggression, naked greed and ruthless ambition, so its culture nurtures such repulsive apparitions as Uber, Amazon, people in the wake of Ponzi, Capone, Milken, Madoff, Trump. Ughh.
Yes, when we watched Wild West movies as kids, we thought it was fiction. I now realise it was an accurate paradigm of the real US society (‘society’ used loosely).
Agreed that those are the good points but what went wrong?
I suspect it was because they have always been taught that they are exceptional.
They aren’t. The continent where most of the USA is located has been exceptionally endowed with natural resources. Not so much the peoples who settled it and have continued to live there.
That’s my take.
I have felt ever since their arrival in Australia with their transport service that Uber were totally ignoring the law and not being held to account. The politicians and public servants who allowed this to occur should be penalised along with Uber.
Uber should be treated like what it is – a taxi service. So it and its drivers should have to conform to the regulations that taxi services have.
And it it was a ride sharing service, surely there would be no fee?
Perhaps not ‘no fee’, but a very small one representing the actual cost incurred by Uber to make the service available. As far as I can tell, this is pretty much limited to the running costs of the back-end servers that the Uber app runs on, plus a little bit of on-going development work to update the app and its functionality from time to time. This would be a flat rate ‘booking fee’ only – once you’ve booked your ride, it doesn’t (or shouldn’t) matter to Uber how far your driver drives you. Maybe a couple of cents per booking, because everything else, from the car, to insurance and registration, and communication charges, is picked up by some combination of the driver, the client, or (for services such as Uber eats) the merchant.
Uber is just as rapacious and unethical as Amazon and Facebook. Time for all govts to his all three with paying a fair share of tax.
Loopholes always in rules so can’t see that happening.
Have to make money to pay tax. Uber is never going to turn a profit…
Uber loses a lot of money on every ride. But someday, it will corner the market on transit (not just taxi journeys, but all transit), and it will be able to raise prices and cut wages and recover all those loses and turn a profit.
I have used them but the Taxi industry only has themselves to blame for that. I live in the Dandenongs, so not exactly metro central.
I was waiting for a booked Taxi for an important trip that never arrived. I rang the Taxi co. back and they told me they couldn’t find a driver. They didn’t bother to phone and tell me that though. So I tried Uber. Fifteen minutes later I was on my way.
I actually preferred taxis but their record of service is appalling.
I’m glad Uber is getting the kick up the backside for a dodgy business model but I’m grateful for the competition they provided to a taxi service that was tardy, patchy and arrogant.
At least with Uber I could always get someone to pick me up.
I am in a wheelchair and rely on wheelchair taxis. phone service is good, but always on tenterhooks waiting for the cab to arrive. overall a staisfactory but not good service. individual drivers are great.
In SA, Taxis have been ultra reliable for at least the last 8 years or so….