After the conciliatory approach of Night School in San Francisco got them attacked and shut down by the taxi industry, Uber's approach became inevitable. Lyft consistently operates in cities that Uber has already opened up.

It's one thing to suggest that maybe a nicer, kinder, friendlier approach could have been used. It's another to have an environment where such an approach can succeed in isolation.

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. You can have the best damn idea in the world, if you're an arrogant ass about it, no one is going to listen to you.

I understand why you think that way. Nobody likes an asshole! Nobody wants to work with an asshole! Just play nice, and people with work with you!

Night School believed as you do. They figured they would be most successful by playing ball, cooperating with regulators, and not pissing people off. For their pains, they were shut down by the very people they bent over backwards to play nice with. They caught no flies with honey. Uber, on the other hand...

This is a long-winded way of saying that it's possible that one might consider adapting to the scenario.

This is hardly an apt comparison. Uber is one of the most bloated of the fat VC babies, it's received at this point what must be billions of dollars in burn startup cash, where Night School had none (wasn't around long enough to really get anything.) Night School was also entirely beholden to the regulators because it was planning to use school busses, which if you've ever even tried to book one you already know the issues there.

I mean if we're really committed to the Night School idea that would probably be best done as a Government program, since it's so intertwined with assets that are used heavily by the Government. But I'm also willing to bet if we gave them a couple Billion to burn, they could also make it happen. The question of whether that's worth it or not is quite different, though.

You're absolutely right! It's not reasonable to compare Uber as it is today to Night School. Instead, I suggest comparing Uber of multiple years ago to Night School. Uber wasn't always huge with lots of money behind it, after all.

Uber got to the position of being the most bloated of fat VC babies by not playing nice. Night School never got that far because they insisted on playing nice. They also ran afoul of the taxi industry, who felt threatened by their business model.

We might want to give serious consideration to the possibility that one behavior pattern is not privileged above all others in all possible scenarios.

> Uber's biggest problem is the confrontational way they've expanded their business, often thumbing their nose at regulators the entire time and pissing off a lot of the local communities.

I think regulators' attitude is just as controversial: 'you must do this because we say so,' not 'you must do this because it's a good idea.'

I don't see why it's suddenly up for debate whether companies need to abide the letter of the law. Origin of the law is irrelevant, if you disagree with a law you can campaign to have it changed. Corporations should not be allowed to violate the law to execute their business model.

We break many laws every day without consequence and often with necessity (speed limit on freeways in large cities for instance). Law isn't quite so straightforward. The Myth of The Rule of Law: http://faculty.msb.edu/hasnasj/GTWebSite/MythWeb.htm

I'd wager that most corporations are violating one law or another, without any complaints from the people.

I'm just going to point out that Uber is sidestepping all those "useless regulations" and in the process has had issues ranging from abused customers to abused drivers or combinations of the two, repeatedly, since it's inception.

I'm not saying ALL the regulations were put in place for good reasons, and I'm not going to argue that cab companies don't have a monopoly in most places because they do indeed have that. But then to turn that around and say therefore, the Government shouldn't regulate Taxis in any capacity is equally stupid and not supported by the evidence.

And before you say "Well I didn't say they shouldn't regulate at all" please bear in mind that you just said a corporation should be able to violate laws deemed useless by that corporation and/or the general public, meaning the regulations have no teeth and therefore might as well not exist.

No disagreements, though I am sort of offended that you'd try to straw man me into being some sort of anarchist. There is plenty of subtlety in the interpretation of law, and I'd argue that the origin of law definitely matters, as does intent, which is why we have a process through trials in the judicial system.

I also have very little to say about Uber in particular, I was just responding directly to your comment about how we should follow laws to the letter.

I'm not trying to strawman you, I'm pointing out that you're comparing Uber breaking transportation regs to you going a little too fast on your daily commute. If those things are equal in the eyes of the law, might as well burn the regulations, they aren't useful.

Sorry if that came across a little aggressive, not my intent at all. :)

I see, okay that's fair. I think that the fact that laws are flexible and fuzzy doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws, but it means that until an actual court decision, who knows if uber was "right" or "wrong" in the eyes of the law. For instance like the article mentioned, Uber initially started by breaking the spirit of the law, not the actual law, since the existing regulations didn't take into account the possibility of cellphones as dispatching tools. I don't know if that was ever taken to court but a sharp judge could have nailed Uber for that despite Uber technically obeying the law.

That isn't justification to say because we break law X all the time we can also break law Y. Flawed logic.

I wasn't trying to imply that. I was merely pointing out that the parent's assertion that:

> I don't see why it's suddenly up for debate whether companies need to abide the letter of the law.

Wasn't exactly true. I also have disagreements with other parts of the post, including "Origin of law is irrelevant" (what if the law arose from lobbying by a powerful industry vs for the common good) and "If you disagree you can campaign to have it changed" (and I assume obey it in the meantime) vs something like civil disobedience or jury nullification.