Rent seeking is their goal, but that's irrelevant to whether they also create positive surplus value through the mechanisms I outlined.

The economy vs. people distinction is a false dichotomy. Consumers (who are also people) can benefit from more efficient service provision and higher quality service.

> It's not a "homeowner lobby" pushing for cars.

It's the homeowner lobby pushing for sprawl, which indirectly leads to cars because public transport can't be properly provisioned across spawl without huge cost. Once you have sprawl enforced by law, everything else follows as a guaranteed consequence: networks of roads to connect that sprawl, and therefore cars.

>Consumers (who are also people) can benefit from more efficient service provision and higher quality service.

Consumers can also benefit from child slavery to buy their clothes ever cheaper, but we've decided as a society that it was kind of uncool to do it. But if you're willing to sacrifice a bunch of workers to drive for your comfort 16 hours a day, being paid like shit, feel free to. But pretending it creates positive surplus value while ignoring every single negative externality is laughable.

I am not "pretending" that it creates positive surplus value. It does create surplus value through simple mechanisms.

Also, it's unfair to say I am ignoring every single negative externality. All I did was challenge the questionable claim that Uber has much to do with the state of our cities being car-centric and underprovisioned by public transport, because the root cause of that situation is homeowners, not Uber. I didn't give my blessing to all of Uber's practices.

> sacrifice a bunch of workers to drive for your comfort 16 hours a day, being paid like shit

Putting aside the false analogy to child labor, I don't accept the framing that all low wage labor is uncool. It's a type of mindless compassion that can actually lead to anti-utilitarian outcomes in practice. Although I have no positive or negative judgment of Uber in particular regarding this point, because I haven't looked into it for Uber. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32627174

Many cities and their suburbs were car-centric before Uber and many will be car-centric after Uber. Perhaps somewhat fewer will feel the need to own a car (or a second car) but that doesn't really change the basic nature of transportation options. If anything, there's probably been a (little) bit more attention paid to public transit and things like bike lanes in some cities during the period Uber has existed. Many of us use Uber or Lyft once in a blue moon. My life wouldn't change one iota if Uber vanished tomorrow.

Well first of all Uber drivers don't have to work 16 hours of day, that's a straight up lie(in Europe). Can you work 16 hours a day? Sure, you can. But you have to be very clear about the sort of person that works 16 hours a day driving Uber: It's a person that literally cannot get hired to 99.9% of other jobs. Uber didn't cause this, but previously these people would be either on unemployment or doing crime.

You don't seem to understand. There are no "Uber drivers". Except in very select countries (I believe that Uber recently lost a case in Italy ? Can't remember), there are self employed people, whose (only and very demanding) client is Uber. This means that worker protection is out of the window. There are no legal limits to it, if you want to work for three consecutive days, go for it.

And having talked to many Uber/Freenow/etc drivers (because, yes, i also am brought to using it sometimes) in Paris and throughout France, many, many, many of them start their day at 6,7AM and go on until 10PM or later. These guys are not criminals, they were previously contracted taxi drivers, electricians, all kinds of jobs who just fell on a bad thing in life and had to make money another way, now leaving them mostly stuck with this job. The ones making those hours were open about what they make, on average about 2000, 2200€ per month. Which, for 16 hours a day is fucking miserable,and for a city like Paris isn't a whole lot.

But actually, don't take it from me. The median take home in France for an Uber driver is 1617€ per month, with a median work time of 45 hours. Hint: it's barely above minimum wage. And, since Uber doesn't guarantee work and they're paid by the ride, many of them work on the side to guarantee they don't get fucked out of two day's salary when unlucky. https://www.journaldunet.fr/management/guide-du-management/1...

When people say Uber drivers, they don't mean "oh he is employed by Uber as a driver", they just mean "he drives Uber".

Your 2nd paragraph above confirms my comment. Uber isn't the one who forced those shit working conditions on them, except for those who were employed as taxi drivers previously. They fell on a bad time, and Uber allows them to make money in bad conditions. Would you like them to just wait it out at pole emploi instead?

You misunderstand the trap that is poverty. Uber isn't "allowing them to make money in bad conditions". Uber has become the condition. There is no getting out of being a Uber driver when your day is spent driving around. No ability to look for other employment related to what you were doing, no ability to get training for another job. Uber thrives on misery.

So, yes, pôle emploi is a better option for many. Note that driving an Uber doesn't even get you qualified for unemployment later on, should you want to stop.

Uber isn't the condition because it's still better than having no job, which is the alternative that you seem to falsely believe is preferable for these people.

App driving: simultaneously a poorly-paid exploitive arrangement and something in such demand that app companies can arbitrarily harm drivers by kicking them out.

Perhaps it’s worth looking into why so many people are seeking to be drivers on the platforms?

Sure, let's go, I'll start:

Poverty, unemployment, lack of opportunities, industries destroyed, invisibilisation of the working class, not wanting to die out in the streets because your country has potentially no or bad social nets, destruction of said social nets forcing people to take even miserable jobs. We can go on.

Here's a hint for you, since it's your turn: the amount of people doing Uber because they love driving people around a traffic-jammed city in a 300000km piece of shit car is close to zero

How is any of that Uber’s responsibility or in their capacity to solve? Every single one of those issues is societal, which can only be solved by the people and their government.

"Lads, is it immoral to abuse the misery and despair of people to make money?"

Increasing the demand for labor increases prices for labor sellers. I do not see how it could be construed as worse than not creating that increase in demand.

If workers are choosing DoorDash, it seems like your ire should be directed at all employers other than DoorDash who are offering a worse or no deal to them.

I talk to a lot of Uber drivers who seem to enjoy driving for Uber. I can imagine times in my younger life when I'd have enjoyed it as well.