AKA The "Sharing Economy" Is A Racist Sexist Feudal Economy - Uber/Lyft edition
Pando... Locked, provides the blurb: > This month in serious ridesharing allegations > > Nathaniel Mott > > October was defined by a study published by the National Bureau of > Economic Research which revealed that many Uber and Lyft drivers are > sexist. The landmark study found that drivers in Seattle made African > American passengers wait longer to be picked up, that Boston drivers > often took female passengers along more expensive routes, and that > drivers in both cities cancelled trips much more often if the > prospective passenger had an African American-sounding name. > > These findings are particularly damning because ride-hailing services > are supposed to help people avoid these types of problems. Can’t hail > a cab? Book an Uber. Don’t trust a taxi driver to get you home safe? > Use Lyft. That’s the idea, anyway, but anyone who’s read these monthly > wrap-ups knows that neither of these services are as safe as they seem... Here's the dox: > > Nber Working Paper Series > Racial And Gender Discrimination In Transportation Network Companies > > Yanbo Ge > Christopher R. Knittel > Don MacKenzie > Stephen Zoepf > > Working Paper 22776 > > Abstract: Passengers have faced a history of discrimination in > transportation systems. Peer transportation companies such as Uber and > Lyft present the opportunity to rectify long-standing discrimination > or worsen it. We sent passengers in Seattle, WA and Boston, MA to hail > nearly 1,500 rides on controlled routes and recorded key performance > metrics. Results indicated a pattern of discrimination, which we > observed in Seattle through longer waiting times for African American > passengers—as much as a 35 percent increase. In Boston, we observed > discrimination by Uber drivers via more frequent cancellations against > passengers when they used African American-sounding names. Across all > trips, the cancellation rate for African American sounding names was > more than twice as frequent compared to white sounding names. Male > passengers requesting a ride in low-density areas were more than three > times as likely to have their trip canceled when they used a African > American-sounding name than when they used a white-sounding name. We > also find evidence that drivers took female passengers for longer, > more expensive, rides in Boston. We observe that removing names from > trip booking may alleviate the immediate problem but could introduce > other pathways for unequal treatment of passengers. Ps. I wrote up Lyft a few years ago. Nasty Nasty. > All one has to do is read the whiny headlines and listen to people > discuss the BART strike, even so-called anarchists, to know the only > people the Bay Area’s hipster elite care about are themselves… Do note > that Uber rideshare’s financial backers include Goldman Sachs. The > article includes more information about the kind of financial scum > “Hip Startups” are willing to collaborate with. Sharing Rides, Hoarding Profits: How the SF Bay area's technology elite are destroying poor & people of color's incomes by 'Disruptive Innovation' (link) http://auntieimperial.tumblr.com/post/64490895571 Bonus Track: TaskRabbit... > In summer 2012, Thiel’s (Peter Thiel, PayPal founder) venture-capital > group Founders Fund became a key investor in the new ideological > startup Taskrabbit. While it nominally exists to turn a profit, > Taskrabbit is an ingenious vehicle for social engineering which aims > to lessen the control of government not over money, but work. By > exploiting high unemployment as an opportunity to diminish workers’ > rights, Taskrabbit aims to create an alternate, privatized set of > norms based on the labor paradigm of the 1920s: “liberty of contract.” > > The Ten Ninety Nihilists By Empire-Logistics, Libcom. Click through my tumblr: http://auntieimperial.tumblr.com/post/66582151603 Rr Ps Suck my nutz Techie Hipster Libertards
