{"id":182214,"date":"2015-11-19T18:25:00","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T23:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/11\/19\/and-while-we-are-on-the-subject-of-uber\/"},"modified":"2015-11-19T18:25:00","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T23:25:00","slug":"and-while-we-are-on-the-subject-of-uber","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2015\/11\/19\/and-while-we-are-on-the-subject-of-uber\/","title":{"rendered":"And While We are on the Subject of Uber\u2026\u2026\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that they <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfexaminer.com\/driver-says-uber-targeted-his-profile-after-he-critiqued-high-level-executive\/\">retaliated against one of their drivers for talking to the press<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">An Uber driver who critiqued the company\u2019s top-brass at a highly publicized event now tells the San Francisco Examiner he\u2019s facing backlash from the tech company.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Last Friday Eric Barajas, a Bay Area-based Uber driver who works in San Francisco, leveled criticism to Uber which garnered exposure in national news. The next day, he said, he was unable to get fares via the Uber app.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Barajas showed the Examiner video of two phones with two Uber driver accounts side by side, one showing \u201cpings\u201d for ride requests, while Barajas\u2019 phone had no pings. Now he says he isn\u2019t sure what to do \u2013 his three children and wife depend on his earnings to live, and without his income from Uber he may face dire financial straits.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The Examiner contacted Uber, and only an hour after a phone conversation with an Uber spokeswoman, Barjas saw his account suddenly reactivated.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">He also reported \u201cstrange\u201d modifications to his profile and Uber login screen, what he said are clear signs Uber was trying to shore up the story they told this reporter.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cYou call them, and then its active,\u201d Barajas told the Examiner. \u201cThat says to me they\u2019re trying to cover their tracks.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">He still worries that his account may be deactivated or otherwise modified in the future, once media exposure dies down. That exposure began last Friday, when former Obama campaign manager turned-Uber advisor David Plouffe was onstage at the Next Economy Conference in San Francisco.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">As cameras rolled, Plouffe invited drivers to speak at a microphone. Barajas made his voice heard.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cI just wanted to know how you guys are helping the economy when there are full time drivers like me\u2026 who are struggling to make ends meet, barely making minimum wage,\u201d he said. On Craigslist, Uber in the past has said drivers could make $35 an hour, Barajas said, but that isn\u2019t near what he earns.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cAfter all the expenses I\u2019m really struggling, I don\u2019t know if I can pay my PG&amp;E bill and my water bill,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Uber is founded and run by bad people whose goal is to privatize their profits and to socialize their losses.<\/p>\n<p>It is a fundamentally evil and hypocritical business model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that they retaliated against one of their drivers for talking to the press: An Uber driver who critiqued the company\u2019s top-brass at a highly publicized event now tells the San Francisco Examiner he\u2019s facing backlash from the tech company.Last Friday Eric Barajas, a Bay Area-based Uber driver who works in San Francisco, leveled &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1005,970,969,1035],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-corruption","category-evil","category-transportation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}