The whistleblower part is internal Facebook research showing that the algorithm is known to be harmful (for example, politically polarizing and hate-mongering) in it's current form. In addition to that internal research, she also revealed during the 60 minutes interview that Facebook used a "weaker" version of the algorithm during the 2020 election cycle in order to prevent disinformation. The weaker version was replaced with the high-engagement strategy after the election. Notably, the Jan 6 insurrection occurred when the high-engagement algorithm was being used.
I'm not certain but in considering your question I came to: Political polarization is a network of cognitive biases which decreases mental models' connection to the reality that people agree on more things than disagree.
"This 2019 internal report obtained by Haugen says that the parties feel strongly that the change to the algorithm has forced them to skew negative in their communications on Facebook ... leading them into more extreme policy positions." (8:07)
Although the above statement is from a group of European politicians, it's not hard to see the same story playing out in the United States. Take the Covid-19 pandemic, for example. The impact of partisanship on this issue is as clear as day:
"There's A Stark Red-Blue Divide When It Comes To States' Vaccination Rates"
You're leaving out the most important part: cooking with gas.
"Natural gas and propane stoves can release carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and other harmful pollutants into the air, which can be toxic to people and pets."
I think it's worth considering that Uber is the first nation-wide taxi service that we've ever seen, and they were only able to accomplish this via subsidy. Is it really possible to continue operation at that scale, while simultaneously losing their competitive edge versus local taxi companies? Why is it that no other taxi company has even come close to nation-wide? I don't think an app is sufficient to bridge that gap, and Uber doesn't have anything else to show in the innovation department.
The three biggest reasons are centralized maintenance, fuel, and fleet costs.
Taxi companies negotiate the entire fleet purchase at one time and replace vehicles on a schedule (like rental car companies). Often, the fleet is all one brand and model. This makes it easy to hire one or two guys to work on all of them. You can also buy all your standard parts in bulk and you get commercial pricing for those. Fuel is also all bought from the same vendor on a contract.
Those agreements would be impossible for any gig worker to get. He is going to pay full price for the car, the maintenance, and the fuel. Gas stations aren't owned by oil companies; they're owned by individuals. So you'll never get national pricing on gas. Each taxi company negotiates with a particular owner (hopefully of several stations) in their area.
The final nail in the coffin (and the one that keeps it from going national, even if such agreements could be worked out for a group), is that car repair is local. You cannot operate a maintenance depot in Chicago that serves Houston. The further away the depot is from the points of service, the longer the car is out of service each time.
The "hub" nature of the taxi operation with all cars, staff, repair people, and parts in one place (and all maintained on the same schedule so fewer surprises), simply doesn't scale unless you have enough customers to build another hub.
BTW, this is the same reason there's no Del Taco in Texas (or your favorite fast food where you live). You have to have a certain number of restaurants to make the distribution hub and the truck trips worthwhile. There cannot be one isolated McDonald's somewhere that's profitable, just like there cannot be a "too small" taxi operation without a hub -- it won't be profitable. And building hubs in small cities without enough demand isn't profitable, either.
There are plenty of national chains in various industries though, they just maintain ownership of multiple "hubs" and potentially get some economies of scale on national marketing.
There is no reason "a national taxi service" couldn't operate in the top 50 US metros, even if each metro managed local hub operations.
It's a good question that I don't know enough about the taxi business to answer. However, it's also a pretty general/speculative argument, so not the strongest case for "Uber can never be profitable", especially since there are general/speculative arguments on the other side too. For example: economies of scale have worked in other industries, why can't that happen here? And: software-is-eating-the-world has generally been holding true, so why would this be an exception?
And if Uber had their way, then all the taxi companies would go out of business because Uber is so much cheaper. And then Uber would raise their prices up to what the taxi companies were charging. It worked for WalMart. It worked for Amazon. Unfortunately for Uber, I think they may have missed their window. People aren't starry-eyed about tech like they used to be.
So you're saying that the only reason you didn't take a taxi everywhere before Uber was because the drivers are smelly? Well maybe you have money to burn, but most other people don't. If Uber charged what it really costs to operate their services, then you would see a massive drop in riders. It doesn't matter how much less smelly you think they are compared to taxi drivers.
Not the parent you're responding too, but -- yes, exactly this. I rarely took taxis pre-Uber because the drivers were surly, the pricing difficult to predict, cars impossible to hail, and dispatchers (if you could even reach them on the phone) useless. If you called for one and they actually agreed to send you one, you'd be waiting at least 20 minutes, and often after 40 minutes you'd finally realize they were never coming. Oh, and don't forget the frequent "sorry, the credit card machine is broken" bullshit lie, and the annoying fumbling for cash and getting change.
I'm sure I don't need to enumerate how Uber/Lyft fixed all of these problems nearly perfectly. Sure, many cities have apps for their taxi services now, but they're nearly universally inferior and don't fix all of these problems, at least not to my satisfaction.
Realistically, though, not using Uber for me means driving everywhere. Including the stress of traffic, the stress of finding parking, the stress of wondering if someone is going to smash my car windows, and the stress of ensuring I'm sober enough to drive when I want to go back home. I'll pay quite a bit to avoid that stress. I get that there are some people who won't, or can't, but all that means is that Uber's addressable market will be smaller when they charge enough to be profitable.
i used to live carless, and would need late rides on a regular basis. i was taking the fancy black lincolns in the days before uberX was introduced and pay ridiculous prices for them because uber was the only game in town - taxi services didn't need my money. it's not just that they were smelly or whatever - they were literally unavailable.
quality of service matters. having to sit in a filthy car - if you can even get a hold of it - and help the driver navigate is not good quality service.
there's demand for quick, convenient quality transportation, and uber fills it.
Uber makes sense to riders at subsidized prices, but it stops making sense once they start charging what it actually costs to provide that service. The reason we don't take taxis everywhere is because they're expensive and infrequent. Creating an app to handle dispatch didn't magically change this reality. The hardest parts of operating a taxi service (maintaining a fleet of vehicles, hiring and retaining drivers) have not gotten any easier, except in the case of Prop 22, which is an unfair advantage for Uber compared to other transportation providers.
I agree the premium Uber services will always be in demand in every big city. UberX is their loss leader to entice customers, and generate nice growth numbers.
"The big picture: Only the U.S. and Eritrea tax people based on citizenship rather than residency. For most countries, if you are a citizen but don’t reside there, you aren’t taxed in that country."
Sounds like we need to start taxing based on residency.
It's important to remember that this is a proposed amendment. It won't pass unless the infrastructure gang supports it. And it's very unlikely that they will support it, because that would mean that the bill isn't fully funded. Not being funded would kill the bill, because the Republicans who support it are demanding full funding.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-whistleblower-frances-...