waxwing on Nostr: A remarkable anecdote about Uber's early growth strategy: "Regulators eventually ...
A remarkable anecdote about Uber's early growth strategy:
"Regulators eventually figured out they needed to impersonate honest customers, summon a driver through Uber’s App and then finally arrest them. However, Uber frequently anticipated this scheme and thwarted it. Uber used sophisticated software to identify the cartel’s enforcers and evade them. Uber altered the apps on the phones of the cartel’s would-be enforcers’ so that drivers appeared to be unavailable, with their true locations hidden. Actual cars were replaced with non-existent ghost cars in these apps! Thus, the Uber “underground” rebels could conduct operations right under the regulators’ noses yet still slip away. Sometimes the undercover taxi police would create false identities on a new cell phone number. Even then, Uber quickly adapted. They would deduce (or perhaps be informed, since satisfied Uber customers were turning up everywhere in the growing Uber underground) where the batch of phones had been purchased and eventually identify them. When cartel enforcers did manage to catch a driver. Uber would pay all fines and legal costs."
Obviously i have no way of verifying how true it is, but, wow.
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/uber-literally-saves-lives
"Regulators eventually figured out they needed to impersonate honest customers, summon a driver through Uber’s App and then finally arrest them. However, Uber frequently anticipated this scheme and thwarted it. Uber used sophisticated software to identify the cartel’s enforcers and evade them. Uber altered the apps on the phones of the cartel’s would-be enforcers’ so that drivers appeared to be unavailable, with their true locations hidden. Actual cars were replaced with non-existent ghost cars in these apps! Thus, the Uber “underground” rebels could conduct operations right under the regulators’ noses yet still slip away. Sometimes the undercover taxi police would create false identities on a new cell phone number. Even then, Uber quickly adapted. They would deduce (or perhaps be informed, since satisfied Uber customers were turning up everywhere in the growing Uber underground) where the batch of phones had been purchased and eventually identify them. When cartel enforcers did manage to catch a driver. Uber would pay all fines and legal costs."
Obviously i have no way of verifying how true it is, but, wow.
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/uber-literally-saves-lives