I dunno man, I think Uber is just in the HN wheelhouse and has been stealing our focus lately. Wells Fargo illegally signed people up for countless credit lines they didn't ask for. HSBC got a slap on the wrist for laundering billions in drug money. People in power routinely break the rules and there's basically no penalty.
Damn, I had completely forgotten about that. Really puts Uber's shadiness in a different light. Obviously if they broke the law they should be punished, but it makes it harder to see this lawsuit as a good vs evil.
The difference is that Wells Fargo does not brag about its crooked nature nearly as much as Uber (or its sympathizers), at least on this forums. Not many people are openly sad that more companies are not more like Wells Fargo (because hackers mentality, maaan) nor them being praised as role model as Uber was.
HN is visited by people in tech who are naturally interested more in what happens with technology companies. Therefore there is more focus on Uber then on Wells Fargo.
1.) Uber was praised as role model and people tried to mimic them. That has impact on behavior or other companies and founders in tech community. Crooks being praised and rewarded means more crooks in the future.
People who think this is bad thing, wants (and have absolute right) to put attention on previously praised crooks so that opposite message (it is bad behavior and you might get punished) gets attention too.
2.) If you brag about your success and break-the-rules-strategy, people like you less and get more angry with you. Once you get caught, they get happy, talk about it and wants to see you punished more then as if you did not bragged. That is how humans work.
I agree, that rewarded bad behavior could lead others to follow. But, we have much bigger issues going on, such as the banking industry and all the mess that it has caused all the while getting rewarded for it.
Bragging isn't the problem, if what they're doing is illegal, then it should be handled accordingly. They might be thinking that they are thinking out of the box, and you might have to break some laws, but those laws are actually blocking progress. So, not necessarily a bad thing depending on the law being broken.
The media wrote good aricles about the conman who informed on Google, who claimed to be selling vials of nothing but water and labeling them "HGH" etc.
However, frankly, there are still scams being advertised on Adwords and I would argue that we should separate the scam category from the illegal pharma category.
The truth is that the vast majority of the half billion dollars they were penalized for earning was payments from companies who were advertising and fulfilling generic drugs from cheaper countries such as India (or even New Zealand!). The people running these companies may be 'criminals' -- you could make that case -- but I have an easier time making the case that they are running an ethical business that helps lower and middle class americans get the medicine they need at a fraction of the cost (and sometimes simply without explaining to a third-party that their dick doesn't work).
I would put this in the same category as Uber breaking the taxi regulations. In short, I welcome it. I find the current system of requiring prescriptions for so many drugs to be morally repugnant. I support anyone who wants to break those laws, even if they're doing it for completely selfish reasons.
> HSBC got a slap on the wrist for laundering billions in drug money.
AIUI there's no evidence that actually happened. It's more like they were marking some transactions as low-risk rather than medium-risk when they should have been following guidelines that allowed the transactions to be considered as low-risk or medium-risk, but under slightly different criteria.
There's lots of penalties, like having to spend millions in legal fees defending your billions in fraud and spending several days in a stuffy court-room trying not to trip up in your own web of lies!
I think the difference is that Wells Fargo and it's ilk already have a shit ton of money and will stop at nothing to make more. Startup philosophy generally involves breaking rules somewhere along the way, but it strikes me as so deeply ingrained into Uber's culture as to be an end in itself.
