Show me a billionaire and I will show you 999,999,999 people who are short of a dollar. There is something unbalanced about a society which allows people to become hideously wealthy, purely upon the work that other people produce. Some might call that capitalism, but really is there any difference between capitalism and feudalism? All we've done is replace the feudal lords, who act like lords, with lords of capital, who also act like lords. Apparently, we've decided that the people who actually produce the things and do the work, deserve less of a share of the rewards for what they make, than they did in 1980.
The pay of the ASX200 has been ever hurtling skywards, as they make consumers do ever more of their work for them. The big four banks are especially good at this, having fired their staff, closed branches, and given their executives a mere 178 times the wage of the few remaining tellers in branch land. Meanwhile, the banks themselves gain their entire wealth by lending out other people's money and charging a profit for it; which is then paid back by people who want the privilege of living in a house, or someone else's house because they weren't paid enough of a wage in the first place to afford their own. Many studies have actually proved that there is no link whatsoever between the remuneration paid to executives of listed companies and the performance of those companies.
Particularly heinous is the so called "gig economy", which has found an even cuter way of severing the responsibility of employers and the people who work for them. The existence of companies like Uber allow people to work for them, while those people bear the liabilities of insurance, danger; which includes the possibility of being stabbed. The difference between Uber and a slave galley of the Greek and Roman Empires, is that Uber effectively makes their slaves buy their own oars.
Streaming television services, thanks to the fact that they make you sign in, know that I am a male between the ages of 35 and 50 years old; and therefore must be interesting in buying car parts, chocolate milk, fried chicken, or an SUV. This is despite the fact that I only own one car which is very well maintained, have no real desire to buy chocolate milk or fried chicken, and resent the existence of SUVs which I think are simultaneously uncool and stupid. Very lately, Uber has decided that I might like to use their "second car, second car, second car, second car" service, or that I might like to pay them to use their eponymous underpaid galley slave taxi service.
One advert which they've tried to repeatedly foist upon me is for something called Uber Pool; which is a rideshare taxi service, which pairs you up with a stranger, so that you can "save money". In actual fact, this saves nobody money but themselves and is yet another way to turn the thumbscrews on their ponzi scheme galley slave taxi drivers even harder. According to Uber:
https://www.uber.com/en-AU/newsroom/uberpoolmelbourne-2/
Now our most affordable ride is live, you’ll save up to 30% if a ride is shared with others and if there are no matches you’ll only pay the upfront Pool fare, which may be up to 10% less than a standard UberX fare.
- Uber Pool website, as at 5th Jan 2024.
Bear in mind that "up to 10% less" includes all values less than 10%. From what I was able to glean from talkback radio yesterday, that "up to 10% less" actually translates to mostly 0% less. The other thing which should immediately become apparent here is the not very well hidden scheme to diddle more money out of the customer and pay the galley slave taxi driver not even one pennycent more. If a ride costs $£100 for one person but two people are saving "up to 30%" then $£70 + $£70 = $£140. That's 40 extra dollarpounds for the same amount of work being performed; but with no extra reward for the galley slave taxi driver doing the work.
The knavish truth here is that all Uber Pool journeys for a driver work exactly the same, whether they have a single passenger, a passenger with a plus one or a plus one random stranger, or the great Mongol hordes in their car. They are never paid more than one fare regardless of the number of passengers that they carry. On their side of the app, the drivers are paid based upon kilometers travelled and time taken, sometimes with a price gouge multiplier surge as a half hearted kick back, regardless of what the passenger(s) get charged.
Then again the other side of the coin here is that if you are a passenger who wants to use Uber, then you deserve to be ripped off by Uber. By now you should have somehow realised that Uber is a deeply unethical company with a set of deeply unethical business practices. Maybe you and a stranger should be charged 40 extra dollarpounds for the same amount of work being performed. You deserve it.
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