[Plura-list] NYC's driver-owned Uber alternative; Amazon running scared from arbitration at scale; How the Dutch helped CBS cheat on its taxes

Cory Doctorow doctorow at craphound.com
Wed Jun 2 11:52:34 EDT 2021


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This Friday, Jun 4, I'm appearing with David Dayen in the Second Life
Book Club!

http://www.draxtor.com/sl-book-club-coming-up/corydavid

And next Monday, Jun 7, I'm helping Terry Miles launch his debut novel
RABBITS:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/terry-miles-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-discusses-rabbits-tickets-154613644573

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Today's links

* NYC's driver-owned Uber alternative: Platform cooperativism needs
interoperability, though.

* Amazon running scared from arbitration at scale: The right kind of
automation.

* How the Dutch helped CBS cheat on its taxes: Onshore-offshore and the
IP shell-game.

* This day in history: 2006, 2010, 2016, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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🧜🏻 NYC's driver-owned Uber alternative

New Yorkers have a new ridehailing alternative to Uber: The Drivers
Cooperative is a driver-owned, app-based ride-hailing service that pays
drivers more, charges riders less, and pays out any profits to
driver-owners as periodic dividends.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/technology/nyc-uber-lyft-the-drivers-cooperative.html

Platform cooperativism is a powerful antidote to app-based gig work: a
way to provide customers with the convenience that made app-based
services so popular while putting workers in control of their days,
schedules and working conditions.

It's particularly buoying to see a platform co-op challenge Uber, a
company that started as a way to funnel Saudi royals' billions into a
bid to dismantle public transit and worker protections in a single fell
swoop.

Uber is especially vulnerable. It's losing billions of dollars, and it
had to pay a group of suckers $400m to relieve it of its failed, $25b
self-driving car unit whose product couldn't manage a single mile on its
own.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/16/ring-ring-lapd-calling/#uber-unter

Uber's main project has always been regulatory, not technological:
that's why it funneled hundreds of millions of dollars into passing
California's Proposition 22, a law that legalized worker
misclassification and banned unionization.

After years of losing billions, Uber's original investors exited through
an IPO that brought in suckers who bought in on the premise that a pile
of shit as big as Uber *must* have a pony underneath it somewhere.

Now those investors have to figure out how to recoup the billions that
Uber squandered on subsidizing rides, suborning regulators, and staging
elaborate long cons like its self-driving car unit.

It must pay drivers less and charge riders more than a new market
entrant that has none of this baggage. That's why a drivers' co-op is
such a big move.

But I fear that Uber has one enduring advantage that the drivers will
struggle to overcome: the network effect.

Drivers and riders are already overwhelmingly on Uber. If you're a
rider, trying to hail a Drivers Coop car is likely to result in a longer
wait because fewer drivers have the app installed. So fewer riders will
try, and drivers won't have an incentive to sign up.

Both critics of tech monopoly and apologists for it zero in on this
network effect as the key driver of market concentration - but this
analysis misses a far more important factor: switching costs.

https://onezero.medium.com/tech-monopolies-and-the-insufficient-necessity-of-interoperability-aafba94f1eb3

It's easy for a driver to drive for Uber *and* the Drivers Coop (just as
many drivers already keep both Lyft and Uber running simultaneously),
but it's extremely hard for a rider to send out ride-hail requests to
multiple companies at once.

That's not because of any technological barrier - it's trivial to build
a service that hails your driver as an Uber, then automatically checks
whether they have Drivers Coop running as well, and, if so, cancels the
ride and rebooks it as a Coop ride.

https://locusmag.com/2019/01/cory-doctorow-disruption-for-thee-but-not-for-me/

That would be fully in keeping with Uber's fiction that drivers are
"independent contractors" and not employees, but Uber's got a powerful
tool to prevent drivers and customers from evading high switching costs.

Uber and other tech giants use "IP" - a cluster of laws best understood
as "any policy that allows me to control the conduct of my customers,
competitors and critics" to criminalize the "disruption" they laud - if
it's directed at *them*.

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Thus a meta-ride-hailing app would face claims under Sec 1201 of the
DMCA (for bypassing the DRM on the Uber app); CFAA (for violating terms
of service) and maybe even tortious interference (for allowing drivers
to get a better deal).

I will definitely use the Drivers Coop the next time I'm in NYC and I
hope you will too. But if platform coopertavism is to take hold, we need
ways to lower the switching costs of using a co-op over a monopolist. We
need interop.

https://www.drivers.coop/

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🧜🏻 Amazon running scared from arbitration at scale

"Binding arbitration waivers" started out as a way for giant companies
going into business with one another to avoid costly litigation by
agreeing in advance to have a private arbitrator hear their disputes.

But Federalist Society judges, led by Antonin Scalia, spent a decade
dismantling protections that ensured that binding arbitration was only
used between equals, and not forced upon workers and consumers.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160322142114/https://www.acslaw.org/sites/default/files/Arbitration_as_Wealth_Transfer_1.pdf

The result was a massive wealth-transfer to corporations, who could
defraud and maim with impunity, safe in the knowledge that their victims
had signed away their right to sue, especially through class action.

These victims would be limited to filing individual cases, each one
confidential and non-precedential (meaning that a loss to one victim
didn't pave the way to losses to the rest), heard by a private "judge"
who depended on the company for their salary.

The plan worked...until it didn't. In 2018, 12,500 California Uber
drivers filed arbitration claims against the company, putting the
company on the hook to find 12,500 arbitrators and pay them $1500 retainers.

https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-otc-uber/forced-into-arbitration-12500-drivers-claim-uber-wont-pay-fees-to-launch-cases-idUSKBN1O52C6

Uber scrambled to fight the mass arbitration claims, even getting Keller
Lenkner, the firm behind the claims, disqualified. It became clear that
the point of arbitration wasn't to create an alternative justice system
- but to have *no* justice system.

https://www.reuters.com/article/otc-uber-frankel-idUKKCN1P42OH

The California Uber drivers mass-filings didn't cool the corporate
world's love-affair with arbitration. By 2020, 81% of Fortune 100
companies were routinely forcing arbitration waivers on workers and
customer.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/02/24/pluralist-your-daily-link-dose-24-feb-2020/#iamthelaw


All those waivers were an irresistible target, and an alliance of
Silicon Valley law firms and tech firms found new ways to automate
mass-filings against companies who used arbitration waivers.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/11/socialized-losses/#justice-restored

It's a kind of denial-of-service attack aimed at the flimsy pretense
that companies use arbitration to help everyone resolve their disputes
fairly and amicably - revealing the true intent: to deny justice altogether.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/business/arbitration-overload.html

Now, arbitration is in retreat, thanks to the automation of arbitration
claims. This week, Amazon quietly amended its Alexa terms of service to
REMOVE the forced arbitration clause.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-01/amazon-to-let-customers-sue-after-thousands-of-alexa-complaints

Why would Amazon do this? Because its creepy Alexa surveillance devices
have generated *thousands* of claims from people who were horrified to
learn their Alexas had been sneakily recording them and Amazon had
shared those recordings with third parties.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-10/is-anyone-listening-to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-audio

(Not just Amazon - every smart speaker does this. Don't buy smart
speakers. Throw your smart speaker away. Seriously.)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-12-11/silicon-valley-got-millions-to-let-siri-and-alexa-listen-in

Now, Amazon is being drowned in arbitration claims, and it is begging
for mercy - please, it's saying, please SUE US. Stop trying to arbitrate!

It's delicious.


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🧜🏻 How the Dutch helped CBS cheat on its taxes

When you think about tax-havens, you probably think about Caribbean
"treasure islands," the ex-colonies whose erstwhile conquerors set them
up as dependent financial secrecy jurisdictions whose economies were
doomed to be stunted forever.

But in truth, the most harmful tax-havens are "onshore-offshore,"
notorious jurisdictions like Delaware, Nevada and Wyoming, or, in the
EU, Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus and the Netherlands.

The Dutch are among the most enthusiastic hosts to financial crimes.
That's how Uber cheats on its taxes: it has 50 Dutch shell companies
that it launders its money through.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/13/uber-cheats/#50-companies

They document the tissue-thin pretenses that Dutch regulators tolerate,
like "selling" its IP to a Dutch subsidiary financed with a $16b "loan"
from a Singaporean subsidiary, garnering 20 years' worth of $1b annual
tax credits.

Uber may be an aggressive user of the Dutch system, but they're not the
only one. Viacom-CBS evaded a $4b US tax-liability by pretending to
license its IP to shell companies in "Barbados, the Bahamas, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, and Britain."

https://gizmodo.com/viacomcbs-avoided-nearly-4-billion-in-tax-on-franchise-1847011793

While this was a global affair, the Netherlands were central to the con,
because of its 0.8% tax rate on foreign distribution revenues.

https://www.somo.nl/keep-watching/

CBS jealously defended the pretense that a series of numbered companies
with few (or zero!) employees were actually conducting its licensing and
distribution business, firing at least one exec who tried to blow the
whistle on the scheme.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/01/business/media/viacom-cbs-tax-scheme.html

The billionaire Redstone family - who controlled the company through
most of this activity and whose scion, Shari Redstone, is its current
CEO - dispute the careful, well-documented claims in the report, though
they offer no evidence to contradict them.


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🧜🏻 This day in history

#15yrsago JPEG patent invalidated http://www.pubpat.org/Chen672Rejected.htm

#15yrsago Canadian copyright agency launches kids’ propaganda campaign
https://web.archive.org/web/20060602044638/http://www.captaincopyright.ca/Default.aspx

#10yrsago The Red Market: book on the criminal trade in orphans, organs,
bones, skin, eggs, hair, and other human flesh
https://memex.craphound.com/2011/05/31/the-red-market-book-on-the-criminal-trade-in-orphans-organs-bones-skin-eggs-hair-and-other-human-flesh/

#5yrsago Ronald Reagan was Donald Trump, until he was president
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/05/ronald-reagan-was-once-donald-trump.html

#5yrsago Every Heart a Doorway: Seanan McGuire’s subversive, gorgeous
tale of rejects from the realms of faerie
https://memex.craphound.com/2016/06/02/every-heart-a-doorway-seanan-mcguires-subversive-gorgeous-tale-of-rejects-from-the-realms-of-faerie/

#5yrsago Class action: publishers paid writers “sale” royalties on
ebooks whose fine-print says they’re “licensed”
https://www.copylaw.org/2016/05/simon-schuster-hit-with-ebook-royalties.html

#1yrago Big Tech distorts our discourse
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/29/mind-control-skepticism/#tech-unexceptionalism

#1yrago Teardown of an "anti-5g" USB stick
https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/28/holographic-nano-layer-catalyser/#conspiragrifters

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🧜🏻 Colophon

Today's top sources: Slashdot (https://slashdot.org/).

Currently writing:

* Spill, a Little Brother short story about pipeline protests.
Yesterday's progress: 265 words (3382 words total).

* A Little Brother short story about remote invigilation.  PLANNING

* A nonfiction book about excessive buyer-power in the arts, co-written
with Rebecca Giblin, "The Shakedown."  FINAL EDITS

* A post-GND utopian novel, "The Lost Cause."  FINISHED

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues."  FINISHED

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: How To Destroy Surveillance Capitalism (Part 06)
https://craphound.com/nonficbooks/destroy/2021/05/10/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-part-06/

Upcoming appearances:

* In conversation with David Dayen (Second Life Book Club), Jun 4,
http://www.draxtor.com/sl-book-club-coming-up/corydavid

* Book launch for Terry Miles's Rabbits (Book Soup), Jun 7,
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/terry-miles-in-conversation-with-cory-doctorow-discusses-rabbits-tickets-154613644573

Recent appearances:

* Get Your News On With Ron/Ron Placone:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hqdFqfvl00

* Seize the Means of Computation, Consensus 2021
https://www.coindesk.com/cory-doctorow-web3-seize-means-of-computation

* How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism:
https://cfe.ryerson.ca/key-resources/podcasts/how-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-seize-means-computation

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

* The Shakedown, with Rebecca Giblin, nonfiction/business/politics,
Beacon Press 2022

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provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
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