THE INTERNET; it drives you crazy. A few geeks, the digital landlords, make millions, or I should say, billions of dollars, out of selling ad space or destroying existing businesses. The rest of us suffer. The latest evil one is Uber, the popular cab-hailing system hated by black cabbies, whose business model is to take 20% of each fare collected by its drivers – kind of like VAT. A couple of weeks ago, London mayor Boris Johnson was making anti-Uber noises. Lately he has stopped, and when a cabbie called him out on the streets of London last week, he shouted “f*** off and die”, which to me sounds like he is protesting too much.

The aggressive ride-hailing company is in the news again today as Paris taxi-drivers protest against the way the men from Uber – who they call “economic terrorists” – are wrecking their livelihoods. The angry French cabbies have been blocking roads, burning tires and attacking Uber drivers. Courtney Love was caught up in the disturbances and tweeted “this is like Bagdad.”

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the company behaved with “arrogance” by flouting of French law, adding “the government will never accept the law of the jungle,” referring to Uber’s disruptive practices.

In the UK, we have resisted less. Boris appears to have retreated. Why? Our guess is that he has been influenced by Rachel Whetstone, Uber’s new head of communications in Europe, who is reportedly on a million quid a year. She is or was part of the “Notting Hill Set”, which included David Cameron, and is a former advisor to Michael Howard. She comes from good far-right libertarian stock: her mother was a Thatcherite, and her grandfather, Sir Antony Fisher, founded the Institute of Economic Affairs and many other libertarian think tanks. He did this with the fortune he had made from selling factory farmed chickens in the UK. For the full story, read Adam Curtis’s brilliant article on the subject here.

So Whetstone’s politics fit in very well with the dominant political philosophy of Silicon Valley, a sort of winner-takes-all-monopolist-libertarianism which purports to be about freedom, but which is really about the freedom for a small gang to create a global monopoly, buy a yacht and f*** high class call girls because they don’t have time for a real girlfriend.

My guess is that Dave and Rachel have asked Boris to leave Uber alone. It should be allowed to create a global monopoly and screw everyone else over. It’s called freedom.

It’s funny that Rachel, black cab wrecker and destroyer of friendly guilds, is married to Steve Hilton, the Tory party PR guy whose new book is called More Human: Designing A World Where People Come First, the most meaningless title ever invented. Talk about bad grammar! Not that I’ve read it, but I already agree with economist Joseph Stiglitz, who said it was complete drivel. If the title doesn’t put you off, then the fact that the cover quote is from the bafflingly successful Arianna Huffington should do. She says; “A very timely book and a powerful call for change.” Amazing how this nonsense sells.

We discussed these sorts of issues at our event last week with Will Self and Andrew Keen, who put on a fantastically stimulating and entertaining show. Thanks to both. We made a decent recording of the talk and we shall get round to making that available to you very soon.

Andrew Keen said that we need more regulation of the Internet. But there is surely no way that Cameron is going to stop Uber, given that he, like Whetstone, who left the online ad-sales business Google to join Uber, appears to have his tongue right up the posterior of Silicon Valley.

One alternative proposed by libertarians would be a genuine open-source ride-sharing app. I leave you with this thought from journalists Kevin Carson:

“The sooner Uber is destroyed by genuinely open-source, cooperative, free market and libertarian alternatives, the better. It’s time for Uber’s customers and drivers to destroy it from both inside and out. Its customers need to jailbreak it with an open-source app. Its drivers need to either violate their non-competition clause and go over to open-source alternatives, or organize independent union locals and go on strike inside from inside.”

Or to put it another way: stop disrupting. Start creating.

ENDS

Thanks for your responses to the piece above which went out as a newsletter in slightly different form. Here is an edited selection:

Anger is an energy

Sir: You seem angry. I like it. carry on.
Tui Mcfarland

Sir: A superb piece. Completely wrong, of course. But superb nonetheless.
I look forward to the day when the control of the lawyers and the doctors too is usurped. Too long have supped on our endeavour, protected by the armour of their state-enforced monopolies. The day that they are Ubered cannot come soon enough. Much do I enjoy the arrival of my Uber. The driver, in order to secure his 5 star review, steps out of the cab, opens the door for me like the chauffeurs of old. He drives to my destination by my chosen route, while gracing my ears with music of the gods via my iPhone. And all for a third of the price of the uncouth, indolent and tax-dodging black cabbie.
The black taxi’s customers have not been taken. A tsunami of new customers has been created. People who would not use the black taxi except in extremis, for its prices are prohibitive, now travel the capital in luxury. In fact, Uber often works out cheaper than that other dastardly monopoly that is public transport.
But Uber does not enjoy the luxury of state protection. Nor does Amazon. So they rely on the customer. They must find better services and products to deliver unto him. Nobody is stopping And if they fail in this endeavour, somebody else can easily come along and start selling stuff from his garage in a more desirable way.
And let me never read even the faintest whiff of admiration for the doctors’ despicable unions on these pages again. Or I shall come to the Idler Academy, spank your bottom hard and post a video of the punishment online with adverts for KFC underneath.
The GP’s contract is rent extraction at its most odious – all under the cover of the doctors’  halo. Even with 459 people having died while under his care between 1971 and 1998 and believed to be responsible for the murder of over 250 people, serial killer Harold Shipman had still not been struck off the GMC’s register when he was given 15 life sentences in 2000. Just one nurse was demoted when Kane Gorny died of thirst in St. George’s Hospital in 2009 (so thirsty was he he had dialled 999 but the police were denied entry). All those responsible are still working in healthcare.
None of this would be possible if medical professionals were directly accountable to their patients. Forget power to the people, ‘Power to the customer!’, I say.
May all those who grow fat on state protection – the lawyers and the landowners, the medical staff and the moneylenders – be disrupted, Ubered and damned.
 

Dominic Frisby

Sir: What a bloody brilliant newsletter. Wholeheartedly agree on Uber (which I wouldn’t use anyway because I am a female and am completely unconvinced by their claims of ‘vetting’ their drivers – why should I put myself at risk in their dubious ‘cabs’ ??) . I also agree about Internet wunderkinds and the way in which privileged people/unscrupulous business people seem to be adopting the mantra of  ‘internet freedom’ as  a way to silence critics of their monopolistic behaviour.
I am reading Steve Hilton’s book now – and so far your prediction is true. It is pants (with a particularly large gusset). I will probably persevere for no other reason than I can then take satisfaction in picking it to bits and telling everyone how truly ridiculous it is.
My only question is – how to turn this Internot sentiment into some form of action to thwart the Digital exploiters? I’ve tried boycotting and spending my pound elsewhere  (Uber, Amazon – I take great delight in using their site to search for books and then buy them from my local bookshop), signing petitions (38 Degrees is one of the good things that the internet has created in my view), writing to my MP (most ineffective as he’s true blue right thru), making protest videos to shame badly behaving companies  (eg the Greenpeace-led Lego/Shell protest …. now that WAS fun, more of this sort of thing please) . But it feels as if I’m a flea trying to divert a tsunami.
I was heartened by Taylor Swift’s showdown with Apple over their screwing of musicians. A few more people with power AND principles wouldn’t go amiss. But often times the internet business busters pick on the little guys who can’t exert much power (eg black cabbies vs Uber).
Oh and as I write this an Airbnb ad has just popped up alongside my email – another concept I do not trust and will not use.
Crowdshafting – maybe that’s the next big trend ??
Hilary
 
Sir: Thank you and bless you for this succinct and accurate message! It heartened me.
Patrick Curry

Sir: Goodness, did you get out of bed the wrong side this week?
You should have your own show on TV….
John Lloyd

Sir: I love your newsletter, and I usually agree with it. Your Uber rant makes no sense to me though. You attack them for coming from Silicon Valley and competing with Black Cabs. You hint that they have friends in high places. These seem like flimsy grounds to me.I use Uber regularly and I think they are terrific. If they are beating Black Cabs it is because they provide a better service. I see nothing wrong with that.
I have no connection to Uber or the Chipping Norton Set.
James Hutton

Sir:  Very surprised by your hectoring tones re. Uber. Very un-Idler like! What’s come over you? Have you tried Uber? I took my sixth this evening – having taken my first just over two weeks ago – and am completely in love with the service. It’s brilliant! And I have made a point of asking each and every one of the Uber drivers what they think of it and they like it a lot / love it. One of them is an Ethiopian musician who used to work for Addison Lee but says Uber is much better and more convenient.

And since when are London cabbies such saints? They drive belching black machines about the place, think they own it, behave appallingly towards cyclists and are some of the most unreconstructed people in this city. Compare that to a Prius or an electric Honda which just glides up – as mine did – as I stepped out of the Wigmore Hall this evening.
I would have thought Uber chimed well with the Idler Lebensanschauung: switch on your phone and you can work, turn it off and stop.
Mikus Lindemann<

Tom replies: Thanks for all your letters. Mikus, I did not say that Uber was a bad service. I am fully aware that it is cheaper and in many ways better than black cabs. That is also the case with Amazon as compared to independent bookshops. But we sleepwalked into that one, lulled by the cult of the consumer, and now we have lost our bookshops, and our writers (like me) have lost our income. Where will the ascendancy of Uber lead us? Is it healthy for one company to dominate the world’s taxi trade? I am also in fact partly sympathetic with the libertarian point of view: it is certainly possible that the old guilds of taxi drivers had become complacent and over-priced. They were not a monopoly, though, in the sense that they were controlled by one large company: they were a guild of independent operators who set their own prices – like lawyers and doctors. I would be willing to change my views on Uber if it turned out to be a force for the good. In the era of Adam Smith, the old guild practices around manufacturing crumbled and were replaced with profit-making companies which hired low-paid workers and made profits for the owners. We are now seeing a similar process happening with other industries: journalism, photography and cabs have been “disrupted”, as the contemporary slang has it. Lawyers and doctors will be the next guilds to go. And to Hilary: how can Amazon, Google and Uber be resisted? Only through fair laws which guard against monopolies and encourage them to create foundations for the promotion of the arts. Consumers love them so an idea of a boycott is ridiculous. Or let us create our own Ubers – free apps which do the same job but which let the drivers keep 99% – not just 80%.

Send your letters to me at th@idler.co.uk