In the interests of alphabetical order, let's deal with Apple first. Let me declare, I'm not an Apple fan. Have not been since a disastrous encounter with Apple aftersales service (aka Service? What's that? What's service Siri?) over an iMac which saw me, a devoted Mac user, become a non-Apple fan.
The long story short? Basically, I followed the instructions of the online technician and when things got stuck, the service manager insinuated I was trying to get a new product indirectly despite the fact that the item I was complaining about had been delivered less than a week earlier. So I completely agree with this article. A brief guide to everything that’s annoying about Apple http://gu.com/p/4tkp2/stw
Apple sealed the dislike when it gradually implemented its information and tech lock-in policies. Sure, hackers have a harder time getting to your information (though recent years have shown no one is impervious, not even the Apple) but so do you. Ever tried to migrate your information across platforms outside the Apple mandated universe? Good luck!
And now for the ambitious ubermensch! Before anyone jumps to the defence of my next gripe, let me clarify that part of the following is logical speculation on the possibility of screwups. You know like on the scale of Ashley Madison.
As someone who doesn't try to drive in the urban jungle I'm currently based in nor thinks it's anywhere near sanity to drive in London, Uber should be a godsend of sorts. Yet I'm irritated. I'm probably one of those bitchy, vocal females that Uber (and other Silicon Valley tech frat community members) seem(s) to hate. I read this article How Uber conquered London http://gu.com/p/4tjk3/stw on Uber's conquest of London with some amusement since I've had the pre and post Uber experience travelling in said city.
Somehow, the stats and data, while seemingly convincing, are missing an element - the element of the human individual. If anything, the anti-Uber complaints have one thing in common, they don't look at the drivers as individuals but rather an anonymised mass of labour that is expected to conform to and confirm the stats rather than have the stats reflect their experience. The proposed UberPool is based again on projections which lack the understanding of the human element.
Nothing is as simple as projections based on stats make them out to be. Largely because these stats and projections don't take into account the human element. Let's look at a mundane situation where some suits decide to schedule a ride from point x to z in the City and they use UberPool. Another group needs to get from y to z and y lies in the path of the route between x and z. The logical solution via UberPool is to share but imagine a scenario where both groups are actually working for rival interests and are arriving for a pitch/meeting at a potential client's place which happens to be z. Potential conflict of interests could arise without prior knowledge of which rivals are also pitching for the same project and destroys potential advantages of a pitch process that approaches double blind. If this could happen without malicious intentions in the mix, what would the inclusion of intentions bring?
It'll be even more interesting if it were a potential client and supplier scenario - so an elevator pitch becomes an Uber ride pitch - imagine the consequences if disputes were to arise? Will Uber be implicated in any suits related to privacy in future? Will Uber become a conduit for meetings that may be of interest to legal monitors and government agencies? Hard to tell. Could be worse. Imagine a married couple, each on the way to an extramarital assignment, each unwittingly exposed through the use of Uberpool? Doesn't take a hack the size of Ashley Madison to wreck marriages/bring the truth to light, just the fortuitous symmetry of a married couple's use of an app within a certain timeframe. Call me imaginative but it's not that far off in a Uberpooled future, no?
So do we mere humans have anything to be concerned about in the highly efficient tech-enabled/tech-dominated future? Will removing the human element/human inefficiency make things better? Perhaps reading Matthew Mather's Cyberstorm could give some answers.And no I ain't wearing no tinfoil hat.
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