Talk Techy to Me, Mr. Uber
Fun fact: Uber was originally called UberCab.
Overview: This week, our article "Talk Techy to Me, Mr. Uber", focuses on a $100 million dollar spending toward fraudulent advertising campaigns with a company called, Breitbart, known for shady advertising practices.
Breitbart is an extremist right wing "news outlet" that is led by outward racist, Stephen Miller, and amongst a handful of major digital advertising scam companies. Sounds like a great company to work with, Mr. Uber! Anyway, one such scam involved creating fake applications that claimed they lengthened battery life, and once a user downloaded one of these apps from an AppStore, Breitbart had full access to their cell phone. Meaning, anytime you type in Uber, it was recorded as an Uber ad that had been clicked on. Yikes. Uber should have had a bad feeling when Breitbart’s reports showed a 2 second average between the user clicking the ad and logging into the Uber app - an obvious indication of a bot at work.
After Uber was called out for using Breitbart by an activism group, Uber blocked their site, but the ads themselves continued. And devastatingly, there was no effect on their user acquisition rates - pointing to the fact, that a whopping $100 million being fed to Breirbart was being spent on absolutely nothing but embarrassment.
Imagine, the employees of Uber - who are refused sick leave, overtime, and basic health insurance - hearing that Uber spends $150 in annual ad spending. And THEN to learn, $100 million of which, was thrown away.
Personified, Uber looks like the outrageously spoiled child of a billionaire left with a trust fund they know only to spend on all the wrong things - expensive cars they never drive and mansions in parts of the world they never travel to, and ignore the areas where wealth would save those that are the backbone for which their wealth is derived from.
More well-known headlines have followed Uber for mishandling of sexual harassment cases, misogynistic executives, and unwillingness to provide employees with health benefits and more.
Don't get me wrong, Uber made a lot of good business choices along the way, which is way they have continually beat out competitors like Lyft in terms of company valuation, but so many of their technological and social choices are questionable to say it politely. In 2019, Uber joined "an ugly but exclusive club: unprofitable companies worth more than $50 billion". Do better Uber. And a reminder to all, to do your research and invest in respectable and genuine companies.
On the road to tech nirvana and we’re not taking an Uber to get there.
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