Things Are Getting Seriously Political Up In Here

This week in the on-demand economy.

Perhaps it’s no surprise, given the state of the election cycle, but potential presidential candidates are already staking out their positions on the instant-everything economy. This feels like it will go one of two ways —either a broad consensus that’s arrived at before November 2016, or a continued scrabble in which these companies become players in who makes it to the White House.

medium.com/ondemand

Hillary Will Crack Down on the Contractor Economy

Clinton lit the fuse with a speech in which she outlined her view on labor, and vowed to crack down on “bosses misclassifying workers as contractors.” That got spun up into an anti-sharing economy position by many critics.

Hillary’s CTO Stephanie Hannon (formerly of Google), took to Medium to clarify: “She’s calling on all sectors to do better: to ensure that no employees are exploited and to ensure that all workers are rewarded for their work.” [Respond]
And Virginia Senator Mark Warner agreed. “I find the faux outrage over her comments amusing,” he wrote on Medium. “Policymakers should be encouraging these innovations, while also looking for ways to make the on-demand economy work better for more people.” [Respond]
Still, Jeb Bush took that as a prompt for his own political stumping, with a visit to Silicon Valley that allowed him to draw a line between the two election frontrunners.
According to the New York Times, “Republican candidates are embracing Uber not just as a paragon of their free-market ethos and distaste for entrenched, government-protected industries, but also as an electoral strategy for building bridges to traditionally Democratic cities, where the company has thrived.”

Uber Fined $7m For Keeping Info From Regulators

A judge fined the company $7.3 million for refusing to give state regulators information about its business practices, including when its drivers turn down ride requests and how accessible vehicles are to disabled riders.

Interesting point from Rudraksh MK that Uber and other private businesses are stepping in to support veterans where the government fails. [Respond]

Then It Settles Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Also in San Francisco, Uber settled the case brought against it by the family of Sofia Liu, a six-year-old girl who was killed when an SUV driver hit her at a crosswalk on New Year’s Eve 2013.

Uber had initially fought back by arguing that the accident was not Uber’s responsibility because the driver was only using the app to search for a fare when he ran her down, not actually driving a customer. The terms of the settlement are under seal.
The company took a pretty direct and typically petulant route in its latest legislative fight in New York: adding a “De Blasio” tab in its app that essentially protested against the proposed limitations put forward by the mayor of NYC. Here’s what it looks like, courtesy of New York Times reporter David W. Chen on Twitter.

Bye, Bye Capitalism

Zipcar founder Robin Chase has a new book, Peers Inc, outlining her philosophy of the new economy — a place where collaborative consumption and sharing is not only, but entirely necessary.