"If Uber succeeds in getting laws changed in order to deprecate the existing taxi licensing system, we all win"

Its all fair and great to lobby for laws to be relaxed / reformed to allow for a new and efficient competition. Its great that people want to update outdated regulations.

Its not great when they 'getting laws changed' is code word for doing whatever they like and stand behind the impunity of... what exactly? Do you defend Irish/Lux tax evasion by companies as well? The difference being at least those corporations are at least 100% legally operating in the countries they're bilking money out of.

Worse, the sad truth is there's a ton fo ride sharing software, and only Uber's getting the (bad) attention which is actually helping their valuations / buzz like mad. Take away: Break laws, get press, profit, cash out before company implodes, 'retire somewhere warm' if you did something really bad and didn't greese the right palms.

Do we have horses and buggies to this day? Yes. Are they used for transportation? yes. Are they in any way relevant to modern day communiting and transportation needs? No.

Are these robot taxis going to pick up people's baggage from the curb and put it in the trunk?
No, hire a limo or a 'real driver' for double / triple the cost for that honor. Why not, since you're flying your private jet around exclusively for your needs as well. Hell, just load a car on that jet and you're done!

Will they be able to walk into a building to pick up a package to be delivered?
Nope, I doubt its a common request, but you'll have to hire a freight courier or in-city courier, or a bike courier, or...

Will they be able to resolve a dispute between two riders?
Nope, but depending on the dispute and the regulations, there may be a fixed reservation lock for multiple potential pick-ups and a call-for-help button in case of real life emergencies (like many modern citys' public transit does already).

Is it legal for an unattended child to ride in a vehicle with no adults in it?
Who knows (when autonomous vehicles are legalized), but I know for a fact fear mongering won't answer that question any better (PS: Since when do people leave their child unattended in a cab, even with a real driver? Its just a bad question in so many ways).

If said company was in such a hurry for a hot specialized skill, why not hire a temp contractor for it (or contract into hire if necessary) and spend the months during the contract to run up the skills of the remaining members to fill in as necessary? If the specialization is temporal to your business needs then don't pay for it perpetually. Instead, use a temporary worker for a temporary job. If it is necessary for your ongoing business needs, make a new position for their specialized needs and hire for that (and consider that resource specialized while 'filling in' while said specialization isn't 100% utilization).

In a word, tribalism. We're still living it. It kept our species alive and strong long before the advent of 'modern society' and it'll probably take a few dozen more generations before we actually have a handle on it. Well, it depends significantly on inter-breeding visual indicators into a larger kaleidoscope of sub-races (making visual racism harder to pin down), but time will tell I suppose.

Users don't see the risk regardless of seeing how drilled into their heads it is, and if thery are caught out on it, the nebulous punishment for violation is generally so watered down that they'll just risk it anyways. Your options are: Clear / filter electronics at a security checkpoint, much much harsher and very well known punishments ranging from termination to termination, or radio blocking to kill wireless electronics.

Well, one would argue that a country suffering from rapid currency devaluation would continue (and even accelerate devaluation) if people were able to trade in other countries' currencies easily (I don't think your universal panacea of BC trade happens anywhere, but lets just play along). What you're really saying is the savy locals get by on working/bartering in USD, Euro, raw BitCoin (more stable currencies), while everyone else at home can suffer with savings being eroded further by your selfishness. Seems about right for the BitCoin crowds.

"driving to/from job site is a good one"
Mind you I'm in Canada, but this is specifically NOT in the rules for allowable travel if to/from work sites if part of regular routine. Plus here, you have to log all hours travelled if you're expensing against a 'company car'. Travel as far as I have determined only applies between multiple job sites in the performance of said job (like plummer from one job to the next, but not to/from home. Maybe if your home is also your official office ... get a lawyer!). That said, most people I've known who expense their cars do literally no business with them, keep no log books, and have never been audited. Just beware that the law may come down hard on you if you're unlucky enough to be called on it.

I've been a contactor a long time and its great because my job category is richly paid and in demand. Now imagine -everyone- is forced to become contractors to get a job (why not if the 'distinction' is removed). The prospect for them is a lot less rosy. There are good reasons why we have employee laws. There are many contracts that do honor the loose distinction between the two, so I suggest finding those.

Universal apps: I've never seen one, so I can't say I'm crying over that. What's the point over them? Simplified deployment? Are they a new extension vs. exe to make it clear you're running a universal binary? If so, what happens if the native parts of the universal binary aren't supported by my architecture?

OneDrive: I could honestly care less about Microsoft's platform (though I apparently have something like 500gb gifted to me) but if I wanted to backup to OneDrive, One can use many tools to do the same job. I use Duplicati to backup and it works quite well for my uses and its free. Or are you implying that all your personal info is automatically being backed up? That's a brand new can of worms if that's the case.

I don't know about background services, but there was a right-click option in the start menu to turn cortana off (or at least get it off the bar).

I'm also not impressed, but the big f-you is not being able to edit the theme directly (like fonts / colors like I could do in previous windows). For some boneheaded reason, tweaking windows to the way I like it caused the 'highlight' color to be the same as the taskbar color, so everything highlight reactive in the start menu (basically everything but launchers) becomes invisible until you hover...

Its an oligopoly. You throw enough money in a pile and jump thorugh a millions hoops, and you too can start a bank! So why not be less crack-pot and more enterprising and start a bank today!

The largest payment cards by far are Visa and Mastercard, and they are quite active in Europe as they are everywhere else. But assuming you mean bank or nation congomerate systems, that may be the case (I don't know about the EU merchant wiring services personally).

The banks were fine-ish. Its the nation that spent themselves into the grave. The banks are just doing what they can to prevent complete economic collapse.

Facebook's alive and well. Hell, tghey make more money than ever, mostly because:
1. Users have no control over the narrative (to anything outside their social group)
2. Everyone and their dog (but not me) uses it
3. You can send each other useless (fb monetized) links to crap nobody cares about
4. Its an amazing diversion for people with no lives (don't forget pinterest / buzzfeed / instagram)
5. Its an amazing way to post how cool you are by posting all the amazing things you do, and like the amazing spread on the toast you just bought in Paris or something

Yes, because you know, rampent speculation is much more interesting than just hearing it from sources. The sad thing is, the Internet has manifested MOB justice just like we had hundreds of years before from uninformed emotion driven people. How many corpses will the internet leave in its wake before people can act sensibly? Oh well, good luck with -whatever new site- you depend on to spring up and be your nmew sounding board. But hell, it'll go the same way as this one beacuse people too busy tearing down others for a living rarely make enough money to pay the bills..

Anything to do with Uber (which is 99.999% about 'business freedom') attracts the libertarians who are far more active on slashdot than I've ever seen in the real world. Whenever you have libertarians espousing dogma, it turns into a holy flame war and only the victors are the ones who skimmed past the story (damn it!).