Other stuff: Tier layoffs, gig gambling, Elon’s inner circle
Happy Friday!
This subscriber-only edition of Other Stuff brought to you by sheer grit and determination as loading and writing up links is much harder on an iPad than a laptop.
🛼 Micromobility
Tier Mobility and Spin lay off 100 more employees. NYC stalls bike lane near Manhattan courts after pushback from judges. Nashville weighs e-bike subsidy proposal. Helbiz exiting unprofitable markets. Dott, Lime, Tier win Madrid e-scooter tender. How to build a better bike share program. Bird appeals to courts after losing permit to operate scooter service in D.C. in 2023. Big Bird bike sale. Fleet optimization software provider Zoba expands in Europe. Oregon’s e-bike rebate bill set for first legislative hearing. Subscription-based bike-hire schemes on a roll. Low-cost tiny electric cars could be the next big thing.
🚘 Rides and delivery
Uber and Lyft in New York required to be zero-emission by 2030, officials say. Tesla video promoting self-driving was staged, engineer testifies. Uber Freight laying off 150 people. U.S. state department issues travel advisory over taxi drivers’ clash with Uber in Cancun. Lyft adds new fee for making ride-hail drivers wait. Uber and Amazon dropping fuel surcharges as gas prices ease. More evidence that Uber and Lyft are losing their pricing edge over taxis. Uber Eats adds customer data privacy feature. Food delivery startup Swiggy to lay off 380 employees. Getir pushes into the U.S. after buying European rival Gorillas. Australian instant delivery startup Milkrun seeks additional funding.
🎰 Labor and policy
French court orders Uber to pay €17 million ($18.4 million) to drivers misclassified as contractors. Pay algorithms make working in the gig economy feel like gambling, study says. Unions back basic benefits bill for Uber, Lyft drivers in Massachusetts. Oxford sued by tutors over ‘Uberisation’ of teaching. Low-traffic neighborhoods appear not to push traffic to boundary roads in London. D.C. Council Votes To Delay Minimum Wage Increase for Tipped Workers To May. The chaos of remote job cuts. Younger workers shocked by tech layoffs, older generations less so.
🐐 Other other stuff
Elon Musk’s Inner Circle Is Telling Us Exactly What It Thinks. FTX’s ‘More Than 1 Million Creditors’ Include Netflix, DoorDash, and Airbnb. Mobile phone fraud: ‘They stole £22,500 using my banking app.’ The DOJ’s latest antitrust challenge to Google is ambitious but risky. How Chuck Schumer Deep-Sixed the Tech Antitrust Bills. Highland Europe raises €1 billion fund for startup investing despite slowdown. The ‘geeks’ obsessing over their new heating pumps. How urban design can create—or help to solve—loneliness. Uber for volunteering. If you feed a goat a Christmas tree. “The 15-minute city is a radical rejection of just about everything the US has built in our lifetime.”