Wouldn't it then be more sensible to ban Google from doing business? If it is bad to develop new technology that utilizes resources (people, material, energy) more efficiently.
Calling Uber drivers "employed" is no different from calling temp agency workers "employed".
It's not a solution to unemployment, it's an exploitation of people unable to find a job in societies where not having a job means living in poverty.
They're not entrepreneurs either. They're workers who have the liberty of employees with the legal requirements of entrepreneurs. It's the worst of both worlds.
Sure, except (at least in Germany) they get the short end of the stick.
They generally have to enter into non-competes, prohibiting them from working for other agencies or companies. They are only paid when the temp agency actually has work for them. They generally get zero benefits compared to regular employees. They also tend to be paid pennies and don't benefit from labour agreements (because unlike their regular employee co-workers they're not allowed to unionize). Basically, they're like independent contractors, except they're not independent.
Temp agencies in this form weren't even legal in Germany until a few years ago (well, about a decade now).
Right, but if you blame the proximal cause of unemployment then you don't have to address the underlying social issues or ask hard questions about the legitimacy of a system that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
No, to accept the possibility that we will need to institute economic policy that decreases the supply of unskilled labor without punishing the unskilled laborers for working below capacity.
We've done it before and we'll do it again, but in a society that (correctly) sees hard work as a personal virtue and is controlled by people with a vested interest in conflating the personal virtue with the societal virtue of promoting hard work, there's a fight every time the policies need tweaking.
If that's the analogy you're going to use, it's probably worth remembering that the new jobs mechanisation created in the industrial revolution were in horrible conditions where the people using the new technologies died young after being worked to death putting in long hours for minimal wages.
Were the old jobs better? Hardly. The very reason that people came to work in these horrible conditions for minimal wages was that what they did before was even more horrible.
Not really. The impact of mechanisation was very bad to start with. Life expectancy fell to just 25 years during the first decade of the industrial revolution. When factory owners realised their workers were literally dropping dead on the factory floor they hurried to do something about it and conditions improved pretty quickly, but it's certainly the case that the industrialisation necessitated changes that hadn't been considered necessary before.
Life obviously wasn't brilliant prior to the spinning jenny, but it was definitely better than the 20 years that followed its proliferation. If Uber is really a parallel then the workers who drive for them are in for a couple of decades of having a pretty rubbish time.
The spinning machines were an actual technological improvement, whereas Uber (and many other valley companies) are just replacing old middlemen with new ones.
The mechanism of ordering and accepting a ride via a mobile application, as well as giving feedback both ways, is a new innovation (and the established taxi services seem very reluctant to adopt this kind of innovations.)
I live in a country with 25% unemployment, South Africa. I've used Uber a few times in the last week or so and my drivers have been:
- A high-school dropout studying towards his Matric and wanting to go into engineering.
- An owner of a backpacker lodge looking to do something during the day when his business isn't busy.
- A retired person looking to earn some extra income.
- A full time Uber driver who was a long-haul truck driver.
IMHO, my country needs more nerds churning out code which will cut through the bureaucracy our government has put in place and create opportunities for our unemployed.
With regards to self-driving cars, that would be awesome. I just don't see that it's something that would be affordable in a developing country in the next few years.
More like germany doesn't want drivers without proper papers and sloppy serviced cars. Taxis work quite well here with reasonable fares. No need for uber which exploits their employees... well they are not employees but exploitable individuals with very little power. It's good that the government cares for a certain standard. Of course there are regions where this degenerated i to bad burocratie
Reasonable? For the price it costs to get from Berlin's city center to the airport, you could easily drive your own car to Hamburg - and probably back.
I really don't understand why it has to be so expensive. For inner city trips the gas costs are a negligible part of the total price, and most drivers are being paid minimum wage. (I've actually heard quite a few taxi drivers complain about minimum wage being introduced because their employers claim that it's too expensive for them and they need to cut costs.)
Either there are too many taxis out there so they need higher prices to be able to pay for the time where they just stand around waiting for customers, or somebody is getting rich.
In my experience the taxis in Berlin are not that expensive. 15 euros from Tegel to Schöneberg. That doesn't really get you enough gas to get to Hamburg, let alone compensate any other cost of vehicle.
Now, just don't get me started about the prices of regulated taxes in Helsinki, or the largely unregulated taxis in Stockholm, where you really have to be careful.
How does Uber exploit its employees? Nobody is making drivers sign-up for Uber. Nobody is keeping them signed-up by force.
The whole problem with Uber can be solved if governments deregulate the taxi industry. I absolutely agree that you need an insurance that covers the passengers, but what else except more frequent technical checks? Taxi licenses are an artificial way to control the supply, so I am adamantly against them.
I thought of a kind of a 'structural explotation', i.e a big corporation & customer vs. an individual driver. He/she has almost no defence if e.g. the rating is bad. If you need the money, you don't have the option to just jump ship. Of course I like people do their work well but this immediate consequences is not good and not social, there should be some shelter, like e.g. unions, a taxi company with collegues etc.
Government regulates a lot of things and if sensibly done, this is imho a good thing and protects the citiziens. A completely deregulated taxi industry would probably bring a lot of overcrowding, put a lot of stress to the drivers and their salaries would fall even lower (they are not high (in Berlin)).
I hope that I'm not wrong, but I've never heard that here in Germany we have something like $700 000 taxi medaillons as in New York. With such conditions a deregulation is probably a good thing, but here?
I'm wondering whether the ban also applies to uber taxi, they had a big marketing campaign just last week in Berlin where you were able to take a ride for free for a couple of days [1]
The main reason (IIUC) for the verdict was (a little bit simplified):
Most of the drivers for uberPOP break german laws because they have no proper license and insurance to be commercial drivers.
The question was if Uber breaks the law ("Personenbeförderungsgesetz") by simply acting as a broker for those drivers - And the judge said yes, they do.
The thing isn't just that Uber may break the law, but that it encourages others to break the law. Call it anti-libertarian, but in Germany a company shares responsibility for the behaviour it is creating. They would have to put controls in place (within reason) to ensure that Uber drivers don't break the law -- but of course they don't because they're well-aware that that would reduce the number of drivers and drive up costs and prices.
Basically, Uber is breaking the law when it comes to passenger transportation the same way Mega was breaking the law when it came to file sharing. It created an environment that promoted illegal activities.
Call me when your "overseen, private, and up to standards" taxi has an immediate rating system that will cause the driver to effectively lose their job if they continue to provide crappy drives.
I do blame them. Bureaucracy sucks, and I can see why people would want to subvert it. Government's just mad they're not getting their vig. That's all this boils down to.
Because stuff like technical checks and insurance can't be postponed until the accidents happen, generally speaking. In the EU (at least all countries I know) third party car insurance is generally mandatory and it's details depend on how you use the car, be it commercial or private. You can of course always claim that it's a subject to "market forces" and people might opt out from insurance, but this is really not how we roll in Europe.
Actually, vehicle insurance can (and in many countries, is about to be) checked and enforced automatically, for all vehicles. At least here the police cars are getting register-plate recognition cameras that automatically check the annual inspection and insurance status of vehicles it sees, so there will be not that many uninsured cars around, Uber or not.
I'm not sure about the state of automatic license plate scans in Germany but it's a huge privacy issue and there was a big uproar when they were first introduced on some motorways for enforcing tolls for large transport vehicles. Germany is generally very anti-surveillance.
Even so, vehicle insurance doesn't come from signing the right documents. In Germany you don't get the seal on your license plate without passing mandatory regular inspections.
Car insurance does not cover paying passengers. There is a special, more expensive, kind of insurance for this generally referred to as commercial transport insurance.
Yeah, let's health department inspections and DOT/MOT/TÜV inspections while we're at it. Because a "democratic" private rating system is inherently unquestioningly reliable and sufficient no matter the education of the participants or their means of inspection.
I think the general answer to this question is deceptively simple, and has two parts: 1) many of the most important regulations are preventative and relate to issues that are invisible to the average passenger (driver qualifications and training, insurance, vehicle maintenance, etc.). 2) The harm that many taxi regulations seek to prevent is disproportionate to the disciplining effect on operators of a single poor review. A serious accident, for example, will typically only affect a single rider (or group of riders) who can, at most give a zero-star review. I cannot see how the possibility of a single zero-star review out of hundreds would give a driver any incentive to do anything that costs a significant amount of money -- after all, many Uber drivers probably are used to getting the occasional bad review for no reason at all.
Edit: Bonus reason #3 -- Situations may arise where the government wants to prevent driver behavior that many riders will approve of, for example, to protect other drivers and pedestrians. For example, the government might want to use licensing to impose an extra stiff penalty on taxi drivers who violate traffic laws (i.e., license revocation or suspension). Passengers may approve of this sort of behavior if it was intended to get them to their destination faster.
Yes! There are two places where there have been issues with taxis. (Though the first link is broken, so I can't tell exactly what the issue is -- judging from the URL it involves a cab driver that raped passengers.) This proves that all regulations everywhere are a waste of time.
More seriously, nobody claims that the existing regulations ensure that there will never be an issue with a taxi. The claim, of course, is that things would be worse (or, if you prefer even worse) without them.
The problem is that Uber wants all the gain without really taking on any of the responsibility, costs, or consequences beyond the bare minimum for PR and marketing purposes. In essence, they set up a system to parasitize an industry through corrupt practices.
I am all about competition, but they don't want to compete, they want to undercut the market to destroy it and corner it so that they can then implement regulatory capture at a later point.
I disagree with you that it's "corrupt". Why should someone who wants to drive someone other places need to jump through more hoops than the ones Uber has in front of them? (Background check, constant ratings?)
And if you take issue with Uber for other reasons (shady recruiting practices come to mind), there are other rideshare services that do not have those problems.
I'm talking, exactly, about the "other reasons", of which their shading recruiting practices are only one aspect. Just off the top of my head comes to mind that Uber was caught calling Lyft cars and then ditching or cancelling them or something like that. Another aspect is how they are manipulating the public to fight their self-interested battles with government for private-profit.
Like I said, I have nothing against competition, which is really one of the concerns people should have, because Uber knows that they are currently in a land-grab type of scenario to corner the market, especially right before autonomous vehicles come on line. Due to the nature efficiency characteristics of the future transpiration system and gargantuan barriers to entry, Uber is attempting to shut out the competition in order to put a stranglehold on transpiration. They'd eventually get broken up, but in the mean time, they can execute regulatory capture, corrupt our government in the good ol' fashioned way through lobbyists, and make billions if not trillions in the mean time.
Sure, the taxi system is corrupt down to the bone in many, if not all cities. But what Uber is doing, is riding proclaiming they are the handsome night in shining armor on a brilliantly white horse, when in fact, under the shiny armor is a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.
Okay... I won't bother quoting stories about ride share drivers stealing, raping and assaulting, or doing unsafe things, because we'd go back for forth forever. I think it's fair to say that drivers can fall through the cracks. It's also fair to say that the cracks are bigger (or, to be generous, an unknown width) with a non-regulated service. But I'll go ahead and take your other bait, because certain things need to be said to ensure that this is an enlightened discussion.
Every taxi I've been in has a number to call, commonly mandated and staffed by a public agency (whose records are therefore public), when you have a problem.
When there's a convention in town, or a major sporting event, or a new taxi service that competes with an existing one, do you know how much my taxi rates go up? I'm approximating here, but (scribbles on napkin)... 0%. Pretty nice.
Here are some more hypotheticals:
If I have accessibility challenges, a quick call to a taxi dispatcher (and disabled folks generally already know these numbers, in my experience), I get the same rate, and the service is required to accommodate my special needs.
If I am engaging in a one night stand, I don't become part of a "ride of glory" dashboard.
My data points are used in predictable ways, and if I pay cash and don't rob the driver, my personal information is known by zero people. I will stipulate that cameras are in most taxis these days and, sure, let's say there's facial recognition there. The city agencies don't have a track record of using that PII in unexpected ways.
If I complain about too many taxi drivers, every other taxi driver will still pick me up.
If I'm in an accident due to some other yahoo driving badly, I know precisely the type of insurance that is carried by the taxi service.
If there's short term construction, or a particular corridor is always busy at an unusual time of day, my driver will already know about it, because there's a good chance he's been driving in this city for years. And if he hasn't, the competition to become a driver is fierce enough that he is highly motivated to be the best taxi driver he can be.
It's also fair to say that the cracks are bigger (or, to be generous, an unknown width) with a non-regulated service
No, that's not a fair assessment at all - the evidence doesn't bear that out. Just because the government isn't doing the regulating doesn't mean there is no regulation. Uber at the very least does background/license checks, and the aforementioned ongoing quality rating. It's not a free-for-all.
There's also an article[1] straight from the horse's mouth about a statistically-significant reduction in taxi crime in Chicago after Uber set up shop there. Obvious bias, but I don't see anything obviously bad with their data.
Every taxi I've been in has a number to call, commonly mandated and staffed by a public agency (whose records are therefore public), when you have a problem.
As previously mentioned, a complaint based model will necessarily be less accurate than an automatic or passive rating model - people will in general not take action to complain unless they both had an awful experience and have the time to do so. I get the feeling that the response to this will be "a bad rating does not ensure action" - but neither does a call to the public agency.
If I complain about too many taxi drivers, every other taxi driver will still pick me up.
Does Uber actually do this? They rate you immediately at drop off, presumably before you rate them. (I never got the rating prompt until after the driver had left)
How does the driver know of the history of your ratings of other drivers?
If there's short term construction, or a particular corridor is always busy at an unusual time of day, my driver will already know about it, because there's a good chance he's been driving in this city for years.
Who the heck do you think most Uber drivers are? Taking a shot in the dark here, but probably residents of the city they drive in.
..And if he hasn't, the competition to become a driver is fierce enough that he is highly motivated to be the best taxi driver he can be.
What do you think will happen to the ratings of a slow driver who makes someone late to their destination, or drives with a dirty car, or has a bad attitude? I'm going to take another shot in the dark here, but knowing what I know of the rating system, I'd wager that will get a driver drummed out of Uber a lot faster than the same behavior would get a driver dismissed from a regular taxi outfit.
I really do not get this argument - the feedback and ongoing quality checks by the rideshare companies is necessarily more immediate and more tied to actual everyday conditions and performance than the spot checks that can be performed by even the most scrupulous and well intentioned government agency.
Everything else you said was varying degrees of spot on.
>No, that's not a fair assessment at all - the evidence doesn't bear that out. Just because the government isn't doing the regulating doesn't mean there is no regulation. Uber at the very least does background/license checks, and the aforementioned ongoing quality rating. It's not a free-for-all.
I have no idea what lengths Uber goes to, but it's irrelevant. You're espousing self regulation. What happens when the next Uber competitor decides upon a different, perhaps less stringent, standard? This is why these regulations exist on the first place. The whole thing is coming full circle.
1. Unregulated service arises
2. People use said service, gains critical mass.
3. Service excludes/endangers part of the population.
4. Service is regulated by the government
5. Eventually, regulations become burdensome and are either lifted or circumvented.
That's a bit slippery slope for my taste (2 does not necessarily lead to 3), but in this particular case, pretty much.
..Except I'd argue that the people champing at the bit to sue/ban/regulate Uber are doing so either out of annoyance (politicos annoyed that their regs are being flouted) or greed (competitors upset that they're being undercut), with the "safety" issue being nothing more than a convenient pretext.
They are not demonstrably less safe than the "regulated" livery services.
Sure, this is completely within the context of this discussion. I'm not saying that Uber is bad, what I'm saying is that a bad actor will eventually crop up, which leads to regulation.
I somewhat agree with you - but then there's the insurance and license question.
I admit that I'm not a fan of that company and couldn't care less about their service. But IF (I don't know. Not a lawyer, no expert) the majority of their drivers aren't covered by their insurance in case of 'commercial' accidents, then yes! they are far less safe than regulated services.
On top of that Germany (because that's what the thread started out with) requires people to have a special driving license (That is NOT a taxi license. If you drive a bus or anything where you transport people from A to B for money, you're supposed to have that extended license). And that is a good thing. It checks (every 5 years, because that thing expires) that
- you're fit (physically.. Think "My eyes aren't what they used to be, but hey .. I can still drive"
- your police record (you can request a file/except of your police record and you have to turn that in for this application)
- you know the area
It also limits this license to people >= 21 years old that have their license for > 2 years.
So, we're having two things here (ignoring all the "But it's faster, cheaper, more convenient" crap) that relate to safety:
1) IF the drivers aren't insured, you are screwed. That is less safe, demonstrably so.
2) Given that those drivers probably don't have that commercial license: I'd say they aren't vetted as good as the taxi drivers. This is a bit more mushy, but I'd still consider this 'less safe' and the list above points out why.
Obviously 2) is specific to Germany, but 1) is a global concern, as far as I understand?
German county governments provide taxi licenses at what I'd consider to be 'at cost'. Unlikely that this is their main concern, or even 'all this boils down to'.
Also, no government branch sued Uber. The organization of taxi cooperatives did, which is private (as are all its members).
I think that Uber has done tremendous amounts to modernizing the taxi industry, and maybe even for breaking down some taxi monopolies. These are both good things.
I can't comment on UberX, but regular Uber should absolutely be subject to regular taxi/safety/liability clauses. Which isn't to say that those clauses couldn't be modernized, but IS to say that it should also not be a surprise when a company gets a nationwide ban for violating them. Regular Uber is exactly a taxi system, with a state-of-the-art automated dispatch and billing system.
I don't see how it has done so at all, at least in Germany. Precisely because the industry is so highly regulated I don't see how Uber offers anything that I don't get with a regular taxi.
You get the thrill of drivers who are uninsured and poorly paid (once you factor in the capital costs of the vehicle and the cost of vehicle maintenance). Welcome to the libertarian paradise.
How is $20-$30 an hour (based on the link you provided) poorly paid for a part time job? Maybe I'm missing something? Sounds like a pretty decent rate.
And they're not uninsured, they're self insured, which is, again, shown in that article you linked.
Uber provides, faster, safer, cheaper, more comfortable service than any government run taxi service. Without a driver rating system, I remember getting frequently being asked to leave the taxi when requesting short distance rides. Taxis would often drive at dangerous speeds to acquire more customers. Taxis were typically driven by foreigners which could not find other jobs. If Uber is as low paying as you describe, why is it that we get more intelligent drivers? Surely they are intelligent enough to quit if the pay is too low.
Uber users like myself vote on each ride with their credit cards to keep these services going. And with that, it means that the day Uber does something poorly, we have the freedom to immediately switch to a competitor.
> Without a driver rating system, I remember getting frequently being asked to leave the taxi when requesting short distance rides.
In Germany? Not saying that it doesn't happen, but it is illegal. (Which often is an important argument to why Taxis are protected against competition, since they are forced to provide services that are not always profitable)
What's illegal and what's enforceable are two different things, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Uber just launched in Romania and it's having a hard time getting off the ground. I asked a taxi driver why he wouldn't join. He said he'd be scared for his safety from other taxi drivers.
Anecdotally, getting a cab from a major hub (airport, train or bus station) in Bucharest, without calling dispatch, entails a fixed price and the meter turned off. Illegal? Surely.
The main advantage of western countries, culminating in the U.S., is that laws are enforced regularly and predictably, most of the time.
Germany is doing just that. They're old laws, sure, but they must be enforced until they get a change to revise them.
Keep in mind that the taxi situation is very different in Germany. As an American who lived and worked in Germany for a couple years, the taxi service was generally fantastic. Professional and courteous drivers, usually an impeccably maintained black Mercedes-Benzes, and a digital readout of the current fare on the rear-view mirror. And this was 7 years ago. Upon landing in Atlanta, I'd regularly step into a smelly, old van--with a driver who spoke little English and zero knowledge of the city, requiring GPS entry before departing--only to careen haphazardly down the highway. The contrast was rather stark.
As a driving enthusiast, driving in German was a pleasure (minus the traffic). Being able to cruise at 140 mph on unrestricted sections en route to Darmstadt, and feel safe doing so, was wonderful. Then again, obtaining a driver's license in Germany is substantially more difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Vehicle maintenance requirements are likewise more stringent (e.g. mandatory winter tires). Given the different driving environment, this ruling is not surprising in light of Uber's lackadaisical approach (I say that as a fan of Uber's service in the US, not their behavior).
Whereas in much of the US, you can cruise around a parking lot with an instructor, and walk away with a drivers license. It's like the wild west by comparison. Uber is faster, safer, and cheaper than the abysmal service in most US cities; but this isn't universally true. The situation in Western Europe is mostly superior to what you'd find in the US; ditto for Japan and South Korea.
I can accept they provide a faster, safer, cheaper and more comfortable service than my Colombian taxi service, and that's probably true for most countries, including the USA.
> poorly paid (once you factor in the capital costs of the vehicle and the cost of vehicle maintenance)
I don't happen to know how much Uber drivers get paid, but I've seen comments saying that a lot of people drive Uber as a part-time thing with a car they already own to supplement their income. I think that's a more likely scenario than someone going out and buying a car specifically to drive for Uber full-time.
Also reminds me of arguments about raising minimum wage because every job in existence should pay a living wage, ignoring circumstances of why people are working various jobs (thinking particularly about teenagers and retired people).
> Precisely because the industry is so highly regulated I don't see how Uber offers anything that I don't get with a regular taxi.
This seems to be a common argument against private competition to government-managed services. "Well, I don't see how a private company could do this better than the government." And yet, Uber is so obviously superior to any regulated taxi service.
* Knowing where your driver is and how close, who they are, what they're driving, and what their ratings are before you even climb in.
* Payment is all handled on the back end. You call the cab and don't have to worry about it. Tips are not a thing.
* Bad ratings cause drivers to get kicked out of the program - and since they're automatically prompted for as soon as you get out of the car, they're going to be done more often (and therefore be more accurate) than a complaint-based model. It solves the problem of "Well, this driver was surly and slow, but I've got better things to do than go on the taxi commission's website and fill out a complaint form"
* MUCH cheaper rates than taxis, though that no doubt varies by area. I know in SF, it only cost me $15 to get from SFO to the wharf. (About an hour drive, IIRC) Equivalent shuttle: $34-50. I priced it.
* Random everypeople drivers, rather than career folks. I've met some pretty interesting people via Uber.
* Drivers can't arrive and then refuse to drive you - they know where they're going when the app pings them. If they don't want to drive you, one of the others surely will. Drivers are penalized for dropping rides.
None of this is specific to Germany, the topic of the story notwithstanding. These rideshare outfits face the same government interference in every single country they operate in.
After tooling around California for about a week or so, I am 100% on board with these guys. Uber was consistently awesome and less expensive, taxis were consistently more annoying and more expensive.
pickup time: nice, but I assume that also only is in saturated areas
Prices as far as I've seen were similar to Taxi prices.
Payment: just checked, I thought the current apps already took care of that, but didn't seem so. Not yet that big of a problem, since Germany is still very cash-based anyways.
I have to admit I don't really care about the other points, since the current state of things seems mostly fine to me. So for me it is not "obviously superior", since I value the downsides higher (insurance, availability (a german taxi can't deny a route inside it's area of responsibility, which is a large part of why competition is restricted), ...)
Just to clarify, I said "credit card" for simplicity but I use my card primarily as a direct-debit card; taxis (and everyone else) accept that here, and have been since 1980's. So the credit card company is not involved.
Problem? Well, a minor inconvenience. For me the difference is that I specifically need to reserve cash to pay taxis in Germany, not for any other purpose.
Normally, I don't carry cash with me, except for a few coins for a bus ticket or a vending machine or a quick lunch. I don't even carry a wallet; I have a phone case which has pockets for driving license or ID card, and bank/credit card. Above, I said credit card, but I actually use it as a direct debit card. I pay may lunch and groceries with it, and gas and parking, and whatever.
If I make a one-day business trip to Stockholm, I don't need to make any special preparations: I can pay everything with the same debit/credit card, and I don't need to change any currency even though Sweden does not use euros.
If I make a one-day business trip to Berlin, I do need to prepare with currency to pay the taxi there. If Uber brings pressure for taxis to accept debit/credit cards, that's good.
You do realise there's a good reason it's cheaper don't you.
How many accidents have you been in which required claiming against their insurance (or lack of it). What about unvetted drivers who might rape you?
After airBnB, and Uber, surely the next area ripe for "disruption" / completely ignoring the laws and regulation, is banking. Just offer higher savings rates than any bank, but ignore all that irritating regulation the big banks are subject to!
You realize Uber does background checks, right? I could link you stories of rapist taxi drivers (Yknow, those traditional and regulated ones that you're implying are so much safer)...
* You can get a taxi just as fast in Berlin.
* If you feel the need to use an app that has ratings, payment and stuff, there are apps such as mytaxi for that.
* Taxi drivers are professionals and you can complain about them which would eventually not end well for them.
* Payment is regulated so it's the same with every taxi and it's not that expensive, besides we have an actually working public transportation anyway, so it's not like you're going to use taxis daily.
Are you really trying to convince us that we just imagined having better experiences with Uber? We've already made a fair determination of what service is superior; we've taken everything you're saying into account.
Yes, I "feel the need" to have a taxi rating system. You can claim all you want that government taxis have equivalent systems, but they obviously don't. Taxi drivers are usually assholes, and Uber drivers are usually nice.
Uber also costs the same every time, and it's usually cheaper than a government taxi.
I don't think people imagine having better experiences with Uber than with taxis in some parts of the world. That doesn't mean that Uber provides a better service than all taxis everywhere.
San Francisco's dysfunctional taxi regulation doesn't extend past the cities borders, much less the US despite Uber's best efforts to make seem as if that were the case.
In a way, services like AirBnB and Uber remind us of how very rarely things actually go wrong. In a way, they act as correction to the usual scaremongering we get through most mass-media: "you can ride in uninsured cabs with complete strangers and sleep in unregulated and potentially dangerous flats, and you'll likely be fine anyway".
This said, good on the German government for forcing the company to actually respect their laws. Being a trendy net-based startup is not a license to flaunt all rules, especially consistent rules that exist for very good reason.
Insurance isn't there because you have a good chance of having something bad happen to you. It's there because bad things happen predictably and often, and victims of those would have serious problems for the rest of their lives if not for insurance.
One thing most commentators cannot seem to grasp: the German government hasn't applied for the injunction, and it isn't running the taxi service.
Government regulates private companies running the service. And those private companies are standing up to a shitty company that openly says that they won't comply with laws or verdicts, because they are the future. Or something like that.
In every way. Have you ever used Uber? The whole experience is so nice compared to the low-quality/bad-service experience typical of a government-approved taxi.
I'm not introspective enough to enumerate every single reason I love Uber, but here are a few:
It's cheaper.
It's faster in less densely populated areas.
The service is better and the drivers are friendlier.
That is necessary, but not enough. To operate a taxi you also need a taxi license (which sometimes just is a 50 € fee, sometimes has to be taken over from an existing taxi company, all depends on the city) + of course insurance etc.
You can use it to operate a "rental car with driver", like UberBlack does, but that has other limitations to be not too taxi-like (most notably you can't take new passengers or their orders while on the road, you have to return to your home location after every trip)
"Funkmietwagen" (rental cars with a driver you that picks you up and drops you off and can be hired instantly by phone) are actually very common in most parts of Germany I've been to. Many businesses offer you to call one instead if you ask them to call you a taxi (though I think they have to explicitly tell you it's a Funkmietwagen rather than a taxi).
That said, Uber isn't really solving a problem here. There are already call-a-taxi apps (though they don't seem to have been very successful) and the only value add Uber provides is that it encourages an entirely illegal business model (i.e. transporting persons without the required qualifications, no insurance coverage, no guarantees and no reliable pricing).
Sure, UberBlack may be a nice idea if an ordinary taxi is beneath you or socially inappropriate, but other than that Uber simply doesn't offer anything new.
Note that Germany and the EU in general have very strong customer protection laws. The health, safety and protection of the passenger is an actual concern in the local market. Uber (and similar "disruptive" services) gain most of their appeal from entirely disregarding that.
It doesn't matter how appealing your business idea is if it doesn't work within the restrictions of consumer protection.
Yes, I should have added that this is fairly common already. I just wanted to add it since there was a bit of confusion about which Uber products are allowed/forbidden and why.
And this is the legal framework for Uber to provide new services. If a good app + the driver ratings people seem to like + ... really provides a market advantage, then they should go nuts there ;)
I get the sense that you are an advocate of Uber's and that type of approach to business and society.
The problem I have, no matter how much I like the idea and concepts and technical solutions, is that there is a social flaw built in, which is American society. What we, as a culture don't realize is that Uber and it's minions of supporters, just like so many other cultural phenomena in the USA, is a corporate con job race to the bottom.
Just so you have a starting point, Uber is the equivalent to Conservative causes like opposition to universal health care or a social safety net or a minimum wage (expectation of income for work) or job security; or any other of the numerous pernicious memes on the right that are self-harming.
So, go on, blabber on about how much you love Uber; just be aware that you supported the very process that will also lead to you having to scrape by for crumbs just to survive in a saturated market in which you are little more than a commodity, essentially a head of cattle on a ranch.
Its crazy. I for one can't wait until the taxi mob is competed off the market. Taxi drivers here are more often than not complete a-holes that try to scam you every chance they get. I for one welcome uber with open arms. I'm sorry for the nice taxi drivers but your business is deeply ill.
The problem here is unfair competition: in The Netherlands taxis are bound by the 'Wet Personenvervoer' (Law persons transport). Uber can encourage drivers to ignore the law, because it has deep pockets to cover for legal costs of drivers.
I agree that the taxi market is ripe for disruption, but this is only fair if other taxis are not bound by that law as well.
Another question is if we want complete deregulation. E.g. I would personally want to be sure that the driver has proper insurance, etc.
Every car has to have third party insurance. Basically covering any damage you do to someone not in your car. Insurance covering damages to passengers in your car is a different insurance, and insurance covering passengers in your car because they are paying you to drive then somewhere is different a insurance again.
Over here (Finland), the mandatory insurance covers passengers (and driver) also in your car, not just third parties. Different countries obviously have different practices. I can see that this is a problem in countries where the vehicle's insurance does not cover its own passengers.
(In fact, the mandatory car insurance here even covers personal damages of third parties at fault if they are pedestrians or are riding a bicycle; i.e. if a bicyclist runs a red light and collides with a car and hurts himself, the care cost is carried by the car's insurance. If the bicyclist hits a tree, the tree has no insurance... this applies to personal injuries only, not the broken bike. Any damage to the car is covered by the bicyclist's insurance if any.)
I bet here it covers damages for the people I was driving, and then the insurance company comes after me for the money if I was in breach of conditions. So it is in the interests of the driver to make sure his coverage is OK.
That's just here, of course, different countries have different rules. I don't know those in Germany so well.
Uberdrivers aren't driven off the road, because they need to go through the same hoops as every other Taxi. Uberpop drivers on the other hand are illegal in the Netherlands.
It seem that the German government ensures that everyone gets the same version of the laws. I don't see how that's wrong.
There are generally regulations (and not a few) wrt taxi. Drivers need to pass an exam, get licenses, pay a lot on various taxes, insurance, etc.
Most of all, however, there's a limited number of taxi medallions.
Perhaps not all these do make sense, but that's not an excuse not to obey them.
So perhaps a government authority that ensures that it's own policies are respected is not unexpected.
So yes, Uber contributes a lot to the quality of the transportation. That's why I'm using it.
But I don't see how that has anything to do with the fact that it's one the verge of the law (good or bad) or even against the law in some cases - which is what the German authorities decided.
I don't think this has anything to do with their self-driving cars or the German government taking care of the unemployment problem. In fact, it's probably helping employment.
If your answer is by making it dramatically cheaper by externalising the costs of running a sustainable taxi business... then how does having a greater number of people employed on wages that they cannot afford to live on benefit anyone?
It makes it easier to order a taxi. For instance in the case of Germany, I've sometimes walked a distance simply because I'm not sure if my German is good enough to handle the phone call to the taxi dispatcher, or just because I don't know the number of the taxi company/dispatcher/order central. With an app, I know how to use it.
Thanks for the Taxi Deutschland hint. Unfortunately that app freezes on startup in my Android phone (I just get the screen with a selection of tutorial or starting app, but it locks up there.)
The app seems to be in German only, and it is of course Germany-specific. I can deal with that pretty OK but not all potential users can. Uber uses the same app for any country.
(Downloading an app local to a country while roaming there may be a rather expensive idea, BTW.)
How do you know that people can't live on the wages you are talking about? Why would people drive for Uber if they aren't profiting enough from the job?
Are you saying the service by itself is responsible for an increase in the utilization rate for a class of transportation (ie, the car)?
If that's the case, then did people stop ridding bikes? Taking the bus? Or did (many) people start using uber instead of other taxi companies because of the price difference (due to uber not paying for all the licenses and insurances other transport companies are subjected to)?
If the later is the case, then regulation exists to discourage unfair competition.
Similarly. Though we have few relevant national regulations, so we continue to read headlines about Uber being banned or unbanned in seemingly random states and cities, for basically the same reason as Germany's decision.
> Most of all, however, there's a limited number of taxi medallions.
This is not generally true; it depends on the municipality.
Berlin, for example, does not limit the number of taxi licenses it hands out.
In any event, the specific service that Uber offers is regulated as a kind of limo-for-hire service and not subject to medallion quotas anywhere in Germany. As long as your drivers qualify (properly insured and licensed), you're good to go. Of course, there are existing services that already do that, and they're none to happy that Uber tries to skirt the regulations that they are subject to.
And because these regulations mostly just exist to ensure the safety of passengers (having a license, physical and mental fitness, insurance, cars being roadworthy) and basic quality (knowledge test), lots of Germans aren't particularly sympathetic towards Uber, as the only way they can be cheaper than companies that have been offering the exact same service for decades is by skimping on safety or quality. Taxi apps existed in Germany before Uber. And, as I explained above, it's not to avoid a quota, either, because there is no such quota for this kind of service.
The caveat with disruption: Sometimes an industry which is very tightly regulated, or which has a lot of middlemen, has these obstructions for a reason.
A taxi service holds enormous opportunities for kidnappers or rapists. I'm a man, which basically disappears the rape risk, but there are many Central and South American countries where getting in a taxi could be quite risky for me, and could involve me disappearing. even some parts of Mexico.
Also, just to state the obvious, both Uber drivers and regular taxi drivers have logical incentives for driving unsafely.
In this context, I have no problem with governments wanting to regulate Uber literally to death, at least outside of California. I understand cabs are completely unacceptable garbage in California, and the HN audience definitely skews Californian, but cabs are gold in Chicago, London, and New York, and probably quite a few other places too. Maybe Germany is one of those places.
Also, although I'm sympathetic to libertarians, disruption doesn't always fix things. The Internet crippled the music industry, but introduced stacks of new middlemen in the process. Ask Zoe Keating how that "democratization" turned out.
In music, the corporate middlemen are this pernicious infestation, which just reappears after you thought you'd wiped it out. Artists have to sacrifice a lot to develop their art to a serious level, and a lot of music performance takes place in situations where people are celebrating (i.e., drunk or high, late at night). So somebody has to provide security, as well as business sense. There's a lot of opportunities for middlemen to get their middle on, and disrupting a market, under those conditions, just means shuffling in a new deck of middlemen. It doesn't change the game.
In the same way, my guess is that disrupting a market which is inherently full of criminality risks - incentives to drive unsafely, opportunities for kidnapping and rape - means you just shuffle the deck of regulations.
Yet another criminality risk: taxi services of any kind, whether Uber or not, hold terrific opportunities for armed robbery. In some cities, being a cab driver is very dangerous, for this reason.
So, if Uber kills the entire taxi industry, then governments will have to scrap their taxi regulations and re-build a similarly gigantic regulatory infrastructure around Uber instead.
I think Uber is a really good lesson for entrepreneurs in how a market can look awesome but actually suck.
My, god people. The number of those supporting the useless regulation is so great it astounds me. If you want to regulate something as simple as driving people around, claiming drivers need licences, permissions and passing some sort of exams certifying they are indeed capable of driving cars with passengers, why don't we regulate something much more critical, like software development?
Software runs the world these days, you can't just let people with no licences write shitty code. Politicians and bureaucrats should join their forces and decide whether each individual programmer is of a certain level. If not, he is banned from writing code and should be fined or imprisoned if he ever tries to do that.
Or let's regulate musicians. You know, it would do good. I'm so tired of all these useless crappy bands that write all the same music, thinking they are different. Even though I don't listen to them I also think others shouldn't be listening to them too, as this influences people's tastes in a direction I cannot approve of. So yes, licences for musicians!
Yes, I think people should have a choice. If the market wants insured taxis only, you will see that people only use those taxi-services that prove they have it. If not, then some will be using uninsured services at their own risk. No one has the right to tell me what choice am I supposed to make with my own money.
I think if you were (as a third party) struck by an uninsured taxi/ride share driver (or underinsured driver whose insurer won't cover the incident because he was transporting a passenger), you'd change that tune with a quickness.
This is not an argument against allowing the freedom of choice of how to spend my money and time. If I want more risk, I should absolutely have it. What you're saying is like saying "if you surf and get bitten by a shark, you would start reconsidering your attitude towards surfing, thinking maybe you shouldn't have gotten into the water in the first place". Should we ban surfing on the grounds that some people may actually regret it?
The point is to allow people to make their own choices. What you're advocating is depriving people of the choice of how to spend their money and manage their risk/reward options.
So, let's leave out the insurance question and separate it from the taxi-licence issue. Provided that all cars are insured, how am I putting other people at risk by riding a cheaper unlicensed taxi?
Society has every right to tell you not to severely other people's lives.
I'm amazed that there are actually people who think it should be okay to drive around uninsured, so when you hit a pedestrian and he ends up a quadriplegic and in need of constant care, you just say "oh, I'm sorry, take all the ten thousand Euros I have and good life to you!".
I'm certain you'd see the stupidity of your point of view if you were the quadriplegic without any compensation.
Fortunately, in Europe we don't let those people learn their lesson the very hard way. We do the sensible thing and just demand insurance from everyone. Including self-proclaimed libertarian rebels against the system.
Am I not a part of the society? If I am, why is it that some part of the society, however big, is telling me how to spend my own money if it doesn't actually affect them at all?
It is my choice whether to insure myself or not. It is the choice of the driver whether to insure himself or not. It is the responsibility of the road owner to demand all cars have insurance. Unfortunately, we mostly have only one road owner these days: government. If you had plenty, then some would allow uninsured cars and some wouldn't. Then it would be up to both drivers and pedestrians to use those roads (this is one possible solution).
You're trying once again to draw an image of a libertarian as a ruthless individual who doesn't care about the misfortunes of other people. I do care very much about that and I would be happy to help out. What I am against is FORCE with which government demands people operate in the market very often against their will.
Some people are riskier. Some people are careful. As long as it doesn't affect another person, everyone should be free to do whatever the hell they want.
Finally, your elitist standpoint "we in Europe" is simply disgusting to me. I apologize for this emotional outbreak, but I have zero respect for collectivism. "You in Europe" are all different and by saying it they way you did, you simply disrespect people who have opposing views, not considering them a part of your society.
But roads! There aren't ever going to be several roads in parallel, going the same places, with different standards, that form a free market. That's ludicrous. Its an ideal place for government to step in, ensure a well-regulated network and enforce standards. You don't like that, ok. But you've got nothing to suggest as an alternative, that any modern society could afford.
What about my need to be reimbursed when you ram into me? Am I just our of luck because you didn't want to pay insurance? And btw, society has decided that some do in fact have the right to tell you how to spend your money. Ever paid taxes? Do you think those should be abolished as well?
I'm almost always on the side of less governmental power, but to believe that all regulations like these are unnecessary is just boneheaded.
But you do. And when you choose to use a public service, you should obey the rules set forth by the governing body of that public service. What you are suggesting is that you have the right to decide what to spend your money on, but when others do it, it's wrong.
You are the one complaining about using public infrastructure and having to follow the rules when using it.
Absolutely, I agree with you! It's time to deregulate the taxi industry, because needing a license to drive people around is absurd. Yes, you should need insurance, but in most EU countries, the already required insurance covers all passengers. Each car must also pass an yearly technical review. What more do you need? Someone posted that drivers aren't vetted - there is no better vetting system than the instantaneous feedback from the app. Feedback, given by tens or hundreds of clients.
> Software runs the world these days, you can't just let people with no licences write shitty code. Politicians and bureaucrats should join their forces and decide whether each individual programmer is of a certain level. If not, he is banned from writing code and should be fined or imprisoned if he ever tries to do that.
For any public related service actually, that is regulated. Any software written for a car, truck, train, bus, airplane is regulated in terms of certification by so-called notified bodies.
Bitcoin would've never been possible if a software engineer required a licence to write financial software. And it is a very critical piece of software.
One factor (that may not be obvious given Uber's constant talk about breaking monopolies and cartels) may be that Uber is the bully in this story:
International company valued in the billions ignoring regulations that local (per-county) companies with typically less than 5 cars can't afford to ignore (because they immediately lose their license).
If this is about regulations, Uber could have tried to go the legal route (apply for licenses until they're refused, then go to court over it, unlike our solo drivers they can afford the lawyers). They have the money. Instead they want to decide which laws apply to them.
In this seemingly sad story when a big international company comes over and bullies local businesses out of the market people very often forget the other part of the equation.
Yes, local businesses may suffer. But at the same time, the big bully actually makes it cheaper and more affordable for the consumers of that country to have that service. "Everyone's" got kids and families to feed, so to speak - including taxi passengers. Why is it that I should be more sympathetic to the local taxi drivers and not to the local passengers, who'd be saving money?
Big international companies are free to work within the law of the land. They can work on changing it. They can look for loop holes.
Uber does none of that, and the only reason why they can afford that is because they're incorporated elsewhere and have deep pockets.
If they cared for the markets they enter, they would have realized that in Germany the 'monopoly' story is factually false. They might even have realized that the regulations provide a loop hole that they could use to start operating in some counties/cities to prove that their service is useful.
They did none of that. Just grandstanding, posturing, and then crying like babies about how everybody is unfair to them when they're held to the same standards as everyone else.
This isn't even about prices (the ones our elected officials set for taxis are quite reasonable, and they don't feature 'surge pricing'). It's about Uber's conduct.
I'm sorry, you're not addressing my point. If passengers in Germany didn't think Uber was useful to them, they simply wouldn't use it and Uber wouldn't have any market. But it does have a market because there's a demand. What you're suggesting is to ignore the demand and ban Uber nevertheless, hurting your own citizen's interests and emptying their pockets with prices you yourself think are reasonable for everyone.
Uber has 'demand' because they're advertising. Because they're handing out credits. Because they're claiming they're cheaper (but are they?). Because they may actually be cheaper on selected routes (but not when it matters). Because they may even be operating at a loss until they cornered the market (or go bust).
That's not sustainable. I knew self-employed taxi drivers and they weren't exactly rich, far from it. Having to give some leech 20% of their income would have ruined them, so Uber's presence in their business model must be to the detriment of someone.
So if they survive and corner the market, they'll raise prices (all those VCs want a return, after all). If they don't, they may leave behind ruins where there was infrastructure - no interest in that. There is no option 3, since their business model is fundamentally 'us vs them': Serving all the good inner city and airport routes, while leaving the non-profitable stuff to someone else doesn't work for long.
I can understand that Uber doesn't want to plan for the long term: They might not be around in 3 years, and even if they are, any mess they create here doesn't affect them.
I'd prefer infrastructure to still work in 15 years, and Uber doesn't look like an ally for that cause. In fact their conduct indicates to me that they wouldn't hesitate to burn down society as long as they can instate themselves as rent keeper and make a buck on the remains. Why should I support that?
Nobody forces Uber to enter the German market. If they can't rethink taxis legally, they should leave the field to those who are capable of that (to those who want to: PBefG §2(7) might be of interest).
tl;dr: don't buy taxi services on society's credit card - since I believe Uber customers are doing that when they get 'cheaper' service, any restriction on Uber is a good thing in my book.
I'm so sick of government interfering in business. Why the hell are there so many pointless regulations governing electrical appliances? If I want to build a toaster with undersized wiring, no safety earth, no thermal cut-offs and no flame retardant plastics, why should the government be able to stop me? Why should I be burdened with the cost of product liability insurance? I can just base my company in the Cayman Islands and dodge the inevitable lawsuit when my product kills someone.
Taxis are regulated for a reason. I want to know that when I get into a taxi, the vehicle is roadworthy. I want to know that the driver is competent and medically fit to drive. I want to know that he isn't a convicted rapist. I want to know that his insurance is still valid when carrying paying passengers. Uber provides none of those guarantees, but intelligent regulation does all of that without creating a significant barrier to entry.
It sounds to like the solution to your problem is to use a service that does verify those things. If you don't like the risks of Uber, don't use it. The reality is the risk is pretty low, most people recognize that, and are fine with it.
Notice how you constantly say "I want". What if I, on the other hand, don't want to know those things and am simply concerned with the price, prepared to take a risk here? What right on earth do you have to tell other people what ratio of risk/reward is acceptable for them? Yet, this is exactly what regulation does: it says "this is in the public interest", yet "public" is very different in its preferences towards prices, comfort, risk and other factors.
If you want a safe taxi, by all means, use the government approved service. I for one couldn't care less, so I'm gonna go with a cheaper service. Everyone should have that choice.
Why would they suffer? If you are concerned with your safety and trust the government vetting process, you are free to use government-licenced taxi services exclusively.
When your poorly maintain cab plows into a pedestrian, crippling them, leaving them with medical bills (in some countries) and loss of earnings they're going to want to claim on the cabs insurance. But the cab doesn't have insurance because fuck regulation.
I just wanted to see if I could search for someone to drive me to some specific grocery store for a specific day, to see how much that would cost me if I would plan in advance.
It's a 15min ride, and the bus service is poor for that particular route. I need to carry a lot of food, and on welfare aldi is a must for me, so I would gladly pay for gas money plus some more instead of taking the bus, especially since I carry frozen food.
I started entering my info. Closed it immediately when it asked for my credit card before I could search for anything.
I'm sorry, but if uber is getting money from rides, I really think it should at least play nice with governments and laws, especially when it has so much value on the stock market. It's a matter of respect, being disruptive doesn't excuse everything.
Building and regulating civilization has a cost, if you want to improve people's lives, don't be so greedy about it. It doesn't require so much money to help people find each other for car rides.
I totally understand that cab licenses are against the libertarian's dream, but when I sense unjustified money behind it, it sets me off immediately. The internet doesn't feel very free, it's just another new land for money makers, and I'm often okay with it, but here, I'm not.
> Building and regulating civilization has a cost, if you want to improve people's lives, don't be so greedy about it.
This. I wish many a company took it to heart. But then again, a lot of companies (and startups) don't care about improving people's lives; some unfortunately use the talk about "improving lives" as a marketing angle.
As for Uber, it's pretty clear now that they don't care about improving anything else than the contents of their wallets - I'm surprised that no one banned them yet for literally being assholes.
I'm sure they are being pissed on by governments because they're a net loss to society. People just like to use shiny smartphone to order a taxi.
I hate that new libertarian trend of pretending to solve a socio economical problem, while it requires a smartphone and a fast dataplan. The army developped those techs and now it's being used for profits and profits. Oddly there is so little money involved in techs like bittorrent or openstreetmap, etc.
Investors should really think about having a legitimate improvement for society. I mean if I was an investor, I would be so much proud of creating free services. That's the only way honest improvements has ever worked, when it was not so much profit driven.
> I mean if I was an investor, I would be so much proud of creating free services. That's the only way honest improvements has ever worked, when it was not so much profit driven.
And that's why you and I are not investors, but just poor developers who like making video games. There aren't many investors out there who care about actual improvement for society; I might hesitantly point to few names, but that's it. For the rest it's just another level of money-making-money game.
Interesting point: Uber is (rightfully) continuing their service, because the ban only goes into effect when the plaintiff pledges a security, to compensate Uber's loss, in case this ban is reversed.
I have no idea if the plaintiff wants to take that risk.
I haven't bothered to look at Russians' responses to Uber, but the whole idea must seem strange to any Russian. It has been normal in Russia since the fifties to flag down cars (i.e. everyday, private traffic) on the street and pay a driver for a lift. Usually the fare is cheaper than a taxi (I don't remember ever calling a taxi in Russia). The drawback is that not all drivers are headed in your direction, but then again, it's only a matter of time till someone who is comes along (this problem is further ameliorated by drivers who moonlight as gypsy cabs and will take you wherever for the right price).
My point is that the service that Uber provides is viable primarily due to largely baseless social conventions (i.e. middle-class paranoia). If the fare is all that matters to a given consumer, then any car/driver will do. If security matters more than fare, then taxis will do. Uber is operating in a gray area between these extremes and as soon as A) we cease fearing our neighbors (I believe that the decline of suburbia and renewed urbanization will eventually take us there) and B) taxi services will begin offering better technical solutions, Uber's service will become largely obsolete.
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[ 43.7 ms ] story [ 388 ms ] threadhttp://money.cnn.com/2015/02/03/technology/innovationnation/...
It's not a solution to unemployment, it's an exploitation of people unable to find a job in societies where not having a job means living in poverty.
They're not entrepreneurs either. They're workers who have the liberty of employees with the legal requirements of entrepreneurs. It's the worst of both worlds.
They generally have to enter into non-competes, prohibiting them from working for other agencies or companies. They are only paid when the temp agency actually has work for them. They generally get zero benefits compared to regular employees. They also tend to be paid pennies and don't benefit from labour agreements (because unlike their regular employee co-workers they're not allowed to unionize). Basically, they're like independent contractors, except they're not independent.
Temp agencies in this form weren't even legal in Germany until a few years ago (well, about a decade now).
We've done it before and we'll do it again, but in a society that (correctly) sees hard work as a personal virtue and is controlled by people with a vested interest in conflating the personal virtue with the societal virtue of promoting hard work, there's a fight every time the policies need tweaking.
Life obviously wasn't brilliant prior to the spinning jenny, but it was definitely better than the 20 years that followed its proliferation. If Uber is really a parallel then the workers who drive for them are in for a couple of decades of having a pretty rubbish time.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic...
- A high-school dropout studying towards his Matric and wanting to go into engineering. - An owner of a backpacker lodge looking to do something during the day when his business isn't busy. - A retired person looking to earn some extra income. - A full time Uber driver who was a long-haul truck driver.
IMHO, my country needs more nerds churning out code which will cut through the bureaucracy our government has put in place and create opportunities for our unemployed.
With regards to self-driving cars, that would be awesome. I just don't see that it's something that would be affordable in a developing country in the next few years.
I really don't understand why it has to be so expensive. For inner city trips the gas costs are a negligible part of the total price, and most drivers are being paid minimum wage. (I've actually heard quite a few taxi drivers complain about minimum wage being introduced because their employers claim that it's too expensive for them and they need to cut costs.)
Either there are too many taxis out there so they need higher prices to be able to pay for the time where they just stand around waiting for customers, or somebody is getting rich.
Now, just don't get me started about the prices of regulated taxes in Helsinki, or the largely unregulated taxis in Stockholm, where you really have to be careful.
The whole problem with Uber can be solved if governments deregulate the taxi industry. I absolutely agree that you need an insurance that covers the passengers, but what else except more frequent technical checks? Taxi licenses are an artificial way to control the supply, so I am adamantly against them.
Government regulates a lot of things and if sensibly done, this is imho a good thing and protects the citiziens. A completely deregulated taxi industry would probably bring a lot of overcrowding, put a lot of stress to the drivers and their salaries would fall even lower (they are not high (in Berlin)).
I hope that I'm not wrong, but I've never heard that here in Germany we have something like $700 000 taxi medaillons as in New York. With such conditions a deregulation is probably a good thing, but here?
Code has absolutely nothing to do with it.
[1] http://blog.uber.com/freeubertaxi_berlin_en
Most of the drivers for uberPOP break german laws because they have no proper license and insurance to be commercial drivers.
The question was if Uber breaks the law ("Personenbeförderungsgesetz") by simply acting as a broker for those drivers - And the judge said yes, they do.
Basically, Uber is breaking the law when it comes to passenger transportation the same way Mega was breaking the law when it came to file sharing. It created an environment that promoted illegal activities.
Can't say I blame them.
[1] http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/taxi-driver-20...
[2] http://coconutgrovegrapevine.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-county...
and so on..
Call me when your "overseen, private, and up to standards" taxi has an immediate rating system that will cause the driver to effectively lose their job if they continue to provide crappy drives.
I do blame them. Bureaucracy sucks, and I can see why people would want to subvert it. Government's just mad they're not getting their vig. That's all this boils down to.
(Fixed link 1)
Serious question. That's a level of feedback that simply can't be provided by a government agency.
Even so, vehicle insurance doesn't come from signing the right documents. In Germany you don't get the seal on your license plate without passing mandatory regular inspections.
The very minimum standards that players need to obey.
Customer feedback can come later, on top. But that's qualitatively very different.
Edit: Bonus reason #3 -- Situations may arise where the government wants to prevent driver behavior that many riders will approve of, for example, to protect other drivers and pedestrians. For example, the government might want to use licensing to impose an extra stiff penalty on taxi drivers who violate traffic laws (i.e., license revocation or suspension). Passengers may approve of this sort of behavior if it was intended to get them to their destination faster.
More seriously, nobody claims that the existing regulations ensure that there will never be an issue with a taxi. The claim, of course, is that things would be worse (or, if you prefer even worse) without them.
I am all about competition, but they don't want to compete, they want to undercut the market to destroy it and corner it so that they can then implement regulatory capture at a later point.
And if you take issue with Uber for other reasons (shady recruiting practices come to mind), there are other rideshare services that do not have those problems.
Like I said, I have nothing against competition, which is really one of the concerns people should have, because Uber knows that they are currently in a land-grab type of scenario to corner the market, especially right before autonomous vehicles come on line. Due to the nature efficiency characteristics of the future transpiration system and gargantuan barriers to entry, Uber is attempting to shut out the competition in order to put a stranglehold on transpiration. They'd eventually get broken up, but in the mean time, they can execute regulatory capture, corrupt our government in the good ol' fashioned way through lobbyists, and make billions if not trillions in the mean time.
Sure, the taxi system is corrupt down to the bone in many, if not all cities. But what Uber is doing, is riding proclaiming they are the handsome night in shining armor on a brilliantly white horse, when in fact, under the shiny armor is a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing.
Every taxi I've been in has a number to call, commonly mandated and staffed by a public agency (whose records are therefore public), when you have a problem.
When there's a convention in town, or a major sporting event, or a new taxi service that competes with an existing one, do you know how much my taxi rates go up? I'm approximating here, but (scribbles on napkin)... 0%. Pretty nice.
Here are some more hypotheticals:
If I have accessibility challenges, a quick call to a taxi dispatcher (and disabled folks generally already know these numbers, in my experience), I get the same rate, and the service is required to accommodate my special needs.
If I am engaging in a one night stand, I don't become part of a "ride of glory" dashboard.
My data points are used in predictable ways, and if I pay cash and don't rob the driver, my personal information is known by zero people. I will stipulate that cameras are in most taxis these days and, sure, let's say there's facial recognition there. The city agencies don't have a track record of using that PII in unexpected ways.
If I complain about too many taxi drivers, every other taxi driver will still pick me up.
If I'm in an accident due to some other yahoo driving badly, I know precisely the type of insurance that is carried by the taxi service.
If there's short term construction, or a particular corridor is always busy at an unusual time of day, my driver will already know about it, because there's a good chance he's been driving in this city for years. And if he hasn't, the competition to become a driver is fierce enough that he is highly motivated to be the best taxi driver he can be.
How'd I do?
No, that's not a fair assessment at all - the evidence doesn't bear that out. Just because the government isn't doing the regulating doesn't mean there is no regulation. Uber at the very least does background/license checks, and the aforementioned ongoing quality rating. It's not a free-for-all.
There's also an article[1] straight from the horse's mouth about a statistically-significant reduction in taxi crime in Chicago after Uber set up shop there. Obvious bias, but I don't see anything obviously bad with their data.
Every taxi I've been in has a number to call, commonly mandated and staffed by a public agency (whose records are therefore public), when you have a problem.
As previously mentioned, a complaint based model will necessarily be less accurate than an automatic or passive rating model - people will in general not take action to complain unless they both had an awful experience and have the time to do so. I get the feeling that the response to this will be "a bad rating does not ensure action" - but neither does a call to the public agency.
If I complain about too many taxi drivers, every other taxi driver will still pick me up.
Does Uber actually do this? They rate you immediately at drop off, presumably before you rate them. (I never got the rating prompt until after the driver had left)
How does the driver know of the history of your ratings of other drivers?
If there's short term construction, or a particular corridor is always busy at an unusual time of day, my driver will already know about it, because there's a good chance he's been driving in this city for years.
Who the heck do you think most Uber drivers are? Taking a shot in the dark here, but probably residents of the city they drive in.
..And if he hasn't, the competition to become a driver is fierce enough that he is highly motivated to be the best taxi driver he can be.
What do you think will happen to the ratings of a slow driver who makes someone late to their destination, or drives with a dirty car, or has a bad attitude? I'm going to take another shot in the dark here, but knowing what I know of the rating system, I'd wager that will get a driver drummed out of Uber a lot faster than the same behavior would get a driver dismissed from a regular taxi outfit.
I really do not get this argument - the feedback and ongoing quality checks by the rideshare companies is necessarily more immediate and more tied to actual everyday conditions and performance than the spot checks that can be performed by even the most scrupulous and well intentioned government agency.
Everything else you said was varying degrees of spot on.
[1]: http://blog.uber.com/chicagotaxicrime
I have no idea what lengths Uber goes to, but it's irrelevant. You're espousing self regulation. What happens when the next Uber competitor decides upon a different, perhaps less stringent, standard? This is why these regulations exist on the first place. The whole thing is coming full circle.
1. Unregulated service arises
2. People use said service, gains critical mass.
3. Service excludes/endangers part of the population.
4. Service is regulated by the government
5. Eventually, regulations become burdensome and are either lifted or circumvented.
6. Goto 2
..Except I'd argue that the people champing at the bit to sue/ban/regulate Uber are doing so either out of annoyance (politicos annoyed that their regs are being flouted) or greed (competitors upset that they're being undercut), with the "safety" issue being nothing more than a convenient pretext.
They are not demonstrably less safe than the "regulated" livery services.
I admit that I'm not a fan of that company and couldn't care less about their service. But IF (I don't know. Not a lawyer, no expert) the majority of their drivers aren't covered by their insurance in case of 'commercial' accidents, then yes! they are far less safe than regulated services.
On top of that Germany (because that's what the thread started out with) requires people to have a special driving license (That is NOT a taxi license. If you drive a bus or anything where you transport people from A to B for money, you're supposed to have that extended license). And that is a good thing. It checks (every 5 years, because that thing expires) that
- you're fit (physically.. Think "My eyes aren't what they used to be, but hey .. I can still drive" - your police record (you can request a file/except of your police record and you have to turn that in for this application) - you know the area
It also limits this license to people >= 21 years old that have their license for > 2 years.
So, we're having two things here (ignoring all the "But it's faster, cheaper, more convenient" crap) that relate to safety:
1) IF the drivers aren't insured, you are screwed. That is less safe, demonstrably so.
2) Given that those drivers probably don't have that commercial license: I'd say they aren't vetted as good as the taxi drivers. This is a bit more mushy, but I'd still consider this 'less safe' and the list above points out why.
Obviously 2) is specific to Germany, but 1) is a global concern, as far as I understand?
Also, no government branch sued Uber. The organization of taxi cooperatives did, which is private (as are all its members).
I can't comment on UberX, but regular Uber should absolutely be subject to regular taxi/safety/liability clauses. Which isn't to say that those clauses couldn't be modernized, but IS to say that it should also not be a surprise when a company gets a nationwide ban for violating them. Regular Uber is exactly a taxi system, with a state-of-the-art automated dispatch and billing system.
[0] http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/cabbies-who-kill-or-maim-in-nyc...
[1] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/14/nyc-cab-driver-on-loose...
[2] http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=132684
And they're not uninsured, they're self insured, which is, again, shown in that article you linked.
Uber users like myself vote on each ride with their credit cards to keep these services going. And with that, it means that the day Uber does something poorly, we have the freedom to immediately switch to a competitor.
In Germany? Not saying that it doesn't happen, but it is illegal. (Which often is an important argument to why Taxis are protected against competition, since they are forced to provide services that are not always profitable)
Uber just launched in Romania and it's having a hard time getting off the ground. I asked a taxi driver why he wouldn't join. He said he'd be scared for his safety from other taxi drivers.
Anecdotally, getting a cab from a major hub (airport, train or bus station) in Bucharest, without calling dispatch, entails a fixed price and the meter turned off. Illegal? Surely.
The main advantage of western countries, culminating in the U.S., is that laws are enforced regularly and predictably, most of the time.
Germany is doing just that. They're old laws, sure, but they must be enforced until they get a change to revise them.
As a driving enthusiast, driving in German was a pleasure (minus the traffic). Being able to cruise at 140 mph on unrestricted sections en route to Darmstadt, and feel safe doing so, was wonderful. Then again, obtaining a driver's license in Germany is substantially more difficult, costly, and time-consuming. Vehicle maintenance requirements are likewise more stringent (e.g. mandatory winter tires). Given the different driving environment, this ruling is not surprising in light of Uber's lackadaisical approach (I say that as a fan of Uber's service in the US, not their behavior).
Whereas in much of the US, you can cruise around a parking lot with an instructor, and walk away with a drivers license. It's like the wild west by comparison. Uber is faster, safer, and cheaper than the abysmal service in most US cities; but this isn't universally true. The situation in Western Europe is mostly superior to what you'd find in the US; ditto for Japan and South Korea.
EDIT: Clarity.
But can you really use the ANY word?
That's a tall order.
I don't happen to know how much Uber drivers get paid, but I've seen comments saying that a lot of people drive Uber as a part-time thing with a car they already own to supplement their income. I think that's a more likely scenario than someone going out and buying a car specifically to drive for Uber full-time.
Also reminds me of arguments about raising minimum wage because every job in existence should pay a living wage, ignoring circumstances of why people are working various jobs (thinking particularly about teenagers and retired people).
This seems to be a common argument against private competition to government-managed services. "Well, I don't see how a private company could do this better than the government." And yet, Uber is so obviously superior to any regulated taxi service.
* Knowing where your driver is and how close, who they are, what they're driving, and what their ratings are before you even climb in.
* Payment is all handled on the back end. You call the cab and don't have to worry about it. Tips are not a thing.
* Bad ratings cause drivers to get kicked out of the program - and since they're automatically prompted for as soon as you get out of the car, they're going to be done more often (and therefore be more accurate) than a complaint-based model. It solves the problem of "Well, this driver was surly and slow, but I've got better things to do than go on the taxi commission's website and fill out a complaint form"
* MUCH cheaper rates than taxis, though that no doubt varies by area. I know in SF, it only cost me $15 to get from SFO to the wharf. (About an hour drive, IIRC) Equivalent shuttle: $34-50. I priced it.
* Random everypeople drivers, rather than career folks. I've met some pretty interesting people via Uber.
* Drivers can't arrive and then refuse to drive you - they know where they're going when the app pings them. If they don't want to drive you, one of the others surely will. Drivers are penalized for dropping rides.
None of this is specific to Germany, the topic of the story notwithstanding. These rideshare outfits face the same government interference in every single country they operate in.
After tooling around California for about a week or so, I am 100% on board with these guys. Uber was consistently awesome and less expensive, taxis were consistently more annoying and more expensive.
Prices as far as I've seen were similar to Taxi prices.
Payment: just checked, I thought the current apps already took care of that, but didn't seem so. Not yet that big of a problem, since Germany is still very cash-based anyways.
I have to admit I don't really care about the other points, since the current state of things seems mostly fine to me. So for me it is not "obviously superior", since I value the downsides higher (insurance, availability (a german taxi can't deny a route inside it's area of responsibility, which is a large part of why competition is restricted), ...)
//Edit: extended some points, spelling/grammar
If Uber isn't changing that, then it's not helping either.
As the GP points out, cash is still very common here. A _large_ supermarket over here (Kaufland) doesn't accept CCs, but does accept direct debit.
Listing 'accepting CCs' as a bonus for Uber seems.. weird in this environment.
Might be because we were able to keep the middle man (CC companies) out by having the banks cooperate on electronic cash directly - since the 80s.
Uber is just another such middle man we have no need for (and at 20% commission, they make CC companies look cheap).
Normally, I don't carry cash with me, except for a few coins for a bus ticket or a vending machine or a quick lunch. I don't even carry a wallet; I have a phone case which has pockets for driving license or ID card, and bank/credit card. Above, I said credit card, but I actually use it as a direct debit card. I pay may lunch and groceries with it, and gas and parking, and whatever.
If I make a one-day business trip to Stockholm, I don't need to make any special preparations: I can pay everything with the same debit/credit card, and I don't need to change any currency even though Sweden does not use euros.
If I make a one-day business trip to Berlin, I do need to prepare with currency to pay the taxi there. If Uber brings pressure for taxis to accept debit/credit cards, that's good.
How many accidents have you been in which required claiming against their insurance (or lack of it). What about unvetted drivers who might rape you?
After airBnB, and Uber, surely the next area ripe for "disruption" / completely ignoring the laws and regulation, is banking. Just offer higher savings rates than any bank, but ignore all that irritating regulation the big banks are subject to!
Yes, I "feel the need" to have a taxi rating system. You can claim all you want that government taxis have equivalent systems, but they obviously don't. Taxi drivers are usually assholes, and Uber drivers are usually nice.
Uber also costs the same every time, and it's usually cheaper than a government taxi.
If no, then you have not made a fair determination of what service is superior.
San Francisco's dysfunctional taxi regulation doesn't extend past the cities borders, much less the US despite Uber's best efforts to make seem as if that were the case.
Please do tell us how a taxi service with uninsured drivers is superior.
This said, good on the German government for forcing the company to actually respect their laws. Being a trendy net-based startup is not a license to flaunt all rules, especially consistent rules that exist for very good reason.
Government regulates private companies running the service. And those private companies are standing up to a shitty company that openly says that they won't comply with laws or verdicts, because they are the future. Or something like that.
I'm not introspective enough to enumerate every single reason I love Uber, but here are a few:
It's cheaper.
It's faster in less densely populated areas.
The service is better and the drivers are friendlier.
The cars are nicer.
In the US (depending on the city) taxis are often difficult to find, overpriced, rude and/or uncomfortable.
Do you mean uberPOP? AFAIK, UberX is like regular Uber, but with smaller cars and lower fares.
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...
Far too much for some casual Uber drivers.
To commercially transport people you also need a special insurance and need your car checked more frequently.
So it should't be surprising that UberPOP was forbidden.
You can use it to operate a "rental car with driver", like UberBlack does, but that has other limitations to be not too taxi-like (most notably you can't take new passengers or their orders while on the road, you have to return to your home location after every trip)
That said, Uber isn't really solving a problem here. There are already call-a-taxi apps (though they don't seem to have been very successful) and the only value add Uber provides is that it encourages an entirely illegal business model (i.e. transporting persons without the required qualifications, no insurance coverage, no guarantees and no reliable pricing).
Sure, UberBlack may be a nice idea if an ordinary taxi is beneath you or socially inappropriate, but other than that Uber simply doesn't offer anything new.
Note that Germany and the EU in general have very strong customer protection laws. The health, safety and protection of the passenger is an actual concern in the local market. Uber (and similar "disruptive" services) gain most of their appeal from entirely disregarding that.
It doesn't matter how appealing your business idea is if it doesn't work within the restrictions of consumer protection.
And this is the legal framework for Uber to provide new services. If a good app + the driver ratings people seem to like + ... really provides a market advantage, then they should go nuts there ;)
Yes, NYC taxi permits are about 2,000 times as expensive.
The problem I have, no matter how much I like the idea and concepts and technical solutions, is that there is a social flaw built in, which is American society. What we, as a culture don't realize is that Uber and it's minions of supporters, just like so many other cultural phenomena in the USA, is a corporate con job race to the bottom.
Just so you have a starting point, Uber is the equivalent to Conservative causes like opposition to universal health care or a social safety net or a minimum wage (expectation of income for work) or job security; or any other of the numerous pernicious memes on the right that are self-harming.
So, go on, blabber on about how much you love Uber; just be aware that you supported the very process that will also lead to you having to scrape by for crumbs just to survive in a saturated market in which you are little more than a commodity, essentially a head of cattle on a ranch.
Its crazy. I for one can't wait until the taxi mob is competed off the market. Taxi drivers here are more often than not complete a-holes that try to scam you every chance they get. I for one welcome uber with open arms. I'm sorry for the nice taxi drivers but your business is deeply ill.
I agree that the taxi market is ripe for disruption, but this is only fair if other taxis are not bound by that law as well.
Another question is if we want complete deregulation. E.g. I would personally want to be sure that the driver has proper insurance, etc.
(In fact, the mandatory car insurance here even covers personal damages of third parties at fault if they are pedestrians or are riding a bicycle; i.e. if a bicyclist runs a red light and collides with a car and hurts himself, the care cost is carried by the car's insurance. If the bicyclist hits a tree, the tree has no insurance... this applies to personal injuries only, not the broken bike. Any damage to the car is covered by the bicyclist's insurance if any.)
That's just here, of course, different countries have different rules. I don't know those in Germany so well.
Externalizing costs and all that...
Can anyone explain why?
It seem that the German government ensures that everyone gets the same version of the laws. I don't see how that's wrong.
There are generally regulations (and not a few) wrt taxi. Drivers need to pass an exam, get licenses, pay a lot on various taxes, insurance, etc. Most of all, however, there's a limited number of taxi medallions.
Perhaps not all these do make sense, but that's not an excuse not to obey them.
So perhaps a government authority that ensures that it's own policies are respected is not unexpected.
So yes, Uber contributes a lot to the quality of the transportation. That's why I'm using it. But I don't see how that has anything to do with the fact that it's one the verge of the law (good or bad) or even against the law in some cases - which is what the German authorities decided.
I don't think this has anything to do with their self-driving cars or the German government taking care of the unemployment problem. In fact, it's probably helping employment.
Now how did this play out in the US?
If your answer is by making it dramatically cheaper by externalising the costs of running a sustainable taxi business... then how does having a greater number of people employed on wages that they cannot afford to live on benefit anyone?
Also if you have an app then you will have Internet and could just google taxi + city name
There is an App for it, called "Taxi Deutschland" (how obvious is THAT?) https://itunes.apple.com/de/app/taxi-deutschland/id454467694...
There is even a German wide number, which works in any major city: 22456 from you cell including text service http://www.22456taxi.de/
The app seems to be in German only, and it is of course Germany-specific. I can deal with that pretty OK but not all potential users can. Uber uses the same app for any country.
(Downloading an app local to a country while roaming there may be a rather expensive idea, BTW.)
If that's the case, then did people stop ridding bikes? Taking the bus? Or did (many) people start using uber instead of other taxi companies because of the price difference (due to uber not paying for all the licenses and insurances other transport companies are subjected to)?
If the later is the case, then regulation exists to discourage unfair competition.
Similarly. Though we have few relevant national regulations, so we continue to read headlines about Uber being banned or unbanned in seemingly random states and cities, for basically the same reason as Germany's decision.
This is not generally true; it depends on the municipality.
Berlin, for example, does not limit the number of taxi licenses it hands out.
In any event, the specific service that Uber offers is regulated as a kind of limo-for-hire service and not subject to medallion quotas anywhere in Germany. As long as your drivers qualify (properly insured and licensed), you're good to go. Of course, there are existing services that already do that, and they're none to happy that Uber tries to skirt the regulations that they are subject to.
And because these regulations mostly just exist to ensure the safety of passengers (having a license, physical and mental fitness, insurance, cars being roadworthy) and basic quality (knowledge test), lots of Germans aren't particularly sympathetic towards Uber, as the only way they can be cheaper than companies that have been offering the exact same service for decades is by skimping on safety or quality. Taxi apps existed in Germany before Uber. And, as I explained above, it's not to avoid a quota, either, because there is no such quota for this kind of service.
A taxi service holds enormous opportunities for kidnappers or rapists. I'm a man, which basically disappears the rape risk, but there are many Central and South American countries where getting in a taxi could be quite risky for me, and could involve me disappearing. even some parts of Mexico.
Recent related stories make Uber look really bad:
http://boingboing.net/2014/11/19/uber-can-track-your-one-nig... http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/uber-executive-suggests-dig... http://www.buzzfeed.com/anitabadejo/uber-but-for-real-estate...
Also, just to state the obvious, both Uber drivers and regular taxi drivers have logical incentives for driving unsafely.
In this context, I have no problem with governments wanting to regulate Uber literally to death, at least outside of California. I understand cabs are completely unacceptable garbage in California, and the HN audience definitely skews Californian, but cabs are gold in Chicago, London, and New York, and probably quite a few other places too. Maybe Germany is one of those places.
Also, although I'm sympathetic to libertarians, disruption doesn't always fix things. The Internet crippled the music industry, but introduced stacks of new middlemen in the process. Ask Zoe Keating how that "democratization" turned out.
http://zoekeating.tumblr.com/post/108898194009/what-should-i...
In music, the corporate middlemen are this pernicious infestation, which just reappears after you thought you'd wiped it out. Artists have to sacrifice a lot to develop their art to a serious level, and a lot of music performance takes place in situations where people are celebrating (i.e., drunk or high, late at night). So somebody has to provide security, as well as business sense. There's a lot of opportunities for middlemen to get their middle on, and disrupting a market, under those conditions, just means shuffling in a new deck of middlemen. It doesn't change the game.
In the same way, my guess is that disrupting a market which is inherently full of criminality risks - incentives to drive unsafely, opportunities for kidnapping and rape - means you just shuffle the deck of regulations.
Yet another criminality risk: taxi services of any kind, whether Uber or not, hold terrific opportunities for armed robbery. In some cities, being a cab driver is very dangerous, for this reason.
So, if Uber kills the entire taxi industry, then governments will have to scrap their taxi regulations and re-build a similarly gigantic regulatory infrastructure around Uber instead.
I think Uber is a really good lesson for entrepreneurs in how a market can look awesome but actually suck.
Software runs the world these days, you can't just let people with no licences write shitty code. Politicians and bureaucrats should join their forces and decide whether each individual programmer is of a certain level. If not, he is banned from writing code and should be fined or imprisoned if he ever tries to do that.
Or let's regulate musicians. You know, it would do good. I'm so tired of all these useless crappy bands that write all the same music, thinking they are different. Even though I don't listen to them I also think others shouldn't be listening to them too, as this influences people's tastes in a direction I cannot approve of. So yes, licences for musicians!
The point is to allow people to make their own choices. What you're advocating is depriving people of the choice of how to spend their money and manage their risk/reward options.
You want other people to suffer a higher risk, just so you can save money.
And no matter how often you try to frame it as a matter of "I choose for myself", you're actually choosing for others.
That's highly illiberal and unfree, by the way.
I'm amazed that there are actually people who think it should be okay to drive around uninsured, so when you hit a pedestrian and he ends up a quadriplegic and in need of constant care, you just say "oh, I'm sorry, take all the ten thousand Euros I have and good life to you!".
I'm certain you'd see the stupidity of your point of view if you were the quadriplegic without any compensation.
Fortunately, in Europe we don't let those people learn their lesson the very hard way. We do the sensible thing and just demand insurance from everyone. Including self-proclaimed libertarian rebels against the system.
It is my choice whether to insure myself or not. It is the choice of the driver whether to insure himself or not. It is the responsibility of the road owner to demand all cars have insurance. Unfortunately, we mostly have only one road owner these days: government. If you had plenty, then some would allow uninsured cars and some wouldn't. Then it would be up to both drivers and pedestrians to use those roads (this is one possible solution).
You're trying once again to draw an image of a libertarian as a ruthless individual who doesn't care about the misfortunes of other people. I do care very much about that and I would be happy to help out. What I am against is FORCE with which government demands people operate in the market very often against their will.
Some people are riskier. Some people are careful. As long as it doesn't affect another person, everyone should be free to do whatever the hell they want.
Finally, your elitist standpoint "we in Europe" is simply disgusting to me. I apologize for this emotional outbreak, but I have zero respect for collectivism. "You in Europe" are all different and by saying it they way you did, you simply disrespect people who have opposing views, not considering them a part of your society.
I'm almost always on the side of less governmental power, but to believe that all regulations like these are unnecessary is just boneheaded.
But you do. And when you choose to use a public service, you should obey the rules set forth by the governing body of that public service. What you are suggesting is that you have the right to decide what to spend your money on, but when others do it, it's wrong.
You are the one complaining about using public infrastructure and having to follow the rules when using it.
For any public related service actually, that is regulated. Any software written for a car, truck, train, bus, airplane is regulated in terms of certification by so-called notified bodies.
Bitcoin would've never been possible if a software engineer required a licence to write financial software. And it is a very critical piece of software.
International company valued in the billions ignoring regulations that local (per-county) companies with typically less than 5 cars can't afford to ignore (because they immediately lose their license).
If this is about regulations, Uber could have tried to go the legal route (apply for licenses until they're refused, then go to court over it, unlike our solo drivers they can afford the lawyers). They have the money. Instead they want to decide which laws apply to them.
Yes, local businesses may suffer. But at the same time, the big bully actually makes it cheaper and more affordable for the consumers of that country to have that service. "Everyone's" got kids and families to feed, so to speak - including taxi passengers. Why is it that I should be more sympathetic to the local taxi drivers and not to the local passengers, who'd be saving money?
Uber does none of that, and the only reason why they can afford that is because they're incorporated elsewhere and have deep pockets.
If they cared for the markets they enter, they would have realized that in Germany the 'monopoly' story is factually false. They might even have realized that the regulations provide a loop hole that they could use to start operating in some counties/cities to prove that their service is useful.
They did none of that. Just grandstanding, posturing, and then crying like babies about how everybody is unfair to them when they're held to the same standards as everyone else.
This isn't even about prices (the ones our elected officials set for taxis are quite reasonable, and they don't feature 'surge pricing'). It's about Uber's conduct.
That's not sustainable. I knew self-employed taxi drivers and they weren't exactly rich, far from it. Having to give some leech 20% of their income would have ruined them, so Uber's presence in their business model must be to the detriment of someone.
So if they survive and corner the market, they'll raise prices (all those VCs want a return, after all). If they don't, they may leave behind ruins where there was infrastructure - no interest in that. There is no option 3, since their business model is fundamentally 'us vs them': Serving all the good inner city and airport routes, while leaving the non-profitable stuff to someone else doesn't work for long.
I can understand that Uber doesn't want to plan for the long term: They might not be around in 3 years, and even if they are, any mess they create here doesn't affect them.
I'd prefer infrastructure to still work in 15 years, and Uber doesn't look like an ally for that cause. In fact their conduct indicates to me that they wouldn't hesitate to burn down society as long as they can instate themselves as rent keeper and make a buck on the remains. Why should I support that?
Nobody forces Uber to enter the German market. If they can't rethink taxis legally, they should leave the field to those who are capable of that (to those who want to: PBefG §2(7) might be of interest).
tl;dr: don't buy taxi services on society's credit card - since I believe Uber customers are doing that when they get 'cheaper' service, any restriction on Uber is a good thing in my book.
Taxis are regulated for a reason. I want to know that when I get into a taxi, the vehicle is roadworthy. I want to know that the driver is competent and medically fit to drive. I want to know that he isn't a convicted rapist. I want to know that his insurance is still valid when carrying paying passengers. Uber provides none of those guarantees, but intelligent regulation does all of that without creating a significant barrier to entry.
If you want a safe taxi, by all means, use the government approved service. I for one couldn't care less, so I'm gonna go with a cheaper service. Everyone should have that choice.
Road traffic is dangerous. Not only for people sitting inside those cars, but also very much so for everyone else.
The pedestrian your cheap taxi without working brakes just ran over didn't choose your taxi.
You did. And you're proudly saying that you have assessed the risk and... are willing to let other people take it.
It's a 15min ride, and the bus service is poor for that particular route. I need to carry a lot of food, and on welfare aldi is a must for me, so I would gladly pay for gas money plus some more instead of taking the bus, especially since I carry frozen food.
I started entering my info. Closed it immediately when it asked for my credit card before I could search for anything.
I'm sorry, but if uber is getting money from rides, I really think it should at least play nice with governments and laws, especially when it has so much value on the stock market. It's a matter of respect, being disruptive doesn't excuse everything.
Building and regulating civilization has a cost, if you want to improve people's lives, don't be so greedy about it. It doesn't require so much money to help people find each other for car rides.
I totally understand that cab licenses are against the libertarian's dream, but when I sense unjustified money behind it, it sets me off immediately. The internet doesn't feel very free, it's just another new land for money makers, and I'm often okay with it, but here, I'm not.
This. I wish many a company took it to heart. But then again, a lot of companies (and startups) don't care about improving people's lives; some unfortunately use the talk about "improving lives" as a marketing angle.
As for Uber, it's pretty clear now that they don't care about improving anything else than the contents of their wallets - I'm surprised that no one banned them yet for literally being assholes.
I hate that new libertarian trend of pretending to solve a socio economical problem, while it requires a smartphone and a fast dataplan. The army developped those techs and now it's being used for profits and profits. Oddly there is so little money involved in techs like bittorrent or openstreetmap, etc.
Investors should really think about having a legitimate improvement for society. I mean if I was an investor, I would be so much proud of creating free services. That's the only way honest improvements has ever worked, when it was not so much profit driven.
And that's why you and I are not investors, but just poor developers who like making video games. There aren't many investors out there who care about actual improvement for society; I might hesitantly point to few names, but that's it. For the rest it's just another level of money-making-money game.
I have no idea if the plaintiff wants to take that risk.
My point is that the service that Uber provides is viable primarily due to largely baseless social conventions (i.e. middle-class paranoia). If the fare is all that matters to a given consumer, then any car/driver will do. If security matters more than fare, then taxis will do. Uber is operating in a gray area between these extremes and as soon as A) we cease fearing our neighbors (I believe that the decline of suburbia and renewed urbanization will eventually take us there) and B) taxi services will begin offering better technical solutions, Uber's service will become largely obsolete.