After Protest, France Cracks Down On Uber 177
An anonymous reader writes: Just a day after taxi drivers began a high-profile protest of Uber in France, the nation's interior minister has issued a ban on the car-sharing service UberPop. The minister stated that the service was illegal, and ordered police to begin seizing vehicles defying the order. French president Francois Hollande agrees that UberPOP "should be dismantled," but says the state isn't legally permitted to seize cars itself without court authorization. "UberPOP is a car-sharing service offered by Uber, which brings together customers and private drivers at prices lower than those charged by both traditional taxi firms and even other Uber services. UberPOP differs because it allows non-professional drivers to register their car and transport other passengers. It has been illegal in France since January, but the law has proved difficult to enforce and the service continues to operate, AFP news agency reports."
why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score:3, Informative)
I heard that protesters were flipping cars over and smashing windows. Perhaps they should be the ones cracked down upon? This hasty reaction to appease the angry mob seems like the wrong message you would want to send. Unless France wants to encourage angry mobs...
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Why? It's government's fault UberPOP is still operating. People were just expressing their disappointment (beside - they are not black). Keep your humvees and grande launchers at home.
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grande launchers
Like a T-Shirt cannon, but shoots medium-sized espresso drinks at people? Genius! By jove, AC, you've done it again.
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In defense of taxi drivers, their perceived quality of service aside, wouldn't you be just as pissed off it you had to pay $250,000 for a taxi medallion only to have people doing your job without buying one? I believe Paris set up the medallion system to ease congestion many years ago when there were too many taxis. So after creating an artificial market for taxi medallions they all of a sudden are tolerating what are essentially taxis without medallions. Seems to me the only thing to do is ban UberPop or b
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Medallions are free!
But none is issued anymore as it would threaten the current taxi monopoly of the big companies owning them and devalue the medallions people already bought. The ones asking for not issuing them anymore are the people with one already. So they are the ones causing the price to be that high and they can't blame other people for devaluing the price of something they intentionally made rare and expensive. Protecting a bad investment is never a good idea.
If there were more taxis again in Pari
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A decrease in price does not equal an increase in quality. I put forth as evidence everything Wal-Mart sells, especially clothing.
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But upholding a de-facto monopoly NEVER EVER resulted in a decrease of price OR increase of quality.
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If there were more taxis again in Paris, there would be some competition, price would go down and quality of service increase.
Reality disagrees with your assertion.
Quality is the first thing that goes in a race to the bottom and that's exactly what you're proposing. I've lived in places where there was an oversupply of taxi drivers. Eventually you reach a point where there are so many taxis they start to resort to any number of dirty tricks. These range from grabbing you and manhandling you into a cab to dodgy meters to forming gangs and enforcing turf.
One thing that is consistent is that the quality of driver is very, very
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Seems to me the only thing to do is ban UberPop or buy back every taxi medallion.
They should buy them back for the price they sold them for: $0
Oh, you that that the State was selling them? Yeah... uninformed on the basics but has an opinion on the whole thing.
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So the US government should be able to repossess the vast majority of land in the midwest (and a good portion elsewhere?)
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No way. The US government can't afford to piss off the banks.
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Reality: The government isnt selling $1,000,000 medallions in new york city.
Reality: The government isnt repossessing medallions.
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You said, and what you replied to quoted, that the government should take the medallions back and pay them the $0 that the medallions initially cost in compensation. The apparent principle is that the government can undo a transaction (with it) for the purcahse price.
Since most land west of the Mississippi was given away for free, your idea seems to imply that the government (using said principle) could repossess it.
Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was small, some private company wanted to start bus service in my city, but government struck down the proposal. The government buses serve non-profitable and profitable areas. They make profit in one area and subsidize another. Private player would only operate in profitable area causing either a loss or winding down operation in non-profitable area.
Case with Uber is similar. Registered taxi services have to carry passengers at pre-determined rate. Sometimes it is not profitable specially if a customer stays in area from which you don't easily get return passengers. This gets compensated when you customer and return as well. With Uber, they will charge more or less based on the analytics and eventually registered taxi drivers would lend up serving less profitable areas and more profitable routes will be undercut by Uber. If Uber is allowed, it should have the exact same requirements: Publish fare, must take customers at this rate irrespective of where you want to go and should take passengers strictly in the order in which requests are incoming. Otherwise, it is giving unfair advantage to Uber over taxi service.
Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score:4, Insightful)
If Uber is allowed, it should have the exact same requirements: Publish fare, must take customers at this rate irrespective of where you want to go and should take passengers strictly in the order in which requests are incoming. Otherwise, it is giving unfair advantage to Uber over taxi service.
In the US, this is exactly how Uber operates. The fare is fixed. It varies by area, but in LA it's about a dollar per mile and 20 cents per min. When you order the uber ride, the driver accepts before he knows where you're going. I've never had a driver tell me "no I won't go there" and I'm pretty sure they would be cut off if they did that.
Your taxi analogy is flawed, because taxi drivers can serve whatever areas they want, regardless of what Uber does.
The main difference in my eyes in why Uber is cheaper is because taxis are set up so people have a career as a taxi driver, but uber is set up for temporary work. So with uber people don't worry about job longevity, or living wage, or health insurance.
But honestly, even if uber were the same price as taxis I would take them way more often because the uber passenger experience is so much NICER. This is a fact and it is a shame that the taxi companies have not tried to step up their game, and instead are looking for regulatory interference to save the day.
Also, it's fair to say that while uber is cheaper than cabs I use the service a whole bunch more, so my total "cab expenditures" in a year is much greater on uber than it was with cabs.
But the biggest point that I'm making is that cabs are 90% NASTY while uber is just 20% NASTY. I like Lyft the best, which is just 5% NASTY.
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The fare is fixed for everyone at a particular time and in a particular place, but the fare can change based on demand/availability or place.
So with uber people don't worry about job longevity, or living wage, or health insurance.
From what I've heard from Uber drivers who are also taxi drivers, Uber pays a little better. One driver said he got 72% of the fare. In the best case, an Uber driver could make a lot of money (if they constantly have passengers for several hours).
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The fare is fixed for everyone at a particular time and in a particular place, but the fare can change based on demand/availability or place.
maybe the pricing structures vary in different countries? In US the pricing is fixed in each market (eg LA, SF, etc). There is surge pricing for peak times, which is clearly labeled 1.1x, 1.25x, 2x, etc and you see this when you order the ride. If you don't want to pay the surcharge then they can text you when the surge charging prices end, usually within 30 mins.
It's not like uber prices constantly vary throughout the day like the stock market. nor do they vary depending on your origin and destination. Or
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No, I was referring to surge pricing and the different markets. Uber doesn't have a single fixed price, but the price is the same for everyone in a certain time and place.
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The main difference in my eyes in why Uber is cheaper is because taxis are set up so people have a career as a taxi driver, but uber is set up for temporary work. So with uber people don't worry about job longevity, or living wage, or health insurance.
...which is surely a problem for everyone...?
Labour laws exist to serve the principle of an honesty day's pay for an honest day's work. If we allow certain parties to engage in commercial activity but excuse them from labour laws nased on "it's not their main source of income", then we're back on the race to the bottom, even as we're just finally getting rid of unpaid internships.
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libertarian OP only sees only "it's cheaper for me" and not the big picture.
they will also gladly avoid paying taxes by using an illegal service or by buying a black-market product, simply because they don't believe taxes are moral - so they don't consider it illegal or immoral to avoid taxes. I imagine this kind of people representing themselves in front of a judge (to cut on the "middleman" lawyer) telling the judge that, and expecting a ruling such as "you know what? you're right. good job OP".
libertaria
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because they don't believe taxes are moral - so they don't consider it illegal or immoral to avoid taxes. I imagine this kind of people representing themselves in front of a judge (to cut on the "middleman" lawyer) telling the judge that, and expecting a ruling such as "you know what? you're right. good job OP".
Depends where you're from, I suppose. In the U.S. It's called Tax Avoidance - reducing your taxes by any means as long as it's not technically illegal. Supreme Court said [wikipedia.org]
“The legal right of an individual to decrease the amount of what would otherwise be his taxes or altogether avoid them, by means which the law permits, cannot be doubted.”
And more on point, the abscond Circuit court said (same link)
“Anyone may so arrange his affairs that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which will best pay the Treasury; there is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.
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No. I'm talking about illegally avoiding taxes. What you talk about is IMMORALY avoiding taxes.
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your post uses the word immoral twice so... also from what I've read on this issue there are no laws saying its illegal for passengers to use uber... I haven't seen any passengers be arrested or fined, have you??? so it's not illegal to use uber, it's not immoral to use uber. if anything it's my obligation to use uber cuz that's the only thing that will force taxi companies to not be nasty.
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true, but from comments on this thread, it seems that a lot of people have found taxies to be really nasty throughout the world.
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I thought I'd help out a bit and look it up. FACT: something said to be true or supposed to have happened. So it's a fact that the uber passenger experience is nicer, because Noah Haders said so, and I agree with him. The fact may be proven wrong, but that's beside the point. After all, we're just arguing semantics...
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Case with Uber is similar. Registered taxi services have to carry passengers at pre-determined rate. Sometimes it is not profitable specially if a customer stays in area from which you don't easily get return passengers.
Registered taxis have to carry passengers, but they don't. I regularly get refused service from taxis because of my destination, and have even been kicked out half way through my trip home because the cabbie didn't want to go all that way then risk coming back without a fare. Yes it's illegal, but that is the current state of the industry. It is a monopoly and it is corrupt.
This gets compensated when you customer and return as well. With Uber, they will charge more or less based on the analytics and eventually registered taxi drivers would lend up serving less profitable areas and more profitable routes will be undercut by Uber.
Only if they are uncompetitive. Currently it is a monopoly, Uber introduces competition which forces Taxis and Uber to compete for the
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Registered taxis have to carry passengers, but they don't. I regularly get refused service from taxis because of my destination, and have even been kicked out half way through my trip home because the cabbie didn't want to go all that way then risk coming back without a fare.
I was trying to get a ride home from a bar one night (both from and to well-traveled areas) and every time I called the taxi company and gave my pickup location she just hung up on me. I called 3 or 4 times, luckily an empty cab drove by that I flagged down.
One of the good things about Uber is that I presume that they first offer the job to the closest drivers, because my driver is always pretty close. I don't know how taxis delegate their fares, but I've been called by my assigned taxi driver to tell me
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that's an interesting point... you remind me, I had a couple great taxi rides in Ireland. just one of those cultural things. your points about france remind me of every city in US.
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This hasty reaction to appease the angry mob
When the magician is waving his hand over here, you always have to look at the other hand to see what's really going on.
Turn your assumption on its head - cause and effect are reversed. The taxi industry paid the corrupt politicians to crack down on their competition. They promised a riot for the politicians to "react to" so that it wouldn't be quite so bloody obvious to the muggles that it's just corruption-as-usual at work.
Because what makes more sense - that
Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. That is Europe, the home of angry mobs that get shit done, unlike the US where protestors wimper in the corner and accomplish essentially nothing (blame / support your political systems for reenforcing said outcomes)
2. They were protesting the lack of enforcing a law on the books, so its hard to complain about their reasoning.
If you want to complain about banning uber or supporting them, then for fuck sakes do it.
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I heard that protesters were flipping cars over and smashing windows. Perhaps they should be the ones cracked down upon? This hasty reaction to appease the angry mob seems like the wrong message you would want to send. Unless France wants to encourage angry mobs...
Your source, which you verified carefully without doubt, is free to send any evidence to the French police which will take care of it. Well, unless of course your source is lying or doesn't exist.
Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score:4, Funny)
Talking to the French about their rioting is like talking to Americans about their guns. They'll assume you're out to undermine their national origin myths.
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From where exactly? Strange that you provide not a single source for this claim.
Perhaps this source [lmgtfy.com] will help.
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sorry dude. i thought it was self evident. it's been in the news and was on slashdot yesterday. If I mentioned Obama in a post would you expect me to link to his wikipedia page? also, i'm sure it's in TFA.
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Well at least we can now distinguish protest from celebration, because it seems that in France, setting your neighbors car into a blazing inferno is a sign of celebration.
http://europe.newsweek.com/940... [newsweek.com]
So there you have it:
Car flipped, somebody is angry.
Car burned, somebody is happy.
Re:why not crack down on the rioting protesters? (Score:4, Funny)
Same thing happens in the US when a more urban city's sports teams win a championship it seems....
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A "more urban city"?
adjective: urban
1.
in, relating to, or characteristic of a city or town.
So a city more like a city? What's an example of a less urban city?
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Or a bunch of crackers at a pumpkin festival.
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Is that why the 5th largest French city in the world is London? As in, if all the French people in London lived in a city on their own, it would be larger than all but the 4 largest cities in France. They are there to escape the high taxes in France and to have a chance of actually finding employment.
competition... (Score:3)
When you can't compete, legislate.
When you can't legislate, riot.
When you can't riot... erm...
Oh well.
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When you can't riot, overthrow the government. They do that from time to time.
Writing on the wall (Score:2)
I'm also inclined to wonder how France plans to handle self-driving cars which will 100% definitely be replacing cab drivers in the next 10-15 years.
The profesion of taxi driving and trucking is _over_. It is just a matter of time.
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I'm also inclined to wonder how France plans to handle self-driving cars which will 100% definitely be replacing cab drivers in the next 10-15 years.
They won't, for the simple reason that this 100% likelihood has 0% chance of happening.
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Require licenses for commercial driving or not? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Require licenses for commercial driving or not? (Score:4, Insightful)
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At the heart of the matter, it comes down to being fair. If you want to require people that drive customers commercially to go through additional training, insurance, licensing, inspections, etc.
Training? Inspections? Taxis must be run differently in your country because here the only requirement here is to pay a fee for insurance and registration, there is no training or inspections, or if there are they are dodgy because there is no evidence of it.
then you should require Uber drivers to do that as well. If you don't want to require that, then taxi drivers should not be required to do any licensing either. But you can't enforce licensing on taxis and ignore it with Uber drivers.
The taxi industry brought this on themselves. They are the ones that lobbied for decades for stricter licensing as a mechanism to restrict competition. They made a lot of money by increasing the barrier to entry, and now faced with losing it all.
I thi
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I think there exist space for both models, just not sure of how to differentiate the two, which I think is the issue regulators are also struggling with.
It should be simple. The taxi licenses should come with inspection requirements which actually mean something, and a sticker or medallion or whatever, and if you don't see one of those, that's your problem. But the drivers are going to have to carry insurance which is willing to cover them, which is not a new requirement. It's already illegal to drive without that. If Uber is willing to become an insurance company and find someone willing to underwrite their drivers for the time that they're not covered und
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But the drivers are going to have to carry insurance which is willing to cover them,
This is probably the crux of the issue. For some reason a business requires public liability insurance which is far more costly than a private person performing the exact same function. Why is that?
eg.
you drive your car -> no insurance (outside regular insurance)
you drive your car with your friends onboard -> no insurance
you drive your car, pick up a hitchhiker -> no insurance
you drive your car, pick up a hitchhiker who remunerates you somehow -> suddenly you have to pay insurance
I don't k
Ya pretty much (Score:2)
You can argue for or against various licensing, insurance, bonding, etc requirements but what it comes down to is they need to be consistent. If a given type of work has that requirements, then everyone needs to be held to it, or it needs to be removed. You can't have it where some people have to jump through the hoops, but others don't.
A more extreme example would be pharmacists. To be a pharmacists requires a great deal of training and certification, in the US at least. That is how it is: You wanna dispen
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I'm afraid you're just a moron - but a rather lucky one! Because in your world you'd already have died by a plane, car or train crash, food poisoning or thousands of other causes of unnatural death due to lack of security regulations.
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LOL
You go! France! (Score:2, Insightful)
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the ONLY thing Uber is sharing is the massive profits it makes that are distributed to the top of the chain.
Other than the 72% of the fare that they give to the driver, right?
If the Interior Ministry is upset about disruption (Score:3)
If the Interior Ministry is upset about disruption of commerce, perhaps they should crack down on the taxi drivers?
Taxi money brakedown (Score:2)
Uber != car sharing (Score:5, Insightful)
They are a global taxi service with centralized command and control. A taxi service which does not want to be treated as a taxi service. The only difference is they use a smart phone app as a dispatcher.
They lie about what they are and elicit sympathy for the 'little guy' to rip off the little guy. I will use the independents instead, thank you.
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They are a global taxi service with centralized command and control. A taxi service which does not want to be treated as a taxi service. The only difference is they use a smart phone app as a dispatcher.
They lie about what they are and elicit sympathy for the 'little guy' to rip off the little guy. I will use the independents instead, thank you.
The only place I've known that has independent taxi drivers is Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia where literally anyone at any time can decide to be a taxi on the spot and pick someone up.
Is that what you mean by 'independents' or do you really mean 'taxi drivers who work for entrenched licence holders'?
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The only difference is they use a smart phone app as a dispatcher.
This might be a complete shock to you, but the app is not actually the only difference between Uber and a taxi company. That being said, having an automated dispatcher itself is a major benefit over taxi companies, unless you like it when your cabbie calls you from across the city to say he'll be there in half an hour.
Face it, Uber is successful because they are doing the job of taxis far better than the taxis do it. Like any other industry that has been around a long time, taxi companies got lazy and qua
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Taxi companies don't want to compete with Uber though, they just want to outlaw them and go back to their monopoly.
They don't want or need to outlaw Uber. Uber is already illegal. All the taxis want is for the competition to have obey the same laws, which legally they do. In practice, Uber chooses not to obey the law.
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Face it, the taxis don't want the competition at all. They don't want to have to invest in new technologies and new vehicles to match the level of service, they just want to keep doing the same shitty job they always have done.
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I will use the independents instead, thank you.
Where do you find an independent taxi?
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Clarification, non-globalized with localized control, with drivers who both get dispatched and hailed on the street and often pick people up because they know their schedule.
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If they are matchmakers then both the driver and the passenger would pay money to Uber for their service. Only Uber would get paid.
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Matchmaking? In most matchmaking services, the service gets paid by both sides. There are matchmaking services where the woman gets paid, but they have a somewhat different reputation.
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My point is they are lying. They are a taxi service which happens to use a smart phone app. n fact I have decided that if I ever use them I will NOT tip the driver. After all, I am already cover the gas money. Right?
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you can't tip the Uber driver. If you use Lyft you can tip the driver, but you can't do it in Uber. You coudl theoretically give the guy cash, but that is frowned upon and may be against uber rules.
Why on Slashdot? (Score:2)
Why the hell Uber/etc are on /. front page at all?
I do not see any relevance to - or deep profound effect on- IT/etc.
The Uber - and its failing outside USA - are so non-news.
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I do not see any relevance to - or deep profound effect on- IT/etc.
Really? IT people design and make the "social engineering" software that makes things like Uber possible!
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I do not see any relevance to - or deep profound effect on- IT/etc.
Really? IT people design and make the "social engineering" software that makes things like Uber possible!
Oh please. Business intelligence is one of the oldest types of software in existence.
That's basically how/why the computers were commercialized. Otherwise they would have stayed a toy of scientists and a tool of military.
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Oh please. Business intelligence is one of the oldest types of software in existence.
what are you saying? I have no idea! Are you saying that business software has been offering real-time service to individuals since mainframes? huh?
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And even at that - legal boring stories: USA company comes to another market and ignores the local laws; but drat, USA can't bomb it to ruin provisionally, because unfortunately they are both members of the NATO. Oh tragedy.
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Anything to do with Uber (which is 99.999% about 'business freedom') attracts the libertarians who are far more active on slashdot than I've ever seen in the real world. Whenever you have libertarians espousing dogma, it turns into a holy flame war and only the victors are the ones who skimmed past the story (damn it!).
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It may surprise you that many of Slashdot's readers are not in IT and don't go around installing printers and fixing networks all day. For example, I'm not in IT. I'm a programmer, I design and write software. I don't think of programming as IT, I think of IT workers as the people who install printer drivers and set up desk phones. Those are the people who I see claiming they work in IT. I don't hear programmers say IT when people ask them about what they do.
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The most popular topic on this website is politics. Not IT.
Slashdot is broken. (Score:3, Funny)
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Does anyone even beta test this shit?
Dice, Inc. thanks you for your service.
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Nothing to do with Android. It does it on all platforms. Someone thought they were being clever and broke the damn UI to fit in the pointless share buttons.
F***sck Uber and others (Score:3)
I'am posting this from Warsaw, Poland. Taxi business here is OK I guess as a client - there are just a loads of taxis everywhere, you can call you favourite and it will come in 10 minutes - always. And it is great. Local regulations require that TAXI to be called TAXi is to have a license - fare with these guys is regulary between 2,60-1,50 (per kilometer +"shutting door" fare). There are also "people transfer" services which are like TAXI but are not formaly these but private lines - they can't have TAXI sign on car but would use something like TAKSI and so on. Also there is a law that anybody who can transport 7 people (large vans with seatings in back) can operate as private transporter. Also you have the thing called "Night Drivers" and it is like a person transfer (legally) but usually somebody with really fancy car shows up and drives you - and then gives you their card so you call them more often.
This is a mess I guess but if you know the differences you can pick the best way for you (which in my case is registered cheapest TAXI - since they can use exclusive lanes for them).
And there also was a case in Kraków in which the city forbided non registered taxis - so they operated as psychological services (sic! - you drive you get an advice). Etc.
Nevertheless I love taxi-and similar services in my city (Warsaw) - I can order whatever the fuck I want. :) TAXI, private transfer, Uber etc. - and get home....
So in my opinion Uber has no chance here (with their 1/4 provision going just about using the app - fuck you uber - clients PAY for tha) since you can get cheap rides anyway... Uber is only strong where old-school style city-regulated TAXIs are strong.
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You just explained exactly why the users prefer Uber.
Sure, like you said, there are nice taxis therein Poland regulated by the government. And then there are all the other scammers around.
Now, me as a tourist, I land at Krakow airport and I have no clue which is which and I may as well end up in a shitty dirty unregulated cab paying 5x the fare I was suposed to pay and I basically have no way to even complain about it. Or, I can just connect to the airport WiFi, call a Uber driver and be sure to arrive at m
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You are perfectly OK to choose Uber whenever you like and it is aviable for you but the rest of your post is just invalid.
> Sure, like you said, there are nice taxis therein Poland regulated
> by the government. And then there are all the other scammers around.
And what makes you think that Uber are not scammers? What real jurisdiction Uber has over transport in Poland?
> Now, me as a tourist, I land at Krakow airport and I have
> no clue which is which and I may as well end up in a shitty dirty
>
How about someone writes a real sharing app? (Score:2)
Sort of like a craigslist for ridesharing. I am not a great developer and haven't done anything with apps but if anyone wants to run with the idea it is fine with me.
Taxi not Ride Sharing (Score:2)
UberPOP differs because it allows non-professional drivers to register their car and transport other passengers.
At what point do you not realize this is a taxi service and stop calling it ride sharing.
This is not ride sharing. If you think it is, you're an idiot. This is a taxi service and they need to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Whats next, murder is illegal because the murder claims that he's really just a liberator of trapped souls? Sound ridiculous? Yea, so is calling anything about Uber 'sharing'
Re:A case of out of control Liberals (Score:4, Informative)
There's no 75% tax rate and liberals means "right wing" here (including the current government)
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There's no 75% tax rate
You're absolutely correct! [wikipedia.org]
From TFL: "The overall rate of social security and tax on the average wage in 2005 was 71.3% of gross salary"
And that was in 2005. I'm sure taxes have dropped dramatically in France in the last decade, as they have across the globe. (/sarcasm)
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Then they talk about offering asylum to Snowden who campaigns to reduce state security.
Do you really believe that, or is that just what you tell yourself? I would say he campaigns to increase privacy. Do you really think his end goal is a state that is less secure, or a citizen that is more private?
Sweet Jesus, I'm arguing with a political troll. It's Friday, I need to go home.
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No doubt, a free society can never be fully secure, the two goals are at odds. But to suggest that Snowden's goal is specifically to decrease state security is being disingenuous, the guy was phrasing the debate to make his stance look better. Just like how someone who is anti-abortion would say they are pro-life to turn their negative stance into a positive one.
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You can rant and rave, but when you're defending shitheads like the ones the US asks to be extradited you just make yourself look ignorant.